You've Been Warned - James Patterson [43]
What if it’s not Michael?
It could be anything, really. Maybe it’s Penley. Or nothing at all.
A blur, a blob, or complete blackness. Perhaps all I’ve got is a glitch in the camera’s shot counter, and this supposed picture doesn’t even exist.
If that’s the case, I’ll have to be patient. I’ll wait until tomorrow night when Michael and I are together and snap a shot of him then. After all, it’s only another day to wait.
I glare at the processing tank. “Hurry up, you lazy-ass film!”
Then again, I’m not exactly in a patient mood.
I anxiously tap my fingers, waiting for the first sign of an image. Gradually, one appears.
I shift the negative over to the holding bath and lean in for a better view. It’s someone, but I can’t be sure who. So I hurriedly make a print, and that’s when I know.
It’s Michael, all right. I did take a picture of him after all.
And as I look closely at the shot, I see what I didn’t want to see — the same ghosting effect I noticed with Penley.
“Shit. Don’t do this.”
But there’s something else, something even more bizarre.
Scary is more like it. Terrifying!
I immediately plunge a hand into the cold water of the holding bath, grabbing the shot while reaching for my magnifying loupe.
Oh, my God, Michael. What have I done?
He isn’t lying in bed beside Penley. He’s sprawled on the floor of a room I don’t recognize. A place I don’t believe I’ve ever been in my life.
And he looks dead.
9
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