The Night Bird (Frost Easton #1)(50)

“The mind is a powerful thing, Lucy,” she said quietly. “A surgeon can’t give you any guarantees, and neither can I. But I can promise you one thing. If you want to take the first step—if you want to cross the bridge—you won’t be alone. I’ll be with you the whole way.”



Frost waited near the doors of Saks Fifth Avenue while Lucy went inside Francesca Stein’s office building. Behind his sunglasses, his eyes went from face to face in the Union Square crowd to see if anyone was watching Lucy. When he was satisfied that no one was, he crossed the street and did a circuit of the street performers and the homeless who haunted the plaza. He’d learned over the years that they made the best spies.

He’d found a photograph online that was similar to the mask he’d seen overnight. Half a dozen people recognized it. The mask was hard to forget. Even so, no one had seen the man behind the mask, and no one had seen him come or go in the square. The Night Bird was careful.

His forensic team hadn’t given him good news. The compact disc that Frost had found in the parking garage had been wiped clean of fingerprints. The same was true of the Cutlass that had been left outside his building. The car had been stolen a week earlier, and the license plates had been swapped. The electronic tracing on the man’s texts, e-mails, and online posts had ended in an anonymous account.

Every clue turned out to be a dead end.

Frost bought a hot dog and waited for Lucy. The cable cars came and went on Powell Street. It was a sunny Monday afternoon, warm and still. He checked his watch over and over, because he was impatient for Lucy to be out of Francesca Stein’s office. He didn’t want her in there at all.

An hour passed before he saw Lucy emerge from the building lobby. He waved to her, and she waved back. She cut across the street traffic to meet him, and she was a little breathless.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah! Fine!” She saw his worried face and said, “Really, Frost, I’m fine.”

“How’d it go?”

“I like her. I think I might go ahead with it.”

“Lucy, let me solve this case first,” he said. “Give it some time.”

“I will. She wanted me to wait, too. Are you worried about me?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” she said. “Are you busy? Do you want to go somewhere? You can debrief me. Isn’t that what secret agents do?”

“I’ve got to talk to Dr. Stein myself,” Frost said. “How about we meet up a little later?”

“Yeah, definitely.” She was in a very good mood.

“Alembic? Ten o’clock?”

“Perfect.”

Lucy turned away, but Frost stopped her with a gentle hand on her wrist. “Lucy? Be careful, okay? I asked you to keep your eyes open, and I mean it. If you see anything that looks suspicious, call me.”

“If I spot any creepy masks, I will scream.”

“I’m serious,” he told her.

“I know you are. I like that you want to protect me.”





25


Ten minutes later, Frost showed the photograph of the mask that the Night Bird had been wearing to Dr. Stein.

“Do you recognize it? Have you seen a mask like this before? Or does it have any special meaning for you?”

The psychiatrist stared at it and couldn’t seem to look away. He could see that the mask struck a chord in her memory. She knew it from somewhere.

“Dr. Stein?”

She broke out of her trance and handed him the photo. “No. I’ve never seen it.”

“Are you sure? You reacted as if you had.”

“No, I’m sorry. Why are you showing me this?”

“A witness spotted a man in a mask like this at the scene where Brynn Lansing went off the bridge. I saw him, too.”

Stein looked surprised. “You did? You saw him yourself?”

“Yes, I saw a man wearing this mask in Union Square, and I saw him again last night outside my house.”

She frowned. “I don’t like that at all.”

“Why?”

“He’s making you part of his game, Inspector. It’s personal now. If I were you, I’d be very careful. Are you any closer to finding him?”

Frost shook his head. “Not so far. As you say, he’s playing games with us. He’s leaving clues, but the clues haven’t led us anywhere. We don’t have any DNA or fingerprints. He hasn’t shown up on any surveillance cameras. Whoever is doing this is tech savvy, too.”

“Tech savvy?” Stein asked. Her forehead wrinkled with concern.

“Yes, he knows how to cover his electronic tracks, and he seems adept at hacking remote apps. Why, does that mean something to you?”

“No.”

But he thought it did. She was deliberately keeping him in the dark.

Frost retrieved another evidence bag from his pocket. It contained the brass button he’d found in the parking ramp where Christie Parke had been abducted. “Do you recall seeing anyone wearing a suit coat with buttons like this? Or someone with a coat that had a missing button?”

Stein shook her head. “Sorry. It looks pretty ordinary.”

“Unfortunately, it is. I’m not even sure it’s connected to our suspect.”