Brian Freeman - The Night Bird

“Don’t start with me,” Frankie snapped. “I get enough of that from Jason. He says I cut him out of my life. That I don’t need him.”

“You don’t.”

“That’s not true. Of course I do.”

“Like you need me?” Pam asked.

Frankie put down her wine glass. “I need you, too. Really.”

“Come on, don’t bother putting on an act. We’re way past that. You don’t really know either one of us, and I’m not sure it’s worth your time to find out. Maybe the ship has sailed, Sis.”

Frankie didn’t say anything. She felt slapped.

Pam didn’t have a glass, so she took the wine bottle and tilted it to her lips. “You know, when we were growing up, I always wanted it to be two against one. You and me against Dad. I thought maybe then I would stand a chance. But you were always out for yourself. Frankie protected Frankie, and I was on my own.”

She wanted to argue, but Pam was right.

“I didn’t want it to be that way,” Frankie said, “but let’s face it, you weren’t on my side, either.”

Pam nodded. “No, I wasn’t.”

“Don’t blame me. Blame Dad.”

“I blame both of you,” Pam said. She stood up and headed for her bedroom, but then she stopped. She came back to the sofa. “So what did Dad tell you?”

“What are you talking about?” Frankie asked.

“That last weekend. Before you two went away, Dad called. He said I should come along. He said there was something urgent he needed to talk to us about. I told him you wanted it to be just the two of you on this trip. So what did he say?”

Frankie squeezed her eyes shut. She’d blocked out so much of that weekend. What was left was just pictures in her head. “He didn’t tell me anything.”

“Come on, Frankie.” Her sister leaned down close to her ear. “What was it?”

“I already told you. Nothing. He did his usual irritating Q and A. He grilled me about taking risks. He asked about me and Jason. And then he got up and took a hike, and he never came back. Okay?”

Pam stood up and shrugged. Her lips folded into a smile. “Fine. I believe you. I just don’t want there to be any secrets between the two of us.”

She sauntered to her bedroom, and Frankie was left unsettled. Wine was the only answer to her problems. She poured what was left of the bottle into her glass, and she drank it down like beer until it was empty.

She went to the kitchen with an unsteady walk. She rinsed out her wine glass and washed it with soap, but as she dried it, the glass slipped from her hand and shattered on the marble countertop. Glass sprayed like the burst of a fountain. Looking down, she saw blood running from two cuts on her fingers. She put her hand under cold water, but the blood didn’t stop. As the water ran, as the blood ran, she realized she was crying. It had been years since she cried. There had been no tears when her father died, but she cried now, feeling the threads of her entire life split open. Her work. Her marriage. Her family.

She shut off the faucet. She wiped her face with a damp towel, and then she cleaned the glass from the counter. She bandaged her fingers. There was nothing else to do but keep moving forward.

Frankie returned to the living room, noting the two closed doors. Pam’s bedroom door down the hall was closed. So was her own in the loft. Pam and Jason had both shut themselves away from her.

She sat down and started Todd Ferris’s video again.

This time, she found herself in the crowded clutches of a nighttime bar. She didn’t know where it was. Wiz Khalifa played at a shattering volume, and strobe lights flashed on and off, casting a rainbow across the undulating pack on the dance floor. She saw bare skin, white teeth, and swirling hair. Lovers, smokers, and druggies slipped out through the bar door into the darkness. Others took their place.

She could see a can of craft beer in Todd’s hand as he swiveled his camera around the bar. The picture wobbled; he was a little drunk. Most of the faces came and went on the screen too quickly for her to see them. They were all pretty. Young. Dressed to kill. Todd pushed into the crowd, bumping against shoulders and getting wild close-ups of the people around him. She wondered why he was still filming. Maybe it had become his habit by now.

Todd broke free of the pack. He was in a corridor where the music was muffled. Band posters lined the walls. He wobbled, heading to the men’s room door. Frankie winced, wondering if he planned to keep filming in the bathroom. She reached for the remote to fast-forward just as Todd pushed open the door, revealing a lineup of three men at urinals. Todd waited behind them.

Frankie sped up the video.

And then she stopped and backed up. She realized that she couldn’t breathe. She played it again. And again. Each time, she stopped as one of the men at the urinals turned and bumped heavily into Todd as they squeezed past each other and traded places. His smiling face filled the phone camera.

It was the last face she wanted to see, but it didn’t surprise her at all.

“Jason!” Frankie called. When the bedroom door over her head stayed closed, she called again impatiently. “Jason!”

Finally, her husband opened the door and came to the loft railing, which he grabbed with both hands. He was still dressed. His face was angry, but his anger dissolved as he looked past Frankie to the familiar face frozen on the fifty-five-inch television screen.

“What is that?” he asked. “What are you doing?”

“I found him,” Frankie replied. “It’s Darren Newman. You were right. He’s part of whatever’s going on.”

Frost checked his watch for what felt like the hundredth time. By ten thirty, Lucy still hadn’t arrived at Alembic.

He kept an eye on the front window, where he could see the night lights of Haight Street. His phone was on the bar in front of him, and every time it lit up, he expected a text or call from Lucy, but she was off the grid. He heard from Duane. Herb. Jess. But nothing from Lucy.

A finger of worry stroked his neck. He texted her again.

It’s Frost. I’m at Alembic. Everything okay?

The message didn’t get delivered. When he dialed her number, the call went to voice mail. Her phone was off. He left another message and then drummed his palm on the bar impatiently. He peered through the crowd, expecting to see her face. She’d see him, she’d smile, she’d wave. Everything would be fine.

But it wasn’t fine.

At ten forty-five, he left. He walked two blocks back to where he’d parked his Suburban. When he got inside, he headed east on Haight. Lucy’s apartment was twenty blocks away, and he cut across the city, past the wild neighborhoods of Tibetan craft shops, piercing salons, and drag fashion boutiques. He parked in front of a vacant lot opposite her apartment building. Traffic was heavy, and he ducked across the street between cars. At the gated security door, he pushed the buzzer for Lucy’s apartment. No one answered. She wasn’t home.

He noticed lights in the apartment above his head, so he pushed the bell to get their attention. An older woman in a paisley dress and slippers stepped out onto the balcony above him. He held up his badge, and she buzzed him through the gate into the building. Inside, the stairwell was musty. He jogged four flights to Lucy’s door, and when he knocked hard, the door eased inward with a quiet click. It wasn’t latched.

The apartment was dark, except for the streetlights from the window overlooking Haight.

He called out. “Lucy?”

He switched on the overhead light. The studio apartment was just as he remembered. Nothing looked disturbed. The room smelled of pine cleaner, and most of the clutter from the floor was gone. He saw a magenta dress stretched neatly across Lucy’s bed, and next to it was a matching pair of two-inch heels. That was what she’d planned to wear to Alembic, but she never put it on.