The Night Bird (Frost Easton #1)(74)

Frankie thought, Missile launched. She wanted to fire back in kind, but she didn’t even remember enough to explain herself. She didn’t know why she’d felt the need to wipe away what she saw. She’d always thought of herself as strong, but maybe Pam was right. Maybe Frankie was afraid of feeling anything. Love. Hate. Desire. Grief.

God knows Pam would never let emotion get in the way of doing what she wanted.

“You’ve been playing with me, haven’t you?” Frankie asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The things you’ve said about Dad lately. It was a game to you. You wanted to see if I remembered anything.”

Pam sipped her martini and shrugged. “I’ve always wondered if your shrink biz is just a big scam. Can you really change someone’s memory? Or if you poke and prod, does it all come rushing back?”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

Virgil returned to the table. He put a caprese salad in front of Pam and glanced between the sisters. “If you’re going to have a girl fight, ladies, at least give me time to sell tickets.”

“No fight,” Pam said with a cool stare at Frankie. “She knows I’d win.”

“I’m sure you would,” Frankie replied.

Pam examined the bags under Virgil’s eyes and the limp swoop in his lavish hair. “Bad night, V? You look all hangdog.”

“When I look like this, it was a good night,” Virgil replied.

Pam smirked. Frankie waited until they had the table to themselves again. She didn’t know why she wanted to torture herself with the details when it was too late to change anything.

“When did Jason tell you?” Frankie asked. “Before or after?”

“Before. He thought I should know what you were going to do. Not that I had a say in it. You do what’s best for Frankie. You always have.”

Frankie’s lips pressed tighter together, and she didn’t reply. Pam leaned across the table and whispered, “Why, does it piss you off that Jason told me? At least someone in the family cares enough to include me.”

“That’s a cheap shot,” Frankie replied.

“Really? You’ve been MIA for the past year. You’re off in Frankie world, and some of us are back here in the real world.”

“That’s rich, coming from you. You’ve never lived a day in the real world.”

“At least I don’t run away from it,” Pam snapped.

Frankie’s brow furrowed as she felt the emptiness in her brain again, the place where something was missing that she couldn’t get back. Now that it was gone, she wanted to remember.

Virgil set Frankie’s pizza in front of her. He’d overheard most of their conversation. “Tickets, ladies. Remember, tickets.”

“Not now, Virgil, please,” Frankie murmured.

“You’re right, a thousand apologies to both of you. Write it off to last night’s party.” Virgil leaned down and whispered in Frankie’s ear. “Truly, darling, I’m sorry to intrude. You know I can’t stop myself. With everything going on, though, I thought you should know. Somebody outside the restaurant is watching you.”

Frankie’s eyes shot to the window.

Todd Ferris stood on Post Street. His eyes had the same intense, faraway sadness they always did. As if, in his young life, he’d already given up on the future. She could see him mouthing three words.

It happened again.



She persuaded Todd to go with her to her Union Square office by promising no notes and no recordings. He refused to go into her treatment room, and she struggled even to get him to sit down. He paced repeatedly on his long legs, twisting his navy wool cap between his fingers.

“The last thing I remember is Monday night,” he murmured in his low voice, making her struggle to hear him. “I had a tech job over at the planetarium. I help them with their videography sometimes. The job went late. But that’s it. The next thing I knew, I was waking up on the street. In Dogpatch again. The other side of the city.”

“Where in Dogpatch?” Frankie asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. One of the abandoned buildings around there. I hiked a couple blocks and caught a bus.”

“Has it been the same place every time?” she asked.

“No. The same area, but not the same place.”

“Could you find the areas again?”

“Maybe. When I woke up, I wasn’t thinking straight. I just wanted to get the hell away from there.”

“What else do you remember?” she asked.

“There was another girl,” Todd said.

“Did you recognize her?”

“No.”

“Was it the same white room again?”

“Yes.”

“Anything else?” Frankie asked.

Todd stopped in the middle of her office. “A knife.”

“What?”

“I have this image of a knife,” Todd said. “I don’t know why or what it means, but I can’t get it out of my head.”

He sat down in the chair opposite Frankie and grabbed hold of the edge of her desk with both hands. “What’s happening to me, Dr. Stein? Don’t tell me you don’t know.”

Frankie tried to concentrate. Todd’s memory of the knife disturbed her. She thought about the smart young college student who lived two doors down from Darren Newman. Merrilyn Somers, singer, gamer, techie. She was a sweet girl who wound up dead on her apartment bed, stabbed seven times with a knife.