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“Gayle? What is it? What’s…” Rikard’s question faded into silence, as he saw the open cabinet. “Oh.”
“Oh? That’s all you have to say? Oh?”
She forced herself to look inside the vanity cabinet again. It wasn’t his head on the shelf. It was an incredibly realistic mask, complete with hair, on a foam head. In fact, except for the fact that it had no eyes, and ended at the upper lip, it looked exactly like Rikard.
There was another mask beside it, but this one rested on a plaster head that bore Rikard’s features. The second mask was made of clear plastic, with eye and nose holes and a tiny opening around the mouth, although half of it had been painted white in the style of the Phantom of the Opera’s mask. Heavy straps secured it to the plaster head.
She shook her head. No. Impossible. And yet…
“Take off your Master’s mask, Rikard.”
His hesitation was all the confirmation she needed.
“I’ve never seen your face, have I?”
“Not all of it, no.”
“You lied to me.”
“No!”
“What do you call that?” She stabbed an accusing finger at the face in the cabinet.
He sighed, and pulled off the leather mask she’d grown so accustomed to seeing. She didn’t know what to expect, but the features he revealed looked almost exactly like the ones she was familiar with. The only difference was on the left side of his face. Dark purple-red scar tissue covered from the corner of his eye to just below his cheekbone, shining dully in the florescent light.
“I call that a memory,” he answered softly.
/> She hadn’t asked, but he removed his gloves as well. His right hand, which she’d seen holding his razor, was as beautiful and graceful as she recalled. His left hand, though, was covered with a mix of thin white scars and shiny patches of scar tissue, especially across the palm.
“When the truck exploded, I instinctively threw my arm up across my eyes. It probably would have killed me if I hadn’t. But that limited the third-degree burns to my cheek, instead of my entire face. And my arm. I also got shards of glass in my arm. They were so busy making sure I didn’t bleed to death, lose my hand, or lose my eye, they didn’t have time to worry about cosmetics.”
He spoke in a toneless, matter-of-fact voice. Yet she could feel his pain and terror, the agony of being engulfed in a fireball, followed by the pain of recovery. Absently, she massaged her aching left hand.
His gaze tracked her motion, and a wry smile twisted his lips. “Sorry.”
Abruptly, the sensations stopped.
She fumbled behind herself, searching for the edge of the counter to grip, scattering obscenely cheerful ducks in her blind quest for something stable and real to hold onto. “You did that. You made me feel…what you felt?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t mean to. It’s this thing I’ve been able to do since the accident. I picture something in my mind, and when I speak, people see it in their minds, too. For some reason, you seem to pick up on things even when I’m not trying to send them.”
As he calmed down, the scar on his cheek faded to a dull pink, barely darker than his natural skin tone.
She frowned. Was it fading because he was growing calmer, or had it faded because he was no longer transmitting a mental image of what he believed his scar looked like?
This was insane. She couldn’t believe she was actually considering his explanation. And yet, it explained so many things she hadn’t even thought to question. If the accident had happened the way she’d felt it…
She shook her head, and stared at him. If she believed him, that she’d experienced what he’d experienced, then he’d been driving alone in that car.
“Who was with you when the accident happened?”
“No one.”
“But when we were rehearsing ‘Not a Day Goes By’, you said you’d lost your girlfriend in the accident.”
“Actually, I think I said I lost my love.” He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. Gayle instinctively braced herself for whatever further revelation he was about to toss her way.
“I was a jazz pianist. An interpretive singer and songwriter. That’s all I ever wanted to be, since I started taking piano lessons when I was three years old. I performed at music festivals around the world, and was just starting to build a real name for myself. My first CD had been released, to critical acclaim and decent sales, and I’d started working on a second one. I was sure I was one step away from success beyond my wildest dreams.”
