Dial Om for Murder by Diana Killian Page A

Keebler Elves after a brawl, stood at bay, blocking the glass doors. A.J. could see movement in the building behind Suze, but no one was coming to the beleaguered instructor’s aid.
    Spotting A.J., she called out in relief, “A.J., I was just trying to explain—”
    “What in the world is going on here?” A.J. demanded. She had to raise her voice—a lot—to be heard.
    Barbie pushed through the crowd of people to meet her. Jabbing an acrylic talon at A.J.’s nose, she announced, “ This is her!” She gestured to the cameraman in front of the horseshoe of people. “Get a close-up! A.J., we need to talk!”
    “We have talked,” A.J. told her, eyeing the cameraman warily. “I told you I did not want anyone filming inside Sacred Balance.” And as the camera zoomed in on her, she said, “Please get that thing out of my face.”
    “ This is about freedom of the press,” Barbie said, and the camera swung her way. “You’re standing in the way of free speech.”
    “And you are standing in the way of the front door,” A.J. retorted. “Barbie, I’m trying to run a business here. What about my rights? What about the rights of all the other Sacred Balance clients?” Into the whirring eye of the camera, which had turned her way again, she said, “I asked you to stop filming.”
    “I warned you,” Barbie said. “I gave you the chance to cooperate.”
    Apparently what you got when you crossed a mob boss’s wife with reality TV was a close-up you could not refuse.
    “ This has gone too far already. Where’s the director?” A.J. scanned the crowd of curious bystanders. “Or the producer. Who exactly is in charge here?”
    “ I call the shots,” Barbie said. “Not the director. Not the producer. It’s my show. It’s my reality. And I gave you fair warning, A.J.”
    “You’re right,” A.J. said. “I should have paid more attention. Now I’m going to have to get a restraining order.”
    “You can’t do that!” Barbie shrieked. “Don’t you dare try it, you—!”
    A.J. pushed past Barbie. Suze stepped back and A.J. slipped inside the glass door, locking it on Barbie’s outraged protest. The glass door thudded beneath her angry fists.
    “Oh. My. God. Is she for real?” Suze gasped, leaning weakly back against the closed door.
    “I guess so. She’s got the camera crew to prove it.”
    Inside the main lobby, the phones were ringing, unattended, and a few pleasantly horrified customers stood gazing out at the milling film crew.
    Watching Barbie, who was now gesticulating like a Spa ghettiOs commercial gone bad, Suze said, “Are you sure you should have done that? Bad things have a way of happening to people Barbie doesn’t like.”
    “No,” said A.J. “I’m not sure I should have done that. But I don’t know what else to do. I can’t have that film crew in here disrupting everyone’s schedule.” She headed straight for her office, Suze trotting behind.
    “Well, okay, but we can’t hold the customers hostage inside the building.”
    She resisted telling Suze to answer the phones and leave the rest to her. “We won’t have to. I’m sure Barbie and her film crew will give up and go away in a few minutes.”
    In actuality, she was sure of no such thing, but she had bigger problems than Barbie. When it rained it poured. From down the hall, Lily was striding toward her, and for the first time A.J. understood the expression “a face like a thundercloud.” She said to Suze, “Or you can just shove ’em out through the emergency exit.”
    “What in the world do you think you’re doing?” Lily demanded.
    A.J. unlocked her office. “Suze, could you get me Mr. Meagher,” she told the younger instructor. She stepped inside her office and said to Lily, “If you have something to say to me, say it in here where we don’t have an audience.”
    “As though an audience were a concern for you?”
    Clearly A.J. had done something very wrong in a previous life; her karma had flatlined. First