The Night Bird (Frost Easton #1)(48)

“Shack?” he called again.

Frost heard an odd noise from the dining room. It was the kind of low, mean growl a tiger would make. He knew it was Shack, but he’d only heard a noise like that from the cat once before. That was when he’d first found Shack on top of his owner’s body, protecting her from anyone who wanted to come close.

He went into the formal dining room with its heavy table, where he kept most of his work notes. One tall window faced Green Street in front of the house. Shack was on the window ledge on the other side of the curtains. The tiny cat’s angry rumble rose and fell like ocean waves.

“Hey, what’s up?” Frost said.

He went to the window and swept aside the curtains. Shack didn’t acknowledge him. The cat was focused on the street.

Frost looked outside, where the view faced apartment buildings on the other side of the narrow lane. He noticed an old Cutlass parked sideways in front of his garage. The driver’s window of the car was open. As Frost watched, a head leaned out from inside the car.

“Son of a bitch,” he said.

It wasn’t a face. It was a mask. The driver wore a bone-white mask with a grin reaching to his ears and huge, chambered eyes like a giant insect would have. The man with the mask stared up at the window, and Shack began to hiss and spit.

Frost had seen that same mask in Union Square. Lucy had seen that mask, too, on the Bay Bridge, moments before Brynn Lansing fell to her death.

Frost spun around and found his holster, which he’d slung over one of the dining room chairs. He unlatched it and grabbed his service pistol and his badge from the inside pocket of his jacket. Without bothering to put on shoes, he ran for the front door of the house and threw it open. He bolted down two sets of stone steps to Green Street.

The Cutlass was still parked by the house. Its engine was off, its windows closed. He couldn’t see behind the smoked glass. He leveled his gun, and he held up his badge.

“Police!” he shouted at the closed door of the car. “Roll down your window and put your hands on the wheel.”

There was no response from inside the car. Frost repeated his order.

“I said, roll down your window!”

He approached the car, took hold of the door handle, and threw the door open. Inside, the car was empty. Frost swore. He backed up and made a full circle, studying the street around him. He watched the dark entrances to the apartment parking ramps across from him. The area was deserted.

Then, distantly, he heard the pound of footsteps.

Frost ran to the pedestrian steps that led down the hill to Taylor Street. He took them two at a time, and at the bottom, he sprinted into the middle of the sharply angled street. He swung back and forth with his gun in both directions. Dark buildings rose around him. Cars were parked up and down the steep hill.

No one was there.

The Night Bird was gone.





24


Frankie took the measure of the woman seated in the chair in her office. She was young. To Frankie, twenty-five years old felt like a lifetime ago, when the world was as bright and flawless as a newly minted penny. The woman—barely more than a girl—kept her hands in her lap, but her thumbs rubbed nervously together. Her brown hair fell loosely at her shoulders without any special style. She wore cropped jeans, heels, and a long-sleeve knit top with pink-and-white stripes. Makeup didn’t completely cover the half-moons under her eyes, and her rounded nose was a little big for the rest of her face, but she had a freshness about her that was easy to like.

“It’s Lucy, isn’t it?” Frankie asked.

“Yes. Lucy Hagen. I appreciate your seeing me on such short notice, Dr. Stein.”

“Please, you don’t have to be so formal with me. I’m Francesca. Or Frankie. Whatever you like.”

“Thanks. Frankie.”

“Actually, I need to tell you that I’m not taking on new patients now. I can talk to you about what I do, but if you want to move forward, I’m going to ask you to wait a little while.”

“Because of the thing in the news?” Lucy asked.

Frankie hid her frustration. The Night Bird was driving a wedge between her and the people she was trying to help.

“That’s right. I don’t believe that what’s going on has anything to do with my treatments, but I’d rather be absolutely safe. I can give you other names if you’d like to see someone else.”

“No, I want to be here. At least so I can find out whether you think you can help me.”

“Okay. Well, what did you want to talk to me about, Lucy?”

The young woman squirmed in the chair. “Have you ever heard of gephyrophobia?”

“Of course. It’s a fear of bridges.”

“That’s me,” Lucy said.

“That must be very hard, living in the Bay Area.”

“Oh my God. You can’t imagine.”

“Has it been a problem for you for a long time?”

“Years. Forever. Sometimes I think I should move. I’ve even looked at maps to find cities that don’t have any bridges. I guess that’s pretty weird.”

Frankie smiled and shook her head. The first step with every patient was to make them feel normal. “It’s not weird at all. Does it help to know that you’re not alone? There are thousands of people living in this area with the very same condition.”