You’ve Been Warned

Chapter 58

IT’S AS IF THE PHOTOGRAPH literally shocks me, sending a thousand volts of instant pain through my fingertips. It drops from my hands, landing facedown on the floor.

Like Michael.

I step back, terrified. How? What? Where? When? I don’t have a single answer to any of these questions. What’s real? What isn’t? There has to be a rational explanation. That’s what I’ve been saying all along, beginning with the dream. But looking at this picture of Michael, I don’t know. How do you explain the inexplicable?

I don’t.

At least not yet.

Back and forth I pace in the tight confines of my darkroom, repeating the same four words over and over in my head.

Keep it together, Kris!

I figure I’ve got two choices. Check myself into the loony bin or continue chipping away at this mystery. I stop pacing as the image of a padded room and me wearing the latest style in straitjackets flashes through my mind.

Decision made.

I rush out to the kitchen and pick up the phone. If I can’t explain the picture of Michael, there’s still the issue of the ghosting effect. On the heels of everything else, I’m thinking it has nothing to do with my camera. But I need to make sure.

“Gotham Photo,” the man answers.

“Hi, can I speak with Javier, please? It’s kind of important.” Like, life and death.

“He’s off today.”

Damn. “Do you know how I can reach him?”

“Afraid I don’t.”

There’s a slight hitch in his voice, and I suspect he does know.

“It’s very important,” I say.

“We’re not allowed to give out personal information. The best I can do is relay a message to him, okay?”

No, not okay!

I’m about to launch into the kind of full-frontal “helpless female in distress” plea that would make Gloria Steinem gag when I remember my closet. Thanks to a few cockroaches – give or take a thousand – I never checked the pockets of my shearling coat for Javier’s cell number.

“Hold on a second, will you?” I say.

I drop the phone, dash to the closet, and pray that my existential exterminator knew what he was doing with that poison spray.

I slowly open the door to see only coats – including my shearling. Chalk one up for my memory; Javier’s card is right where I thought.

“Never mind,” I say, returning to the phone. Click.

The second I get a dial tone, I call Javier. It’s such a relief when he answers.

“I’m so sorry to bother you, Javier.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. I’m sure he likes me and I feel a little guilty about this.

I remind him about the “ghosting” effect. “Remember? I mentioned it when I bought the new lens.”

“So the problem wasn’t with your old one, huh?”

“Afraid not. I know it’s your day off, but would you mind taking a look at the pictures? I really need to figure this out.”

“That depends,” he says.

“On what?”

“On how well you know your way around Brooklyn.”

Chapter 59

NOT VERY WELL.

In fact, the closest I’ve ever been to Brooklyn is watching reruns of Welcome Back, Kotter on Nick at Nite.

But after picking up the kids at school and pretending all afternoon that my mouth is still sore from the dentist, I board the F train heading out of Manhattan and hope for the best.

I generally don’t mind riding the subway, except for rush hour, when it’s a madhouse.

Of course, that happens to be right now.

Wedged in with a gazillion other people – including the guy hovering next to me whose twenty-four-hour deodorant is clearly living on borrowed time – I’m afraid the old adage is wrong. Getting there is not half the fun.

But at least I get there, and thanks to Javier’s very precise directions from the 15th Street – Prospect Park station, I easily find the nearby brownstone where he lives.

It’s a pretty nice neighborhood, and I can’t help feeling a bit guilty about my low expectations, if not outright trepidation. I hate those people who think the good life begins and ends in the 212 area code, and here I am acting like one.

Javier’s apartment occupies the first floor, and he greets me at the door with his usual warm smile. He’s dressed much the same as when he’s behind the counter at Gotham Photo – khakis and a button-down shirt, in this case a blue-and-white stripe. The only thing missing is his name tag.

“Can I offer you something to drink?” he asks.

“A Diet Coke, if you have one.”

He does. I follow him back to the kitchen, stealing quick peeks into some of the rooms.

I see a beautifully furnished den with a huge flat-screen television and a cozy library lined with leather-bound books. It’s not what I expected, and again I feel like one of those 212 snobs. How fitting that selling camera equipment to those same people would apparently pay so well.

He pours the soda into a glass with ice and hands it to me. “Now let’s take a look at those pictures,” he says. “Figure out what’s going on.”

“Excellent.”

I reach into my shoulder bag and pull them out. He’s barely had a chance to look at the first one when I realize… we’re not alone.

Chapter 60

“JAVIER?” COMES A VOICE from another room. “Javier? Is someone there with you?” It’s a woman. She sounds old, foreign, and a bit confused.

“Sí, Mamá,” says Javier over his shoulder. He turns back to me. “My mother moved in last year after my father passed away. Unfortunately, her health is not too good.”

“Javier?” she calls out again. “I’m talking to you. Javier?”

He winks at me. “Her hearing isn’t too good either.” He raises his voice. “Sí, Mamá!”

“Con quién estás hablando?”

Javier translates for me. “She wants to know who I’m talking to.” He answers her, “Ella es mi amiga.”

“La has visto antes?”

He rolls his eyes. “She wants to know if she’s met you before. Now I have to introduce you, otherwise she’ll be offended. Do you mind? I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I say. “I’d love to meet her.”

Javier leads me out of the kitchen toward the very back of the apartment. He slows for a moment along the narrow hallway to whisper something to me.

“Just so you know, my mother is very religious and she’s gone a little overboard in her decorating.”

I’m not sure why he’s telling me this. That is, until we reach her room.

Jesus!

Literally. There have to be at least a hundred crucifixes hanging on the wall – big, small, wood, ceramic – with another fifty propped up on a bookshelf and bedside table.

“Mamá, ella es mi amiga Kristin.”

She’s sitting in a rocking chair by the window, wearing the plainest of plain tank dresses -cement gray, if I had to name the color. But what I really notice is how incredibly frail she looks. She’s so thin she’d give Penley a fat complex.

As she glares at me with sunken eyes, I walk toward her and extend my hand. It seems like the right thing to do.

Wrong.

Terribly wrong!

I get no farther than a few steps when those sunken eyes explode with fear. She clutches a set of blue rosary beads in her lap and begins to scream wildly. All hell breaks loose in this claustrophobic room full of crosses.

“Espíritus malos! Espíritus malos! Mantengase lejos de mí. Ella está poseída por espíritus malos!”

Javier gasps. “Mamá!What are you saying? ”

That’s what I want to know, but Javier isn’t translating. Instead, he rushes to her, trying to calm her down. She doesn’t.

She gets worse, in fact, more crazed and agitated.

“Ella está rodeada por espíritus malos!” she screams, her sliver of a body nearly out of control.

Javier grabs her and yells something in Spanish, but it’s as if she can’t see or hear him. She keeps pointing and hollering.

At me.

“Espíritus malos! Espíritus malos!”

Javier’s worried face leaves little doubt that this is something his mother has never done before. “I’m sorry, Kristin, but I think it’s best if you leave.”

“Espíritus malos! Espíritus malos!” the old woman shrieks. She’s also stamping her feet on the floor.

“What does she keep saying?” I ask, as I slowly back out of the room.

“It’s nonsense,” says Javier. “Don’t worry about it.”

“No, I want to know. Tell me. ”

His mother begins to convulse, her rocking chair now like an electric chair. She bites down so hard on her lower lip that blood begins to trickle. My God!

“Mamá!” yells Javier.

The old woman is jabbing her finger at me.

“Espíritus malos! Espíritus malos!”

“Kristin, I’ll look at your pictures another time. At work. You really need to leave!”

But I can’t yet. “Not until you tell me what she’s saying. I have to know!”

He glares at me, clearly vexed at my persistence, if not my presence.

“C’mon, Javier, tell me!” I plead.

Finally, he does.

“Espíritus malos,” he says. “My mother says you’re possessed by evil spirits. She thinks you’re a devil.”

Chapter 61

I’M SO DIZZY leaving Javier’s apartment I nearly do a face plant on the sidewalk. I stagger for a block or so, shaking my head.

What on earth just happened? I’m a devil? Me?

The image of his mother keeps repeating in my mind, her screams echoing in my ears. Espíritus malos! Espíritus malos!

Again I tell myself to keep it together.

For the first time I’m not sure I can.

Espíritus malos… I’m a devil.

Of all the questions I have, I realize there’s now another. Where am I?

I’ve been walking, oblivious to the unfamiliar streets or even the direction I’m heading. It’s almost dusk.

I stop and rummage through my shoulder bag, pushing aside the pictures I remembered to grab on the way out. Next I check my pockets, but they’re not there either. Javier’s directions are nowhere to be found.

Oh, great. I’m lost in Brooklyn.

“Excuse me,” I say to the next person I pass, a young woman with a backpack. She can’t be more than twenty. “Do you know where I can find the F train?”

She barely slows down. “Sorry, I’m not from around here.”

You and me both.

Farther down the block I see an older man, perhaps in his seventies, sitting on a stoop reading theDaily News. He looks sort of like Ernest Borgnine.

“The F train, huh?” He points over my shoulder. “The first thing you want to do is turn around.”

I do exactly that as he begins to rattle off the lefts and rights I need to take. I’m listening as best I can, trying to keep track. Did he say two lefts before the right or one?

I’m about to ask him to repeat everything when I see something I don’t want to see.

Someone, actually. A man.

It may be dusk, but I can see him clear as day. That’s what having darkroom eyes will do for you.

I wait a second, and again he pokes his head out from behind the white delivery truck double-parked at the corner. I don’t even need to see the face.

All it takes is the ponytail.

Chapter 62

“HEY, LADY, YOU’RE GOING the wrong way again!” growls the old man on the stone stoop.

Not as far as I’m concerned. Lost in Brooklyn is one thing. Killed is another.

I’m not quite running. It’s more like speed walking. Nervously, I glance over my shoulder, my eyes scanning the entire street.

I don’t see the Ponytail now, and that only scares me more because I’m sure -really sure – it’s him again. Does he want to give me another warning? Or are we out of warnings?

I turn a corner and I’m picking up speed. What I need to find is a cop or someone big enough to protect me. Better yet, someone bulletproof. But there’s no help to be found. All I can see is a deserted street, lined with warehouses and heaps of trash.

Is the Ponytail behind me? I look back again, staring hard at the corner.

I don’t see him anywhere coming after me. Not yet, anyway.

The shadows are disappearing, though. Not good news. It’s getting darker by the second.

I keep looking until eventually I’m standing still in the middle of the block. I’m waiting and waiting. Where is he? What does he want with me?

Maybe he took off. Like, for some reason he didn’t want me to see him this time.

A minute passes. Then another. It’s officially night. I can barely make out the corner anymore. The only available light is a streetlamp at the next intersection. With one last glance over my shoulder, I head that way. I still need directions. I’m still lost in Brooklyn.

Then I see it.

A taxi!

It creeps to a stop at the red light hovering over the crosswalk. Twenty feet away – thirty tops. I can hear the engine rumbling.

Hurry! Before the light turns green!

I break into a sprint, my eyes locked on the taxi, desperately willing it not to move.

With one last surge, I close the gap to a few steps. I wave my arms again and shout, “Taxi! Taxi!” There’s no way the cabbie can miss me.

Or so I think.

The light turns green, and the taxi lurches forward. “No!” I yell. “Wait! Hey, stop!”

It doesn’t. I’m steps away, and it’s about to pass right in front of me.

Over my dead body!

I jump right into its path. The cabbie slams on the brakes, the screech of bald tires piercing the air. By the time the substantial chrome bumper rocks to a halt, it’s inches from my kneecaps.

Ignoring the cabbie’s evil eye, I stomp around to climb into the backseat. But when I reach for the door, out of no-where comes another hand.

“Allow me,” he says.

Chapter 63

BEFORE I CAN RUN, the Ponytail grabs my arm with an iron grip. Then he swings open the taxi door and roughly shoves me in. I tumble onto the seat, and he slides in right next to me. I’m trapped!

“Shhh,”he immediately whispers, pulling back the lapel on his black sport coat. There’s barely any light, but I can still see it. His gun.

Through the Plexiglas divider, I spot the cabbie – a stocky bald guy like that actor on The Shield – glaring at me in his rearview mirror. “You’re lucky I didn’t run you over,” he says. “I almost hit you.”

“Sorry about that,” I answer while glancing at the Ponytail. “Finding a taxi around here can be murder.”

The Ponytail grips my arm again, even tighter. Ow! He leans in, close to my ear. “Don’t get cute. There’s nothing funny about this, believe me.”

“Where you headed?” asks the cabbie. “I’m not a mind reader, y’know.”

“Just drive,” says the Ponytail. “Stay in the general area. But drive.”

The cabbie flips the meter on and shrugs as if to say, “Hey, it’s your dime.”

And off we go.

I look over at my backseat companion. I don’t want to show fear, but I shudder anyway. His narrow, sharp-featured face is menacing up close. I see a scar beneath the three-day stubble on his cheek. I suspect it’s the kind you don’t get by “accident.” Why is he following me? Is he a cop? Is this about what happened at the Fálcon?

The cabbie fiddles with the radio, turning the volume up on a jazz station.

As scared as I am, there’s a part of me almost emboldened by the idea that my fate is seemingly out of my hands. I’ve got my Bronx up. Or, I should say, my Brooklyn.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“Your worst nightmare,” the Ponytail answers, his voice a deep baritone. No accent that I can decipher.

“That’s a very crowded category these days.”

“Serves you right,” he says. “You did this to yourself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve been a bad girl, Kristin. You must know that. You deserve what you’re getting. And it’s going to get worse.”

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 announces.

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.