The Voice Inside

10

The waves at Ocean Beach lapped to Frost’s feet with a whooshing rhythm that was like a heartbeat. Other than a few sundown joggers, he didn’t have much company on the drab stretch of sand. The November wind had driven most people away.

Something about being here brought Katie a little closer to him. Memories of her life came and went as he stood near the water. He pictured the two of them, as kids, flying a kite in Golden Gate Park. Katie playing the Nutcracker Suite on the piano at a high school Christmas play. Katie scowling playfully at the camera like Al Capone as he took her on a tour of Alcatraz. Those were good times.

With each in-and-out rumble of the surf, he also heard Rudy Cutter’s voice in his head: Tick tock. It was like Cutter was throwing down a challenge at him to stop what came next. The time on the clock was already counting down to another murder. This was personal for Frost now. He’d been the one to set Cutter free. He had to be the one to put him away again. He owed it to Katie.

Frost felt a presence near him and realized he wasn’t alone on the beach anymore. His head turned, and he saw a black woman no more than twenty yards away. She was looking at him, and she even raised her hand in a little wave. Her face was familiar. He knew her, and yet he didn’t know her.

She took a few tentative steps in his direction. She was as tall as he was and skinny to the point of being gaunt. They were probably close to the same age, halfway between thirty and forty. She had bushy black hair with tight corkscrew curls. Her thick eyebrows got lost in her hair. Her eyes were black marbles, intense and smart, analyzing the world with suspicion. Her face was narrow and long, her nose flat, her mouth a straight, emotionless line.

Her mocha skin was interrupted on her neck by a reddish discolored scar that sliced across her windpipe. She’d had her throat cut.

“Inspector Easton?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m sorry to intrude. My name is—”

She didn’t have to finish the sentence. Her face landed in his memory. They’d never met, but he recognized her from the photo on her book jacket and her appearances on television. It was the scar that distinguished her. She was both a writer and a survivor of a terrible crime.

“Eden Shay,” he said.

She was surprised and looked uncomfortable that he knew who she was. “That’s right.”

“I read your book, Ms. Shay.”

“I’m honored,” she said.

He heard a hint of her Australian roots in her voice, although her time in the US had tamed her accent. He remembered from her memoir that she’d grown up in Melbourne.

“I usually read history, but my sister enjoyed your book,” Frost said. “She made sure I read it, too.”

“Your sister. So that would be—”

“Katie,” he said.

Eden nodded. She didn’t pretend not to know what had happened to Katie. Similarly, he didn’t pretend not to notice the scar, which told Eden’s own horrific story. Ten years earlier, in her twenties, she’d attended the writer’s program at the University of Iowa to get her MFA. During her first term, she’d been kidnapped and held by two sadistic brothers in the basement of their Iowa City house. Imprisoned like a slave. Starved. Tortured. The brothers would kill small animals in front of her and tell her she was next. Eventually, they cut her throat and left her to bleed out, but instead, she escaped in the middle of a February night. She was rescued on a frozen rural highway on the brink of death.

The experience put her on the cover of People magazine. Her memoir about it became a number-one bestseller and a hit movie. Looking at her now, he somehow knew that all the fame and money hadn’t erased a minute of the time she’d spent in that basement.

“How did you find me, Ms. Shay?”

“I’m Eden, please.”

“Okay,” he said. “Eden.”

“Please don’t think I’m stalking you,” she said. “I was coming to see you at your house, and I saw you driving away. I followed you here.”

“That was an hour ago,” Frost pointed out.

“I know. I waited in my car. It seemed to me that you needed your privacy.”

The noise of the surf made it hard to hear her. A wicked gust roared from the water, and he watched her body absorb the blow. She wrapped her arms around herself. She wore a red blouse that was too light for the season and jeans that clung to her long legs. Her black curls quivered.

“Are you cold? Do you want to talk somewhere else?”

“I’m fine. The cold keeps me alert.”

“So what can I do for you, Eden? If you’re writing an article, or if you’re looking for an interview, I’m not interested. Sorry.”

She didn’t say anything immediately. Then she told him, “I was in court today.”

“I didn’t see you there.”

“No, I kept a low profile. I didn’t want to be recognized. I understand the hurt of the families, but they were unfair to you. The only thing you could have done is come forward with what you found out.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because based on what I know about you, you’re not the kind of man who looks away.”

“From what?”

“From anything,” she said.

“How is it that you know me at all?” he asked. He was wary because she was a journalist, but he also found it flattering that this woman had sought him out.

“I’ve been doing my homework on you,” Eden said.

“This sounds like an interview,” Frost replied.

“It’s not. Not really.”

“Then how can I help you?”

“Well, mostly, I want to help you.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” he said.

There was almost no one else on the beach, but she made sure they were alone. “Can I ask you one question first? It’s off the record and unofficial. I just want to know if I’m in the right place, talking to the right person. Although I’m pretty sure I am.”

“What’s the question?” Frost asked.

“Do you plan to reinvestigate the Golden Gate Murders?”

He stiffened. “That’s a question for my captain, Ms. Shay. I don’t have anything to say about it. My sister was one of the victims. Obviously, I can’t take the lead on any new investigation.”

She closed some of the distance between them, physically and emotionally. “I’m still Eden, not Ms. Shay. And I hope you won’t be offended if I call you Frost. This won’t work if we’re formal with each other.”

“What won’t work?”

“I wasn’t asking if the police are going to open the case again. Of course they are. I want to know if you plan to investigate the case yourself. Behind the scenes.”

“I have nothing to say about that.”

“Frost, once I walk away, this conversation never happened. No matter what you tell me, if you ask me to go, I go, and your secret is safe. I know you’d never put any new legal proceedings against Cutter in jeopardy.”

For some reason, Frost didn’t want her to walk away. Not yet. “Assume you’re right about me and my plans. Then what?”

“I told you. I want to help.”

“How? And why?”

Eden grabbed his hand. Her fingers were ice-cold. She knew she had him hooked and that he wouldn’t let her go until he’d heard what she had to say. “Look, I pretend to be a superwoman, but I’m freezing my ass off out here. Take me to dinner, and I’ll explain everything.”

By the second glass of wine, he’d finally seen Eden smile, but it was a sad smile. They were at Sutro’s at the Cliff House, a hundred yards up the highway from the beach. Their window table overlooked the ocean, but that was her doing, not his. The maître d’ and the waiter both knew who she was.

“Is it strange?” he asked. “Being recognized wherever you go?”

She sipped her pinot grigio and stared at the dark waves below them. “Don’t be too impressed. Since I moved back to the city, this has been one of my favorite haunts. That’s the only reason they know me.”

“I think you’re being modest. I remembered you.”

“Well, it doesn’t happen much anymore. I still publish in some of the major magazines, but people don’t really notice a byline. I’ve been out of the news for a few years. Most of the time now, people look at me, and they think they know me, but they can’t place the face. For a while, though, you’re right, I couldn’t go anywhere without people knowing who I was. I didn’t like it much.”

“No?”

She touched her neck, where the scar was. “No. They didn’t see me and think, That’s the writer, Eden Shay. They saw me and thought, That’s the girl who was imprisoned in that basement in Iowa. I don’t want to be famous for that. I want to be famous for what I write in the Atlantic or the New Yorker. But that’s not how life works.”

“Sorry,” Frost said.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” she told him with a shade of annoyance. He understood. Everyone who met her was sorry, and it didn’t change a thing or make anything better. It had been that way with him after Katie died, too. People never knew what to say.

“You moved back to the city recently?” he said.

“That’s right. I moved to San Francisco after the assault. I owned a house over on Baker for a few years. That’s where I wrote my book. Then I went home to Australia six years ago to be with my father, and I only came back this year.”

“You don’t have family ties in the city?”

She shook her head. “No, I just love it here. We moved to the US when I was a teenager, and we spent a couple weeks here before heading to New York. I swore if I ever had the money, I’d move here. Eventually, I did.”

“So why did you leave?”

“You sound like you can’t imagine anyone leaving San Francisco,” she said, and that was when he saw the smile.

“I can’t.”

“You’re a lifer?” she asked.

“Born and raised.”

“Well, that must be nice. Honestly, I didn’t want to move away, but life intervened. My father found out he was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. He wanted to go back home to Australia for his final years, and I moved there to take care of him. He passed away last year, so I came back to San Francisco. Now I’m like you. I don’t think I’ll leave again.”

“Welcome home,” Frost said, raising his glass.

“Thank you.”

They drank more wine. They both ordered mussels and Thai bouillabaisse. They talked, and he found himself sharing more than he usually did with a stranger, which meant that she was a savvy journalist. He told her about his parents divorcing after Katie’s death and then getting back together again. He told her about his fight with Duane, who hadn’t spoken to him in more than a week. She shared things about herself, too. She told him about her older brother, who’d overshadowed her his whole life. He was a CNN war correspondent who’d spent years embedded with the troops, living with them, seeing war through their eyes, and telling their stories. Until an IED killed him in Afghanistan.

He realized they had grief in common. They’d both lost siblings.

They were drinking coffee and eating tiramisu when she finally said, “You’ve been very patient with me, Frost.”

“I’m a patient guy.”

“I didn’t want to tell you what I’m doing until we knew each other a little better.”

“So what are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m writing a book. I’ve done magazine work ever since my memoir, but never another book. Now I’m ready.”

Frost frowned. “Let me guess.”

“Yes, it’s about the Golden Gate Murders.” She rushed on before he could object. “Please, don’t say anything yet. This isn’t a new project. I’ve been planning it for years. When I moved to San Francisco the first time, I was caught up in writing my memoir and then the book tour and the movie. I was hardly ever home. I barely had time to breathe. When things finally settled down, I needed to find a new project for myself. There had been so much drama in my life, and suddenly, it was gone. It left me empty. I liked doing magazine work, but I wanted something bigger. That was when the third victim was discovered. Natasha Lubin.”

He watched conflicting emotions take over her face. She retreated inside herself briefly, like a turtle inside a shell, but then she pulled herself out and began talking again.

“Being involved in a violent crime changes you,” Eden went on. “I struggled for a long time to figure out who I was. A writer? A victim? I didn’t know. Then I read about Natasha, and I found out about the two earlier victims, and the whole case had a strange draw for me. Here was a serial killer, still unknown, still in the midst of his crimes. I could be a part of it. I decided to follow the case and learn everything I could about it.”

Frost saw more than a journalist’s curiosity in her face. This was personal to her.

“Do you mind if I make an observation?” he said.

“Go ahead.”

“This doesn’t sound like a healthy obsession for someone like you.”

“Very few of my obsessions are healthy,” she joked. “And I have a lot of them.”

“I mean, you had your throat cut, Eden. You nearly died. Not that you need me to remind you of that. Is it really smart to be diving into a case about a serial killer who cuts women’s throats?”

“My shrink said the same thing,” she told him. “He said I felt guilty that I lived and these women didn’t. He told me to quit the project. Go write about happier stuff, like global warming or opioid addictions.”

“But that didn’t stop you?”

“No. You’re right, it was my obsession, healthy or not. I couldn’t let go. I began to research the victims. One thing you’ll learn about me, Frost — I really, really do my homework. I talked to everybody, and not just the people around here. I flew to Minnesota to meet Natasha’s brother. I flew to Texas to find Rae Hart’s parents. I knew the women in this case better than the police did.”

“So why didn’t you finish the book?” he asked.

“Like I said, life got in the way. When my father got sick, I left the country. I still did some magazine work, but I had to put the book project on hold. Then last year, when I moved back, I found out that the crimes had been solved and that the killer, Rudy Cutter, was in prison. So I started working on the book again.”

“And what do you want from me?” he asked.

“I want to help you put Rudy Cutter back in jail.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I interviewed Cutter in prison several times. I told you, I do my homework. I know what kind of man he is, because I’ve met men like him before. Up close. He scares me.”

“He should,” Frost said. “But you’re a writer. You’re not the police. How do you expect to help?”

“I heard the judge say that the police have to start over and pretend the original investigation never happened. I’ve done dozens of interviews. I can make all of my research available to you.”

“Why give it to me?” he asked. “I told you I won’t be leading the investigation.”

“Yes, but you’re the brother of one of the victims. Cutter manipulated you into helping him. You’re not going to let that go. I know you’ll be behind the scenes, feeding the case. That’s where I want to be. With you. You’re the most interesting man in this story right now.”

“Ah. The story.”

Eden shrugged. “I won’t lie to you. I’m a writer working on a book. That’s my priority. I thought the book was almost done until this whole new angle came up. Now the case is wide open again and even more shocking than it was before. I want to help you get Cutter, and in return, I hope you’ll let me be a part of whatever you do. That’s how it works for me, Frost. I learned about being a writer from my brother. You have to embed yourself with the subject to tell a story. You can’t be an outsider. So let me go inside with you.”

He felt the sensuality of her offer. He didn’t think it was an accident that she used sexual language in how she talked to him. She had a frankness about her intentions that made an interview feel like a seduction. She was manipulating him, and if he called her on it, he didn’t think she’d apologize. As a writer and a woman, she was used to getting her way.

“Is this really about Cutter?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“It feels like a personal crusade. Is this just a way to get revenge for what those boys did to you?”

“That’s between me and my shrink. Does it really matter to you?”

“I guess not.”

“Then let’s work together.”

“You first,” he said.

Eden smiled again. It was the smile of someone who knew she was winning. “What do you want?”

“Everything. All your notes. Your interviews. Your draft manuscript.”

“Do I need to get you to sign a nondisclosure agreement?” she asked with a flirty little smirk.

“I’m not a writer.”

“All right. I’ll give you everything I have. And that’s a big leap of faith for me. What do I get in return?”

“I’ll have to think about it.”

“That sounds pretty one-sided,” Eden said, pouting.

“For now.”

“Well, you drive a hard bargain, but I’m in. I’ll print off copies of my work tonight, and you can pick them up at my place tomorrow.”

“You work fast,” Frost said.

“We need to work fast. We don’t have much time. I told you, I know Rudy Cutter. You don’t think he’s done, do you?”

Frost thought to himself, Tick tock.

“No, Cutter’s not done,” he replied. “He’s going to kill again. And it’s already November.”