The Night Bird (Frost Easton #1)(62)

“Oh, come on, Frankie. I told you once before. You’re talking crazy.”

“You’re trying to do the same thing this time, aren’t you? You’re setting up someone else to take the fall.”

She saw the faintest nervousness in his eyes, as if she knew something she wasn’t supposed to know. She knew about Todd.

“I’m going to tell the police about you,” she added, even though they both knew it was a hollow threat. No matter how much she wanted to call Frost Easton and give him Darren’s name, she didn’t have enough evidence to say a word.

“You won’t do that. I know how it works. Your lips are sealed.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“No? Well, go ahead, tell them whatever you want, and when my lawyers get done with you, I’ll own that nice top-floor Tenderloin condo of yours.”

Frankie paled.

“Yes, I know where you live,” Darren went on. “I make it a point to know everything about the people in my life. And the thing is, I always liked you, Frankie. I really did. We made such a good team, you and me.”

“We were never a team.”

“Too bad, I always thought of us that way. I bet you’ve had a tough year without me around. How are things with Jason? God, it must be awful when all you can think about is me.”

She stared at him, openmouthed. She felt naked in front of him, as if he could see all her secrets.

“And then to lose your father, too,” Darren went on. “I saw his obituary.”

“Shut up,” she finally said.

“But you don’t really miss him, do you? I remember how you talked about him. You’re glad he’s dead.”

“Shut up.”

“How exactly did it happen, Frankie? The accident sounded so odd and tragic.”

She knew that he wanted her to boil over. He was manipulating her. Playing with her head. Nothing had changed. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and let coldness flow through her again.

“Where do you take them, Darren?” she asked. She pointed at the locked door behind him. “Is it there? Is that where you torture them?”

“Do you want to see?”

“Yes.”

He dug keys out of his pocket, then beckoned Frankie closer with one finger. She kept a safe distance. He shoved the key in the lock and twisted, and he pushed the door inward.

“Go on,” he told her, standing in the doorway. “Take a look.”

“Get away from the door.”

Darren laughed. He strolled toward his car and waved her to the hidden space. Frankie kept an eye on him as she approached the doorway, and then she took a quick glance inside. Beyond the wall, the warehouse looked no different from the rest of the space. More containers. More Chinese characters stamped on the wood. There was no white room. No torture chamber.

“Satisfied?” Darren whispered.

He was right behind her, his hands on her waist. She slapped them off.

“This doesn’t change anything,” she told him. “If it’s not here, then you have a space somewhere else. I know you’re the Night Bird.”

“I have a special name, too? Nice touch. That’s so Edgar Allan Poe.”

“You won’t win,” Frankie said.

“I’ve already won. You’re here.”

He fixed her with another smile; then he tightened the knot on his Jerry Garcia tie and tugged his peach shirt cuffs an inch beyond the sleeves of his sport coat. He smoothed the lapels.

“It was great seeing you, Frankie,” he told her, “but unless you want to admit what you really want from me, you should go. I have work to do, and then I have a special evening planned.”

“Special?”

“Crazy special,” Darren said.

He pushed a button on the wall, and the garage door beside them cranked open on its tracks. Light from outside flooded the space. “No need to walk all the way back. Warehouses are dangerous places. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

Frankie started toward the sloped driveway that led to the street, but as she squeezed past Darren, she noticed the shiny glint of buttons on his sport coat. They were brass buttons, just like Frost had showed her. And one of them was missing.





32


Twenty-four hours.

Lucy had been gone for an entire day, and Frost was no closer to finding her. The frustration of the search left him angry, and he focused his anger on Francesca Stein. He was certain she knew more than she was telling him, but he couldn’t reach her to demand answers. He’d already called her home phone. Her cell phone. Her office. She didn’t call back.

Frost stood in Union Square, wrestling with himself over what to do next. He was about to cross a line. He knew plenty of cops who bent rules and broke rules, but he’d never been one of them. Jess Salceda called him a Boy Scout and told him real cops couldn’t be Boy Scouts if they wanted to solve a case. He’d never believed her.

Until now. He didn’t care about the consequences.

He crossed the street to the dark office building and went through the revolving door. He left his sunglasses on. Inside the lobby, he spotted the building security guard, who was in his fifties and sat behind a check-in desk near the elevators. The large man had his suit jacket draped on a chair behind him and drank Diet Coke straight out of the can. He had the Chronicle puzzle page open on the desk, with half the crossword completed in pencil.