You've Been Warned

PART 1

Chapter 4

SO, WHAT OTHER BAD THING can possibly happen to me this morning?

I think I’m kidding as I hang up and head for the bathroom. That’s when I turn on the shower and discover there’s no hot water. Ugh! No way!

Now there’s a different sound in my head. It’s Michael, laughing, with yet another reason why I should let him be my sugar daddy and buy me an apartment. No way!

Shivering under what amounts to an arctic drizzle, I proceed to take the world’s fastest shower.

I dress, gulp some OJ while munching on a Chai Tea Luna bar, and do a quick inventory of my shoulder bag before heading out the door. It’s all there—wallet, keys, cell phone, and the only other thing I carry with me at all times, my Leica.

Walking up Second Avenue past 46th Street, I pass the same cramped newsstand I do every day. It’s lined sidewalk to ceiling with every magazine imaginable, and I glance at the covers, my eyes taking in the flawless faces of various celebrities and supermodels. Good morning, Brad, Leo, Gisele, Angelina.

Funny, most people want to be them. I just want to photograph them.

That’s my dream, and I’m getting very close, according to my agent and a few big editors. And hopefully according to the Abbott Show, the prestige gallery where my work is being considered. But until it comes true— when I make a name for myself and those same famous people shout, “Get me Kristin Burns!” for the cover of Vanity Fair—I keep right on walking.

To my job as a nanny.

Cutting over to Third Avenue, I head up five blocks before crossing to Lexington. I head north five more blocks and then cut across again, to Park Avenue. I do the same thing every day, the same zigzag pattern. Don’t know why—I just do. Or maybe I do know why, and do it anyway.

Normally, I’d be taking pictures along the way, capturing the faces of the drones as they head to work while trying not to dwell on the fact that I’m one of them. There’s not a lot of happiness along the sidewalks at this early hour. What I see is fatigue, angst, and a tremendous amount of boredom.

Of course, that’s what makes for good photographs. I mean, when’s the last time a smile won the Pulitzer?

Still, after the morning I’ve had, I decide to keep the camera tucked away in my shoulder bag. I’m feeling a little preoccupied. I’d say my head is in the clouds, except there aren’t any today. It’s a beautiful blue-skied morning in the middle of May, the kind of day that makes people happy to be alive.

So I take a deep breath and berate myself. Snap out of it, Kristin! And for a while, I do.

Right up until I turn the corner onto Madison.

And scream.

Not just a little one either.

I scream at the top of my lungs.

Chapter 5

OMIGOD. Omigod.

The police cars, the ambulances, the twirling beams of blue and red light.

This can’t be happening. It isn’t possible.... But there it is anyway. Plus an awful smell in the air—like something burning!

The crowd gathered in front of the same hotel and the gurneys being wheeled out the entrance.

Can’t be! Cannot!

But it is.

My dream... it’s happening!

Everything just as I saw it. Every person too—the pin-striped businessman, the bike messenger, the mother with her stroller—all watching the murder scene.

And that smell—that’s new—but what is it?

I close my eyes, squeezing them tight as if to reboot my brain. Am I really seeing this?

Yes. I am seeing this, every insane detail.

My eyes blink open, and I’m still standing on the corner of 68th and Madison, in front of the Falcon Hotel. The Falcon, of all places.

I want to run away. I know I should bolt while the bolting’s good. Instead, I reach for my camera.

Don’t think, just shoot.

But I am thinking.

As my finger clicks madly away, I’m thinking that this is impossible, that it can’t be real, and the more I think this, the more I know I have to keep shooting.

I need proof.

The same powerful undertow as the one in my dream grabs hold of me as I inch closer to the entrance of the Falcon. I look up at the windows of the surrounding brownstones and see the woman in curlers taking a bite out of her bagel.

Click, click, click.

My heart is pounding, pounding, pounding, as if there’s a big bass drum inside my chest.

I look at my hands. Then at my arms. There’s a rash all over me—or maybe it’s hives.

Suddenly, I can’t breathe. The final body is being wheeled out of the hotel, and this is the last chance for me to run away.

I don’t run.

My feet don’t move, and my camera lens is fixed on the four gurneys gathered on the sidewalk. I’m gasping for air, drowning in my own fear, just about to lose it big-time.

Because I know what happens next.

“Help!” I yell out.

The mere thought of the zipper moving on that body bag is enough. I don’t need to wait to see it happen. Once was plenty.

I lower my camera and frantically wave my arms.

“Help!” I yell again, much louder this time. “Please, help!”

I’m shaking as I start to cry, the tears streaming down my cheeks. The rash, the hives—it’s getting worse.

This is unbearable.

“Please, someone, listen to me.”

And that’s when someone does.

Chapter 6