The Night Bird

24

Frankie took the measure of the woman seated in the chair in her office. She was young. To Frankie, twenty-five years old felt like a lifetime ago, when the world was as bright and flawless as a newly minted penny. The woman — barely more than a girl — kept her hands in her lap, but her thumbs rubbed nervously together. Her brown hair fell loosely at her shoulders without any special style. She wore cropped jeans, heels, and a long-sleeve knit top with pink-and-white stripes. Makeup didn’t completely cover the half-moons under her eyes, and her rounded nose was a little big for the rest of her face, but she had a freshness about her that was easy to like.

“It’s Lucy, isn’t it?” Frankie asked.

“Yes. Lucy Hagen. I appreciate your seeing me on such short notice, Dr. Stein.”

“Please, you don’t have to be so formal with me. I’m Francesca. Or Frankie. Whatever you like.”

“Thanks. Frankie.”

“Actually, I need to tell you that I’m not taking on new patients now. I can talk to you about what I do, but if you want to move forward, I’m going to ask you to wait a little while.”

“Because of the thing in the news?” Lucy asked.

Frankie hid her frustration. The Night Bird was driving a wedge between her and the people she was trying to help.

“That’s right. I don’t believe that what’s going on has anything to do with my treatments, but I’d rather be absolutely safe. I can give you other names if you’d like to see someone else.”

“No, I want to be here. At least so I can find out whether you think you can help me.”

“Okay. Well, what did you want to talk to me about, Lucy?”

The young woman squirmed in the chair. “Have you ever heard of gephyrophobia?”

“Of course. It’s a fear of bridges.”

“That’s me,” Lucy said.

“That must be very hard, living in the Bay Area.”

“Oh my God. You can’t imagine.”

“Has it been a problem for you for a long time?”

“Years. Forever. Sometimes I think I should move. I’ve even looked at maps to find cities that don’t have any bridges. I guess that’s pretty weird.”

Frankie smiled and shook her head. The first step with every patient was to make them feel normal. “It’s not weird at all. Does it help to know that you’re not alone? There are thousands of people living in this area with the very same condition.”

“Really? I feel like a freak.”

“You’re not,” Frankie told her. “I promise.”

Lucy’s face broke into a grin of relief. “Cool.”

“It says on the form that you’re twenty-five years old. Have you talked to anyone about your fear of bridges before now, Lucy? Another therapist or counselor? Or is this the first time?”

“This is the first time,” Lucy said. “I’ve looked it up online, but that’s it.”

Frankie cocked her head a little. “So why now?”

“What?”

“It takes courage to confront a phobia, no matter what it is. Many people go for years — or even their whole lives — without dealing with it. I was just wondering if anything in your life led you to face your fears at this particular moment.”

“Oh. I don’t know. I guess there are lots of things.”

Lucy got out of the chair. She looked uncomfortable. Frankie watched her pace back and forth and knew she was on the verge of losing her. You never knew which questions would push a patient outside their comfort zone. Something was going on with Lucy Hagen — something more than a fear of bridges. But most people’s phobias had deep roots.

“Tell you what,” Frankie said, grabbing her cell phone from her desk. “Would you like to see the room where we actually do the work? It’s a little nicer than my office.”

“You don’t do it right here?” Lucy asked.

“Oh no. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Frankie crossed to the door that led to the therapy room and gestured for Lucy to join her. After a moment’s hesitation, Lucy did. Frankie held the door open for her, and Lucy went in first. The young woman’s eyes widened at the high ceiling, the huge 4K screen, the bookshelves, the watercolor paintings, and the comfortable chaise in the center of the room. The carpet was so lush that you wanted to take off your shoes and dance on it.

“Wow,” Lucy said.

Frankie laughed. “Yes, it’s almost like a little getaway, isn’t it? I love it here. I use it myself to relax. Some patients want to vacation here.”

She went to the console and programmed the screen to play high-definition video of snow falling on a flat Midwestern field. She chose a Helen Jane Long album for background music. Lucy sat on the side of the chaise and soaked up the feel of the space.

“I want people to feel that this is the safest place they’ve ever been,” Frankie told her. “There’s no fear in here. There are definitely no bridges.”

“Wow,” Lucy said again. “I love it.”

“Good.”

“You’re right, by the way,” Lucy went on. “I do feel like I’m at some kind of turning point. I’m not sure I can describe it.”

“Just go ahead and talk. It doesn’t have to make sense.”

“Well, these past few days, a lot of things have happened. I lost someone. A friend of mine died. And then at the same time, I met someone. I like him. So I just feel like — I don’t know, like a girl who’s scared to death of bridges isn’t the person I want to be. That must sound crazy.”

“Not at all, Lucy.”

“Bridges make me feel like I’m going to freak out and throw myself off. I don’t want to feel that way anymore.”

“I understand,” Frankie said.

Lucy’s voice was low. “Can you tell me how it works? I mean, I know that you erase people’s memories. Would you try to make me forget that I’m afraid of bridges?”

“No, it’s not quite like that. For some people, their trauma began with a triggering event — some crisis in their past. Is there anything like that with you and bridges? Did you have a bad experience?”

“Not that I remember. They just scare the crap out of me.”

“Okay. Well, if you decide to become a patient in the future, what we would do is talk a lot about your fears — and about everything else in your life, too. The more I know about you, the more I can help you find a way forward. And then we might decide to help you remember better things about bridges. Not scary things. Good things. Maybe one time you were staring over the edge of a high bridge, and then a butterfly came and landed on your hand. It was the most amazing thing. You felt as if the butterfly had chosen you. That it saw something special in you. It was liberating.”

“I could really remember something like that?”

“Maybe it already happened, and you forgot,” Frankie said, smiling.

“Would I be hypnotized?”

“Yes. Have you ever been hypnotized before?”

“In a college class once. The professor said I was very susceptible, whatever that means.”

“It means you respond well to hypnotic suggestion. That’s good. It helps the treatment work.”

“What about drugs?” Lucy asked.

“There are drugs that can help facilitate what we do, but you’re the one who says yes or no.”

Lucy was quiet. She stared around the room again. “And could something go wrong? I mean, could I wind up like those other women—”

Frankie wanted to say no. It wasn’t me! It wasn’t my fault!

But she couldn’t say that. She wasn’t even sure if she believed it anymore. They were all inside her head. Monica. Brynn. Christie. Their fears were her own now. Somehow, she’d failed them.

“The mind is a powerful thing, Lucy,” she said quietly. “A surgeon can’t give you any guarantees, and neither can I. But I can promise you one thing. If you want to take the first step — if you want to cross the bridge — you won’t be alone. I’ll be with you the whole way.”

Frost waited near the doors of Saks Fifth Avenue while Lucy went inside Francesca Stein’s office building. Behind his sunglasses, his eyes went from face to face in the Union Square crowd to see if anyone was watching Lucy. When he was satisfied that no one was, he crossed the street and did a circuit of the street performers and the homeless who haunted the plaza. He’d learned over the years that they made the best spies.

He’d found a photograph online that was similar to the mask he’d seen overnight. Half a dozen people recognized it. The mask was hard to forget. Even so, no one had seen the man behind the mask, and no one had seen him come or go in the square. The Night Bird was careful.

His forensic team hadn’t given him good news. The compact disc that Frost had found in the parking garage had been wiped clean of fingerprints. The same was true of the Cutlass that had been left outside his building. The car had been stolen a week earlier, and the license plates had been swapped. The electronic tracing on the man’s texts, e-mails, and online posts had ended in an anonymous account.

Every clue turned out to be a dead end.

Frost bought a hot dog and waited for Lucy. The cable cars came and went on Powell Street. It was a sunny Monday afternoon, warm and still. He checked his watch over and over, because he was impatient for Lucy to be out of Francesca Stein’s office. He didn’t want her in there at all.

An hour passed before he saw Lucy emerge from the building lobby. He waved to her, and she waved back. She cut across the street traffic to meet him, and she was a little breathless.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah! Fine!” She saw his worried face and said, “Really, Frost, I’m fine.”

“How’d it go?”

“I like her. I think I might go ahead with it.”

“Lucy, let me solve this case first,” he said. “Give it some time.”

“I will. She wanted me to wait, too. Are you worried about me?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” she said. “Are you busy? Do you want to go somewhere? You can debrief me. Isn’t that what secret agents do?”

“I’ve got to talk to Dr. Stein myself,” Frost said. “How about we meet up a little later?”

“Yeah, definitely.” She was in a very good mood.

“Alembic? Ten o’clock?”

“Perfect.”

Lucy turned away, but Frost stopped her with a gentle hand on her wrist. “Lucy? Be careful, okay? I asked you to keep your eyes open, and I mean it. If you see anything that looks suspicious, call me.”

“If I spot any creepy masks, I will scream.”

“I’m serious,” he told her.

“I know you are. I like that you want to protect me.”