The Night Bird (Frost Easton #1)(97)

“It hasn’t changed at all,” he said. “I don’t see Woody, though. I wonder if he still works here. Woody’s the guy with the beard. You can’t miss him.”

She thought that Frost looked completely at home here. He knew what to say, whom to look at, what to order, what jokes to make. He had a way of fitting in wherever he was, and she admired that about him. She didn’t move well outside her own comfort zone. That was why she usually went to the same places over and over.

Frost called over the man behind the counter, who didn’t look older than nineteen. Frankie described Todd, but the waiter didn’t recognize him, and she wasn’t surprised. Todd blended into the background. You could stand next to him for an hour and not remember what he looked like.

“So now what?” she asked Frost.

“Now we eat,” he said.

Somehow, in the midst of chaos, he knew how to be normal. He acted as if nothing strange were going on, and maybe, to him, that was true.

Their meals came fast. She ate all her French toast, which was stuffed with cream cheese and spiced apples and gave her a sugar high. Frost had three cups of coffee in the time they spent at the counter. Watching him, she remembered what she’d thought when she first met him at Zingari. He was smart. Handsome, with that off-kilter smile and eyes that wouldn’t let go. Young, but with maturity in his face. She felt no raw attraction to him, and she didn’t think he felt any attraction to her, but she found herself enjoying being around him. Maybe because he was outside her comfort zone.

Talking to Frost at a diner in the middle of the night, she forgot about Todd Ferris for a few brief minutes.

But the Night Bird was still alive.

“Excuse me,” said a female voice behind her.

Frankie turned and found a young woman hovering by her chair at the counter. She could sense Frost’s tension at the interruption. His eyes shot around the diner. Anything new, anything unexpected, was a threat.

The woman had shock-red curly hair and freckled skin. She wore a big smile with slightly crooked teeth. Her cheeks had a rosy flush, and alcohol wafted from her breath.

“Are you Frankie?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“A guy outside asked me to give you this.”

She extended an envelope in her hand. Frankie could see her own name written in black ink on the outside.

“Where’s this guy?” Frost asked immediately, but he didn’t wait for the answer. He bolted to the street. Frankie could see him on the sidewalk, scanning the late-night pedestrians in both directions. He ran across the MUNI tracks to the gas station, but he was too late. Todd was already gone.

Frankie stared at the envelope in her hand. She didn’t open it. The woman with the red hair left to take a seat halfway down the counter, and she flirted loudly with the waiter. Five minutes later, Frost came back and took his seat again. His hair was mussed and wet, and he looked frustrated.

“I couldn’t find him.”

Frankie pushed aside the dirty plates and put the envelope down on the counter. “Should I open it?”

“That’s what he wants,” Frost said.

She hesitated and then tore open the flap. A greeting card was inside, but as she extracted it from the envelope, something loose fluttered to the ground. Frost bent down and retrieved it and held it up for both of them by pinching the corner with his fingers. It was a photograph, four inches by five inches.

“A choir,” Frankie said with a question in her voice.

The picture showed the members of a student choir. It had to be a high school singing group, based on the ages of the kids.

“Is this the same choir, the same space, that you saw in Todd’s video?” Frost asked.

She shook her head. “No.”

“What about the kids? Do you recognize any of them?”

Frankie looked closely at the photograph. The group shot made the faces small, so it was hard to pick out the details. Kids all looked the same in student photos. Same smiles. Same hair. Same school uniform. Then her eyes focused on a tall boy in the back row. She recognized the feminine line of his jaw and the faraway expression. None of that had changed in the years since the picture was taken.

“That’s Todd,” she said, pointing with her finger.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

She focused so tightly on him that she didn’t immediately pay attention to the pretty black girl next to Todd. Then, when she did, she couldn’t take her eyes off her. The face was familiar. Not someone she knew. Not even someone she’d seen. But she recognized that same high school smile from other photographs.

“Oh my God,” she murmured. “That’s Merrilyn Somers.”

Frost leaned closer and swore. He flipped the picture and saw what was written on the back. “The Nightingales. Reno.”

“They sang together in choir,” Frankie murmured.

Frost shook his head. “I’m guessing it’s a lot more than that. Jess said Merrilyn was engaged to a boy from her high school. Look at the two of them. They’re two kids in love.”

Frankie felt a sickness all the way into her heart. “Darren murdered his fiancée. No wonder Todd did all this. He must have been insane with grief. He wanted revenge against Darren in the worst way.”

“Not just Darren,” Frost reminded her softly. “Against you.”