The Night Bird (Frost Easton #1)(2)

The window of the Cutlass was closed now. They couldn’t see inside. Lucy wondered if it had ever been open. Maybe she was hallucinating. The terror of the bridge was making her imagine things that weren’t there.

“What did you see?” Brynn asked.

“Nothing. I’m sorry.”

“You’re still really scared?”

“Yes.”

“Look, all you have to do is sit and wait,” Brynn said. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

“I know, but I’m afraid I’m going to freak out.”

“Close your eyes. Breathe slowly in and out. My shrink said it was called self-soothing.”

Lucy shut her eyes and tried to measure out her deep breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Twice, three times. It helped at first, but then a gust of wind rocked Brynn’s Camaro, and Lucy’s eyes shot open. She screamed and wrapped her arms around herself. Beside her, Brynn simply savored the fresh air blowing off the water. Even in her lace shift, which bared her legs up to her thighs, Brynn didn’t look cold. Her expression was dreamy.

Lucy envied Brynn because her friend was so damn put together. They both worked counter jobs at Macy’s. They shared a Haight-Fillmore studio apartment. If you weren’t a lawyer or banker or tech guru and you wanted to live in the city, you had to cram bodies into tiny rooms. Brynn was one of those tall blondes who sucked up all the male energy wherever she went. Great hair, great body, long legs, electric smile. That was annoying, but hanging with Brynn meant getting into the best clubs and the best parties. Lucy liked her. Brynn was pretty, but she wasn’t a mean girl who rubbed her advantages in your face.

You couldn’t be around Brynn and not feel her happiness. She had the magic touch. Looks. Sexy new boyfriend. Parents with money for when times got tight. Lucy wished she could trade places with her. Even for a day, it would be nice to know what it felt like to be inside her head and inside her body. To be confident and unafraid. Lucy felt anxious in the city every day.

“Come on, Lucy, let’s dance it up,” Brynn told her.

As Elton John crooned the chorus, Brynn sang about Buh-Buh-Buh Bennie and the Jets in an off-key voice. She swayed; she drummed on the dashboard. She shook her loose blond hair. Lucy gave in and sang, too. Nearby, other drivers saluted them with a toot of their horns. For a moment, Lucy forgot about the bridge and felt a timid smile creep onto her face. Seeing it, Brynn beamed at her and flashed a thumbs-up.

“That’s it! Show ’em, girlfriend!”

Lucy laughed. She danced faster and sang louder. Her chestnut hair flew.

“You’re crazy!” Lucy shouted at Brynn, but crazy was what she needed right now. Brynn was weird, wonderful, and keen, just like Bennie.

When the song finally ended, Lucy flopped her head onto the seat rest. She stared at the hypnotic lights over their heads as another, quieter song began on the radio, something by Carole King. She listened to the wind and felt the sway. For the first time, being trapped up here felt beautiful and not scary at all.

“Thanks,” she said. “That helped.”

When her friend didn’t answer, Lucy looked over at her. “Brynn?”

Brynn had both hands clamped like a vise around the wheel. Her knuckles were white. Beads of sweat formed like raindrops on her forehead, below the silk of her blond hair. Her mouth hung slack and open. Her blue eyes were huge. Something was wrong.

“Brynn, if this is a joke, it’s not funny,” Lucy said. “Cut it out.”

A scream bubbled up from Brynn’s chest between desperate breaths. She peeled her fingers off the wheel. Her hands shook like palm leaves. She clawed with long nails at her forearms, making scarlet streaks, and then she ripped at the skin of her face, scratching until blood smeared across her mouth and spattered her golden hair.

“Brynn!” Lucy cried.

The people in the other cars noticed what was happening. Some called out. Lucy heard car doors opening.

Brynn lurched up in the front seat of the convertible. Wind swirled her hair and tore at her purple dress. She scrambled over the windshield and rolled clumsily down the hood of the Camaro to the bridge deck. Other drivers were out of their cars now. Brynn kept screaming. She covered her face as if birds were picking at her eyes.

“Brynn, what is it?” Lucy shouted at her. “What’s wrong? Brynn, it’s me, it’s okay.”

Lucy unbuckled her seat belt. She pushed open the door, but when she tried to climb outside, she saw the blackness of the water beyond the railing. Her legs became lead. Spasms rippled through her, knocking her knees together. All she could think about was the height. The wind. The water. The fall. She couldn’t go out there.

Brynn bolted in her lavender high heels to the railing. No words dribbled from her mouth, only screams. She climbed the concrete barrier and clung with both arms to one of the ascending cables high above the bay. Her skimpy dress hugged her body. The wind threw her back and forth like a toy.

“Brynn! No!”

Lucy slid from the car, but she crumpled to the bridge deck. She couldn’t stand up. The sensation of being outside, on the bridge, vulnerable, overwhelmed her. The world spun. The concrete was ice-cold. She crawled, twitching, and stretched out a hand to Brynn, who wasn’t even ten feet away.

“Come here! Come down!”

Brynn climbed away from her in a weird, unsteady crawl, like a crab scuttling through the sand. She wrapped her legs around the cable, and her blood-slippery fingers clung to the steel. She pulled herself two feet above the railing. And then three feet. Four feet.