You've Been Warned

I bolt from the room and head toward the back stairs. I know the way out of here. I’m halfway to the stairwell when I hear footsteps pounding behind me.

The kids!

Could it be? Dakota? If not—then who? I’m almost afraid to find out.

But I stop and spin around to look. And it’s not her.

It’s him.

The Ponytail.

How could he be here? How does he fit into this? I want to ask him. But not now!

Oh, dear God! Oh, no!

As in—that’s no camera he’s wielding.

“Freeze!” he yells, taking aim at me.

I thrust out my hands in a panic—Don’t shoot!—only to realize immediately I’ve made a mistake. There’s one thing I forgot to do back in the hotel room, before I charged out of there on my getaway run.

Let go of the gun.

Chapter 107

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS in the next instant—I die.

I don’t feel the bullet as it rips through my body. I’m not even sure I’m shot until I look down and see the bloodstain.

Slowly, I rub the palm of my hand across my shirt. It feels warm, sticky, unreal.

He thought I was going to shoot him. Ridiculous! Except I just shot Penley, didn’t I?

I stumble back a step before my legs give out. Now I’m spinning—at least that’s the feeling I have. I fall hard to the floor, but I don’t feel the impact.

I don’t feel anything, really, and in some ways that’s an improvement.

I’m lying faceup, gazing at the hallway ceiling. A shiny “Exit” sign points to the stairs I never reached. Other than that, it’s a blank picture.

Then a face appears.

The Ponytail hovers over me. He looks at the gun clenched in my hand and ruefully shakes his head. Bending down, he presses two fingers against the side of my neck. What’s he doing? Oh, I see, he’s feeling for a pulse.

“I’m still alive,” I say.

He doesn’t respond in any way. Nothing.

“Hey, did you hear me? Who are you, anyway?” I ask.

He stands there and takes out a cell phone, dialing 911. I get my answer.

“I’m a private investigator,” he tells the operator after reporting there’s been a shooting. “Multiple shootings,” he corrects himself.

The police arrive, followed by EMS. Lots of hustle and bustle all around me. A paramedic checks my pulse again.

I fade in and out for a while, then I hear the Ponytail explain to a cop that he was hired by “one of the deceased.” Mrs. Penley Turnbull was his client.

“She suspected her husband was having an affair,” he says. “Apparently the husband suspected the same thing about her.”

“Hope you got paid up-front,” jokes the cop.

“You think this is funny?” I say.

He doesn’t hear me. No one does.

“So, who’s the girl?”

The cop is pointing at me. When is this strangeness going to stop? Actually, when I think about it, I don’t want it to stop, do I?

“The nanny,” answers the Ponytail. “That’s who I discovered the husband was involved with.”

“So you were following her? If I’m following you so far?”

“Yeah, you got it right. Mrs. Turnbull wanted to see if I could dig up any dirt on her, I guess for the divorce. I kind of felt sorry for her, though. Kristin’s her name. She was young, in way over her head. I even tried scaring the shit out of her, hoping she’d back off the relationship with the husband, who’s a real scumbag.”

“Instead, here she is with a gun,” says the cop. “She had to be in on it with the husband, right?”

“I’m not so sure,” says the Ponytail. “I lost her at first when she entered the hotel, but the way she ran here, I think maybe she was trying to stop this from happening.”

The cop sighs. “Damn shame either way. There’s two little kids now with no mommy and daddy.”

“Or even a nanny. I could tell the kids liked her a lot.”

“That would explain it,” the cop says with a nod and a shrug.

“What’s that?”

“We sent a patrol car over to their school to get them, and the daughter was missing. Seven years old. I got word a minute ago, though, that they found her.”

“Alive?”

“Oh, yeah. She’s fine. In a manner of speaking.”

“Where was she?”

“Home. The little girl said she ditched school because she was worried about the nanny. She wanted to be with her.”

“Her name’s Dakota. Did she know something?”

“She claims she didn’t. Just had a bad feeling. Of course, when she arrived home, no one was there. They were all here.”

As the two of them walk away, all I can think about is Dakota and Sean. I need to be with them. Someone does. Little Sean’s going to have so many questions.

I scream out again to no avail. Why can’t anyone hear me? I continue to scream, just like in the dream.

Am I already dead? I wonder.

But I can see. I can hear.

What the hell’s going on?

“Exactly,” comes a voice that I recognize.

Chapter 108

I SEE HIS WARPED reflection in the exit sign, and it makes me shudder. He’s standing in the doorway right next to me. Looking like the creep of all creeps.

Frank Delmonico.

He steps into the hallway. Behind him, in the room he came out of, is nothing but darkness.

And the music from my dream.

It’s the same room! The one I was banging on the door of yesterday.

But nobody answered.

The music engulfs me now, it’s so intense. And for the first time since the song took root in my head like a horrible weed, there’s something more.

Words.And the seasons they go round and round,

And the painted ponies go up and down.

We’re captive on the carousel of time.

Delmonico stands directly over me, wearing the same gray suit. Cops walk by, but they don’t seem to notice him.