I Am Phantom (19 page)

I
woke up early Christmas day. I couldn’t help it. The hallways were
uncharacteristically chilly, the windows frosted with ice. There was something
nice about the silence; how it was still full of the happy memories of a family
together. I went downstairs to raid the fridge. Matt was in the kitchen. He had
his laptop on the island in front of him. His other hand gripped a glass of
orange juice.

“Merry
Christmas,” I said.

“I
found where Sykes lives,” he said. I paused as I opened the refrigerator door.
Sometimes Matt made me wonder who was more obsessed with finding Sykes. I mean,
my drive to find Sykes was strong, but even I gave it a rest when I was on
vacation.

Matt
looked up at me from over the laptop screen. “Do you want to know where?”

“You
think he’s there?”

Matt
shrugged. “Possibly. Maybe. Probably not.” The way he sounded, it was as if the
man wasn’t a deranged maniac. “The home where he grew up is in Ashwood, about
two hours from here.”

“So
what do you want to do? Chances are Sykes is still in Queensbury. What would we
gain by going to his house?”

“His
mother still lives there. She wouldn’t want to talk to us, but there might be
something there that could help us figure out what Sykes is up to. There has to
be.”

I
held up my hands as I took a seat beside him. “Whoa, you’re talking about
breaking and entering. Into a person’s house who, technically, hasn’t done
anything wrong.”

“You
brought your costume, right?”

“Yes,
but that doesn’t suddenly make breaking and entering a good idea.”

Matt
pushed the laptop aside and looked me in the eye. Again. He was getting really
good at that, and I was proud of him. “What do you know about Sykes and Project
Midnight?”

“Not
much more than you do—”

“Right.
And I don’t know much. And neither does Cody or Melanie or anybody else,
really, if what I see on the live feed is correct. We do know he’s like you, we
know he kills without mercy and we know he’s not as active as a man with his
skill set should be if he wanted to stop Project Midnight.”

“I
would expect a man with his skillset to be hiding, just like he is. He pops his
head up and they’ll nab him.”

I
saw the flaw in that logic even before Matt said, “He’s ‘popped his head up’ a
few times and nobody’s even come close to stopping him. Not even you. All I’m
saying is this is a chance to find out something more. Something we could use
against him or a clue to what he’s doing.”

The
opportunity was very tempting. Of course there was absolutely no guarantee that
any clues of value were there anymore, not to mention the whole breaking and
entering thing that was eating at me. But…what was worse: breaking and entering
to find out more about a deadly criminal, or letting innocent people die
because I couldn’t stop the man. The people were counting on me, and so far I
had let them down. Disastrously so.

Matt
could see he had won me over. He pushed his chair back and hopped up.

“Garage.
Five minutes. We can be back before this evening.”

We
hadn’t expected to run into Jack. He was bent down by one of the cars,
polishing the rims on one of the tires, his back to us. I froze in the doorway.
Matt stopped for a second, then entered.

“Jack,
you have the day off. You shouldn’t be working.”

“Pot
calling the kettle black, Matthew. Where would you two be going off to this
early? And on Christmas?”

“I
forgot to buy presents,” I said, surprised at how easily the lie came to me.
Then again, it wasn’t technically a lie. “Matt told me there were some great
stores in Ashtown I could buy some.”
 

Jack
nodded, wiping his hands on a rag. “There are indeed. Unfortunately they’d be
closed since today’s Christmas.”

Crap.
Scratch that lie. Matt jumped to my rescue.

“We
need to use the car, Jack. We’ll be back in a few hours.” Jack glanced between
the two of us. A slow smile lit up his face.

“Don’t
you two look guilty! Can’t whatever you’re doing wait until tomorrow?”

“No.”

“All
right then.” Jack opened the passenger’s side door. “Come on.”

This
wasn’t going to work. Breaking in entering was bad enough without having an
audience there.

“I
can drive, Jack,” Matt said indignantly. “I built a prototype machine to turn
ocean waves into energy, I think I can figure out how to steer a car.”

“It’s
not about how smart you are, Matthew. My job is to drive you places, and, in
doing that, keep you safe. You know, I overheard the most peculiar conversation
in the kitchen earlier, and it wouldn’t be right to go through with something
like that without a chaperone.”

We
were so busted. Thinking back, that was pretty dumb talking about doing
something illegal in the middle of the freaking kitchen. Brilliant, Drake,
brilliant.

Matt
didn’t look as perturbed as I did. Jack turned to me.

“Drake,
did Matthew tell you what I did before I became the Warner’s chauffer and
general maintenance man?”

“Um…no,
sir, he didn’t.”

Jack
nodded satisfactorily. “Good. I can keep secrets and I’m sure whatever it is
you’re doing, you have a good reason for it.” His face softened. “Matthew,
please let me drive you. We don’t have to tell your father about this. Remember
the fifth grade, when you got back that bully at school by attaching rockets to
his—”

“Okay,”
Matt said quickly.

“Or
when I covered for you when you decided to—how did you put it?—‘liberate
the guinea pigs from their oppressive—”

“Okay,
Jack, we’ll let you drive us,” Matt said. He sighed and slid into the back
seat. I reluctantly followed him. “But drop us off at the town center. You can
go do whatever you need to.”

“Of
course, Matthew.” He got into the driver’s seat and pulled out the front. “But
don’t let me hear sirens.”

Maybe
we should have done this, I don’t know, at
night
.
Here I was in broad (gray?) daylight, trying to break into a woman’s house.

Merry
Christmas?

“You’re
sure Sykes won’t be here?” I asked again.

There
was silence from Matt, a mile away, sitting inside the only coffee shop crazy
enough to be open on Christmas. Then, “I don’t know.”

 
Great. That made everything ten times
better. Fortunately, Jack hadn’t asked any more questions on the drive over. I
was still apprehensive but Matt seemed to trust him and if I was going to get
any answers here then I would have to risk it. When I had asked where Jack had
learned to be so secretive Matt had replied, “Let’s just say that there were
times when I was younger when I needed a little extra protection. We come from
wealth. Jack was hired to make sure I stayed safe.”

The
neighborhood was empty. I hadn’t dared put on the Phantom costume once Jack had
gotten involved, opting instead for my all-concealing black hoodie and jeans. I
kept the mask.

The
outside of Sykes’ house had no Christmas decorations. The icicles hung like
fangs from the gutters and the windows were dark. I decided to try a back
window.

“No
car in the driveway,” I said. “I hope she’s not home.”

I
snuck around back and tried a side window. Locked. I tried another. Same. Finally,
I found one that opened. I took a deep breath and crawled inside.

I
shut the window as soon as I was inside, and then crouched, listening for any
noise. The house was dead silent.

But
it turns out somebody was home. I could tell from the light from the living
room casting everything in a harsh half-light.

I
needed to make this quick. I glanced around and…

Was
I…in the right room? A plush carpet muffled my steps as I stepped past the
bed—child-sized—and to the opposite wall. Trophies—baseball
and hockey—filled a shelf, and there were even some community service
medals mixed in. Uh-oh, we had gotten the wrong house. No way would medals for
community service be within a hundred mile radius of Sykes’ house.

“Matt,
double-check the address. This is the wrong house.”

“It’s
the right one,” Matt insisted. “I have never been wrong.” I checked the next
shelf, displaying intricately detailed model rockets, dozens of them. They
covered the walls and hung on invisible strings from the ceiling.

“I’m
telling you, it’s not—” Then I found the pictures. Sykes looked about
ten. He stood in a backyard somewhere, his front teeth spaced apart, a massive
grin on his face, so much that his eyes crinkled almost shut. He held up
another model rocket. This one had a first place ribbon tied to it.

“Told
you,” Matt said, no doubt seeing this through the camera on my earpiece.

Another
picture. Older Sykes, high school, maybe. He stood with his arms draped around
two other guys, all smiling. It was an arresting smile, holding no malice, only
innocence. His eyes were clear and bright, his posture carefree. The bottom of
the picture read: High School Science Club.

“This
can’t be him,” I whispered. It couldn’t be because the man in these pictures
looked normal. He looked too easy to like. Too much…like me.

“What
happened to him?”

“Drake,
we need to find out if there’s anything there that can help us. Was he there
recently? Is there anything left behind?”

It
took me a moment to shake from my daze. I took another look around. It was
still a child’s room, as untouched as if he had left it yesterday.

“We’re
not going to find anything here,” I said wearily. “Only what he was, not what
he’s going to do.”

My
eye caught a cut out piece of newspaper lying on the bed. I picked it up. It
detailed Sykes’ arrest, his transfer to Montstaff.

Why
would that be here? Who—?

“Lucius?”

In
an instant I backed into the closest far enough that when the woman stepped
into the room and turned on the light, she couldn’t see me. She didn’t call
Sykes’ name again. Her eyes probed the room. Then her features fell to a
horrible final resignation, as though discovering that her closest imaginary
friend was nothing more than whispers and wishes in her mind.

She
pushed the rest of the way into the room. Her fingers flew over the shelves,
changing and readjusting until everything must have looked perfect to her. I
pressed farther back into the closet as she approached the shelf nearby and
picked up one of Syke’s pictures.

Then
she put it back down and left the room. I followed her until she went into the
dining room.

I
cleared my throat. “Mrs. Sykes?” She didn’t tense, didn’t turn around. She
motioned to a chair at the dining room table.

“Miss.
Just Miss.”

“I
don’t mean to frighten you.” She sat at the table, facing me. If there was any
surprise of who I was, it didn’t show on her young yet wrinkled face.

“You
don’t.” The dining room was crowded with knick-knacks and fragile porcelain
things. It smelled of stale cigarettes and a tinge of alcohol. Like Sykes’
room, this place seemed untouched by time.

“I’m
Martha, Martha Sykes.” She leaned forward and kept her unnerving gaze on me.
“And you are?”

“Nobody
important.” Martha leaned back in her chair. I heard her wrinkle something
beneath the table, and a moment later popped a cough drop into her mouth.

“You’re
Phantom. I saw you on the news,” Martha said triumphantly. “Don’t think I don’t
know who you are, even if you don’t have all your get-up on.”

“And
you’re Lucius Sykes’ mother,” I said.

“I
wonder,” Martha continued. “How is it you can do all those things they say you
can?”

“What
things?”

“You’re
so fast and strong. You vanish without a trace. You—”

Her
eyes alit with sudden realization. She yanked her chair closer to the table so
that her top half was practically splayed across the wood. “My god, they did it
to you, too.”

I
didn’t like the way her eyes kept flicking to the hallway doorway behind me.
Matt’s warning about Sykes being here hadn’t left. “Yes, I’m like your son. I
hoped you could help me—”

“Do
you know where my boy is, Phantom? Can you bring him home?”

I
quickly glanced over my shoulder. Nothing. Martha continued licking her cracked
lips. “He’s not here?”

“He
hasn’t been here for years.”

“What
was he like before…before the way he is now? How did that happen?” When Martha
heard that I didn’t know where Sykes was, she seemed to deflate. The chair
creaked when she sat back in it.