"There you are!" Lisl said, catching him in the hallway as he approached the kitchen. She had her arm crooked around the elbow of a slim young man. "Here's the person I've wanted you to meet for months now."
Lisl introduced Rafe Losmara. Black hair and mustache, fine features, piercing eyes. His open-collared white shirt and white slacks—the same white as Lisl's dress—emphasized his dark complexion. Will realized then that these two were a real couple. And they were letting everybody know.
As he shook Rafe's hand, Will experienced a powerful sensation of deja vu. The feeling had tickled him before when he had seen Rafe at long distance, but here, close up, it was almost overwhelming.
"Have we ever met before?" Will said.
Rafe smiled. It was dazzling, charming.
"No. I don't think so. Do I look familiar?"
"Very. I just can't place you."
"Maybe we've seen each other around campus."
"No. It's not that. I get the feeling it was years ago."
"I grew up in the Southwest. Ever been there?"
"No."
Rafe's smile broadened. "Perhaps it was in another life."
Will nodded slowly, searching his memory.
"Perhaps."
Another life…
Before coming to N.C., Will had spent over a year on New Providence and the surrounding islands; most of that time was lost to him. That had been another life of sorts. v
"Have you ever been to the Bahamas?" he asked Rafe.
"Not yet, but I'd like to."
Will shrugged and said, "I guess we'll just have to leave it as a mystery for now. But I'm glad to meet you. Lisl's told me a lot about you."
"All of it good, I hope," Rafe said. N
"All of it very good."
Rafe slipped his arm around Lisl's waist and hugged her against his side.
"She's told me a lot about you too. Why don't you stick around after this is over and we'll sit down and get to know each other. Right now I've got to make sure everyone is fed and watered." He gave Lisl a peck on the cheek. "See you later."
Will watched Rafe disappear into the crowded living room. He seemed engaging enough. But what was so familiar about him? It was unlikely he'd met Rafe before—probably just someone very much like him. The answer swam tantalizingly close beneath the surface of his subconscious. Will would have been more than willing to wait for it to reveal itself except that he sensed his subconscious might be warning him about Rafe.
He turned to Lisl.
"Well?" she said. "What do you think?"
Her eyes were so bright, her smile so fiercely proud, Will was powerless to feel anything but happiness for her.
"I don't exactly know him yet, but he seems very nice."
"Oh, he is. But he's very much his own man too. He has his own slant on everything."
"Is his slant much off beam from your slant?"
He thought he saw Lisl's eyes cloud over for a minute, but then they cleared. She laughed.
"Sometimes he surprises me. There's never a dull moment with Rafe. Never!"
Wondering how he should take that, Will followed Lisl back into the kitchen.
Will was working through the living room with his second tray of canapes. Lisl had tried to talk him out of helping but he'd insisted, telling her that he knew no one here and that this was a great way to meet her guests.
And it was.
Besides, he preferred to keep busy. He'd never been one for cocktail parties.
He had to admit though that he was enjoying himself this afternoon. He was nursing a Scotch on the rocks as he wove through the crowd with his tray of pigs in blankets. Everyone was friendly. A few had had a little too much to drink and were getting loud, but no one was out of line.
Then the phone rang.
Will froze and almost dropped the tray. Someone must have plugged it back in. He prayed for the ring to pause and
then go on in the stop-and-go pattern of a normal phone call. But it didn't. The ring went on and on, steadily, relentlessly.
And people noticed. One by one they fell silent under the pressure of that endless ring. The conversation noise level dropped quickly by half, then dwindled down to a single slurred voice. And soon even he fell silent. Leaving only the ringing, that damned, incessant, infernal ringing.
Will felt as if he'd been turned to stone. Movement to his left caught his eye and he saw Lisl step into the living room from the hallway.
That ringing! Lisl thought as she entered the room.
Good Lord, what was wrong with the phone? Why did it go on like that? Whatever it was it had brought the party to a screeching halt. The living room looked like a tableau—everyone silent, frozen in position, staring at the phone.
Something unsettling, unnatural about that ring. She had to stop it.
Lisl crossed the room and lifted the receiver. An audible sigh whispered though the room as the ringing stopped. Silence, blessed silence. She put the receiver to her ear… and heard the voice.
A child's voice, a little boy's, sobbing, frightened. No… more than frightened—nearly incoherent with fear, crying for his father to come get him, that he didn't like it there, that he was afraid, that he wanted to come home.
"Hello!" she said into the receiver. "Hello! This isn't your father. Who are you?"
The child cried on.
"Tell me who your father is and I'll get hold of him."
The child continued to plead.
"Where are you? Tell me where you are and I'll get you help. I'll come get you myself. Just tell me where you are!"
But the child didn't seem to hear her. Lisl tried talking to him again but to no effect. Without pausing for breath he continued crying for his father, his voice slowly rising in volume to a wail. Suddenly he began .to scream out his fear.
"Father, please come and get me! Pleeeeease! Father, Father, Father—"
Lisl snatched the receiver away from her ear. So loud. She couldn't bear the sound of such naked fear in a child. She looked around. All the strained faces in the room were looking her way, staring at the phone, listening to that small voice. They could hear it too.
"—don't let him kill me! I don't want to die!"
"What do I do?" she said. "What do I—?"
Suddenly the voice cut off and the abrupt, deathly silence of the room struck her like a blow.
"Hello?" Lisl said into the receiver. "Hello? Are you still .there? Are you all right?"
No answer.
She jiggled the plunger on the base but the line remained dead. Not even a dial tone.
She wanted to cry. A frightened child needed help somewhere and she could do nothing. And without a dial tone, she couldn't even call the police.
As she jiggled the plunger again she spotted the mounting cord coiled on the carpet behind the table. A chill ran over her skin as she lifted the base of the phone. The jack notch at its rear was empty. The phone had been disconnected.
My God! How…?
Lisl turned slowly and stared at her guests. Their pale faces and strained expressions reflected exactly what she felt.
Where was Will?
She didn't see him. She remembered him standing in the center of the room holding a tray when she answered the phone. She remembered the wild look in his eyes as he listened to that insane ring. Like a cornered animal. Where was he now? She glanced down. A tray of cooling pigs in blankets lay on the coffee table.
She heard tires screech outside on the street. Through the picture window she saw Will's old Chevy roar away down the road.