Brian Freeman - The Night Bird

“Nightingale.”

Over and over. The phone was ringing.

Jess came up beside him. “Nothing we can do but answer it.”

Frost bent down and snatched up the phone. He answered the call, but he didn’t say anything at all. He waited.

“ You took the bait ,” the Night Bird chanted, “ but now you’re too late .”

And then another song began. It wasn’t Carole King. This song was hard rock, played so loudly that Frost had to wrench the phone away from his ear. He put it on speaker, and he and Jess listened to a synthesizer thumping out a chorus. No words. Just the beat. It annoyed the birds, who screeched in protest, and their cries became deafening.

“What the hell is that song?” Frost asked. “I know it.”

“This guy has a nasty sense of humor,” Jess replied. “It’s the Edgar Winter Group. The song is ‘Frankenstein.’”

Frost didn’t get the joke at first, but then he did. “Frankie.”

He splashed through the water to the giant window and looked down at the street. He could see his SUV parked at the end of the block. As he watched, the driver’s door flew open.

Francesca Stein climbed out, slammed the door shut, and ran.

Frankie thought to herself again, Something’s wrong.

She felt as if she were in a strange bubble inside the SUV. Streaks of rain covered up the windows so that she couldn’t see the street, and all she could hear was the hypnotic drumming of the storm on the hood. Her wet clothes felt cold, and she sat and shivered. She kept the doors locked.

She turned the key in the ignition and ran the windshield wipers long enough to see through the glass. Down the street, the police disappeared inside the building through a hole in the fence. She was on her own, and all she had to do was wait, but waiting wasn’t something she did well. She didn’t like the idea of putting her life in anyone else’s hands.

She adjusted the mirror and looked at her own reflection. Her wet hair ran down her forehead and face like snakes. Shadows brought out the bones of her face. Her dark eyes stared back like the eyes of a stranger. She wished she could see behind them. For all the time she spent in the minds of other people, she didn’t really know herself.

Something’s wrong.

What?

Her phone pinged with an e-mail, making her jump. She saw the glow of the screen on the seat next to her. He was still with her. Still stalking her. She didn’t want to pick it up, but she had no choice. She checked the e-mail, and the return address was the same as it had been in the beginning.

The Night Bird was writing to her again.

It all comes down to this.

He was right. One way or another, this all ended now. She leaned forward to watch the silhouette of the ruins a block away, and somehow she knew it was all a ruse. The white room wasn’t inside that building. Neither was the Night Bird. Neither was Lucy Hagen. He’d lured the police there, because in the end, this came down to the two of them and no one else.

She waited impatiently, knowing another e-mail would follow soon. Seconds passed, and her phone pinged again.

She’s waiting for you.

Lucy Hagen was in his hands. Another patient. Another death. More blood. She didn’t know how much more loss her conscience could stand. She could see their faces in her brain. Monica Farr. Brynn Lansing. Christie Parke. She could even see the face of Merrilyn Somers in the photographs that Frost had laid out on Darren Newman’s desk. Merrilyn Somers, alive, and Merrilyn Somers, dead. Frankie could have stopped him, but she’d let Darren fool her, the way he fooled everyone else in his life. He’d seduced her mind and almost seduced her body, too.

It ended now. Tonight.

He e-mailed her again. Another ping.

You’re the only one who can save her.

She knew she should alert Frost. She could get out of the car and scream for the police. End the ruse; get them out of the ruins. Her voice would bring them running. They could save her, but they couldn’t save Lucy Hagen. And it would start all over again with someone else. She wasn’t going to let that happen.

She finally sent an e-mail back.

I’m right here. You know where I am.

Frankie held her phone in her hand, and she waited for him to reply. The silence went on and on. No e-mail. Nothing. It was a slow torture, as if he wanted her to suffer in anticipation.

Finally, her phone vibrated. She sucked in her breath, realizing that he was making a video call this time. He wanted to see her, and he wanted her to see him, too. That was part of the game. She wished she could throw the phone out of the car into the rain, but she held it up in front of her face and steeled herself as she answered the call.

There he was.

The mask.

Everyone else had seen it before, but not her. Frost. Todd. Lucy. They’d described it to her and shown her pictures, but the reality was a thousand times worse. Close up. Filling the entire screen. The plastic was deathly white, drained of all color. Candy-red lips grinned at her, a huge grin, stretching from the point of the chin to the high false cheekbones. His teeth looked like gold railroad tracks. The eyeholes were rimmed in silver, and where the eyes should have been was the gleaming black mesh of an insect’s eyes. Dreadlocks dripped down the mask in braids of fake hair.

The mask spoke to her.

“Fran-kie... Fran-kie.”

She knew he could see her, and she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of letting him see how terrified she was. She made her own face into a pale mask. Her lips curled with contempt. “Where’s Lucy?”

“Wanna see... wanna see?”

“Show me.”

Like a page turning, the camera reversed. Frankie couldn’t help herself. She cried out in anguish at what she saw. The screen blazed with whiteness, as if the luminous ivory paint on the walls could blind her. Everything was white — walls, floor, and ceiling. In the midst of it, she saw Lucy Hagen. Tears, like rain, streamed down the young woman’s cheeks. The huge whites of her eyes matched the walls. Frankie knew she was drugged. Hypnotized. So far into a trance that she stood on the surface of another planet. It was the look that her patients had when she was working with them to change their memories, but this was the dark side. This was everything she’d ever tried to do in life turned against her.

Lucy had both hands wrapped around the black handle of a knife. Its silvery blade was almost a foot long, its razor point facing downward. Her arms were outstretched from her body. Every muscle trembled. She stared into the camera, her glassy eyes helpless.

“Help me,” she called, with the whimper of a child. “Save me.”

Then she screamed, so loudly that Frankie jerked back in her seat.

“Stop me!”

Frankie could barely hold the phone in her hand. She wanted to run to Lucy and gather her up in her arms. “Let her go,” she shouted into the phone. “Let her go. Take me. I’m the one you want!”

The camera reversed, and the mask came back, grinning at her with its red lips. Behind the mask, the Night Bird laughed. His laughter bubbled up from his throat and filled the SUV, getting louder. She could still hear Lucy in the white room. “Save me, save me, save me.”

“Where are you?” Frankie yelled into the phone. “I’ll come to you. I’ll let you do whatever you want. Let Lucy go!”

He kept laughing.

The call ended, and the screen went black. The Night Bird was gone.

“No!” Frankie shouted. “Tell me where you are!”

She waited. Her breaths were short and fast. Her fists tightened the way they would around the man’s throat. “Come on, come on, come on,” she murmured, knowing he wasn’t done with her, waiting for the next e-mail.