The Night Bird

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.

“Did you see them?” he asked.

Frankie shook her head. “No. Darren’s car is gone. I think he has Todd Ferris with him. I saw a gun on the trail.”

“One of them jumped me,” Frost said. “I don’t know which one. He hit me from behind. Did the backup get here?”

“Not yet.”

She checked the back of his head. Rain had washed away most of the blood, but she found swelling near the back of his ear, and when she grazed the area with her fingers, he winced with pain.

“Let’s get you to a hospital. They’ll need to check for concussion.”

“I’m okay.”

“Did you pass out?”

“A couple seconds, no more.”

“You’re not okay,” Frankie said.

She helped him along the path and across the stone bridge. The rain showed no signs of stopping. They retrieved the gun from the trail, and then Frankie helped Frost into the passenger seat of the Suburban. She went around the other side and got behind the wheel, but before she could start the engine, red lights flared ahead and behind, lighting up the park and the downpour. Silently, without sirens, four police cars surrounded her like phantoms. A dark-blue sedan joined them and pulled adjacent to the window, close enough that Frankie couldn’t open the door. She saw a severe, heavyset Hispanic woman climb out of the sedan.

“That’s my lieutenant,” Frost said. “Jess Salceda.”

“I know her,” Frankie murmured. “From last year.”

Frost lowered the passenger window. The lieutenant leaned inside, dripping rain. Her eyes acknowledged Frankie, but there was no love lost between them. Frankie knew that Salceda blamed her for Darren Newman. Then and now.

“Did you pass Newman’s car on the way in?” Frost asked.

“No.”

“We need a BOLO. He has a hostage with him.”

Salceda passed on the details to another officer, but she didn’t move from the Suburban. Her eyes shot coldly to Frankie and then back to Frost. “Lucy Hagen is gone,” she said.

“What?”

“Violet checked on her. The apartment is empty. I’m sorry, Frost, but I wanted you to know. We’ve put out a report on her, but right now, the best thing we can do is find Newman. Chances are, if we find him, we find Lucy.”

Salceda marched back to her sedan. Frankie watched Frost stare through the windshield. His face was black with shadows. He didn’t even roll up the window. Rain swept inside. The red lights of the police cars made the water shine like blood.

“Frost?” she said.

He didn’t answer.

“Are you okay?”

He still said nothing.

And then, making her jump, her phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number, but she knew who it was.

“Oh my God, what do I do?” she asked.

His voice was calm. “Answer it. Put it on speaker.”

She clicked open the speakerphone. “Hello?”

She heard breathing on the end of the phone and the noise of city traffic. He was in a car. She said again, “Hello?”

A singsong voice, as bitter as the wind, chanted to her.

“Fran-kie... Fran-kie.”

She tried to answer, but she couldn’t make her mouth form any words.

“Fran-kie...”

Chills wracked her wet body. She hissed into the phone. “Stop this, you sick son of a bitch. Stop playing this game.”

He didn’t answer; he simply breathed. And then he said with an odd, childish giggle, “Game’s almost done... game’s almost done.”

Frost gestured for the phone, but Frankie clutched it tightly in her hand. “What else do you want from me? Leave my patients alone. Leave me alone. Don’t you know you’ve already destroyed me? What more is there?”

The Night Bird didn’t answer. Laughter bubbled out of his throat.

Frankie felt her self-control bleeding away. “For God’s sake, why are you doing this? Why?”

The laughter faded to silence, and when he spoke again, his voice was low and cruel.

“You know why... to watch you die.”

Frost peeled the phone out of Frankie’s fingers and barked into it. “This is Frost Easton. Stop the car, and tell us where you are.”

He listened to the dead air.

“You don’t have anywhere to run. Where are you? Where’s Lucy?”

The Night Bird finally whispered back. “Luuuucy... Luuuucy... where are you... Luuuucy...”

Frankie watched Frost close his eyes and try to control himself. “What did you do to her?”

“Luuuucy...”

He slapped the phone shut and pushed it back into her hand.

“Drive,” he told Frankie. “We need to hurry.”

“Drive where?”

“You said Todd woke up in Dogpatch. We’ll start there.”

“Frost, what do you think he’s doing?”

He turned to face her. She could almost hear the pound of the detective’s heartbeat. “I don’t know what this game is all about, but Lucy’s in the middle of it. And so are you.”