The Night Bird

28

Frost checked his watch for what felt like the hundredth time. By ten thirty, Lucy still hadn’t arrived at Alembic.

He kept an eye on the front window, where he could see the night lights of Haight Street. His phone was on the bar in front of him, and every time it lit up, he expected a text or call from Lucy, but she was off the grid. He heard from Duane. Herb. Jess. But nothing from Lucy.

A finger of worry stroked his neck. He texted her again.

The message didn’t get delivered. When he dialed her number, the call went to voice mail. Her phone was off. He left another message and then drummed his palm on the bar impatiently. He peered through the crowd, expecting to see her face. She’d see him, she’d smile, she’d wave. Everything would be fine.

But it wasn’t fine.

At ten forty-five, he left. He walked two blocks back to where he’d parked his Suburban. When he got inside, he headed east on Haight. Lucy’s apartment was twenty blocks away, and he cut across the city, past the wild neighborhoods of Tibetan craft shops, piercing salons, and drag fashion boutiques. He parked in front of a vacant lot opposite her apartment building. Traffic was heavy, and he ducked across the street between cars. At the gated security door, he pushed the buzzer for Lucy’s apartment. No one answered. She wasn’t home.

He noticed lights in the apartment above his head, so he pushed the bell to get their attention. An older woman in a paisley dress and slippers stepped out onto the balcony above him. He held up his badge, and she buzzed him through the gate into the building. Inside, the stairwell was musty. He jogged four flights to Lucy’s door, and when he knocked hard, the door eased inward with a quiet click. It wasn’t latched.

The apartment was dark, except for the streetlights from the window overlooking Haight.

He called out. “Lucy?”

He switched on the overhead light. The studio apartment was just as he remembered. Nothing looked disturbed. The room smelled of pine cleaner, and most of the clutter from the floor was gone. He saw a magenta dress stretched neatly across Lucy’s bed, and next to it was a matching pair of two-inch heels. That was what she’d planned to wear to Alembic, but she never put it on.

Frost spotted Lucy’s purse on the kitchen table. When he checked it, he found her wallet inside and her apartment keys. He felt a pounding in his head, but he pushed it aside to concentrate on what was in front of him. This was no time for emotion. Work the case.

He remembered their last conversation.

What are you doing now?

Taking out the garbage.

She’d had her phone with her, but he didn’t see her phone inside the apartment. She never came back. He took her purse and locked the door behind him as he left. He took the steps back to the ground floor and followed the hallway to a locked door at the back of the building. Outside, he found himself in a narrow alley.

A streetlight halfway down the block cast a dim glow. The cold wind blew into his face. He saw a black garbage bag hanging down the side of a trash bin ten feet away. Debris littered the pavement near his shoes. The pages of an old copy of Cosmopolitan magazine flapped in the breeze, and Frost bent down and picked it up.

He checked the mailing label. The magazine was addressed to Brynn Lansing.

Frost slammed his fist against the stone wall of the apartment building so hard that he thought he broke a bone. He knew exactly what had happened.

The Night Bird had taken her.

“Luuuucy. Luuuucy.”

Lucy heard the voice calling her back to the bridge, but she didn’t want to go. Wherever she was now, she could simply drift along in dreams. Frost was there, and they were kissing. She could taste him on her lips as if it were real. They were in a park, alone on the green grass, and the sun beat down, warming them. She smelled honeysuckle and heard the rumble of ocean waves.

“Luuuucy.”

She didn’t want to go back, but the voice was irresistible. It chased away her dreams. The fog of her memory cleared, and she knew what to expect next. The music. When the music began, she went to the bridge. As much as she tried to hold it back, as much as she wanted to stay away, the music carried her, like a hawk snatching a bird out of the sky.

The voice taunted her. “The ground, the ground, it’s so far down.”

“Please, no,” she murmured in her head, but she made no actual sound. She stared into whiteness around her. She heard only her own breathing, coming faster as she waited for the music. Her skin was damp with sweat.

“Better not fall, better not fall!”

“Oh, no, no, no, not that. Not again.”

She stood frozen in place, alone among nothingness. She couldn’t go back to the bridge, but she had no choice. The music exploded like fireworks in her brain. It filled the room, filled her mind — loud and wild. The beat of the song thumped so heavily in her chest that she could barely take a breath. The whiteness of the room dissolved from her eyes.

She saw the bridge. She was on the bridge.

“No... stop it... make it stop...”

Thin cables spanned two cliff tops, sinking into a nearly bottomless gorge. She stood on wooden boards, riveted with gaps so that she could see the earth falling away below her. The footbridge was no more than two feet wide. The cables sank down and down and down under their own weight. The other end of the bridge looked tiny in the distance, clinging to a snow-patched mountain like a breath of wind would unhinge it. And the wind blew. The wind howled. It made the bridge sway, dizzying her, threatening to pitch her into the abyss.

“Better not fall, better not fall!” the voice sang in her ear.

The music wailed, discordant and out of place in the outdoors. It should have been silent here except for the roaring wind, but the song went on and on, deafening her. Synthesizer. Guitars. Drums. No words, no voices — just the unrelenting music.

Lucy was paralyzed. Crippled by fear. Back and forth went the bridge. Hundreds of feet down, a green glacial lake fed a river. The glacier itself wriggled through the mountain pass. Craggy gray cliffs rose above her head. She wanted to grab the cables to steady herself, but her arms hung at her side, leaden, unmoving. She wanted to close her eyes, but her eyelids were taped open so that all she could do was see. Her legs could barely hold her. Her body shook, buffeted by the wind. She stood alone over the chasm.

“Can you fly? Can you fly? Will you die? Will you die?”

She wanted to throw herself into the gorge. Anything to make the fear stop. Anything so that it would be over. Her limbs disintegrated into shivers. Her brain rebelled and escaped. Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop.

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

“Yes, yes, yes, make it stop,” she tried to say, but she was voiceless, and she cried dry tears. Her heart rocketed as if it would beat its way through her chest to get away. “Let me jump, let me die, I can’t take anymore, I can’t, I can’t.”

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

Something appeared in front of her. Like a hologram, spinning. It was shiny, it was bright. It was a dagger, with a black handle. The edges were honed to razor-sharp blades, and it ended with a cutting point. All she had to do was reach out and grab it. She knew that was what the voice wanted. She had to take it in her grasp, but she couldn’t.

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

The knife twirled and glinted in the light, as if suspended on a thread that danced in the wind. She could take one step, she could reach out her hand, and she would have it. The knife made the bridge go away, but once she had it, she knew what the voice wanted her to do.

The wind got louder, fighting with the music.

She didn’t want to take the knife, but she couldn’t stay here, not one second longer. The blade dangled only inches away. Sharp and deadly. As if it were already dripping blood.

Lucy screamed soundlessly; then she leaped for the knife and curled the handle in her fist. She clenched it so tightly she would never let go. Immediately, the panorama around her dissolved. The bridge disappeared. The mountains and the glacier faded to whiteness. She was in a dazzling white room. Her feet were on solid ground. But the music kept playing, and the knife was in her hand now. There was only one way to stop the music once and for all. One way to keep the bridge from coming back.

The voice whispered in her ear.

“The knife is the key. Set yourself free.”