The Night Bird (Frost Easton #1)(44)

She glanced behind her again. No headlights. Whoever had shadowed her route was gone.

Frankie drove to within spitting distance of the ocean and then turned on a narrow road. She drove three hundred feet back to the alley she’d missed on Highway 1 and turned again toward the beach. The pavement was water stained. Trees leaned over the lane and made a tunnel. She followed the alley until it opened up at a parking lot by the water.

It was nearly dark now. As Frankie got out of her car, the wind cut through her light jacket and made her shiver. Waves thundered and broke in whitecaps, surging toward the seawall. Tide was high. Spray and foam landed on her face. She could barely see the coastal headlands silhouetted on the sky. Next to her was a drab three-story apartment building facing the water. That was where Todd said he lived.

The beach parking lot was empty. She was alone.

Or was she?

She heard something above the roar of the ocean that sounded like a car engine in the alley. She stared at the darkness, back where she’d come, and saw a momentary flash of headlights. Then they went off. So did the noise of the engine.

With her hands shoved in her jacket pockets, Frankie marched to the apartment building. There was no entrance on the beach side. She stood in front of a low wall surrounding the building that dropped into a recessed parking lot. The building itself was built on concrete stilts because of its proximity to the water. She swung her legs over the wall and jumped, landing three feet below her.

She headed for the underground entrance to the apartment building, but it was locked. There was a panel with buttons for the various apartments, and she found the button that matched the apartment number on Todd’s patient information form. Number 305. She pushed the buzzer.

There was no answer.

She waited and tried again, but no one replied through the speakerphone or opened the lock to let her inside. No one was home.

She dug in her purse for pen and paper and taped a note to the door.



Todd. Call me right away. FS.



Frankie felt vulnerable here. She navigated the dark parking lot quickly, eyeing the cars around her. By the time she found the steps to the street, she was practically running, and her breathing came fast and sharp. She pushed between two overgrown spruce trees near the building door and bolted back to the mouth of the alley. On her left was the parking lot. On her right, the tiny street disappeared into the fog toward Highway 1.

That was when she heard it. The voice. High-pitched and terrifying, but no louder than a whisper above the wind.

“Frankie . . . Frankie . . .”

It came from everywhere and nowhere. She froze. Fear rippled up and down her skin. Mist blew in front of her eyes, and spiny tree branches in the alley knocked together with each cold gust. She stared into the fog and listened for the voice again. It was night, and that was when the Night Bird came out to sing.

Frankie held her breath. She heard nothing, only the wind and the hypnotic thunder of the waves. The more time passed, the more she believed that her brain had conjured the voice. It wasn’t real. She clutched her purse tighter on her shoulder and headed for her car. She made a point to walk, not run, but every few steps, she glanced behind her, peering through the cloud. She was alone. When she reached her car, she got inside and immediately locked the door. Her hands were trembling.

She switched on the engine. Her headlights lit up the rocks on the seawall, and she screamed.

Todd Ferris was standing in front of her car.

Her hand jumped to the gearshift. She wanted to put the car in reverse and drive away, but she didn’t. Todd stared at her through the windshield, and she stared back at him. He didn’t move. There was something in his eyes that made her uncomfortable. Grief. Confusion. Anger. She realized that she didn’t know him at all. Even so, he was the man she’d come to see.

Frankie shut down the car and got out. Todd stayed where he was, so she walked toward the beach. His feet were in the sand. The black water rolled in behind him. His thin brown hair was wet.

“Dr. Stein,” he said, so softly that she could barely hear him. “I thought that was you.”

“I rang the bell at your apartment, but there was no answer,” she said.

“I was walking on the beach. What are you doing here?”

She listened to his voice before answering. She tried to decide if the strange whisper could have come from him, but it was impossible to be sure. She didn’t even know if she’d really heard it.

“We need to talk, Todd.”

He shrugged and wandered along the boardwalk beside the beach, and she walked beside him. He wore a sweatshirt and shorts and sneakers with no socks. He stared at the ground, with his mouth turned downward in a frown. When they reached a bench, he sat down and put his hands on his knobby knees.

Frankie sat down, too. “I tried calling,” she said. “You put the wrong number on your patient form.”

“What number was it?”

She checked her phone and read it off to him. He shook his head.

“No, sorry. I swapped two of the digits. I do that sometimes. It’s a kind of dyslexia.”

She noticed that he didn’t correct the number for her, and she doubted that he’d made an innocent mistake.

“Where are you working? At the same gaming company?”

“No, I couldn’t take the boss anymore. I do freelance tech work now. There’s a start-up company launched by a couple SF State alums. It’s kind of an Uber for nerds. I go all over the city doing tech support for various businesses. I like it. I get to set my own schedule.”