Chapter 5THE LIGHTS CAME ON and the line went dead.
Ali pressed repeatedly on the hook, throwing his voice toward the mouthpiece, “Hello? Hello? Are you there? Come back!”
It was no use. The voice was gone, along with the static.
“What on God’s green earth is going on down here?” Leon asked as he stomped down the stairs.
Mom wasn’t with him this time.
“Sorry,” Braden said. “Did we wake you?”
“I heard ringing,” Leon replied. “Didn’t know if I was imagining it. Looked at the clock, 3 AM on the dot.”
“You weren’t imagining it,” Ali said. An expression of guilt took over because he’d promised Braden he wouldn’t tell Leon about the ghost voice.
But screw that. After what they’d just heard, Braden couldn’t hold back. He came clean about everything: the static last night, and th
