The Night Bird

37

Pam dressed to make sure everyone was looking at her. She wore a knee-length bodycon dress in a bold orange color, with black buttons making an S from her neck to her hips. Her blond hair framed her face and hung in layers halfway down her back. Her lipstick was baby pink. She wore a tiny crooked smile, as if the world were a joke and she knew the punch line.

For Frankie, staring at Pam was like looking at a mirror that transformed her into a younger, more erotic version of herself. She felt jealous of Pam, and Pam felt jealous of her. The war never ended.

She sat down opposite Pam at the Zingari window table. Virgil, whose dark eyes looked hungover, swooped in with iced tea, and Pam already had a martini in front of her. Her sister pointedly studied her phone without looking up. Frankie ordered a prosciutto pizza for lunch.

“So all this time, you knew,” Frankie said after the silence had gone on too long.

Her sister didn’t stop texting. “That Daddy took a dive? Yes.”

“And it doesn’t bother you?”

Pam put down the phone and laced her long fingers together. Her fingernails matched her dress. “What part do you mean, Sis? The part where our father kills himself? Or the part where my delicate flower of a sister can’t handle it and decides to forget the whole thing?”

Frankie thought, Missile launched. She wanted to fire back in kind, but she didn’t even remember enough to explain herself. She didn’t know why she’d felt the need to wipe away what she saw. She’d always thought of herself as strong, but maybe Pam was right. Maybe Frankie was afraid of feeling anything. Love. Hate. Desire. Grief.

God knows Pam would never let emotion get in the way of doing what she wanted.

“You’ve been playing with me, haven’t you?” Frankie asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The things you’ve said about Dad lately. It was a game to you. You wanted to see if I remembered anything.”

Pam sipped her martini and shrugged. “I’ve always wondered if your shrink biz is just a big scam. Can you really change someone’s memory? Or if you poke and prod, does it all come rushing back?”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

Virgil returned to the table. He put a caprese salad in front of Pam and glanced between the sisters. “If you’re going to have a girl fight, ladies, at least give me time to sell tickets.”

“No fight,” Pam said with a cool stare at Frankie. “She knows I’d win.”

“I’m sure you would,” Frankie replied.

Pam examined the bags under Virgil’s eyes and the limp swoop in his lavish hair. “Bad night, V? You look all hangdog.”

“When I look like this, it was a good night,” Virgil replied.

Pam smirked. Frankie waited until they had the table to themselves again. She didn’t know why she wanted to torture herself with the details when it was too late to change anything.

“When did Jason tell you?” Frankie asked. “Before or after?”

“Before. He thought I should know what you were going to do. Not that I had a say in it. You do what’s best for Frankie. You always have.”

Frankie’s lips pressed tighter together, and she didn’t reply. Pam leaned across the table and whispered, “Why, does it piss you off that Jason told me? At least someone in the family cares enough to include me.”

“That’s a cheap shot,” Frankie replied.

“Really? You’ve been MIA for the past year. You’re off in Frankie world, and some of us are back here in the real world.”

“That’s rich, coming from you. You’ve never lived a day in the real world.”

“At least I don’t run away from it,” Pam snapped.

Frankie’s brow furrowed as she felt the emptiness in her brain again, the place where something was missing that she couldn’t get back. Now that it was gone, she wanted to remember.

Virgil set Frankie’s pizza in front of her. He’d overheard most of their conversation. “Tickets, ladies. Remember, tickets.”

“Not now, Virgil, please,” Frankie murmured.

“You’re right, a thousand apologies to both of you. Write it off to last night’s party.” Virgil leaned down and whispered in Frankie’s ear. “Truly, darling, I’m sorry to intrude. You know I can’t stop myself. With everything going on, though, I thought you should know. Somebody outside the restaurant is watching you.”

Frankie’s eyes shot to the window.

Todd Ferris stood on Post Street. His eyes had the same intense, faraway sadness they always did. As if, in his young life, he’d already given up on the future. She could see him mouthing three words.

It happened again.

She persuaded Todd to go with her to her Union Square office by promising no notes and no recordings. He refused to go into her treatment room, and she struggled even to get him to sit down. He paced repeatedly on his long legs, twisting his navy wool cap between his fingers.

“The last thing I remember is Monday night,” he murmured in his low voice, making her struggle to hear him. “I had a tech job over at the planetarium. I help them with their videography sometimes. The job went late. But that’s it. The next thing I knew, I was waking up on the street. In Dogpatch again. The other side of the city.”

“Where in Dogpatch?” Frankie asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. One of the abandoned buildings around there. I hiked a couple blocks and caught a bus.”

“Has it been the same place every time?” she asked.

“No. The same area, but not the same place.”

“Could you find the areas again?”

“Maybe. When I woke up, I wasn’t thinking straight. I just wanted to get the hell away from there.”

“What else do you remember?” she asked.

“There was another girl,” Todd said.

“Did you recognize her?”

“No.”

“Was it the same white room again?”

“Yes.”

“Anything else?” Frankie asked.

Todd stopped in the middle of her office. “A knife.”

“What?”

“I have this image of a knife,” Todd said. “I don’t know why or what it means, but I can’t get it out of my head.”

He sat down in the chair opposite Frankie and grabbed hold of the edge of her desk with both hands. “What’s happening to me, Dr. Stein? Don’t tell me you don’t know.”

Frankie tried to concentrate. Todd’s memory of the knife disturbed her. She thought about the smart young college student who lived two doors down from Darren Newman. Merrilyn Somers, singer, gamer, techie. She was a sweet girl who wound up dead on her apartment bed, stabbed seven times with a knife.

“Dr. Stein?” Todd said again, when Frankie didn’t answer. His honey voice was almost a whisper. “Do you know what it’s like when something terrible happens to you? You relive it over and over. It won’t go away. It starts to take over your whole life.”

“Yes, I know.”

That was why patients came to her. To wipe those memories clean like chalk from a blackboard.

“I can’t keep waking up with these nightmares in my head,” Todd said. “I don’t know who I am anymore. I have to do something about it.”

She didn’t like what she heard in his voice or saw in his eyes. “Exactly what are you saying, Todd?”

“I’m going crazy,” he told her. “I’d rather die than go on feeling like this. I have to make it stop.”

“If you want to do something, talk to the police. Tell them your story.”

Todd bolted out of the chair. His voice got louder. “Are you kidding? Do you want them to arrest me? Don’t you get it? I’ve been doing terrible things to these women. I’m the Night Bird.”

“That’s not the only explanation,” Frankie replied.

“Come on, Dr. Stein, nothing else makes sense! You know it, too. You just want me to turn myself in. You can’t do it yourself, so you want me to go to the police and admit everything. Hell, maybe I should, but that wouldn’t get rid of the nightmares. Don’t you get it? I’m scared of what’s going on in my own mind.”

Frankie got out of her chair and came around the desk. She put both hands on Todd’s shoulders. “What I’m saying is, it’s possible that someone is manipulating you. He wants you to believe that you’re guilty.”

Todd’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What are you talking about?”

Frankie switched on the video player in her office. She didn’t need to go far to find what she wanted. She froze the screen on the image that Todd had taken in the bathroom of the bar.

“Do you recognize this video?”

He cocked his head. “Sure, it’s mine.”

“What about that man?”

Todd stared at Darren Newman. He took two steps closer to the screen without saying anything. He shouldn’t have recognized Newman. The man should have been one of thousands of strangers who passed in and out of a person’s life in a few seconds. But seeing him, Todd couldn’t let go. He inched closer to the television. Newman’s face held him with the power of a magnet.

“Who is he?” Todd murmured.

“Do you recognize him?” Frankie repeated.

“What’s his name?”

She hesitated. “His name is Darren Newman. Have you seen him before?”

“No, I’ve never seen him,” Todd said, “but I know him. Why do I know him?”

“He’s been in the news. Last year, a lot of people thought he was guilty of murder.”

“You think it’s him, don’t you?” Todd said. “You think he’s the one who’s been doing this to these women. And to me.”

“It’s possible.”

“It’s more than possible, isn’t it? That’s why he’s in my video. He’s been stalking me. Why don’t I remember him?”

“He may be using drugs and hypnosis to change your memory,” Frankie said.

Todd spun around. His face was black. “Like you do.”

“Yes,” she acknowledged. “Like I do.”

He loomed over her, and for a moment, she was afraid of what he would do. She saw a man who was about to lose control, who would lash out at anyone in front of him. Then Todd spun away from her and charged toward her office door.

“Todd, where you are you going?” she asked.

“I’m going to kill him,” he said.