The Night Bird

50

She knew where to find Todd. She knew he would be there, in the morning, waiting for her.

The rain had passed away overnight, leaving the early daylight clear and cold. Under her feet, the ground was soft. Far below her, waves thundered against the cliffs, casting up angry white spray and eating into the headlands bit by bit with each season. As she passed in and out of the trees, wind hurtled across the trail. It slapped her face until her cheeks were raw and shoved her so hard with its gusts that she could barely walk.

Her father had taken this same trail. He’d never come back.

Frankie shoved her hands deep into her jacket pockets. She was alone, but she wasn’t really alone. Frost talked to her through the microphone secreted in her ear, under the protection of her fleece ear warmers.

“Any sign of him?”

“No,” she murmured.

“Sorry, you’re breaking up. The wind is causing interference.”

“No,” she repeated. “I don’t see him.”

Todd could be anywhere. He had miles of empty parkland in which to hide. She’d already hiked for an hour after sunrise, waiting for him to confront her, but if he was here, he was watching her silently. Even so, it was only a matter of time before he stepped from the shelter of a tree and blocked the trail.

“You don’t have to do this,” Frost told her again. He’d been urging her not to go to Point Reyes all night.

“Yes, I do.”

Frost didn’t say anything more. He and Jess were half a mile behind her on the trail. Another team of officers, dressed like ordinary hikers, scouted the land to the north. A police helicopter waited on an open hillside two miles away for an order to lift off. The trailheads had been closed; the overnight campgrounds had been evacuated. The police were laying a trap, but Todd knew perfectly well that they were coming for him.

Todd was his real name. Todd Farley, not Todd Ferris. Until last summer, he’d worked for a video production company in Reno. He was three years older than Merrilyn Somers, but the two of them had dated since she was in eighth grade. They’d sung together in the Nightingales choir at their local high school. They’d gotten engaged the summer after Todd graduated from college. They were in love the way only young people can be in love, with no dark clouds hanging over their future.

Until Darren Newman.

Todd had stayed at his job in Reno while Merrilyn went to SF State. He drove over the Sierra Nevada mountains one weekend a month to see her. They had everything planned. Money. Jobs. Children. According to their friends, Todd knew he had something special in Merrilyn. He counted the days until her graduation. He lived and died for her.

Until Darren Newman.

After Merrilyn’s murder, anger filled him up. He raged against Newman. He raged against Frankie. He raged against the police who’d let it happen. Weeks later, with no note or warning, Todd disappeared from Reno. His friends and family had no idea where he went. They only knew that something had broken inside Todd’s soul. He was officially a missing person, according to the Reno police, and the expectation in his hometown was that he’d gone off to a remote spot in the mountains and killed himself, because he couldn’t live without Merrilyn.

But that wasn’t the truth.

He’d gone to San Francisco. Todd Farley had become Todd Ferris. The Night Bird was born.

“He might not come,” Frost said in her ear.

Frankie shook her head, although no one was around to see her. “He’ll be here.”

She struggled against the wind up the coastal trail, following the path along the jagged inlets of the headlands. Low brush clung to the cliff side twenty feet away, where the sharp wall dropped off to a ribbon of beach. Waterfalls spilled down the rocks. Huge stones made islands in the surf. Overhead, the cloudless sky stretched in a swath of azure until it met the midnight blue of the Pacific at the horizon.

Just like it had been on January 1.

She tried to remember, but all she saw in her mind was her father below her, dead eyes staring back where he’d fallen. Everything else — how they got there, what she said, what she did — was blank. Jason knew, but Jason was lying. She didn’t believe him; she didn’t think her father had killed himself. Something else happened. And Todd knew what it was.

He’d listened through the spy software on her phone as Frankie’s memory was wiped away, like a wave erasing footprints on the sand. She had to know what he’d heard.

The trail dipped. The scrub brush of the flatlands disappeared briefly as she sank into a nest of trees. When she climbed out of it, she could see the path hugging the cliffs, with all the low vegetation shivering in the wind.

There he was.

She didn’t know where he’d come from, but now he was directly ahead of her, no more than fifty yards away. His back was to her. He faced the water.

“I see him,” Frankie murmured.

“Say again. You’re breaking up.”

“I see him.”

Todd had tramped away from the trail through the brush to the fragile clifftop. Bits of wet dirt trickled away under his feet toward the beach. Blooms of California poppies dotted the land around him like orange drips of paint. He wore no coat, just a gray sweatshirt and jeans. His thinning hair blew back over his forehead. His eyes looked out into the distance of the ocean, but he knew she was there.

“Where is he?”

“At the cliff.”

“Stay away from him. Let us take it from here.”

“No, I can’t do that,” she said.

In her ear, Frost swore. She knew he was running, but they were far behind her. Frost, Jess, the police officers, the helicopters, all were minutes away. For now, she and Todd had the cliff to themselves.

She left the path and pushed through the sandy soil. The wind nearly lifted her body from the ground. The waves and the gales screamed. So did the white-and-black gulls, hovering gracefully on the currents of air beyond the cliff, as if to taunt those who couldn’t fly.

Todd’s head swiveled as she approached him. He stared at her with his dreamy eyes, but now she could see what was behind those eyes. Loss. Tragedy. Madness. And more than anything else, anger. Fury at the world. Fury at her.

“Fran-kie,” he chanted, using the Night Bird’s voice. “Fran-kie.”

She felt an instant chill. She was conscious of the long drop beside her. In both directions, up and down the coast, she saw no one at all.

“I know who you are,” she told him, raising her voice to be heard over the wind.

He shook his head. When he spoke, he used his own voice again, and she had to come closer to hear him. They were near enough that he could have sent her off the cliff with a swipe of his hand. “You don’t have any idea who I am.”

“You’re Todd Farley. You were in love with Merrilyn Somers. I’m sorry. Really, Todd. I hate what you’ve done, but I’m sorry, too. I know you lost someone you loved. I know the pain you must have felt.”

“Todd Farley is who I was,” he replied. “That’s not who I am anymore. I’m someone different.”

She wondered if Frost could hear him talking, or if the wind drowned Todd’s soft voice.

“Merrilyn would hate that,” Frankie said.

“Don’t pretend that you understand me, and don’t you dare mention her name. You made me what I am now. You. Darren Newman. And the worthless police who couldn’t even put him behind bars. All of you — you’re the ones to blame. You can crucify me if you want, but everyone who died is because of you. You’re the guilty ones.”

“I’m not saying I’m innocent,” she told him. “I made a mistake about Darren Newman.”

“Well, we all have to pay for our mistakes,” Todd said. He stared along the length of the headlands in both directions. “I imagine we have about five minutes before the police get here?”

She didn’t try to lie. “Yes, they’re coming. You can’t get away.”

“I don’t care about getting away.”

“I figured that,” she said.

“Are they listening to us?”

Frankie nodded. “Yes.”

“You know how easy it would be to throw you from this cliff, right?” he said.

“Frankie, get away. Run. Right now. Run.”

She heard Frost in her ear, but she didn’t move. “Is that what you want?”

Todd turned and faced the ocean again. “I told you that I wanted to watch you die, but it was supposed to be one of your patients who plunged in the knife. I thought you would appreciate the irony, having your methods turned against you. Just like I did with those other women. First I wanted to destroy you. Your career. Your reputation. And then I wanted to watch that girl kill you right in front of me. One more second, and she would have done it.”

“And Darren Newman?”

Todd moved as swiftly as a cat. He spun toward her and slid both arms under hers and locked her torso against his chest. She fought, but she couldn’t move. His face was an inch away. He bent to her ear and whispered in a voice that dripped malevolence. “That was all me. Do you really think I’d come this far and let anyone else put a blade down through that monster’s flesh and bone? Do you think I wouldn’t take my revenge on him myself? That I wouldn’t feel his heart slice open under my hand? That I wouldn’t be there to do to him what he did to Merrilyn?”

Todd let go, and she stumbled backward, taking a step away from him. She was breathing hard. She had her chance now. She could turn and run. But they both knew she wouldn’t do that.

“That’s not why you’re here, is it, Frankie?” Todd asked.

“No.”

“No, you have to know the truth. You’d risk my killing you to find out what you forgot. To get your memory back. Imagine that, Dr. Frankenstein. You play your little mind games with everyone else, as if there are no consequences to having part of your soul erased like a defective silicon chip. Well, now you know what it’s really like, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she spat at him through clenched teeth.

“Tell me what you want to know. Ask me.”

“What happened to my father?” Frankie asked.

“What do you think happened to him?”

She closed her eyes. The wind roared. She reached for something, anything, any fragment of reality. “He killed himself,” she said.

“You know that’s not true. Is that what your husband wants you to believe? You know it’s a lie.”

“What happened to him?” she asked again.

“You already know,” Todd told her. “Somewhere deep inside, you know. That’s why you wanted to forget it, but you can’t, can you?”

“Tell me,” she repeated.

“Your father was murdered,” Todd told her. “He didn’t fall. He didn’t jump. He was pushed.”

Frost stopped running. Jess stopped two steps ahead of him and looked back. “What is it? What did you hear?”

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.

Todd had Frankie by the wrists, their arms locked in a tug-of-war. She fought him step by step, digging her shoes into the mud, but the sodden earth sank into ruts under her feet. The wind shoved their bodies back and forth. Their struggle kicked up dirt that flew into the air. Below them, the ocean raged against the beach, and the rocks waited at the base of the cliff, black and sharp.

Frost holstered his gun. The land sloped downward, and he sprinted the last twenty feet separating him from Frankie and Todd. The fall loomed beside him, sucking him closer. His shoes trampled over slick green vines that dripped over the edge. He ran fast, too fast to stop.

Ahead of him, Frankie’s legs buckled. Todd yanked backward, but he lost his grip on one of Frankie’s wrists. Her arm came free, and she spun, leaning away from the cliff. The sudden shift in weight forced Todd to take two staggering steps forward, but he still had Frankie’s other wrist in a death grip, and she had no leverage to fight back anymore. He braced himself, and he jerked her toward him. Frankie’s body flew. Her eyes grew wide, and her mouth opened in a silent scream.

It was now or never.

Frost leaped with his arms outstretched. He landed full against Frankie and wrapped himself tightly around her. She toppled backward. The impact ripped her out of Todd’s grasp. Frost drove her hard to the wet ground under him and instinctively rolled right, once, twice, three times. They were clear of the edge, both on their backs.

Frost reached for his gun again, but he didn’t need it.

Six feet away, Todd struggled for balance. His body yawed, pushed and pulled by the wind. He danced on the edge, but he smiled, his eyes staring upward at the blue sky, his arms slowly spreading wide. One heel spilled over the edge. He was losing, and he knew it, and he didn’t care.

“Close your eyes,” Frost told Frankie, but she didn’t.

As they watched, Todd caved backward, releasing himself into the arms of the air. His body made an X. Gravity took him. He flew and fell like a bird with a broken wing, and he disappeared down to the rocks without a sound. It didn’t matter whether it was a cliff or a bridge. Five seconds was all it took to end a life.

Frankie scrambled out of his arms and ran to the edge. He had the wildest thought that she might throw herself after him, but instead, she simply stared down at the broken body below her. Her mouth hung open. Her eyes never blinked. He tugged gently at her shoulder, because the soft fringe of the cliff wasn’t safe, but he couldn’t drag her away.

Frost wondered whose body she really saw down there.

The Night Bird. Or her father.