Ыоуве Been Warned   ::   Patterson James

“Michael, what are you going to do?”

He glances back, flashes me his bestsmile. Then he winks. It’s my wink.

“You’ll see.”



12

Chapter 84



GO AFTER HIM! Find out what he’s up to. Now, Kristin.

But my feet won’t move.

I remain there in the Starbucks window. I watch Michael leave, hop into a cab, ride off. Gone.

“You’ll see,” he said.

Two little words that paralyze me and start me shaking again. Somehow I know that this is it: where everything has been going from the beginning. But how exactly will it end?

Or do I already know that too?

I look across the street at the Fálcon Hotel, the late-morning sun reflecting off its windows with a fierce glare. I can still picture the scene so clearly – the gurneys being wheeled out, the four body bags lined up on the sidewalk. Cops everywhere. Delmonico. Was the Ponytail there too?

First I dream it. Then I see it. Now it’s haunting me every minute of the day.

I know this is all connected; it has to be. But I can’t figure it out. Could anybody? I wonder.

Eventually, I move my feet. I rush back to Fifth Avenue and take care of the stupid patio in plenty of time before Penley returns home. When she does, sure enough, she’s sporting a shopping bag from Takashimaya with a pound of Japanese coffee inside.

Later, I pick up the kids from school and take them to the Ancient Playground in Central Park, where we’ve gone dozens of times before. Sean peppers me with one question after another while Dakota rolls her big blue eyes. But we have fun – under the circumstances, anyway.

It’s another typical day, all right, everything fine and dandy, just as Michael wanted it.

But for what reason?

“You’ll see,” he said.

As I head home to my apartment, I get this awful, gnawing feeling that somehow I already have.



Chapter 85



OH, GREAT, JUST WHO I want to see.

My lovely neighbor Mrs. Rosencrantz is standing by the mailboxes as I walk into the lobby of my building. It’s almost as if she’s there waiting for me.

Turns out, she is.

“Have you gotten your mail yet today?” she asks, her smug tone laced with a small measure of glee.

Actually, I haven’t gotten my mail for about a week. I’ve been a little distracted.

“Why do you care?” I say.

She glares through her oversize bifocals, baiting me by saying nothing. There’s obviously something she wants me to see.