by Julie Kenner
My heart was pounding against my rib cage so hard that I was sure something was going to burst, and I could hear my pulse raging in my ears. I knew I should feel something for Todd, but the only emotion getting through was fear. Fight or flight, I guess.
The situation was surreal, the air seeming as thick as soup as I struggled to get to the sidewalk, where I could get a 911 call through. My mind was both blank and crystal clear. I noticed how the paint was peeling on the stairway railing, but my heart was totally empty. Some rational voice told me to dig out my keys with the little pepper spray keychain, and I did. The voice of reason in the midst of madness.
At the first floor, I yanked on the door to the lobby and experienced a minor heart attack when the door didn’t budge. I could not be trapped in a stairwell. I tugged again with all the force I could muster, and this time the door swung open and I barreled into the lobby.
Empty.
Shit! I looked around wildly, wishing I could conjure a cop, a fireman, a delivery man, anyone. But nothing, and so I kept on running, right out into the bright light of the August morning, blinking furiously as I flipped my phone open and tried to dial with trembling fingers.
Come on, Mel. Come on…
“Hey, hey, are you all right?” A male voice, and a hand closing on my forearm, effectively preventing me from pressing the Send key. “Come on, now. It can’t be that bad.”
“No, you don’t understand. There’s been—” I swallowed the word, finally realizing who was talking to me. I scrambled backwards, fear gripping me as I tried to get away from him. Tall, dark Mystery Man.
The one who’d delivered a message that told me I had to play…or die.
Chapter
8
T oo much of a coincidence, my mind was shouting as my head spun and my pulse pounded in my ears.
This man killed Todd. I knew it. I was certain. And I wanted nothing more than to get the hell away from him.
This wasn’t about Todd’s clients. It was about me. That creepy letter…Todd murdered…holy shit, what the hell was going on?
“Are you okay?” he asked, those dark eyes inspecting me.
I tried to run, but he blocked my path, his grip on my arm tightening. I felt a quick sting in my arm and realized I must have pulled a muscle, I was fighting him so hard. I gulped in air and tried to rein in my terror. I had the feeling that if I hyper-ventilated and passed out, I’d wake up dead.
“Miss Prescott? Please calm down. It’s me.” Concern flooded his face, even filling those dark eyes, and his grip didn’t seem nearly as tight now. “We met yesterday, remember? Are you okay? You look scared to death.”
I blinked, confused. “I…” More blinking. “What?”
“Yesterday,” he repeated. “I delivered a package to you. You look upset. Tell me what’s wrong.”
I relaxed a little. He seemed genuinely surprised. Genuinely concerned. Had I been wrong about him? “A cop,” I said. “I need a cop.”
“Okay,” he said, his ready agreement allaying my fears even more. “We’ll get whatever you need. You’ve just had a little shock. Everything’s going to be just fine now. You just need to calm down a little.”
“No, no. You don’t understand.” I heard the high pitch of hysteria lacing my voice.
“Of course I do,” he said. “You’ve had a fright.”
He was patronizing me, and I shook my head frantically, wishing I could make him understand. He could help me. He seemed to want to help me. But he wasn’t helping me. “Now,” I said, twisting to survey the street for one of New York’s finest. “I need a cop now.”
“No,” he said, “you don’t.” Something in his voice made me turn back to face him. I saw the cold glint in his eyes. A shiver raced up my spine, and I knew that I’d been right all along. This was no coincidence, and I was in Big Trouble. “You’ve just had a shock, that’s all,” he said. “Must be terrifying to find your boyfriend dead.”
I hadn’t said one word about Todd. I opened my mouth to scream.
“Do it, and I’ll kill you right now.”
The bastard had played me for a fool with all that concerned talk. I’d been too frazzled to tell, but I was wising up, now. An ice-cold dose of reality will do that for a girl. I tightened my fingers around the pepper spray and waited for my chance. I also made a big show of closing my mouth tight.
“Good girl. The boy was a warning.” He held me close, like he might hold a lover, then he bent down to whisper in my ear. Around us, New Yorkers plowed on down the street, heads bent, lost in their own little worlds. They weren’t going to help me. I was all on my own and being held by a killer.
“You got the message, right?” he continued, his voice icy and yet eerily calm. “If I were you, I’d pay attention to it. I’d play nice. And I wouldn’t get the cops involved. That’s what I’d do if I were you.”
Message? And then I realized—“Play or Die.” I drew in a shuddering breath. I’d said I wasn’t going to play. Somehow he’d heard. Somehow, he knew.
And now Todd was dead.
Oh, Holy Mother of God, what had I done?
“Who are you?” I spat out the words.
“Someone who’s watching you. Don’t disappoint me. And don’t break the rules.”
“Rules?” My voice was rising, taking on an hysterical pitch.
“You know the rules, Melanie. For instance, you know what will happen if you bring the police into our little game.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I wasn’t going to stick around to find out. Instead, I raised my hand, the pepper spray at the ready, and got him good in the face. I was poised to run, but I didn’t get far, because the damn spray didn’t even phase him. Hell, he didn’t even sneeze. He just laughed. Laughed and shook his head like I was a puppy doing some cute trick.
This was bad. This was very, very bad.
“You’re going to have to do better than that,” he said, still holding on to my forearm.
And that, frankly, pissed me off. I mean, I’d taken a Learning Annex class. I should be able to do better than that. And so, without really thinking about whether it was a smart thing to do, I brought my knee up with all the force I could muster and caught him square in the balls.
His knees gave way, and as he collapsed with a whimper to the sidewalk, he finally let go of my arm.
I didn’t waste any time. I ran.
Chapter
9
Memorandum
FROM: Archibald Grimaldi
TO: Thomas Reardon, Esquire
Well, Thomas, here we are. Or here you are. If you’re reading this, I’ve kicked the bucket, bit the big one, gone to that great Pentium processor in the sky.
Such a tragedy, they’ll say. He was so young. So brilliant. And they’ll be right.
I’ve always known I’d die young. Just like I knew I’d clear a billion before my thirtieth birthday. I’m the man, Thomas. Remember that. I. Am. The. Man. And even death can’t take that away from me. You watch. You’ll see. I’m about to prove to the world that I can do something no other man can: I’m going to create reality out of fantasy. In short, I’m going to play God. I’m going to wave my wand and send my sheep to scurrying. So many little lambs running around my playing field…how many of them will avoid the slaughter?
I’m sure you’ve already figured out that this isn’t part of my will. I had your secretary slip this memo into your file during our last meeting. (Great gal. Too bad about that overbite.) Who knows how long it will sit there, unopened, until you are called to probate my will. (Although, I suppose if you’re reading this note, then you do know how long. I, of course, am oblivious.)
I’ve set some things in motion. Got the ball rolling. Plugged the quarter in the jukebox.
You will perhaps think me insane, but I assure you I am not. There’s a fine line between genius and insanity, they say. Trust me, my friend, I have not crossed that line. Though, perhaps, I have danced upon it, preventing myself from
falling into the abyss of madness by sheer will alone.
Could an insane man arrange things so beautifully? Could someone without full use of his faculties set in motion the wonders I have unleashed? I think not.
Things are going to happen, my friend. Things I couldn’t do in life, I have impunity to do in death. As John Travolta said in Broken Arrow: “Ain’t it cool?”
All the pieces are in place, my friend. All the kinks have been worked out. I even did a little test run in November of 2004. Jamie Tate. A failure, I’m afraid, as she lacked the incentive to play my little game. I’ve remedied that, and now the game I’ve set in motion will live up to my expectations. Of that I’m certain.
You see, my friend, I’ve done it. Brought PSW into the real world. I’ve pulled it from cyberspace and attached real people to it. Real life. Real death.
Didn’t I tell you I was fucking brilliant?
Now here’s the rub, Thomas. I’ve given you a part in my little drama. A small part, but so very important.
I think you will cooperate even without incentive, but in case I’m wrong, I’ve arranged things to ensure that you don’t take steps to shut the game down, or to involve the authorities. Your daughters? Your wife? If you love them, you’ll cooperate. All I require is your silence. And, really, why would you protest? What point would it serve? I’m beyond the law now. And so is my game.
This is going to be a hell of a thing. Wish I were there.
Now, Thomas, read closely, because I’m setting out for your eyes alone just what it is that I have done, and what I will continue to do from six feet under….
Chapter
10
I ’m not a runner or a jogger—I don’t even do Pilates—and yet I raced away from Todd’s place with a speed that would have put an Olympic sprinter to shame. I’d fled from Todd’s without my shoes, and now my bare feet flew over the cracked sidewalks until my lungs burned and icy-hot knife blades pierced my sides. Even with that magical push of adrenaline, there was no way in hell I could run all the way home.
I struggled on a few more blocks, my legs like noodles, then stumbled down into the first subway station I saw. Thankfully, the line was one that would whisk me home, and when the train arrived, I collapsed onto one of the molded plastic benches, my head tossed forward as I sucked in gallons of air.
As the train pulled away from the platform, I gathered my wits enough to look up and around, nerve endings tingling with fear. I saw a transit cop, and my first instinct was to run to him. But I tamped it back. What if he was there? What if the killer saw me talking to a cop after he’d specifically told me not to? What horrible thing would happen if I broke the rules? I shuddered, then looked around, sure that I’d see those dark eyes bearing down on me.
But there was no one; at least, no one who looked dangerous to me, although I was fast learning to be cynical. Still, these folks looked innocuous enough. Men and women in business suits and business casual, Palm Pilots at the ready. Tourists with their telltale cameras and laminated maps of the city. Bohemian types who probably lived around the corner from me. Standard-issue subway folk, the kind I’d seen every morning since the day I’d arrived in Manhattan a lifetime ago.
I’d never really noticed these people before, but I was noticing them now, giving each one a thorough once-over. Was one of them working with the bastard who’d killed Todd? Was one of them following me?
I shivered, and as the train pulled into the station, the overwhelming urge to run consumed me. The doors slid open, and I burst out at a dead run. People stared, but I didn’t mind. I wanted the hell out of there.
As far as I could tell, no one was following me, though a few folks did gawk at the spectacle I made careening up the stairs to that rectangle of light. I didn’t slow down when I hit street level, either, just kept on sprinting, and by the time I reached my building, my feet were raw, my lungs were burning again, and death by heart attack seemed more likely than murder.
Murder.
Oh, God, Todd.
It hit me again, the pain, the memory. Like walking into an icy wall of water. I’d been concentrating on my own hide, but now that I was home and wrapped in the false comfort my familiar foyer provided, reality sunk its nasty, brutish teeth into my hide.
Todd was dead.
He was really and truly dead, and nothing I could do or say would bring him back. There was no one I could plead with, not the cops, not the killer. He was gone, his aspirations and dreams rendered meaningless by a single bullet.
A bullet meant as a warning to me.
Why?
I had no idea. And in a day filled with terror, that scared me most of all.
Chapter
11
O n a normal day, I find my building to be a little creepy—dim lighting, that musty odor that comes from too many bags of trash lingering in the hall, and greenish gray walls that, under all the mildew and dust, were purportedly white. Today, none of that bothered me. This was home—thank God—and despite the way my hands were shaking and my stomach was churning with dread, I was relieved beyond words to be in that stuffy, smelly foyer.
I stood there for a moment, the door to the outside world in front of me, both dead bolts snapped in place. A thin film of grime covered the window, and I rubbed a bit away with the ball of my thumb, then leaned up close, peering up and down the street as much as the odd angle of the doorway would let me. I didn’t see the killer, and I didn’t see anyone I recognized from the subway.
My relief was palpable, and my entire body relaxed, like air being let out of a balloon. For just a second, I let myself believe that this was all going to turn out okay. I’m not sure I really believed it, but I sure as hell wanted to.
My relief was short-lived, though, because the fact was, I needed to do something. My brain was just too scrambled to know what. My first thought was to knock on the super’s door, but what would I say? “Hey, Mr. Abernathy, some lunatic killed my ex-boyfriend and now he says he’s out to not kill me, but I don’t really believe him. Can you help me?” No way. And what was poor Mr. Abernathy, with his faded gray T-shirts and Santa Claus belly, supposed to do? Wield his broom and plumber’s snake in my defense, a reluctant George fighting the dragon? Somehow I didn’t think Mr. Abernathy was up for playing the hero. Too bad. I was in dire need of a hero right then.
The cops. He’d said not to call them, and I’d obeyed in the subway. But I needed help. And isn’t that what bad guys are supposed to say? I mean, the bastard who killed Todd certainly wasn’t going to encourage me to rush to my neighborhood precinct and file a complaint. But that’s exactly what I should do. The police would help me; they’d protect me. After all, that’s what police were for.
So, right. Yes. I’d go upstairs, call the cops, and—
My parents! I just about sagged against the wall in relief as I remembered that my parents were just a few miles away instead of the usual fifteen hundred. I didn’t have to go through the ordeal with the cops alone. They could be there with me.
I said a silent prayer of thanks as I flipped open my phone, thrilled beyond belief at the prospect of hearing my mom’s voice. Of having my dad stroke my hair and tell me he loved me and that he’d pummel whatever asshole was harassing his little girl.
My mom might be a pain at times, but when she heard the call to action, she was a take-no-prisoners kind of gal. She’d tell me it would be okay. She’d tell me that she’d handle it. She’d tell me…and I’d believe her.
I pressed and held 5, my speed-dial setting for my mom’s cell phone. One ring, two, then, “The cellular customer you are trying to reach is currently away—”
“Fuck.” I snapped the phone shut and tried Daddy’s number. Same damn message.
Shit, shit, shit.
Okay. Fine. Mom was supposed to call me about breakfast, and she obviously hadn’t. Which means surely she’d call me soon about lunch.
I took a deep breath, willing myself to stay calm. I hadn’t been followed, I did
n’t see anyone outside who looked like they wanted to kill me, and I still had a plan. It wasn’t a great plan, and my parents weren’t on board, but it was a start.
I took one final glance up and down the street, then headed up the stairs toward my sixth-floor flat. I’d lock myself in, dial 911, down a Diet Coke (or three) and wait for the cops. By the time New York’s finest arrived, I’d be able to utter a coherent sentence again. At least, I hoped I would.
The stench of cigarettes accosted me as I reached the sixth-floor landing. My across-the-hall neighbor smokes like a chimney, and that hideous musty odor had permeated the cheap wall paneling and the threadbare runner that lines the hallway. Jenn and I keep a can of Lysol by the door and spray into the hall at least once a day. I think it helps a little, and I know it annoys my neighbor, which, frankly, is our primary goal.
Because this is New York, and because this is a crappy building, the door to my apartment has two dead bolts and a spring-latch lock on the doorknob. I went through the process of running through the locks, all the while listening for footsteps coming up the stairs. Thankfully, the stairwell was dead silent.
As soon as the door was unbolted, I shoved it open and basically collapsed into my apartment. I’ve never in my life been so glad to be home. The place was tiny, but right then, that was perfect. I wanted to be cocooned in my quilts within my walls, safe from everything bad outside my door.
Out of habit, I reached for the Lysol, and as my fingers closed around the smooth, cool can, I saw the shadow of a man moving just inside my darkened kitchen. My stomach roiled, and I realized my mistake. I should never have come home. He was here. Somehow, he’d gotten here ahead of me.
The figure moved toward me, and, once again, I screamed.
