He shook his head. “Nothing. The wind keeps cutting out the mic.”
She didn’t believe him. “What the hell is going on out there, Frost?”
He ignored her and barked into the microphone of his headset. “Frankie. I know you can hear me. Get away from him right now. We’re coming in from both sides. We’ll have a chopper and sharpshooter overhead in seconds, but we need you out of there.”
He listened. The microphone on the other end was still live. He heard Frankie through the static, but she wasn’t listening to him. She was caught up in the story that Todd was telling her. It didn’t matter whether it was true.
“Did I . . . ?” she murmured.
Frost shouted. “Frankie, he’s lying to you. Get out of there! He’s playing games with your head, and then he’s going to kill you.”
She didn’t answer. She was under his spell.
Frost took off running again. Jess tried to keep up with him, but he was younger and faster, and adrenaline drove him forward. He widened the gap between the two of them. His shoes slipped and splashed through mud. He bolted through pockets of trees and then emerged into the full fury of the wind in his face. A slight slope rose on the hillside in front of him, and when he reached the summit, he could see the headlands spread out like a panorama.
They were there. Frankie and Todd. Two hundred yards away, down the winding path, inches from the unstable rocks of the cliff face.
Far beyond them, he saw the rest of his team running southward, trying to close the gap.
Over his head, he heard the throb of the police helicopter.
“Frankie,” he shouted again. “Run.”
“Did I do it?” Frankie asked, her mind flooded with confusion. “Was it me? Did I kill him?”
“Is that so hard to believe?” Todd said. “A daughter killing her father? A father who never loved her for even a minute of his life?”
“I wouldn’t do something like that. Never.”
“Are you sure?” Todd taunted her. “Come on, Frankie. You know what happened. You were right here. Remember.”
Her fists clenched. She heard voices in her head. Her father’s voice, bloodless, demanding, accusing.
Question. Is it acceptable to pursue your own selfish satisfaction when it causes risk to someone else?
Question. So it’s okay to risk another’s life or happiness simply because you really want something?
And then one more. The worst one.
Question. Are you and Jason still sleeping together?
That bastard. How dare he ask something like that. As if he knew that the answer was no.
Or was it just a dream?
Frankie closed her eyes. She no longer knew what was real and what wasn’t. “I don’t remember anything from that weekend.”
“I think you do,” Todd badgered her. He was relentless, not letting go. “I heard your husband try to drive the memory out of your brain in your office, but you resisted him. You didn’t want to forget what happened. He tried over and over, but the truth kept squirming back in.”
“No,” she whispered, trying to convince herself. “There’s nothing left.”
“Do you know what Jason did while you were under hypnosis? While he was trying to erase your past? He asked you about Darren Newman. He was obsessed with the two of you.”
“What?”
“He made you tell him everything that happened between you and Darren,” Todd said. “It was sickening, Frankie.”
“There was nothing between us. I never had sex with Darren.”
“Are you sure? Or do you think Jason erased that memory, too?”
“I didn’t,” she repeated, trying to convince herself. She was sure it was the truth, but suddenly, she didn’t know. She didn’t know anything. Reality slipped out of her grasp.
“You told Jason all about it, Frankie. He made you go through every detail. Every position. Every place you did it. You told him everything.”
“No, those were fantasies—”
“Were they? Or did Jason simply make you think that? Did your father know what you did? Did he know that you slept with Darren Newman? Did he confront you? Is that why you pushed him off the cliff?”
“I didn’t do that. I didn’t. I never would.”
“Then what really happened, Frankie? Tell me.”
“I don’t know!”
“Of course you do. You remember. Think. You were so smooth when you lied to the rangers. They believed your story. They believed that your father went off on the trail by himself, and he fell. But that’s a lie. You were here on the cliff with him. You know what happened. You saw everything.”
“It’s all blank,” she said. “I don’t remember anything.”
“A daughter killing her father,” Todd repeated. “A father who never loved her for even a minute of his life.”
“That’s not true. He loved me.”
“Did he? Did he really love you? Well, what about her?”
Frankie blinked. “What?”
“What about your sister, Frankie? Did he love her? She was always a disappointment to him, wasn’t she? Always a failure.”
“What are you saying—”
“You’re not the only one who lied to the rangers. Your sister lied, too. You both covered it up.”
“Pam wasn’t there,” Frankie said.
Todd smiled at her. “Of course she was.”
Frankie heard a roaring in her head. It got louder and louder. Somewhere, distantly, someone shouted. It was Frost, but she heard other shouts in her memory, too. An argument. Voices raised. Over her head, she heard the beat-beat-beat of a helicopter drawing closer, but she also heard her own voice, months earlier, screaming.
She could see them on the cliff. The two of them. Her father and her sister.
“Stop!”
She screamed it again in the here and now. Out loud. Over and over. She shouted exactly what she’d shouted at Pam. “Stop, stop, stop, what are you doing, stop!”
Todd grabbed her wrists. “Pam didn’t stop, did she?”
“Oh my God.”
Frost was close to the two of them. He was almost here, sprinting, calling to her. He was steps away. She could hear him in her ear, and she could hear him on the trail: “Run, get away, get away!”
Todd took Frankie’s wrists and slapped them against his own chest. He had them locked tightly in his grasp, and she couldn’t wriggle free. “It was just like this, wasn’t it? Remember? Pam and your father were right by the edge. Right like we are now. You saw them.”
Frankie heard it in her head. In her memory. Her own voice.
Pam, stop! Don’t!
“You know what happened next,” Todd said. “You saw what she did to him. I’m not going to let you forget. I want you to remember everything. I want you to die with the truth.”
Frankie saw it in her head. The memories came back. It was a blur, and the blur became a sketch, and the sketch became a painting, and the painting became a photograph. Pam was on the cliff’s edge. So was her father. They were arguing. Screaming. She didn’t understand it. She’d heard it get bad between them before, but never like that. And then— “Say it,” Todd hissed.
Frankie felt Todd drag her toward the cliff. “She pushed him.”
Frost stopped on the trail and drew his gun, but he had no shot. Frankie and Todd were too close together, doing battle over a few inches of ragged ground where the headland fell away toward the beach.
Overhead, the police helicopter hovered, insanely loud, wobbling in the wind toward a soft landing in the field. A sharpshooter balanced near the door, but he had no shot, either. The chopper would be on the ground in thirty seconds, but by then, it would all be over, one way or another. From the north, three other police officers sprinted toward them, but they were nearly a football field away.