Free Twisted Fate (Tales of Horror) by Jonas Saul Page B

Bay. The commissions were huge. I lived well, even if I only sold one house every three months.
     
    Then I got a text message: “ John Turnbull.”
     
    At the time, that name meant nothing to me. I checked to see who’d sent it. The first red flag was planted as there was no return number. I’d never seen that before. There’s always a number to reply to.
     
    I’m usually a pretty organized guy. I use a day timer, a calendar, a notebook, an appointment book, and two computers at home to track everything about my clients. My cell phone is a mini computer, detailing my day’s routine, activities, and meetings. Each morning I sync it with my computer, and off I go to do its bidding.
     
    I’d never heard of a John Turnbull, though.
     
    Two hours after I received the text, I was sitting at my desk in my office. Jessica, my company secretary, buzzed me to say I had a call waiting on line two. She said the caller wouldn’t identify himself. That’s Jessica, always fucking around. She’s got issues, man. I mean, serious parent issues. They’re dead, she’s not. That’s the issue.
     
    I picked up line two to discover that I was talking to John Turnbull.
     
    Of course I asked him if he’d sent the text and he denied it. Apparently, he doesn’t even own a cell phone. John and his wife are in their late seventies. They’d won the lottery six months ago. After they’d won millions of dollars, every family member for hundreds of miles around began visiting and calling, looking for money. It drove them crazy. John said he wanted to buy a house on the lake, but he wanted to do it discreetly. That’s why he didn’t own a cell phone anymore, and he refused to say his name when he called the office.
     
    A week later, I sold an expensive house to Mr. and Mrs. Turnbull. They probably didn’t need one that pricey, but a little charm, and smooth salesman talk, will do it every time. They overspent, but what did I care? The commission was worth it. Fuck ‘em.
     
    The mysterious text stayed unsolved, though. It started to piss me off. I wish I knew who warned me about the Turnbulls. But in the end, was it a warning? At the time, I didn’t think so. I soon forgot about the stupid text. It was as if it hadn’t happened.
     
    Two months later, I received another mysterious text. A name again. This one I knew because it was my sister’s name. I hadn’t seen my sister in over ten years. After our parents died, their will was not divided evenly. She got everything. I hated her for it. I refused to speak to her. Then she moved away.
     
    I wondered if the text was another prophecy. I decided to block all my calls. I still didn’t want to talk to her. I also realized at that moment that I was giving more credence to those ridiculous texts than I wanted to.
     
    I decided that I could completely avoid incoming calls by leaving the office. I told Jessica I felt ill. She smiled at me in her usual, stupid way. Like she knew what I was up to. At twenty-three, she thought she had the world figured out. She couldn’t even figure out her own fucked-up head, let alone the world.
     
    She was driving the car the night her parents died in the accident. To this day, she still thinks she was to blame. After three suicide attempts and two years of therapy, I took her on to be my secretary out of pity. She makes mistakes and screws up sometimes, but at half the price of any other Coffee Maker , I get by.
     
    On my way out the door, I asked her to take messages, and then wait until tomorrow to give them to me because I was turning off my cell phone.
     
    There, problem solved. No more texts, no calls. The prophecy couldn’t come true. I would not see, or hear from, my bitch of a sister.
     
    On the way home, I decided I’d barbecue for dinner as I did on most Fridays. I pulled in and stopped at my favorite butcher shop. While selecting a T-bone, a woman walked up and stood beside me. I figured she was waiting to grab something from my