The Night Bird (Frost Easton #1)

She felt anxious, as if she’d walked into a room and couldn’t remember why she’d come here. She had something important to do, but she had no idea what it was. She’d felt that way all day, and the rain didn’t help.

She was depressed about Frost rejecting her. He would have been the perfect man for a rainy night like this. He was funny and serious, mature and playful, handsome and boy next door. That was exactly what she’d always wanted and what she’d thought she would never find. She’d let herself hope there might be something between them, so it hurt to find out that he was looking for a sister, not a girlfriend. She still wanted him. It was easy to imagine him kissing her and making love to her, even if it was never going to happen.

Where was her life going? Nowhere.

Seven years on her own in San Francisco, and she still felt like a visitor here. The city overwhelmed her. There was too much of everything, and she found herself carried along, not choosing where to go. She wasn’t like Frost. Or Brynn.

Growing up in Modesto, she couldn’t wait to get out to the big world. Her parents lived in a boring suburb where girls became teachers and married guys who worked in banks or insurance companies. She’d wanted to escape all of that, but now it didn’t sound so bad.

There was a lot of sunshine in Modesto. There were no bridges.

She sipped her tea and thought again, I have something to do.

What?

Lucy peered down at the street below her window. The police car was still there, hammered by the rain. She’d met the officer inside, a woman about her own age named Violet Harris. Two hours earlier, Officer Harris had walked with her to the corner to get take-out coffee, and Lucy had bought her an almond–white chocolate scone. They talked about Macy’s and makeup, which was a strange conversation to have with a cop. When Lucy went back upstairs, Officer Harris told her to stop by the car if she needed anything. She’d be on duty until midnight, and then someone else would take over.

“I’ll have to use the back door to the alley,” Lucy murmured to herself.

She sat up sharply, almost spilling her tea. She had no idea why she’d said that or where the thought had come from. It just popped into her head.

Lucy got up and paced, unable to shake her restless, anxious feeling. Nothing felt right. Time barely moved. She didn’t want to put on music. She didn’t want to eat, because she wasn’t hungry. She turned on the television, despite Frost’s warning, but five minutes later, she turned it off. She wished he would come back, but she knew it might be hours before she saw him again. And even if he did come back, it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t be what she wanted.

“This is stupid,” she told herself.

She reheated her tea and took it to the window to watch the black clouds slouch across the sky. The downpour sounded like fingernails tapping on the glass.

Luuuucy.

She spun around, stifling a scream. The mug slipped from her fingers and spilled. She’d heard a voice, but no one was there. The apartment was empty. She was alone in the silence. And yet the voice was in her head, as crystal clear as if someone were standing next to her.

Lucy grabbed her phone and dialed. She wanted to talk to Frost, and she was disappointed when the call went to his voice mail.

“Hey, it’s me,” she said, leaving him a message. “I’d love to talk to you. Will you be able to come by later? Or I could come to your place. Don’t worry, everything’s fine.”

She hung up. Then, almost immediately, she called him again.

“Actually, no, everything’s not fine. Something’s wrong. I don’t know what it is. Call me as soon as you can, okay?”

Lucy put down her phone and went to get paper towels to sop up the spilled tea. Before she got there, her phone started ringing, and she sprinted back to scoop it up and answer it on the second ring. “Wow, that was fast,” she told him. “I’m so glad you called back. I really needed to hear your voice.”

But it wasn’t Frost.

At first, there was a long stretch of eerie quiet.

Then the music began.

She heard a flourish of drums and guitar and the whine of a synthesized keyboard. The monster beat started in her ear and wormed into her brain. Her jaw went slack. Her breathing got faster. She didn’t want to look down, but she had no choice, and when she did, she saw the gorge below her and felt the sway of the rope bridge. Her body was paralyzed. She couldn’t move.

“Luuuucy,” the Night Bird whispered into the phone. “Luuuucy.”

“Please . . . no . . . please . . . don’t do this . . .”

The song thumped its rhythm over and over. The synthesizer drowned out the storm and the wind. Spasms rippled through her muscles. She didn’t see her apartment anymore. Her world was a thousand feet of air, descending past stone cliffs to an icy glacial river.

“Listen to me, do you want to be free?”

“Yes . . . yes . . . what do you want?”

“It’s up to you, you know what to do.”

Tears streamed down Lucy’s face. She listened to the music. She felt the bridge go back and forth, bucking with the gusts. She wanted to fly, to die, to go anywhere, to do anything, if only she could make it stop.

“It’s up to you, you know what to do.”

He said it again. And again.

“You know what to do. You know what to do. You know what to do.”

Calmly, Lucy hung up the phone. Yes, she knew what to do. She walked to her closet and collected her raincoat and umbrella. She gathered up her purse from the dinette table.

Go out the back, she remembered.

She marched to the door of her apartment and opened it, but she paused as she stared into the dusty hallway. Her work wasn’t done. Not yet. She wasn’t ready to leave. There was one more thing.

Leaving the door ajar, Lucy turned around and went to the kitchen.

She opened the middle drawer, extracted a carving knife with a ten-inch blade, and slid it inside her purse.





41


Frankie waited as long as she could.

Five minutes passed. Lightning lit up the trees, and thunder followed, reverberating under the ground. Frost didn’t come back. The backup he’d requested didn’t arrive.

Sitting alone in the car, she heard a distant noise. It was almost part of the air. Moments later, she heard it a second time. She opened the door, letting in the rain, and leaned out to listen. Whatever the noise was, it was gone now, and it didn’t happen again. She pulled the door shut. Her impatience grew. She called Frost’s phone number, but there was no answer.

Ten minutes passed.

He should have been back by now.

Frankie climbed out of the truck into the driving rain. The street was empty. Trees bent, waving their branches at her. She continued past the bend in the road and saw that Darren Newman’s Lexus was gone. It had left recently; there was still a dry patch where the car had been parked. She squinted into the storm but couldn’t see taillights.

“Frost!” she shouted. Her voice sounded muffled, and she shouted again, as loud as she could. “Frost!”

She hiked up the shoulder to the gravel trail beside Stow Lake. The first thing she saw, sopping wet and lying in the mud, was a wool cap.

It was Todd’s.

Six feet away, in the middle of the path, was a gun.

“Frost!” she screamed again, but he didn’t answer. A finger of worry crept up her spine.

She started running into the wind. At the stone arch bridge, she crossed over the water to Strawberry Hill. Her hair was plastered to her skin, and she wiped rain from her eyes. The mud grabbed at her shoes. She followed overlapping footprints next to the lake, with leaves and pine needles blowing into her face. Where the path curved, she found a cross trail leading sharply uphill.

There she saw a ghost.

It wasn’t the White Lady. A man rose in darkness from the ground, barely visible against the forest. It was Frost. His skin was pale. Dirt matted his hair and clothes. He moved slowly, cupping the back of his skull with one hand. His other hand was striped with blood. He navigated one step downward, and Frankie rushed to his side and let him ease his weight against her with an arm around his waist. They struggled to the lakeside trail.