Brian Freeman - The Night Bird

Now she wanted to disassociate Jillian from the accident altogether. That was the last stage of the treatment she’d developed for the girl.

“I feel a current,” Jillian said, her voice quavering. “Where did that come from? I’m losing control.”

“Don’t worry. You’ve got this.”

“No, it’s going over. I’m scared. I can’t get out. Mom!”

“It’s not you, Jillian,” Frankie told her. “It’s someone else.”

“I’m going into the water!”

“No, it’s not you. Look closely. There’s another kayak near you. Do you see it? She’s in trouble, but you’re safe.”

Frankie pointed at the video on the screen, where another kayaker paddled a few feet away. She’d reconstructed a completely different version of the accident for Jillian to see and remember. The new kayak — the fictitious one — wobbled unsteadily in the waves. The San Mateo Bridge loomed beyond them, tall and silver.

“See? It’s not you, Jillian. It’s someone else. You’re fine. You’re in control.”

“She’s going to tip!”

“Yes, but your mother is right there to help her.”

“I see her!”

“Yes, she’s right there. She’s helping. Everything’s okay. See, that other girl is already right-side up again.”

“Yes.”

“Everyone is safe now.”

“Everyone’s fine,” Jillian said.

“You’re fine, aren’t you, Jillian?”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay. Why don’t you relax for a few minutes, and then we’ll do it again.”

“Sure.”

Over the next hour, they repeated the entire recollection four times. By the third time, Frankie didn’t need to prompt her. Jillian told the story from beginning to end, and in her telling, she didn’t topple under the weight of the current. She kept control. Another kayaker fell, just for a moment, and her mother helped her get free.

That was her reality now. That was what she remembered.

The terrible irony for Frankie was that her patients forgot the past, but she kept their secrets in her own head. She could still feel Jillian’s panic as she suffocated under the water. Thinking about it made her own chest heavy, and she had to struggle to breathe. The same thing happened with every patient, whether it was a soldier or a child. She heard the vibration of every bomb, saw the torn limbs of every victim, winced under the touch of every abuser. It was as if their memories became hers.

When the session was over, Frankie left Jillian in the therapy room to sleep before being brought out of hypnosis. She kept the music on and the video of flowers playing on the screen. Outside, the girl’s mother was waiting. Her face was anxious, and there was a question in her eyes. Frankie smiled.

“I think we’re there,” she said. “We’ll know soon.”

Ten minutes later, Frankie used the speakers to awaken the girl and let her come back to full consciousness. Not long after, the door to the therapy room opened, and Jillian walked out on her own. She stretched her arms over her head, gave a bleary yawn, and beamed at her mother.

“Hey,” the girl said. “You been waiting long?”

“No, not long at all,” her mother replied. The woman got up and hugged her daughter.

“Would you like a drink, Jillian?” Frankie asked. “I poured you some water.”

Frankie pointed at a glass of water on the bookshelf by the door. She could see Jillian’s mother wince and hold her breath. Jillian’s eyes shot to the water glass. Her head jerked once. A sharp inhalation swelled her chest, and confusion blew like a fast-moving cloud across her face.

Then she relaxed and grinned. Her freckles danced.

“Wow, yeah, thanks. I’m really thirsty.”

Jillian picked up the glass and drank the whole thing.

“I can’t believe Brynn’s gone,” Gabriel Tejada murmured, not for the first time.

Frost stood next to the Sausalito attorney at the end of Johnson Street, where the sailboats bobbed in the town’s yacht harbor. Beyond the waters of the small inlet, he could see the brown hills of Tiburon. This little stretch of paradise north of the Golden Gate Bridge was where you lived if you had more money than God. Even God couldn’t afford the views here.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Frost told him. He hated saying that. It sounded so trite, but there was nothing else to say.

“Do Brynn’s parents know?”

“Yes, I talked to them last night.”

There was no worse task in the world than waking up parents in the middle of the night to tell them that their daughter was dead. Frost knew that only too well. Brynn Lansing’s mother and father went to pieces, the way parents always did. He had no explanations for them. Nothing that made any sense. One moment, your daughter was fine, and the next moment, she was plummeting from the Bay Bridge.

“I was in love with her,” Tejada said. “I hadn’t told her that yet, but I was.”

Brynn’s boyfriend leaned against the wooden railing and stared into the water. Waves slurped against the pier. The mild breeze turned the boat riggings into a constant, clanging music.

Tejada was a big man. Frost wasn’t small at five foot eleven, but Tejada dwarfed him by four inches. He wore a three-piece suit, which was unusual in California, even for a lawyer. His copper skin glowed under the bright sun. He had a prominent nose and jet-black brilliantine hair. His build was broad but athletic. He hadn’t reacted with tears to the news of Brynn’s death, but Frost could see the man’s face tighten with grief.

“How long had you known Brynn?” Frost asked.

“About four months. I met her shortly before Christmas. There was an instant chemistry between us. I’d never felt anything like it before. You never know how a relationship will turn out, but I thought we had a future. I simply can’t believe that Brynn committed suicide. Not her.”

“This doesn’t appear to be a straightforward suicide,” Frost told him. “This was a psychotic breakdown of some kind.”

Tejada shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Brynn had a zest for life. I never saw any kind of secret, deep-seated depression. You couldn’t find a more level-headed woman.”

“When did you last see Brynn?” Frost asked.

Tejada turned around to face the main street of the seaside town, which was crowded with tourists. He shoved his hands in his pants pockets, and his brow creased. “Four days ago. She stayed over.”

“Did you talk to her after that?”

“Not for a couple days. She didn’t answer her phone or reply to my texts. Actually, I thought she was shutting me out. I’d floated the idea of her moving in with me, and I was worried that she wasn’t ready for a step like that. Then she texted me back yesterday and said everything was fine. We were planning to go away for the weekend.”

“Did she say that anything unusual was going on in her life? Did she mention any problems?”

“No. Nothing at all.”

“Her roommate, Lucy Hagen, said that she and Brynn went to a party in Alameda last night. Do you know anything about that?”

“Yes, I was supposed to be there, too. I had a client emergency. The host was a law-school classmate of mine who’s an in-house counsel at Oracle.” Tejada noticed Frost’s smile and added, “A lawyer’s party isn’t as stuffy as it sounds, Inspector, when you have that kind of money. I think he flew in Iggy Azalea to perform. This was all young, pretty people. Like Brynn.”

Frost didn’t want to admit that he had no idea who Iggy Azalea was.

As young as he was, Frost took pride in being unhip. He knew the wild side of San Francisco, but rarely joined the crowd. He was single and had made his peace with staying that way. His brother, Duane, periodically tried to fix him up, and Frost got a lot of offers because he gave off a Justin Timberlake vibe that women found attractive. More often than not, he said no. When he went on dates, they typically didn’t lead to relationships. It wasn’t that he was uninterested. He simply enjoyed his solitude. If he had a free evening, he usually spent it reading history books in a hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant two blocks down from the Russian Hill house where he lived. The owner let him bring Shack in a carrier.