"Whaaat?" Joey cried. "A death threat? What are you talking about?" He frowned suspiciously at Sigmund, as did Tristan. What was going on here?
Sigmund frowned too. "Well, if you don't know, I'm not going to tell you," he retorted childishly, crossing his arms as he glared down at them both. "What kind of reporters are you if you don't know about that?" He smirked now. "And don't bother answering that. I know who you really are!" He pointed an accusatory finger, causing both boys to step back in shock. "Did you think I really wouldn't recognize Joseph Wheeler?"
The teens blinked. Then Joey felt a burst of pride coming on. "Well, sure you would!" the blonde boy proclaimed. Tristan groaned.
"Let's see," Sigmund continued, "you placed second at Duelist Kingdom, and you got quite far in Kaiba's Battle City, too. And you've been solving mysteries with your friends. Would I be right in saying that this is another one of them?"
Tristan decided that it was fruitless to deny it any longer. "Yeah, it is," he said boldly, "and you're a suspect! Now what's this about a death threat?" Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw something strange on the desk and he moved forward to look, trying to appear inconspicuous at the same time.
"Oh, a suspect, am I?" Sigmund grumped. Joey would have yelled at Tristan for being so blunt, but then he saw that the man didn't seem all that upset that he'd been accused. "Well, that isn't a surprise," he confirmed then. "I'm certain Gerald made you think I was guilty."
"Yeah, he did," Joey said, "and now you're making him look guilty!" He was frustrated. If there was such an intense rivalry between them, how would he and Tristan really know which one was telling the truth? They could each be exaggerating to make the other look bad. Maybe, he thought, this idea was pointless and will get us nowhere.
"Well, good," Sigmund smirked now, "he deserves it for once, after always casting me in a bad light while he marched on unaffected and continued to draw crowds to his theatre! I heard about what's started to happen there and I confess right now that I'm not behind it. I do wish I was, though. It was an excellent idea. Now he'll be the one getting the bad publicity!"
"Come on, dude!" Tristan snapped, unable to hold his tongue, "people are starting to get hurt! No matter how ticked off you are at Richards, how can you be glad to hear about what's happening? At least three people were attacked yesterday and they all could've been killed!" He was disliking this person even more than Gerald, he discovered, though both of them were irritating and it was easy to see how they'd started up their heated rivalry.
"But they weren't, were they?" Sigmund answered smoothly. "I'm certain that whoever's doing this isn't going to get anyone so badly hurt that they won't recover. They just want to ruin Gerald Richards."
"Yeah, and what better way to do that than to kill someone at his theatre!" Tristan snapped. "One of those people is in the hospital!" His hazel eyes flashed. "Let's go, Joey. I think we've learned all we need to know here." He gave Joey a look that meant Don't Argue. Now, with what he'd seen on that paper, things were only getting stranger. He would tell Joey about it when they were outside.
Joey was only too happy to follow his friend out. "I wish I could say it's been cool meetin' you," he said to Sigmund, "but I wish I never had! You're disgusting!" Sigmund seemed unaffected by the remark and only smirked as the two boys left his office.
"So, what's this all about, Tristan?" Joey demanded as soon as they were outside again. "I was all set to really give him a piece of my mind, but you wanted to split!" He frowned in confusion at his friend.
Tristan looked back firmly. "I saw something weird on his desk," he replied. "There was a note saying 'Now Richards will never succeed! The opening performance of The Phantom of the Opera will go out with a bang!' It sure made him sound guilty."
"What?" Joey glared all the more. "You shoulda confronted him about that!"
Tristan shook his head. "Let's watch him for a while," he said, "and see if we can catch him doing something suspicious."
"But by that time someone else may've gotten really hurt!" Joey protested. He wanted to take action now! But then, he always had been impulsive that way. Tristan was more the type to think things out first—generally, anyway. He had his rash moments as well.
"That's why we've gotta do a good job!" Tristan retorted. "Problem is, he knows us now—and seems to have known about at least you before we even got here! We need someone he doesn't know at all to spy on him." He paused, mentally going through the list of their friends. "Téa can't do it, obviously, since she has a job with Richards."
"And he might remember Bakura from the Battle City Finals, if he's kept up to date on all that stuff," Joey chimed in as they reached the jalopy and climbed in.
"So who does that leave. . . ." Tristan mused some more. Mokuba was also out. And Seto wasn't even a possibility to begin with. Neither Joey or Tristan would want Serenity to do it. And Duke would probably also be recognized. With Marik, there was the same problem as with Bakura. And his siblings were naturally too busy to chase rude theatre managers around.
"Not a lot of choices," Joey replied as he started the engine. "Maybe I could ask Valon to do it or somethin'. . . ."
Tristan hung on for dear life as Joey maneuvered his way out of the parking lot. "Yeah, maybe," he muttered. But he still wasn't sure he trusted Valon. After all, he and his two cronies had caused a lot of trouble during Doom. Still, there surely wasn't a reason to fear. The bikers had all been helpful during the misadventure at Del Vinci's skyscraper. Valon had almost been killed during that time! "We hadn't even seen any of them since the fiasco in December, though," he remarked, "until Alister showed up yesterday."
Joey shrugged. "They're probably easy to find," he said in an offhand way. "Maybe they're in the phone book or somethin'. We can check. But for now, let's go report on what we've found out." He drove around the next corner, accidentally running over the curb with the car's left wheels. Tristan winced.
"Be careful!" he scolded. "I don't want to wind up in the hospital!"
Joey only grinned. "Don't worry about it!" he replied. Easier said than done.
Serenity looked around the café with fascination as she and Duke were guided to a booth near the window. "Wow," she murmured softly, "it's so nice here." It was a cozy place, with a checkered floor and several lazily-turning ceiling fans overhead.
Duke smiled. "I thought you'd like it, Serenity," he said, and stepped aside as they reached their booth. "Ladies first." He smirked a bit to himself in satisfaction as Serenity smiled shyly and slid into the nook. He then followed, glad for once to have a chance to be with Serenity without Tristan being along. It seemed that Tristan was always poking his nose into things and not allowing Duke to have a moment's peace with getting to know Serenity. Though, he mused after their orders were taken, idly twirling a piece of hair around his fingers, I suppose Tristan did see her first. But still. . . .
His thoughts were interrupted as Serenity spoke.
"What do you think about all these weird things happening with the electricity, Duke?" she asked hesitantly. She wanted an answer, and yet, she was almost afraid to think of various possibilities. What if it was that strange man Joey had told her about, the one back from Ancient Egypt? He had sounded so dangerous. Serenity hated to think that he was still lurking about, causing problems for all the unlucky citizens. But she supposed that he wouldn't likely go away any time soon.
"Well. . . ." Duke found himself equally hesitant on what to tell her. He didn't want to frighten the poor girl. And yet he didn't want to gloss things over, either, the way Tristan usually did. Duke felt that it was better to come out and be honest, no matter what the subject matter was. "I guess there's no way of really knowing anything for sure," he said at last as their food arrived. "Maybe it's just that the power company is having a lot of trouble this winter, with the storms and all."
Serenity sighed, picking up her fork. "I know," she replied, "and I've thought of that, too, but . . . I don't know. . . . I'm afraid it's something worse." She looked at Duke sadly, her hazel eyes awash with emotions. "I'm afraid it's something we'll all get involved with, and then people will get hurt. . . . It always happens when things go wrong!" She couldn't forget all the horrible things she had seen ever since being able to see her brother again during Battle City. It was always something, it seemed to her. How does Joey stand it?
Duke sighed too. "That's possible," he agreed, eating slowly. "But I wouldn't worry too much about it. After all, we've come out of these things fine in the past, haven't we?" And yet he knew that they had all been in serious danger multiple times. It was ridiculous to assume that they'd always come out of things fine. There would come a time, he was sure, when they wouldn't. Someone would wind up badly injured—or worse.
Serenity looked down. "Yeah," she said softly, "but I'm still worried, Duke. . . . I'm really worried . . . for my big brother, for Tristan . . . and for you, too." She looked up at him again. "I don't want anything to happen to any of you!" A few tears came to her eyes, but she held them back. "The things I've seen . . . especially that time when we all went to Cooperstown . . . it was horrible, Duke! I don't want anything like that to ever happen again!" Upon seeing his slightly surprised expression, she blushed and gazed down at her food, managing to eat a bit of it.
"I'm sorry," she murmured now, "I shouldn't be bringing all of this up now, when you were being so nice as to invite me to lunch with you. . . ." But the urge to tell someone about her concerns had been overwhelming. Joey hadn't been around very much as of late, and he usually tried to gloss things over when they did talk. Serenity had wanted to talk with someone who would be honest with her, and she had known that Duke would be. And so, now that she was with him, all of her fears had come tumbling out of her mouth.
"No," Duke said quickly, getting over his momentary amazement, "it's alright, Serenity. I'm glad you're telling me this. You have a perfect right to be upset, after everything you've been through." I was just a bit surprised that you're that worried over me. It felt rather nice, in a way, to know that she cared, even if it wasn't the way he hoped she would.
"I thought I recognized you!"
Both Duke and Serenity looked up, startled at the new interruption. Coming toward them was a girl Serenity didn't know, though Duke did. He blinked in stunned surprise at the short blonde.
"Becky!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
After the late breakfast, when Valon had gone upstairs to his room, Raphael picked up Liu and brought her over to Alister, who was still at the kitchen table. The redhead looked up when Raphael entered, raising an eyebrow in confusion at the feline he was carrying.
"Look at this," Raphael said flatly in explanation. He held up Liu's decorated paw for Alister to see.
The younger man leaned forward, studying the numbers. He frowned, unable to determine what was meant but recognizing the uncanny coincidence. "Strange," he murmured. Liu pawed at him, laying her padded foot on top of his head. Alister grunted at this.
Raphael was amused. "She likes you," he remarked.
Alister shrugged, looking away quickly. "She probably would like anyone who doesn't hurt her," he replied. "Maybe we should try to find out more about her previous owners." The coincidence seemed too absurd to simply brush off. Alister wanted to know why Liu had been tattooed with the same numbers that had been used in a death threat against him.
Raphael sat down, letting Liu sit on his lap. "The only thing I know is what Paulette told me earlier when I called her on the phone—that her previous owners didn't like her and that after she was returned and the numbers were discovered, Paulette and her husband tried to contact the people but couldn't find them."
"Maybe they were criminals," Alister suggested matter-of-factly.
Raphael sighed. "I've thought of that, too," he said, "but it doesn't make sense. If this is an important code for something, why would they have returned her?" He wondered if a cruel person had just made the tattoos to torture the cat. But that didn't change the fact that the choice of numbers was highly odd.
Liu hopped over to Alister's lap and snuggled against his bare waist. He started, not having expected that at all. Slowly he looked down at the purring animal, recalling when Miruko's kitten had slept on the bed with him, contentedly burrowed against the covers and soft pillow. He had told his brother not to let the cat sleep on the bed with him, but Miruko hadn't seen anything wrong with it and the feline had continued to do so anyway, so finally their mother had given up and allowed it. That stubborn kitten had been carried everywhere by Miruko. . . .
"Is there any particular reason why you don't like cats?"
Raphael's voice brought him back to the present. Alister shrugged, giving Liu back to him.
"I didn't say I didn't like them," he remarked, standing up and brushing stray cat hairs away.
"You act like it," Raphael returned, petting Liu gently. He didn't want to part with the cat, but he also didn't want to keep her if it would make Alister uncomfortable. When Liu had snuggled against the redhead, Raphael had seen an unreadable expression in his eyes. He had seemed faraway, and saddened. Raphael wondered what sorts of memories Liu unearthed.
Alister shook his head. "I don't dislike them," was all he would reply before leaving the room.
Raphael sighed to himself, deciding to call Paulette back and see if she had managed to find the names of Liu's previous owners in her records. Liu purred on in oblivious bliss.
Things hadn't been any less eventful at Gerald's theatre. A rehearsal had been started and Téa was in the middle of the Angel of Music number with the girl playing Christine Daaé, while Yugi stood to the side with the other cast members and watched. As Téa sang the line "Christine, you must have been dreaming," the lights all went out, plunging the windowless theatre into darkness.
Instant pandemonium rang out. Yugi gasped in surprise, trying to avoid being knocked over by bewildered extras as he called for Téa. Then, as he weaved around between two dancers, he suddenly froze in utter shock.
Someone was playing the organ that was backstage! And not only that, it was the overture to The Phantom of the Opera that was being played!
"Téa?" Yugi called again, moving forward and wondering who this person was. As the Millennium Puzzle glowed, allowing a bit of light to sweep the area, the music stopped. When Yugi reached the organ, Téa was already there, staring at it in disbelief. No one was there!