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When they got to the front of the line, they gave the man their tickets and walked through the turnstile. To get inside the fun house, they had to mount a metal ramp. Jana went first, but as the moment she placed her shoe of the ramp it started to move side to side. Despite her anxieties, the movement made her giggle, and as she continued her climb up, the ramp vibrated and jostled her even more. She had to hang on for dear life, and found herself laughing, the tension sliding away as she hoisted herself up to the non-moving platform.
She looked down and saw Holly standing at the bottom, hesitating to put her feet on the moving ramp.
“What are you waiting for? It’s fun.”
Holly grabbed the handles and stepped on. The ramp started moving and Holly squealed with delight as she tried to pull herself up.
Holly was almost to the top, when Jana decided to plunge ahead. She walked around the corner, into a room where music blared.
Holly was almost to the top of the ramp, a man pushed past her, almost knocking her off her feet. “Hey, watch it, buddy,” she said. The man in the long coat and a too large bird, ignored her and turned into the fun house. Holly regained her composure and finished climbing to the top.
Behind her, she heard someone yelling. “Bombshell.” Holly looked down and saw two men running towards the Fun House. One of the men she recognized, Jana’s fake fiancé, Merrick.
The one named Merrick spoke. “Where’ Bombshell, is she with you?”
Cutting the line and not buying a ticket, Merrick and the other guy jumped over the turnstile, and bounded up the moving ramp as if it were still.
“Where’s Bombshell?” Merrick asked.
Holly blocked access to the entrance to the Fun House with her arms.
“She’s inside, having some fun for once. Why don’t you people leave her alone?” Holly said. She chewed her lower lip, knowing in the back of her mind that she was overstepping her bounds. Clearly Jana was smitten with this guy, even if there was something wrong about their relationship. Maybe she should stand aside and stop trying to interfere, but she wasn’t going to let him off that easy. She jutted out her jaw and glared at them, daring them to try something.
Merrick let out a frustrated breath of air. “Tony, will you do something about her?”
“My pleasure,” Tony said, and before Holly could protest, he grabbed her by the waist and lifted her up as if she was a box of tissues, then set her down away from the entrance, out of Merrick’s path. Merrick ran inside calling out her name.
Holly kicked and fought trying to pull out of the new man’s grasp. “What are you doing? Let me go!”
A smile crossed his lips, and he put her down, but didn’t release her arms. His face grew serious. “Listen, just listen, will you? Then I’ll let you go.”
Holly nodded and stopped struggling.
“You’re Holly, right?”
She nodded, but didn’t stop glaring at him.
“My brother needs to be with her. She’s in danger. We just got word that the man that she’s been running from, has been spotted in Atlantic City.”
“What? Sheriff Buck is here?” Holly’s knees buckled. The man in front of her caught her before she fell. Oh, my God, the man with the beard, I knew there was something familiar about him.
“What’s wrong?” Before Holly could answer the man, she heard the loud crack of a gunshot and then a scream. Jana’s scream.
“Oh no!” Holly shouted. But the man had already rushed passed him, shouting Merrick’s name. Tears fell down her cheeks and her lungs burned in her chest as Holy blindly pushed back one absurd obstacle after another until she came upon a man lying in a pull of blood in the hallway of mirrors.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Jana’s whole body ached, when she came to. Where am I? One minute she was having a little fun watching her plus-size figure go Twiggy in the mirror, and the next minute, a familiar voice was shouting for her to watch out. She was suddenly yanked away from the mirror, into the arms of a stranger with a beard.
Then the gun went off. At first she thought he’d shot her, but then she saw the face of the man falling towards her. She recognized him and screamed. She tried to reach for him, to go to him, but the man who was holding her, pulled her away.
He shoved the gun against her neck and clamped a hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming.
“Don’t move or scream again, or I’ll kill you here and now,” he promised.
She knew that voice and terror and sadness overwhelmed her. He’d killed Merrick. He propelled her out of the park, the gun in her ribs. The threat to stay quiet or else on his lips.
When they got outside, he shoved her towards a waiting taxi cab. She recognized that is was the same cab that had dropped her off. Had she asked him to wait for her? He was standing outside smoking, Jana tried to tell with her eyes that she needed help, that she was in trouble. Harold Buck opened the back door to the cab and pushed her inside so hard, she banged her head against the passenger door and started to pass out.
