The Night Bird (Frost Easton #1)(101)

“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.