Chapter Five
Donovan woke from an uneasy sleep in an unfamiliar bed. That's the one thing he could count on in this job...strange beds. He rubbed his hands over his face and ran his fingers through his neatly cropped hair. "Check on Sammie," he told himself out loud, pulling on a pair of black sweat pants and black t-shirt.
Sashka had put him up in the room across the hall from Sammie. Minya's room was at the end of the hall, just a few feet away. When he had decided it was time to sleep, or drop where he was, he had made his way back to the room Sammie occupied and checked in on her. He also found himself heading in the direction of Minya's room, intent on checking on her, but stopped himself remembering the cameras. After the ribbing Alex gave him after he kissed Minya, he would be hard pressed to make that kind of slip again.
Making his way to Sammie's room, he found her bed empty. He checked the room, but she wasn't there. He pressed the intercom. "Cody, where's Sammie?"
"She's with Minya, Jake and Dalton over at the studio," Cody's voice crackled through the speaker.
Feeling somewhat secure in the knowledge his daughter was with Jake, he headed back to his room to shower and change before making his way to the studio.
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Donovan entered the studio and heard Dalton's voice. "You ready, Sammie?"
"Yes, sir," he heard his daughter's voice.
"What the..." he thought, moving closer. He saw Sammie in the recording booth with Minya. Sammie was sitting beside Minya on the piano bench and both were wearing headphones; a microphone was positioned close to their heads just above the piano.
"Okay, sweetie...just like we practiced," Minya instructed and began to play.
Sammie: Jesus loves me! This I know
Sammie&Minya: For the Bible tells me so
Minya: Little ones to Him belong, they are weak but He is strong
Sammie: Yes, Jesus loves me!
Minya: Yes, Jesus loves me!
Sammie&Minya: Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so.
He watched in amazement as his daughter sang the remainder of the song with Minya. Her voice sounded so sweet, and with Minya's range and depth, their voices complemented each other in a darling children's song.
Minya's hands rested on the piano keys when the song ended. Sammie giggled as Minya removed their headphones and sat them on the piano.
"How was that?" Sammie asked.
"It was perfect, sweetie." Minya had been astonished at her talent. "What did you think, Dalton?" she asked as she looked toward her producer/engineer and noticed Donovan sitting at the control board with Dalton.
"Terrific. Good job, Sammie!"
"There's your daddy," Minya told her and pointed at the glass.
Sammie smiled broadly and leapt down from the piano bench. Jake opened the door for her; Sammie made her way to her father and crawled up on his lap. "Miss Minya said we could make a song for Nana as a welcome home present."
"Did she? That's a very nice idea," Frank said, hugging her. "You sounded lovely, honey."
"Thank you, daddy. Isn't Minya pretty?" she asked sincerely.
He looked up and saw Minya watching through the glass. "Yes, she is," he agreed, watching a dark pink blush appear on Minya's cheeks.
"Are you in the mood to redo the background vocals on that last track, kiddo?" Dalton asked and laughed when she scrunched her face at the thought.
"If I have to," she said and reached for the headphones that hung above the microphone that was positioned at the front of the booth, just inside the room near the glass that divided the two rooms. "Okay," she said, holding them up to her left ear. "Let's do it."
Dalton flipped a coupled of switches and pushed a few levers forward, sending the music tracks directly to her headphone and played outside the recording booth to give him an idea how her voice mixed with the music.
Minya heard a strange crackling sound and smelled the current of electricity that charged through the headphones and moved them away from her head just before it contacted the skin of her ear.
The occupants of the control booth watched as Minya yanked the headphones away from her and heard a loud pop and electrical sizzle through the microphone that was still recording, even as they watched her jolt in seizure before she hit the floor.
"Shut the damn thing down," Donovan yelled, jumping up with Sammie in his arms and setting her abruptly down on the chair. He ran to the door of the booth just as Jake tore it open and flew inside.
Jake knelt beside her and reached for the headphone the instant the system was shut down and tore it from her grasp, tossing it across the room. The fingers of her left hand had already started to develop blistering from the electrical burn. He checked her pulse and found none; nor was she breathing.
Jake looked up when Donovan knelt down opposite him. His dark eyes questioning as he reached to feel for Minya's pulse himself.
"She's dead, Frank."