She walked the length of the warehouse and bent down to slip under the open door. Inside, her eyes adjusted to the semidarkness. Thousands of crates, many stamped with Chinese characters, filled the space almost to the ceiling. Gaps large enough for a forklift interrupted the wall of storage every twenty feet. Lightbulbs, dangling on cords from the ceiling, did little to illuminate the closed space. The interior was cold. She saw dust and spiderwebs.
As she followed the corridor, she passed a crate on the floor near one of the loading docks, and its lid had been pried off with a crowbar that leaned against the coffin-shaped box. She peered inside and saw vacuum-sealed electronics components. Looking to the ceiling, and in both directions, she figured the contents of the warehouse could be valued in the millions of dollars.
Where the corridor ended, she faced a stone wall with a single metal door leading in or out. A Lexus sedan was parked by the wall near one of the large garage entrances. As she stood in front of the metal door, it opened. Darren Newman stood in the shadows immediately in front of her. He closed the door behind him before she could look inside, and his lips creased into a smile.
“Dr. Stein,” he said. “It’s been a long time. How are you?”
“Hello, Darren.”
“Simona called and said a woman was looking for me. When she described her, I knew it was you. I was surprised.”
“Really?”
“Well, as I said, it’s been a long time. Of course, I got your message that you wanted to talk. I spotted your name on the news, too. Patients going crazy can’t be good for business.”
“Having a patient stab a girl to death wasn’t good for business, either,” she told him.
“Except that was all a mistake. Remember?”
Darren made sure the door behind him was locked. He stepped toward her, and his closeness made her back up and bump against the Lexus. Her face flushed. Despite everything she knew about him, she felt his sexual aura like warm fingertips on her skin. He looked the same, with his blond hair and hawk-like eyes. He wore a navy sport coat over blue jeans, a peach-colored shirt, and a psychedelic tie. His black boots were shined.
“So what do you want with me, Frankie?” he asked.
He reached out a hand to touch her face, and she jerked away.
“What’s behind that door?” she asked him.
“I’m an importer. Some goods are more sensitive than others.”
“Illegal?”
“Not at all. Just sensitive.”
“Why don’t you show me?” she asked.
“Because then I’d have to kill you,” Darren replied. He saw her flinch, and he added with a wink, “That’s a joke, Frankie. You never did appreciate my sense of humor.”
She wondered what was really behind the locked door. More cartons of electronics. Or guns. Or drugs.
Or a white room.
“You still haven’t told me what you want,” Darren said.
“I want the truth. Someone’s trying to destroy me. I think it’s you.”
He smiled at her with no humor. “Why would I want to destroy you? You were such a big help to me.”
“I don’t know, but then again, I never understood how sick you really were. You kept it well hidden.”
“That must be ironic for you. After all, it was your job to get inside my head. So what is it you think I’m doing, Frankie?”
“You’re abducting my patients. You’re using my own treatment methods to play on their fears. If you want to go after someone, then go after me. Leave my patients alone.”
Darren struck like a snake, coiling his arms around her body and pinning her against the car. She struggled to free herself, but he held her tight, unable to get away. His sweet breath was in her face. His lips were an inch away from her own. “Oh, if you want me to go after you, then I will. Just say the word.”
“Let me go!”
He pushed his lips against her mouth, and she swung her head violently away. He whispered in her ear. “You don’t want me to let go. You want me to take you right here, don’t you? That’s what you’ve dreamed about.”
“Get your hands off me!” she said. “Jason knows I’m here. He’s expecting me to call back.”
“I think you’re lying. I don’t think you’d tell your husband you were coming to see me.”
“I’m not lying.” Frankie squirmed in his grasp, and finally, she shoved his chest hard and ripped herself away from him. “You bastard! I know what you’re doing. I’m on to you and your games. You’re not going to get away with it this time. It won’t be like Merrilyn Somers.”
“Oh, come on, Frankie. I told you once before. You’re talking crazy.”
“You’re trying to do the same thing this time, aren’t you? You’re setting up someone else to take the fall.”
She saw the faintest nervousness in his eyes, as if she knew something she wasn’t supposed to know. She knew about Todd.
“I’m going to tell the police about you,” she added, even though they both knew it was a hollow threat. No matter how much she wanted to call Frost Easton and give him Darren’s name, she didn’t have enough evidence to say a word.
“You won’t do that. I know how it works. Your lips are sealed.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“No? Well, go ahead, tell them whatever you want, and when my lawyers get done with you, I’ll own that nice top-floor Tenderloin condo of yours.”
Frankie paled.
“Yes, I know where you live,” Darren went on. “I make it a point to know everything about the people in my life. And the thing is, I always liked you, Frankie. I really did. We made such a good team, you and me.”
“We were never a team.”
“Too bad, I always thought of us that way. I bet you’ve had a tough year without me around. How are things with Jason? God, it must be awful when all you can think about is me.”
She stared at him, openmouthed. She felt naked in front of him, as if he could see all her secrets.
“And then to lose your father, too,” Darren went on. “I saw his obituary.”
“Shut up,” she finally said.
“But you don’t really miss him, do you? I remember how you talked about him. You’re glad he’s dead.”
“Shut up.”
“How exactly did it happen, Frankie? The accident sounded so odd and tragic.”
She knew that he wanted her to boil over. He was manipulating her. Playing with her head. Nothing had changed. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and let coldness flow through her again.
“Where do you take them, Darren?” she asked. She pointed at the locked door behind him. “Is it there? Is that where you torture them?”
“Do you want to see?”
“Yes.”
He dug keys out of his pocket, then beckoned Frankie closer with one finger. She kept a safe distance. He shoved the key in the lock and twisted, and he pushed the door inward.
“Go on,” he told her, standing in the doorway. “Take a look.”
“Get away from the door.”
Darren laughed. He strolled toward his car and waved her to the hidden space. Frankie kept an eye on him as she approached the doorway, and then she took a quick glance inside. Beyond the wall, the warehouse looked no different from the rest of the space. More containers. More Chinese characters stamped on the wood. There was no white room. No torture chamber.
“Satisfied?” Darren whispered.
He was right behind her, his hands on her waist. She slapped them off.
“This doesn’t change anything,” she told him. “If it’s not here, then you have a space somewhere else. I know you’re the Night Bird.”
“I have a special name, too? Nice touch. That’s so Edgar Allan Poe.”
“You won’t win,” Frankie said.
“I’ve already won. You’re here.”
He fixed her with another smile; then he tightened the knot on his Jerry Garcia tie and tugged his peach shirt cuffs an inch beyond the sleeves of his sport coat. He smoothed the lapels.
“It was great seeing you, Frankie,” he told her, “but unless you want to admit what you really want from me, you should go. I have work to do, and then I have a special evening planned.”
“Special?”
“Crazy special,” Darren said.
He pushed a button on the wall, and the garage door beside them cranked open on its tracks. Light from outside flooded the space. “No need to walk all the way back. Warehouses are dangerous places. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”
Frankie started toward the sloped driveway that led to the street, but as she squeezed past Darren, she noticed the shiny glint of buttons on his sport coat. They were brass buttons, just like Frost had showed her. And one of them was missing.
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