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Did Monica enjoy meeting her mystery lover?  Did the evening go as she hoped it would?  Or, did she get a lesson in why you shouldn’t trust strangers?  What do you think?  See if your prediction is right.  Enjoy Part 4 of A Dangerous Game.  Thanks.   






The room was spinning.  Where was she?  She was looking up at a ceiling.  Why was she looking up?  What was she looking at?  Where was this place?


Her last memory was of her standing and looking into a room.  Why was she looking in that room?  She pushed her elbows down into the floor to get up.  The surface was hard.  Her eyes rolled back.  She collapsed back down.


She lay there and tried to muster up the energy to get to her feet.  A flash of memory came to her.


She remembered struggling with someone.  They had their arms around her.  They would not let her go.  A cloth?  They put a cloth over her mouth and nose.  Yes.  That was what happened.


She turned over onto her hands and knees.  After a minute in that position, she forced her wobbly legs under her and stood up.  The room was spinning.


She took a step and stumbled sideways and fell to the floor.  She landed on her stomach.  It knocked the air out of her.  She felt miserable.  Her eyes wanted to close.  She fought to keep them open.


“Get up,” she whispered.  “Get up.”  She was drugged, she thought.  They drugged her.  Someone drugged her.  The unthinkable came to her.  It was every woman’s nightmare.  Was she a victim of it too?  Had they sexually assaulted her?


She nervously squeezed whatever was in her hand.  She could not see it.  It was small and around five or six inches long.  It had a wooden handle.  She gripped it.  She knew what it was and dropped it on the floor.


She struggled to her feet and stumbled backward.  A counter behind her stopped her hard.  The impact stung.  The counter helped her.  She used it to hold herself up.


A pile of something was in the middle of the floor and caught her attention.  She could not make out what it was.  Her vision was still too blurry to see details.


She walked unsteadily to the item on the floor and jerked to a stop.  She backed up and bumped into the counter again.  Her vision cleared up.  She was panting.  She knew what that was on the floor.


“Oh shit,” she said.  Her eyes were locked on the bloody body a few feet away.  The knife she had dropped was a foot away from the body.


What the hell was going on?  Who was that on the floor?  Her vision blurred again.  Was it a man or a woman?  Were they dead?  Where did that knife come from?


She exhaled and wiped her hand over her face.  It slid over her face with ease.  She paused and touched her face again.  It was wet.  Why was her face wet?


She shook her head and blinked her eyes several times.  Her head throbbed.  She squinted at the body on the floor.  Her vision was coming back.  It was a man.  He was wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt.  The T-shirt was covered in blood.  She swallowed.  Nothing was making sense.  Why would she be there?  Who was…?


It came to her.  She knew why she was there.  The man she was seeing had invited her there.  They were to talk.  He was going to show himself to her.  He told her she would know him.  She looked around the room.  Her eyes were wide.  She did not hear anything or anyone.


She walked slowly up to the body and prepared herself to see someone she knew.  A few feet from the body she leaned over and stared into the man’s face.  He was possibly in his late sixties.  His face was smooth.  His lips were wide.  He had a small mustache.  But, she did not know him.  There were lots of stab marks in his upper torso.  Too many to count.


She turned her head and moved quickly away from the body.  Food was coming from her stomach into her throat.  She managed to keep it down and swallowed.  She breathed deeply and calmly until the nauseous feeling subsided.


Was this her lover?  She had never seen him.  Could it be him?


How long had she been there?  The clock on the wall read one p.m.  She believed she had been there for hours.  Her memory was still fuzzy but returning.


A phone rang.


Monica jumped and looked around.  Where did that come from?


A cell phone was on the counter behind her.  A sticky note was on it.  It read, “Answer it, Monica.”  She looked at the phone and cautiously picked it up.  Her hand shook as she put the phone to her ear.


“Monica,” a man’s voice said on the other end.  She did not answer.  She wanted to get the hell out of that house.  But her vision kept coming and going.  She could not see well enough to drive or find a door.  She reached inside her pocket for her keys.  They were there.  If she could just focus.  “Monica.  Are you there?  Answer me if you are.  It’s important.”


Monica held the phone to her ear.


“Monica,” the man said.  “Do you want to go to prison for the rest of your life or be on death row until you die?  If not, I suggest you answer now.  Or, that’s where you’re going.  Bye.”


“Who is this?” Monica said quickly.  “Who are you?  What have you done?  What did you do to me?”


“I haven’t done anything,” the man said.  “You, on the other hand, killed your lover.”  Monica argued that she had not.  “Yes, you did.  I saw you.  I’m a witness.  I was standing by the window and watched you when you stabbed that poor man to death.”


“You’re lying,” Monica said.  “I never touched that man.  I don’t even know him.”


“Apparently that’s true,” the man said.  “You didn’t know him.  Because your boyfriend or lover, who you were kissing just minutes before, threatened to tell your family about your affair with him.  You begged him not to.  He laughed and asked you for money.  Blackmailing you, I guess.  You told him no.  He then said he would ruin you if he had to.”


“You’re lying,” Monica said.


“He went into the kitchen for something,” the man said.  “You followed him.  I saw you.  Look out the window by the door.”  Monica did.  A person standing there could see in the room.  “That’s where I was.  I was about to knock on his door.  I know him.  He wasn’t a nice guy.  But that won’t matter in court.  You took a knife from the kitchen and chased him in the family room.  And then you started stabbing him.  You just went crazy.”


“I don’t remember that,” she said.


“You can stand there and argue with me,” the man said.  “Or, you can get your ass out of there.  The police are on their way.  Go ahead and explain to them why you have so much blood on you.  Tell them why your hands are bloody.  Then tell them why your prints are on the knife.  You do that.  Stay and explain it.  I wouldn’t help you at all.  But, that guy was a prick.  And, if you don’t want my help, fine.  Bye.”


“Wait.  Wait.  Wait.  Wait.  Wait.”  Monica said.  The caller was gone.


Monica looked frantically around the room.  Was there anything in it that could incriminate her?  Nothing that she could see.  The knife!  She ran and got it.


She looked at her other hand.  The cell phone from the counter was still in it.  She would take that too.


Then she ran through the house and looked in the other rooms.  Was there anything in those rooms that were about her?  She stopped in the hallway.  Was that a siren?


“Damn,” she said.


She ran toward the garage door with her keys in her hand.


Monica’s mystery love affair appears to have taken a dark turn.  It has given her some unwanted surprises.  All she wanted was a little excitement.

Let’s see where Monica goes from here. 

Have a great weekend.  I’ll see you tomorrow.

Thank you for spending time with me this week.

Stephen Wallace