You’ve Been Warned

Another shudder goes through me. “How do you know my name?”

“Trust me; I know a lot more about you than just your name. I know when you moved down here from Boston and why. I know where you live and where you work.”

The conversation flows like the jazz on the radio. Fast and choppy. Also random. Where’s the Ponytail going with this?

Right for my jugular, it turns out.

“Do you love those two kids?” he asks. “Those cute little kids?”

Sean and Dakota?

“What does this have to do with them?”

“Everything, I expect. Those kids are very important in all this.”

“Don’t you dare hurt them,” I snap at him, and raise a fist.

“No,” he says. “Don’t you dare hurt them.”

“Ha! You’re wrong, then,” I say. “You don’t know anything about me.”

The volume dips abruptly on the radio. “Everything okay back there?” asks the cabbie.

It’s clearly not a courtesy question. There’s a note of suspicion and alarm in his voice. He can probably tell something’s wrong.

I don’t want to get this driver killed, but I know about the “panic button” – most every New Yorker does. It triggers a light on the back of the taxi that signals to police that something’s wrong, like a robbery or carjacking in progress.

Or whatever this is.

How do I tip off the driver to push the panic button without getting caught?

The Ponytail clears his throat. He’s not about to let me figure that out.

“Everything’s fine,” he a

The cabbie seeks out my eyes in his mirror. “Are you sure, lady?” he asks. “Everything’s fine?”

The Ponytail whispers fast and forcefully in my ear. The way he’s squeezing my arm really hurts. “Tell him to mind his own business.”

I take a deep breath and sigh. “We’re okay,” I say. “No need to panic.”

I don’t know if the cabbie gets the hint, but the Ponytail sure does.

Dumb move, Kris!

“I told you not to get cute,” he says, reaching inside his coat. “How many times do you have to be warned?”

Chapter 64

THE PONYTAIL’S GOING to kill me. Right now, right here. That’s what this is. Everything’s been leading up to my death, my murder.

The thought seems to reach every nerve ending in my body at once. All of a sudden I’m shaking all over.

But it’s not a gun that comes out of his jacket. It’s his wallet.

“Stop the cab!” barks the Ponytail.

He pulls out twenty bucks and pushes the money through the slot in the divider as the taxi swerves over to the curb. It happens so fast.

“Consider this your last warning, Kristin,” he says. “Go home and pack your things. Move out of town. Disappear from the Turnbull family before it’s too late.”

“Too late for what?” I ask.

“I think you already know. There are four people involved, Kristin. Don’t hurt them!”

He steps out of the taxi, slamming the door hard behind him. He stares at me through the side window. Murmurs a few words. I’m pretty sure the last one is warned.

“Friend of yours?” says the cabbie sarcastically.

“JUST GO!” I yell. “PLEASE, GO! GO!”

He hits the gas and we take off, those bald tires screeching again.

I spin around and gaze out the rear window as the Ponytail stands there watching me. He starts to blend into the night until all I can see is the white of his teeth. He’s smiling a sick grin.

There are four people… Don’t hurt them.

10

Chapter 65

CONSIDER THIS your last warning, Kristin.

But who’s warning me?

And why?

Somebody from the police? Is Detective Delmonico involved?

“So are we actually going somewhere?” asks the cabbie, interrupting my manic train of thought.

“ Manhattan,” I answer. “Please.”

I barely manage to give him my address before sinking down in the seat, ready to pass out. I’ve been awake for a day and a half. I’d almost find it fu

“Hey, you sure you’re okay back there, lady?”

“Yeah,” I lie. “Just another day at the beach.”

Any mild relief I’m feeling is squashed by my lingering fear. It’s as if he’s still sitting next to me, warning me about the Turnbull family.

I’m shivering and feeling dizzy. What’s more, my body is one big itch. Hives again? Whatever it is, I’m scratching all over like mad.

In fact, it’s going from bad to worse. I feel as if my skin’s crawling. What’s going on with me?

We pass a streetlamp, the backseat filling with a hazy yellow glow. I quickly push up my sleeve to look at my arm. I expect to see bright red from all the scratching.

Instead I see something else. Something is moving!

I jolt up in the seat as the rear of the taxi goes dark again. I’m swatting at my arm, at what exactly, I don’t know. But I definitely feel something.

“What the hell are you doing?” asks the cabbie, surely wishing he had run me over at this point.

“There’s something on me!” I shout.

He flips the overhead light on. I immediately see it and scream my head off. It’s a cockroach… except it’s not on me.

It’s in me.

The thing is crawling under my skin, the ghastly shape unmistakable – legs, body, ante

Then I see another roach and another after that, forcing their way beneath my flesh. And what I can’t see, I feel. In my legs, my stomach, my face. The cockroaches are everywhere!

I’m thrashing in the backseat, my arms flailing. I have to get out of this taxi! But as I reach for the door, the locks snap down. At least I think that’s what just happened. I pull in vain on the handle. I’m trapped.

“UNLOCK THE DOOR!” I yell at the cabbie, but he doesn’t. Maybe because I’ve succeeded in scaring the hell out of him.

Up ahead, I see the brick wall of a building getting close in a hurry. It’s a dead end in the worst sense of the word.

I can’t bear to look at this. I close my eyes and cover my face with my arm.

Then WHACK! BAM! CRASH! As though my life is a cartoon.

Everything goes black.

Chapter 66

“WHAT’S THE NAME of this hospital?” I ask the thirty-something doctor as he looks up from the clipboard in his lap.

“Our Lady of Hope,” he answers.

“And how did I get here again?”

“A cabdriver dropped you off. He said you started screaming in his backseat so he slammed on the brakes. That’s when you hit your head on the divider. Apparently, it knocked you out.”

Dr. Curley, as his name tag reads, squints at my hairline. “Now, are you sure I can’t get you some more ice for that nasty bump?” he asks.

“No,” I say. “I’m okay.”

But I’m clearly not, and he knows it. The nurses and doctors in the emergency room were quick to grasp it too. All it took was five minutes of my rambling on about bizarre photographs, devils, a recurring dream, the Ponytail, and subdermal cockroaches before the consensus concern for my head officially had nothing to do with the nasty bump on it.

Kristin, say hello to Dr. Curley – our staff psychiatrist here at the hospital.

I’m sitting across from him in a small office near the waiting room. There’s no desk, no pictures on the wall, no phone – just two folding chairs. Cozy.

“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” I ask.

Dr. Curley, a warm and fuzzy type with a mop of longish blond hair, taps his pen a few times on his clipboard before shrugging. “Do you think you’re crazy?”

“I must be if they called you down here to see me. Don’t you think so?”

“Don’t read too much into that.” He leans in as if sharing a secret. “Between you and me, the hospital is usually just trying to get their money’s worth from having a shrink on staff. And they like to protect their butts.”