No Return: A Contemporary Phantom Tale (19 page)

But all good things must come to an end. Eventually I got out and toweled off, then went in search of something to wear. From what I could see of the day outside, it was gray and gloomy, the landscape still wet from what must have been a fairly significant rain the night before. Luckily for me, however, Erik had invested heavily in cashmere when procuring my wardrobe, and this time I selected a nice V-neck in a soft raspberry shade and a pair of black slacks to go with the sweater. I didn’t really want to admit it, but the grandeur of the house had cowed me a bit. Although there were several pairs of jeans in my new wardrobe, they seemed a bit out of place in a home that looked more like a museum than someplace where people actually lived. So the slacks—exquisitely cut wool crepe—were a compromise. I wasn’t ready to start climbing into skirts and dresses quite yet.

Although I felt considerably more human than when I had first woken up, my head still throbbed faintly, and the hum of the blow dryer didn’t help much. I stopped while my hair was still damp and set the dryer down on the bathroom counter, then stared at myself in the mirror. I looked pale and had dark circles under my eyes.

“Great,” I muttered, searching through the drawer of cosmetics for some concealer. I wasn’t about to give Erik the satisfaction of knowing that he’d apparently given me my first hangover.

While I applied spackle and the rest of the artifices that women resort to when they’re feeling less than lovely, I tried hard not to think about Randall or my situation.
 

Unfortunately, I failed at both. I couldn’t help wondering how many times he’d tried to call, or whether he’d resorted to driving past my house yet, and if he’d contacted Meg to see if she knew where I was. The thought of his increasingly frantic phone calls, the worry in those hazel eyes that were usually so lively, worry that might soon turn to actual fear—all of it combined to bring out the tears that had been lurking under the surface for the past thirty-six hours.

“Stop it,” I told my reflection. “No one cares that you’re sitting in here blubbering like a baby.” With an angry gesture I reached up to blot my eye makeup with a tissue. Luckily the tears had started to flow before I had applied any mascara, but I was still a soggy mess and had to redo most of my previous handiwork.

The tears eventually dried up, as I had learned they always do, and settling in their place was a deep and abiding anger. How dare he? Who the hell did he think he was anyway, kidnapping me just because I fit his sick profile of the perfect woman?

I hurled a Chanel eyeshadow quad into the drawer, but luckily the container was too well-designed to break. The silly impotence of the gesture was actually what calmed me down. I could sit in here and rant and rage all I wanted, but it wouldn’t change the fact that I was being held captive by a man who apparently had limitless resources and the cunning to use them as he saw fit. And although he had told me I had nothing to fear from him, I saw no real reason to believe those words. There was nothing to keep him from raping and murdering me and burying my violated body somewhere on his property. I didn’t even know where I was—I could be only a few miles from home, or hidden in some secluded spot in the hills of Malibu.

No, even though he had reassured me that I would be all right, and even though he had apparently shopped for me—or at least hired someone to do so—with the same care most women would accord their own wardrobes, I could not feel safe. No woman could, in a situation where she had so little control.

It was at that inopportune time that I heard a knock coming from the door to my suite. I set down the makeup brush I had been turning over and over in my hands, and went to the door.
 

“Ah,” I said, once I saw that it was Jerome who stood there. “The lackey.”

A brief tightening of the lines at the corner of his eyes was his only response to the insult. I didn’t know anything about Jerome, what his background was or how he’d come to work for Erik, but I guessed that fetching and carrying was something new to his job description.

When he spoke, however, his tone was carefully neutral. “Would you like anything in particular for breakfast?”

“I’d kill for some Tylenol.”

“Anything more substantial?” he asked, refusing to rise to the bait.

Deciding it wasn’t worth the effort, I abandoned the game. “Some fruit would be heavenly. And some more of that sourdough toast I had yesterday—it was wonderful.” I thought for a moment, then decided, what the heck? “And some cappuccino.”

“Anything else?”

Was it just me, or was there a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth? Was he laughing at me, at my presumption? “The key to the front door would be nice,” I said.

“I’ll have to take that up with the management,” he replied. His tone was serious, his face expressionless, but I could tell he was giving me some of my own back.

“Well, let’s just start with the cappuccino, then.”

He gave me a slight nod, then went out, with the inevitable snick of the lock following in his wake. It was probably less than fifteen minutes before he returned with another laden tray, the cappuccino sending a drift of heavenly-smelling steam into the air.

“What time is it?” I asked, taking a slow sip of the cappuccino. The heat of it hit my stomach at about the same time the caffeine started to work itself into my depleted bloodstream. Ah, vice.

“Around ten. He wants to see you at one.”

“So late?” For some strange reason, I felt oddly disappointed.
 

That time Jerome did smile, a little. “That’s early for him. Most of the time he doesn’t sleep until dawn.”

“So I was right—he is a vampire.”

“It might be easier if he were.”

I set my cappuccino down on the marble-topped table that held the rest of my breakfast. Jerome seemed unusually friendly, for him. Maybe this was the time to ask a few questions. “So...what’s with the mask, anyway? Is that just part of his Phantom obsession?”

Whatever warmth might have been in his eyes died then. “Don’t ever mention the mask.”

“But why—”

“
Ever
,” he repeated.
 

Still persisting, I went on, “You don’t expect me to believe that he’s really deformed under that thing? It’s a stage prop!”

With one swift gesture he grasped my arm just as I was reaching out to retrieve my mug. I think I gave a little gasp of shock, but he appeared not to notice. “This is not a game, Christine. A piece of advice—leave the mask alone if you want to survive this.”

He was deadly serious, I could tell. It was only until I reluctantly said “if you say so” that he released me. I rubbed my arm a little. With my luck, I’d have a set of bruises on my bicep to match the ones Erik had left on my wrist the night before.

Jerome appeared to be wrestling something over in his head. Finally he said, the words rushed, as if he wanted to get them out before he changed his mind, “I’ve worked for him for seven years.
Seven years
. And I’ve never seen him without the mask. It is never discussed. Servants that gossiped disappeared.”

“What, are you saying that he had them whacked or something?” I could only hope that my sarcasm covered up the fear that lay beneath it.

He made a dismissive gesture. “Of course not. They were dismissed.” Then he watched me carefully, the blue eyes vivid against his tanned skin. “But he can’t very well do the same with you, can he?”

And with that he turned and walked out, leaving me with a breakfast that suddenly seemed far less appetizing than it had a few minutes ago. Thank God he’d at least left me the Tylenol; I needed the capsules now more than ever.

Much sooner than I wanted to, given what Jerome had told me only a few hours earlier, I stood outside the music room. Jerome had left me here after admonishing me to wait until Erik invited me in. Almost as an aside, he informed me that it was no use to go wandering about the house, since all the exits were guarded by closed-circuit cameras and secured by keypad locks. It made me wonder why they bothered locking the door to my suite at all, as it was quite obvious I couldn’t get out of the house anyway. I had the sudden idea that perhaps they thought it would make me feel more safe.
 

The door to the music room stood slightly ajar, and suddenly any nervousness or fear I’d been feeling melted away to be replaced by wonder, for Erik had begun to play.

It was some fiendishly difficult Chopin polonaise; I recognized the opening notes of the piece even as I tried to recall in vain its actual opus number. But the difficulty of the work was surpassed only by the technical brilliance with which it was being played. As a music major I’d had the privilege of attending many concerts on campus and hearing all sorts of visiting virtuosos, but I hadn’t heard anything to rival this.
 

I was no keyboard expert, but even I could recognize the combined elegance and strength of his touch, the effortless grace with which he made the notes spill out into the air. The virtuosic technique was matched by a fierce passion that seemed to imbue every note with an almost erotic intensity. Fascinated, I waited in my spot outside the door, hardly daring to breathe lest I disturb his playing. It didn’t make sense. This man played like a god. Why had he hidden himself away from the world when he possessed a talent like that?

Unfortunately, the spell was broken by an ill-timed sneeze on my part. The glorious spill of notes went silent, and then he was there, still masked of course, but this time in a white shirt open at the throat.

If he was at all upset at being interrupted in such a fashion, he showed no sign of it. “Ah, Christine. Not catching a cold, I hope?”

“Just a tickle in my throat,” I replied, and then stepped into the room as he opened the door wide to let me in.

Like the rest of the house, it had been furnished in heavy carved pieces, but the mood in here was lighter because of the walls, which were painted a dreamy shell pink, the color of clouds at dawn. A bank of French doors opening onto a verandah brought more light into the room, although I could only imagine what it would be like in bright sunlight; outside the sky was lowering again, the first drops of renewed rain hitting the colored pavement outside. Beyond the verandah stretched more green lawns, though the prospect was broken up slightly by a curved gravel driveway that ended at a substantial building of gray stone with a steeply pitched roof.

The music room, though large, was dominated by a Steinway concert grand situated to make the most of the natural light. In one corner stood a harp, now muffled in some kind of heavy green cloth. Against another wall was a large cabinet which I assumed must hold more instruments. I saw that a music stand had been set up for me in the curve of the piano, also that a pitcher and two glasses of water had been placed on a small table nearby.

“Perhaps this would help,” he said, handing me one of the filled glasses.

I took it from him gratefully and drank. I’d been feeling dehydrated all morning—not a good thing with a long practice session ahead of me. “Much better,” I said, then replaced the glass on its table.

“Well, then.” He resumed his seat on the piano bench and launched immediately into scales. After a brief hesitation I joined in, singing lightly as my voice warmed up, concentrating on my breathing while at the same time making sure that the annoying tickle truly had gone from my throat.

After a series of increasingly difficult warmup exercises, he stopped suddenly. “Ready?”

“Ready?” I echoed, not sure what he meant.

With no answer except the half-smile that was visible beneath the mask, he launched into the lively introduction to Marguerite’s “Jewel Song.”
 

Perhaps he thought he would catch me off-guard, but I had practiced the thing so many times I was able to hit the opening trill right on cue. This was the key, after all, to know it so well that it came to you like breathing, that the notes swelled up and out, taking on a life that was much more than just a combination of lungs and larynx and palate. One of the girls at school had called it “the only orgasm you’ll ever need,” but since I didn’t have any basis for comparison, I didn’t know whether I agreed with her or not.
 

When the song ended, I turned and looked at Erik. He watched me carefully, without much expression on the half of his face I could see. Brushing away a small wave of annoyance—I thought I had done very well—I asked, “Well?”

He put a hand to his chin. “I’m thinking.”

“About?”

A smile then, revealing even white teeth. “About how on earth I’m supposed to improve on perfection.”

Randall had said almost the same thing to me, barely two months ago. Once again I experienced a rush of satisfaction, although this time it was followed by puzzlement. Why should I care what Erik thought of me? I knew the answer, though. Obsessive he was, definitely; dangerous, very probably; mad—quite possibly. But he was also one of the most talented musicians I had ever heard, and recognition by one’s peers is the sweetest approbation one can have.

“But at the very least we can keep that magnificent instrument of yours limber,” he went on. “If I had to venture a criticism, I would say that possibly you lose a little energy in the middle section. Shall we begin at ‘
achevons le métamorphose
’?”

Then we launched into it again, and then once more, until he seemed satisfied and I could feel myself flushed with exertion and tingling with blood flowing around my lungs and throat.
 

“You are never more lovely than when you sing, Christine,” Erik said softly, his elegant hands resting on the keyboard. I should have recognized them for what they were the first time I met him—the strong, long-fingered hands of a pianist.
 

I responded to compliments about my voice much better than I did to compliments about my face. Hoping my color hadn’t risen too much, I asked, “Do you sing, Erik?”

“Do I sing?” he repeated, seeming a little puzzled by the question. “I had a little training, once.” The masked face lifted to mine, and he sang softly, again from
Faust
,