When they wound around the next curve, they saw Darren’s Lexus parked on the side of the road. The car was empty. Darren was already gone. Frost backed up until the Lexus was out of sight, and then he pulled his Suburban into the dirt and turned off the engine. They both got out. Rain pattered on the tree leaves above them. It was quiet, far from the city noise.
Frost walked toward Darren’s car, and Frankie followed. The loneliness of the park made her uneasy. When they reached the Lexus, Frost checked inside, but Darren had left nothing behind.
“He wasn’t dressed for jogging,” Frankie said. “So where is he?”
“He got a call. He may be meeting someone.”
Together, they climbed the slope to a lakeside hiking path. Stow Lake’s ribbon of lazy green water hugged the trail. Frost stopped to listen, but they heard no footsteps on the gravel, just rain tapping on leaves. She’d been here on summer weekends, when the lake felt as peaceful as Chopin piano music. But not now. Now the dark water under the storm felt ominous.
“White Lady, White Lady, I have your baby,” Frost murmured. “Do you know the legend? Apparently, the ghost is searching for a child who drowned in the lake. If she asks you if you’ve seen her baby, she’ll haunt you if you say yes, and she’ll kill you if you say no. So you’re basically screwed either way.”
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Frankie replied.
“It’s worth believing in something,” Frost said.
He moved cautiously on the gravel trail. Frankie stayed beside him. The lake was on their right, and not thirty feet away, on the other side of the water, a dirt trail mirrored their path at the base of Strawberry Hill. The slope rose sharply through a tangle of tree roots and vines.
“Where did he go?” Frankie asked, too loudly.
Frost held out an arm to stop her and put a finger to his lips. Then he pointed. Just ahead, through the lace of tree branches, she spotted a stone arch bridge crossing the water to Strawberry Hill. A man, almost in silhouette, stood on the bridge. It wasn’t Darren Newman. Frankie recognized the man’s lanky frame and the wool cap on his head.
“That’s Todd Ferris,” she whispered to Frost.
The detective brought the binoculars to his eyes and aimed them at the man on the bridge.
“He has a gun,” Frost said.
40
“Get back to the car,” Frost told Dr. Stein. “I’ve got backup on the way. Just stay inside.”
He didn’t give her time to protest; he simply shoved his keys and binoculars into her hands. He left her standing on the gravel trail and took off running between low-hanging branches of the evergreens. By the time he reached the base of the stone bridge, Todd Ferris had vanished.
Frost drew his own gun. Slowly, he did a 360-degree turn. The trees and the gray sky buried the park in shadows, offering plenty of hiding places. He didn’t see Darren Newman, and he didn’t see Todd Ferris. The rain sharpened, hammering his face, and he had to wipe his eyes to see. When he listened, he heard footsteps on Strawberry Hill.
Crouching, he jogged across the shallow arch of the bridge. Ripples dotted the water where the lake widened. On the other side of the bridge, a narrow dirt trail stretched along the base of the hill, and the four-hundred-foot slope climbed sharply in front of him into a jungle of trees. He saw footprints in the mud. Running. Heading west. Clouds of rain blew into Frost’s face as he followed.
Fifty yards away, the footprints stopped. He saw furrows in the slope where someone had scrambled up the hill, clawing at the ground with hands and feet. Above him, he saw a moving shadow on the next terrace of the trail. He couldn’t see who it was.
Frost stayed beside the lake and found a switchback leading uphill from the water. He climbed on a soft trail of pine needles. Footing was treacherous on the wet slope, making him struggle to keep his balance. The storm closed in on him, as if the White Lady were unhappy with trespassers. Through the trees, lightning split across the sky, and a rolling, rumbling clap of thunder followed. A shower of leaves blew from the trees with the next gust of wind. Then another crack shot through the rain.
This one came from a gun.
Frost dove off the trail behind a thick redwood tree clinging to the slope. He didn’t know where the shot had come from, or how close it was. High above him, someone shouted. Two voices, back and forth. He squinted uphill, but it was too dark to see anyone. With his gun in his hand, he ran. As he did, another shot echoed across the hilltop.
Strawberry Hill leveled out at its summit into a patch of sawdust and picnic benches nestled inside the grove of trees. Where the land opened up, rain sheeted down to the wet ground, bringing a heavy scent of eucalyptus and pine. He crept onto the top of the hill and swung back and forth. The storm brought the forest to life. The evergreens around him were like tall black soldiers, and he glimpsed the dark panorama of the city through a web of branches. He took each step slowly. The wet ground sank under his feet.
“Darren Newman!” he shouted. “Todd Ferris! This is the police. I want to see both of you in the open with your hands up.”
The drumming of rain overwhelmed his voice, but he knew they could hear him. No one broke from the trees.
Frost stayed on the fringe of the hilltop and made a circle around the summit. Where a massive tree had been cut down, he caught a glimpse of the bay, but the eastern hills were invisible under the clouds. Blurry lights sprang up in the neighborhoods below him. His clothes were soaked. He was cold. He could barely see. With each footstep, he stopped and listened, trying to find a human noise hiding behind the roar of the downpour. If they were still here, the two men were silent, huddled in the protection of the woods.
It took him five minutes to circle the summit and arrive back where he started. He worried that he’d been lured here as a ruse and that both men had slipped back down to Stow Lake on one of the other trails. He holstered his gun. He slid his phone from his pocket to call Dr. Stein.
When he turned his back for a split second, he felt a rush of movement behind him.
Frost reached for his gun and spun around, but the back of his skull erupted into a fire of pain. His eyes burst with light and went black, and he sank to his knees and then pitched into the mud. Through the roaring in his ears, he heard shouting and pounding steps, but the noise went wildly up and down. He tried to stand. Dizziness screwed through his head like a spike, and he collapsed again. When he opened his eyes, the world was upside down.
Somewhere, far away, he heard another gunshot.
He crawled toward the slope. Mud and leaves covered his face, and lights exploded behind his eyes like pinpoint fireworks. His fingernails scraped at the bark of a redwood tree, and he used the tree trunk to pull himself to a standing position. He leaned against it, feeling the world spin as it righted itself. He could hear the two men on the hillside below him. They were getting away.
Frost pushed off from the tree and took a step down. His brain felt sucked up into the cyclone. He opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn’t say anything at all. Rain trickled down his back, but it wasn’t rain. He tasted metallic wetness on his fingers, and it was blood.
He felt himself falling sideways, with no way to stop it; he fell, hit the slope, and rolled. His body slid, spun, slammed against tree roots, and the hill carried him shoulder over shoulder to the dirt of the next trail fifty feet below him.
He landed hard, and he passed out.
Lucy sat by the window with a mug of tea. She leaned her head against the cold glass and watched the rain sweep through the street. A MUNI bus plowed down Haight like a ship slicing through ocean waves. Three teenage girls splashed through puddles on the sidewalk. Lights had come on in the other apartment buildings, and she could see people inside.