The Night Bird (Frost Easton #1)(90)

It was Darren Newman. She recognized the wild, bright colors of his clothes. He wore a bright-yellow dress shirt, but the yellow was dyed crimson where he’d been stabbed multiple times. His chest heaved. Blood seeped from his body onto the white chair and onto the white floor, dotting it with red beads. He was on his last, gagging breaths. Bile spat from his lips. His skin grayed as oxygen fled.

The Night Bird was dead. He’d lost the last game, and yet the game went on.

“Lucy,” Frankie murmured. “It’s okay. I’m here. You’re safe.”

Lucy saw her, but she didn’t really see her. She stared down at Darren’s body with a crazed disbelief.

Frankie walked across the room, moving closer to her step by step. “There’s nothing to be afraid of now, Lucy. Put the knife down. Let me help you.”

“No,” Lucy whimpered. “No, please. Don’t make me.”

She got closer. And closer.

“Lucy, it’s Dr. Stein. You are Lucy Hagen. Do you remember? You’re okay. You went through a terrible thing, but now you’re okay.”

Lucy kept the knife poised in her hand. Then, slowly, horribly, she put it to her throat. Frankie walked faster, holding up her hands. They were only twenty feet apart now.

“Put it down, Lucy,” Frankie told her softly. “Just kneel down and lay the knife on the floor. Nothing will happen to you.”

Lucy sobbed inconsolably. “No, no, just go away. Don’t come any closer. I don’t want to do this.”

“I know you don’t, and you don’t have to.”

“No, you don’t understand.”

Frankie heard thunder on the stairs of the building. Voices shouted. Frost was almost here, and he wasn’t alone. In seconds, the police would storm into the room. They’d have guns. And Lucy still had the knife pressed against her trachea. She had it pressed so hard that Frankie could see blood seeping from her skin around the edge of the blade. If she pushed any more, she’d sever her own throat.

Calm. All Frankie could focus on was calmness. She wanted Lucy’s entire world to be calm.

She took another step. And another. She made her way around the far side of the chair where Darren’s body lay. She wanted to draw Lucy away from the horror at her feet, and as Frankie walked, Lucy turned. She followed every step that Frankie made. It was just the two of them now, confronting each other. Lucy held the knife. Frankie held her hands up.

They were ten feet apart.

“Lucy, it’s me. Do you recognize me? Do you remember me? I’m here to help you. I know you’re afraid, but believe me, it’s over. It’s done. No one will hurt you anymore.”

“Stay away from me.”

Lucy’s hand shook. She could barely hold the handle now. The knife twitched at her skin.

“Lucy, it’s Dr. Stein. Give me the knife. You don’t want to hurt yourself. I know you want everything to go away, but you don’t have to do this. It’s already over. You’re already safe. Take the knife away from your throat, okay? Just let your fingers loosen, and it will fall to the ground, and it won’t hurt you or anyone ever again. Okay? Listen to my voice, Lucy. Don’t pay attention to anything else. The only thing you hear is the sound of my voice.”

Lucy was hypnotized, but Frankie tried to take over, to break in, to snatch her away from the Night Bird. She held Lucy’s eyes and didn’t blink. She kept the same cadence in her words, as lulling as an ocean wave.

“My voice, Lucy. Listen to my voice.”

The thunder drew closer. Footsteps pounded outside the door. She heard Frost calling now, shouting from the hallway. He called Lucy’s name, but Lucy didn’t hear him. She was trapped in another world, and she couldn’t escape.

Frankie wanted to shout for them to stop, to stay away, to leave her alone, but she couldn’t break the connection with Lucy. She didn’t know what would happen when the police came in. She didn’t know what the chaos would do to the girl’s brain. The knife was still in her hand. It was just a small motion away from cutting her open.

“That’s all you have to do, Lucy. You don’t have to do anything else at all. Just listen to my voice.”

Frankie took another step. Just one step. And then the hell began.

She heard a metallic click below her as she triggered some kind of electronic switch under the floor tiles. Lucy heard it, too, and terror consumed her face, as if she knew what that click meant. What it would bring. What it would do to her. The Night Bird was dead, but he still controlled the game.

Hard, loud rock music filled the room. Frankie knew the song and knew it was a sick joke. She’d been teased about it all her life.

“Frankenstein.”

The entire room transformed around her. The cameras awakened automatically, and ultra-high-definition images swept the space. The white walls, white floor, and white ceiling mutated into a landscape so real that she felt as if she’d been lifted out of San Francisco and carried thousands of miles away. Cold air blew from hidden vents. The temperature dropped like a stone.

They were in the mountains, as high as God. Craggy pinnacles rose on every side toward a gray sky. Snow clung to furrows in the rock. Far below, hundreds of feet below, a glacier crawled between the hills, calving icebergs into a ribbon of sea-foam-green water. Between two peaks, a perilous footbridge sagged into the arms of the air, hanging on the thinnest of wires.