The Voice Inside

49

It was two weeks before Frost had any semblance of his life back. He was in the hospital. He was on television. He was in the interview room at headquarters, grilled by the review board that dealt with officer-involved shootings. By the end, he didn’t even know if he wanted his old life back, but finally, Captain Hayden gave him the all clear and told him he was a free man.

That was on a Friday night.

He arrived back on Russian Hill to find Herb waiting for him on the bottom step of the stairs that led up to his front door. His friend wore a white painter’s smock, which was smudged with a variety of colors of fresh paint, and overalls beneath it. His long gray hair had a shiny new set of beads tied into the braids. Frost hadn’t seen him since the shootings.

Herb got up, putting a hand on his aging hip to steady himself, as Frost pulled up to the garage. He slipped off the painter’s smock and embraced Frost with a smile and a look of relief.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Herb said.

“So are you.”

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“Fine,” Frost said. “I’m fine.”

“Everyone’s inside. Act surprised.”

Frost smiled. “I will.”

“I made you a little gift,” Herb told him. The smell of paint was the only thing that outweighed the smell of pot on Herb’s clothes. “It’s not completely original, but I think you’ll like it.”

Frost followed his friend up the stairs. Herb had fashioned a makeshift curtain at the topmost step, and he swept it aside to reveal his latest creation. On the landing, Herb had painted one of his three-dimensional illusions that seemed to rise out of the stonework to guard the door. It was a scene stolen from The Lion King, with Simba as the new king standing atop Pride Rock, ruling over the animals gathered in the savannah below.

But Simba wasn’t the king of Frost’s front step.

It was Shack.

Frost laughed out loud. “Now, that just may be the best work you’ve ever done, Herb.”

Inside the house, the king greeted him. Shack didn’t understand all the attention he was getting — and he hadn’t appreciated the bath he’d had to have to wash off the blood in his fur — but he was happy to climb up to Frost’s shoulder and stay there as Frost acted surprised by the people waiting to greet him.

His parents had come back from Arizona again.

Several of his police colleagues were there.

So were a dozen family members of the victims.

Duane was there.

Tabby was there.

Frost didn’t like parties, but he put up with it throughout the evening. Everyone else needed this more than he did. They needed a chance to commune and grieve. They needed closure. Duane had made the food, which was amazing; Herb acted as bartender and poured the drinks. Robbie Lubin was an amateur guitarist and singer, and he played a version of “Hallelujah” that had everyone in tears. Frost had a few too many ales and felt the buzz.

It was dark and nearly midnight before people finally started to leave. They poured out to the street, mostly emptying the house. He said good-bye to Herb. He walked his parents to their rental car, and Ned clapped him in a hug and whispered, “Thank you.” Janice put both hands on Frost’s cheeks and said simply, “I love you.”

He didn’t think she’d ever said that out loud to him before. He’d always known his mother loved him, but they weren’t the kind of family who actually said it to each other. It was simply understood.

He liked hearing it.

When they left, he stood on Green Street by himself for a while. It was December. The trees shook their branches at him in the wind. Holiday lights adorned the windows. It made him think about Christmas as a kid and about coming downstairs before sunrise to find Katie sitting cross-legged in the living room in front of the tree, with her chin propped on her hands, staring at the blinking lights.

God, he missed her.

Frost went back inside. Duane and Tabby were still in the kitchen, doing the dishes, although Tabby couldn’t do much; her one arm was in a sling. He took another beer from the cooler and went out to the patio, where the city sparkled below him. Shack hopped up on the table and enjoyed the breeze. He leaned on the railing with his beer, and then he heard the glass door open and close behind him.

It was Tabby.

She came up beside him. Their skin brushed together. They were silent for a long time, in the cool darkness, letting San Francisco charm them. Eventually, he extended his beer bottle to her. He felt pleasantly high on the night.

“Want some?”

“Can’t,” Tabby said. “You know, shot. I’m still on drugs.”

“Oh yeah. I shot you.”

“Just a little,” she replied with a grin.

“Sorry.”

“Well, there’s the whole saving-my-life thing, too. You get points for that.”

“Thanks.”

Silence lingered easily between them again. Then he said, “Will you be back at work soon?”

“Not for a while. One-armed chefs aren’t too useful in the kitchen.”

“Right.”

Tabby turned around and leaned the other way. So did he. She closed her green eyes; her lips made a peaceful smile. Her chin tilted into the starlight. There was something magical about her in the daylight, but at night, she was perfection.

He was thinking things he couldn’t afford to think.

“So you and Duane,” Frost said.

“Yes, me and Duane.”

“You wanted to know if he was serious. I guess he answered that question for you.”

“I guess he did. He surprised me.”

“Was it a good surprise?” Frost asked.

“Sure. Of course. I guess.” Tabby blinked and looked away. “I don’t want to talk about that right now. This night is about you, so let’s talk about you. I hide behind jokes, but I never thanked you like I should, Frost. For everything you did.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“Well, good, because there are things that can never be repaid. They’re just there. They just are.”

“I like that,” Frost said.

“So how are you?” Tabby asked.

Everyone had been asking him that. The same question, over and over. He’d given them all the same answer. Fine.

“I’m not good at all,” he told Tabby.

She took his hand in the warmth of hers. “I didn’t think you were.”

“I still wake up thinking about killing her,” he said.

“She didn’t give you a choice.”

Frost turned and stared at her and confessed the truth. “I haven’t said this to anyone, but I didn’t want a choice. I wanted to kill her. I’m glad I did.”

“Maybe that’s true, Frost. I don’t think it is, but it doesn’t matter. She still didn’t give you a choice.”

He didn’t say anything. All he had to do was close his eyes, and he could see the gun firing and Eden’s body falling. It was the first time he’d killed another human being. It wasn’t something you ever forgot or ever got over.

“Did you have feelings for her?” Tabby asked.

“No.”

“But you slept with her, didn’t you?”

Frost would have given anything to say no, but he nodded. “I did.”

“I’m sure that makes it worse. I mean, sharing something so intimate with someone who turns out to be evil.”

“I don’t even know why I did it. I didn’t really like her.”

“Maybe it was a full moon. I hear that brings out the beast in you.”

That got him to smile. “Maybe.”

“You’re not exactly the first guy to listen to his body, not his heart.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m proud of it.”

“I know.” She added after a long pause, “The fact is, we can’t control where our hearts take us, either, can we?”

“No, we can’t.”

She was still holding his hand. Their eyes didn’t let go of each other, until her lips broke into a faraway smile and she stared at the ground.

“What about you?” he asked. “How are you?”

“I’m not so good, either,” she confessed.

“Because of Cutter?”

“Yes. And other things.”

“Like what?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Just things.”

“Have you talked to anyone about what you went through on the pier?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because the only one who can understand is you.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. He only knew all the things he wanted to say to her. Those were the things he couldn’t say.

In front of them, the patio door opened.

“Well, your kitchen is as good as new,” Duane called out. “You have enough leftovers to last you through Christmas, bro. I also took the liberty of throwing out some things that should not be consumed by people or cats.”

Frost smiled at him. “Thanks.”

“Come on, Tabs, we need to rock and roll,” Duane said. “You may be on sick leave, but the food truck and me, we have work to do.”

Tabby squeezed Frost’s hand and then let go. She walked away without looking at him. Frost and Duane went back inside the house, and Tabby was already gone, leaving the front door open, by the time they reached the foyer. Duane, who was just like their father, grabbed Frost by both shoulders. His effervescence radiated from him every hour of the day. That was just one of the things he loved about his brother.

“You know, somewhere Katie is pretty effing proud of you right now,” Duane said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And so am I.”

“Thanks, Duane,” Frost told him.

His brother saluted. He gave Shack a salute, too. The cat was on the white tile of the foyer beside Frost. Duane looked down and chuckled as he walked across Herb’s Lion King painting, and he gave them a backward wave. “Hakuna matata, bro!”

Frost waited until Duane disappeared, and then he closed the door. He was tired. The house felt lonely and silent. He stood in the darkness for a moment before he turned away. Shack scooted to the kitchen to see if Duane had left anything on a plate for him, which he probably had. Frost was almost back outside to the patio when he heard a soft rapping on the front door behind him.

Surprised, he returned to the foyer and pulled the door open. Tabby stood on the porch, in the pool of the brass light.

“Duane’s in the car,” she said.

“Okay.”

“I said I forgot something.”

He stared at her. “Okay.”

“I need to ask you something,” she said, “and I need you to be honest with me.”

Somewhere in his chest, his heart began to beat again. It had been stopped for years. “What is it?”

She had the look of someone standing at a rope bridge, trying to decide if it was safe to cross. He could have told her that those bridges were always dangerous.

“Do you and I have a big problem, Frost?” Tabby asked.

He realized that he was conscious of every detail about her as she stood in front of him. He could have told her how many strands of red hair had fallen across her face. He could have told her that he hadn’t stopped seeing her green eyes since he met her. He could have told her that her lips, still slightly parted with the question they’d asked, made him think of nothing but kissing her.

He didn’t want to lie. She’d told him to be honest. But lying was the only choice.

“No,” he said. “No problem at all.”

Tabby didn’t ask if he was sure. She didn’t say whether she believed him. She bit her lip, then simply turned away and practically ran down the steps away from him. He tried to guess what she was feeling now. Part of him hoped it was disappointment, but it was probably relief. Nothing else was safe.

Frost closed the door again. He closed his eyes, too, as the weight of irony landed on his head.

For the first time in his life, he knew who his Jane Doe was.

Damn.