Phantom (20 page)

 Riiiiinnnnggggg.

The sudden jarring ring of her cell phone startled her from her deep thoughts. She jumped and dropped the crystal geode she was still holding. It rolled under her white dust ruffle and she forgot about it as she reached down to pick her handbag up off the floor. She pulled the phone from the bag so she could rid herself of the obtrusive noise that dared to take her thoughts away from her daydreams. But then again, the thoughts she was having were frightening and unfamiliar. So maybe it was better that they were disrupted after all.

She glanced down at the number display as the phone rang for the third time. “Unknown number” flashed threateningly across the brightly lit screen. Rebecca immediately forgot all thoughts of romance as she felt her rebellious heart begin to pound.

She had sworn up and down that she wasn’t going to let her mystery stalker terrorize her anymore. She had vowed to herself again and again that she would
not
live in fear of some unknown psychopath. But as the phone continued to pulse and vibrate in her open palm, she found that she didn’t have the courage to flip back the cover. On the fourth and final ring, she was so overcome with panic that she flung the phone across the room with all her strength. It slammed against the far wall, making a dent in the plaster, before falling silently to the ground.

Rebecca left it there, staring at it in wide-eyed horror, half expecting it to come to life and fly back into her hand of its own accord. But it remained still and silent for several long moments. Long moments in which Rebecca held her breath to the point of turning blue. Then, just as she had recovered a little bit of her sensibility and allowed herself to breathe again, a few musical beeps declared that whoever had called had left a message. Rebecca found herself frozen in place once again.

Chicken. Chicken. Chicken. Rebecca chided herself silently. It’s just a stupid phone. What are you so afraid of?

It wasn’t a question that could be answered rationally. All she knew was that she was suddenly filled with a terrible sense of foreboding, an indescribable feeling of dread. She had never considered herself even remotely psychic; in that moment, she clearly saw a future heralding death. The feeling of doom was so strong that she thought she might choke on her own overwhelming fear. Terror was gagging her, paralyzing her. She didn’t want to listen to that message. She didn’t want to prove herself right. But she couldn’t control herself. She inched closer and closer to the phone, drawn to it by some sort of morbid fascination.

She approached the phone with such exaggerated caution; it might as well have been a tarantula or a cobra. She was sneaking up on it, like a cat preparing to pounce on a helpless mouse, even though she knew she was behaving like a complete and total fool. She was grateful there was no one there to witness this lapse in sanity.

When she finally bent down to pick the phone up from the ground, her fingers trembled with a terror that was impossible to contain, and the fear deepened to out and out horror when she saw that she really did have a new message and it wasn’t just her imagination or some waking nightmare.

 It took an incredible amount of willpower for her to hit the button that dialed into the voicemail system. Her shaking hands hit the wrong button more than once before she was able to retrieve the message she didn’t really want to hear. She fought the urge to hang up just as strongly as she fought the urge to hyperventilate. But when she heard the voice she had come to know so well begin its gently broken recitation, she came very close to having a panic attack despite all her best efforts to remain calm. These were words she knew well—words of the phantom. Words she had heard Justyn speak every day at rehearsal. Words that sounded eerily melodic despite the machine that distorted the voice beyond recognition.

“Joseph Buquet could not hold his tongue.
So his neck had to be wrung.
Now his silence I guarantee.
As his soul drifts into eternity.”

 So many times she had heard Justyn say those words. So many times she watched as his face twisted in feigned anger. She thought it was only the brilliance of his acting ability. But could there be a real darkness, a real
evil
, lurking below the surface of the man she was falling in love with? Perhaps there a side of him she didn’t know. Could the voice on the message belong to Justyn? And if it
was
Justyn, could she possibly stop herself from feeling these emotions she had never wanted to feel in the first place?

Either way, she had to know. She listened to the message again, and again. Three times. Five times. Ten times. Maybe more. Before she had played it for the final time, before she had given herself a moment to think beyond who the caller was and to consider the implications of the words, her call waiting announced that another call was coming through the line.

There was a moment of dread before she realized that this time a name flashed across the small screen. It was a name she knew well and was even relieved to see. She needed a friend, someone she could talk to about all this before she drove herself completely over the edge to the brink of insanity. She switched lines without even taking the time to delete the message.

“Carmen?” she whispered.

“Becca? Becca, it’s so horrible!”

Carmen was crying, hysterically sobbing. She heard it in the tremble of her voice. Fear paralyzed Rebecca. Carmen never cried. Never once, not even in kindergarten, had she ever seen her friend shed a tear. She knew something horrible must have happened. Something unthinkable. And something, she realized with that ever-growing sense of eerie premonition, that was directly related to the awful message.

“Carmen, what is it? What’s wrong?”

 She knew what her answer was going to be even before she said it. Rebecca didn’t need to be psychic to figure it out. It only made sense once she thought about it with a strange and sudden calm. The mystery caller had spoken of the murder of Joseph Buquet. Jay played the part of Joseph in the show. Another scene from
Phantom
was about to turn into reality. Rebecca felt her stomach churn as her friend verified her worst fears.

“It’s Jay,” Carmen sobbed. “There was a terrible accident. And Jay . . . Oh Becca, Jay is
dead
!”

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Is Tom home?”

 Mrs. Rittenhouse stood in the doorway pale-faced and serious, and looked Rebecca over with a little uncertainty. After all, hers was not a face that she was used to seeing on her porch steps under any circumstances. It must have seemed odd for her to show up unannounced when their whole family was obviously grieving over the loss of a close friend. She put her hands on her wide hips and pursed her lips together in annoyance.

“I don’t think Tom wants to see anyone right now.”

“Can you just tell him that Becca’s here? If he doesn’t want to see me, I promise I’ll leave. No questions asked. But just please let him know I’m here.”

Tom’s mother still appeared a little suspicious. But Rebecca wasn’t above begging, and her desperate pleading was too hard to ignore. Mrs. Rittenhouse disappeared up the stairs with a shrug of her shoulders.

Rebecca tried not to pace impatiently in the foyer as she waited for her to return. She was worried about Tom. She had called his cell phone more times than she could count. She had left voice messages, sent text messages, and emailed him like crazy from the second Carmen had told her the news. Tom seemed to be avoiding all forms of communication with the outside world. And he had every reason. His best friend, his confidant, his ever faithful sidekick was gone. Jay was
dead
. They had been two halves of a strangely fitting whole all through high school. One existing without the other seemed almost impossible.

Rebecca knew that concern for Tom’s emotional well being was only part of the reason why she had driven halfway across town to his house. It was his physical well being that really concerned her. She hadn’t slept all night, thinking about the message, wondering who might be next on the would-be killer’s hit list. Rebecca wanted to warn Tom. Even if he thought she was crazy, even if it was an unnecessary precaution, she thought that he had to know about the call.

“Hey, Becca.”

Rebecca jumped at the sound of her name. She was surprised to turn and find Tom standing at the bottom of the stairway. She hadn’t really expected him to come down. She immediately forgot the real reason why she had come. She forgot everything when she saw how utterly wretched he looked. All she knew was that she felt obliged to make some kind of effort at comforting him.

Tom had aged ten years since she had seen just days ago. She didn’t think it was possible for someone to look so different after just two days. His once youthful, carefree face was lined with grief. His blue eyes had lost all their sparkle, and were red and swollen. He was so pale that he could have actually given Justyn competition for the role of school vampire. Rebecca couldn’t look at that kind of torment and just turn away. She was propelled forward by her compassion. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t in love with him or that she was pretty sure she
was
in love with his arch nemesis. It didn’t even matter anymore that she was afraid there might be a murderer on the loose. Tom needed comfort and she couldn’t deny it. Rebecca flung her arms around him with reckless abandon.

He seemed surprised at first. His arms stayed limp at his sides for a full minute, even as Rebecca pulled him close against her. Then finally, he woke from his half trance and returned the embrace. His arms wrapped around her waist, squeezing her so tightly in his desperation that she could barely breathe. She could feel him trembling in her arms, and before long she felt his tears soak through the thin layer of her sweater as his body racked in silent sobs.

“Becca, I . . . I just can’t believe he’s gone.”

There wasn’t really anything she could say. Telling him that Jay was in a better place was ridiculous when all Tom wanted was for his friend to be alive again. Saying that everything happened for a reason was equally mundane and cliché. What reason could there possible be for a seventeen-year-old boy to have his life cut so dramatically short? And what words could possibly ease the pain that Tom must be feeling? Instead of saying meaningless words, Rebecca just let him cry. All the while she patted his back, and ran her fingers through his hair soothingly. It seemed to help calm him down. Eventually the heart wrenching sobs settled into gentle hiccups. When Tom finally lifted his red-rimmed eyes, he even managed to give her the smallest hint of a smile.

“Wow, not much of a tough guy, am I?”

“Grieving for your friend doesn’t make you any less of a man, Tom. It’s okay to be sad.”

He nodded. “I know that. But I guarantee you that wherever Jay is right now, he’s looking down on me, rolling his eyes, and calling me a whole bunch of unflattering names.”

Rebecca had to smile. Knowing Jay, that was probably true.

Tom did this best to collect himself. He wiped his eyes and nose on the sleeve of his shirt before leading Rebecca into the kitchen. He poured a couple of glasses of ice tea, both of which sat untouched and glistening with moisture on the table as they stared off into space, each lost in their own thoughts. After several minutes of deafening silence had passed, Tom finally spoke.

“So, how did you find out? I didn’t expect the news to spread so quickly.”

Tom wasn’t taking into account that besides living in a small town where everyone knew everyone else’s business, Rebecca also happened to be best friends with the queen of gossip. If there were news, good or bad, exciting or mediocre, Carmen would be the first to find out. And ultimately Rebecca was the next to find out whether she wanted to or not.

“Carmen called me last night. Debbie’s dad owns the tow truck company that . . . um . . . .” She had to clear her throat. “That took the car away.”

Tom nodded. He voice was controlled but his face had turned a few different shades of green. “So you know what happened?”

“I know there was an accident.”

“An accident?” He laughed, just a little bitterly. “Stupid, reckless moron. Jay was always driving like a maniac. I should have known that eventually he would drive my truck straight into a telephone poll. You know, it’s funny. I can almost hear his voice in my head, giving me a whole bunch of lame excuses about how it wasn’t his fault. Like, ‘Dude, an entire family of cattle ran out in front of me’. Or, ‘I was blinded by the lights of this giant UFO.’ Sure, I would have been angry as hell at him for totaling my truck, at least at first. But I would have forgiven him eventually—especially once it hit me how lucky he would have been to be alive. I mean, who really cares about some stupid car, right? I’d never drive again if it meant that Jay . . . that he was still . . . .”

Tom lost it again. All trace of the composure he had fought so hard for was gone. He buried his head in his hands to hide the tears he had thought had finally run dry. Rebecca reached across the table to gingerly touch his hand, unsure that he even remembered that she was still there or if he wanted her to touch him. She didn’t even realize that tears were trickling down her cheeks as well until she watched them slip onto the table and absorb against the cloth mat.

“Tom, I’m so . . . so sorry.”

“It was
my
truck. It should have been
me
.”