The Night Bird (Frost Easton #1)(104)

Frankie could see them on the cliff’s edge. Arguing.

She could see Pam’s hands on his chest.

She could see him fall.

“You saw us,” Pam went on. “You’d gotten ahead of us, but you turned back while we were arguing, and you saw us. I begged you to forget it. I said it was an accident, that I got angry over all those years of emotional abuse, that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. You believed me. You may be a psychiatrist, but you fell for my poor, poor pitiful me act. So you asked Jason to wipe it all away.”

Frankie stood up from the table. Her legs barely supported her, but she didn’t want her sister to see her trembling.

“I want you out,” Frankie told Pam. “You have twenty-four hours to get everything out of my place. Take Jason with you. I never want to see either of you again.”

Pam raised her glass in a toast and picked up a menu. “Whatever you say.”

Frankie wanted to do something. Slap her. Hit her. Throw the champagne in her face. But she didn’t. She stalked from the restaurant onto the street, and when she was on her own, beyond the view of the windows, she finally broke down. Tears welled up and poured from her eyes. She fell against the wall and beat her fists against the stone. People stopped and offered help, and she waved them away. She wailed, even though she didn’t even know what she was crying for. In the end, she felt nothing. She was dead inside.

A text tone sounded on her phone. She wondered if it was Jason. Or Pam. What could they say to her now?

Instead, it was from Frost Easton.



I’m here.



Frankie composed herself. She wiped her face as best she could and hugged herself against the chill as she headed toward Union Square. It was dark. The lights of the city didn’t lift her heart. The shadows felt ominous, and the mounds of the homeless under blankets in the doorways depressed her. Right now, she wanted to be anywhere but here. She wanted to leave the city and never look back.

She found Frost waiting for her on a bench in the park. It was their prearranged meeting place. He could read her face, and he seemed to understand that her world was falling to the ground brick by brick. She liked his empathy. She liked the worry that she saw in his eyes.

“That didn’t take long,” Frost said.

“No, it didn’t.”

They were silent for a while. He knew she needed time. Frankie felt another tear slip from her eye, and she quickly wiped it away.

“Did she say anything?” Frost asked finally. “Did she admit it?”

Frankie took a breath, deciding what to tell him. She had to choose whether to acknowledge to the world what her sister had said. What she’d done. And why.

“No, she didn’t,” Frankie said.

“She stuck to her story? Even with you?”

“I’m sorry, Frost. She didn’t say a word.”

He pursed his lips and studied her face as if she were wearing a mask. She didn’t think he believed her, but he seemed to understand there were places she couldn’t go. She owed Pam nothing, but still she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t turn her in.

“I think she’s guilty, but I can’t prove anything without a confession,” Frost told her. “Your father is dead, and your memory—”

“Is gone,” Frankie said. “I understand. She’s going to get away with it. There’s nothing I can do about that.”

It was the end. The journey stopped here.

“So how are you?” Frost asked.

Frankie stared at the park. She’d spent so many days here. Day after day that melded into years. “Free,” she said. “And alone. I’ve cut the cord with both of them. Permanently.”

“I can’t blame you for that, but maybe with time, you’ll feel differently.”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. There are some things that you can never forget. And yes, I hear the irony of that, coming from me.”

Frost stood up from the bench. “Well, I have to go see Lucy.”

“I know she won’t want to see me, but if I can help—”

“I’ll make the offer.”

He began to walk away, but she called after him. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you alone before now, Frost. I wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For saving my life on the cliff,” she said.

He came back and sat down next to her. “I’m glad I was there.”

“A small part of me wishes you’d been too late.”

“I don’t believe that,” he said.

“I said it was a small part. I’m just feeling sorry for myself. And I’m a little scared, too. I’m used to having my future planned out, and now I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Frost smiled. “Planning is overrated.”

“Not for me. I’m my father’s daughter. Tell me something, have you ever been to Copenhagen?”

His face furrowed with confusion. “No. Why?”

“I’ve had a standing offer for a couple years at a university in Copenhagen. To teach.”

“And now you’re thinking about it?” he asked.

“I don’t know what I’m thinking about,” she admitted. “I only know that I can’t continue my life the way it was. I won’t put any more lies in people’s heads. Never again.”