Brian Freeman - The Voice Inside

“I hate to celebrate and run,” Frost said, “but I really do need to get home.”

“Sure, sure, will we see you tomorrow?” Duane asked.

“Of course.”

Duane grabbed him for another hug. “Thanks again, bro. You’re the best.”

Frost squeezed his brother’s shoulder without saying anything more. He wanted to get out of there as fast as he could. He hugged his mother, who responded awkwardly in her usual way, and then he headed for the door. His father went with him. Ned put an arm around his shoulder as they walked to the elevator.

“Janice and I are heading back to Arizona tomorrow,” Ned said.

“It was good seeing you, Dad. Despite the circumstances.”

“I know it’s torture for you to leave San Francisco, but it would be nice to have you come visit us.”

“I will.”

“Come for Christmas,” Ned suggested. “We already talked to Duane and Tabby about coming down for the holidays. We’ve got the room. It would be nice to have the family together.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Frost replied, which was the Easton family way of making no promises.

The elevator door opened, but his father stopped him before he could get on. The door slid closed again with the two of them standing outside. It took Ned a minute to get out the words.

“I was wondering, did you find out anything more about Katie?” Ned asked. “I mean, before Cutter died?”

Frost had been expecting the question. He wished he had an answer for him. If there was one thing he’d wanted from Cutter, it was the truth about Katie, but Cutter had never regained consciousness. The secret died with him. Frost felt robbed of the opportunity to stare into the man’s eyes and ask him why .

“I’m sorry. No, I didn’t. He wasn’t able to tell me a thing.”

“She doesn’t really fit like the others, does she?” his father asked.

“No, she doesn’t.”

Ned shook his head in confusion. “I guess all we can do is live with it, but it still feels like a mystery. I hate that.”

“I know it does, Dad,” Frost replied, “and I hate it, too. But not every mystery gets solved.”

Frost went from the hospital back to Ocean Beach, and he stayed there for two more hours in silence, watching the waves. His phone was off. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. The rain had ended, but the winds remained strong, keeping the surf angry and high. It didn’t matter that Cutter was dead. It didn’t matter that the case was over. He had a sense of unfinished business, but the ocean had no answers for him.

Eventually, there was nothing else to do but go home.

It was past midnight when he let himself inside the house on Russian Hill. In the foyer, he saw that Eden’s boxes, with her research notes and manuscript, were still there. He knew she’d be waiting for him when he returned, because she wasn’t done with him yet. She needed a last interview. She needed an ending for her story.

Shack bounded to the foyer to greet him and immediately began his typical King Kong climb up Frost’s leg.

“Watch those claws, buddy,” Frost said, but the cat paid no attention. Shack staked out his spot on Frost’s shoulder and stayed there as Frost wandered into the living room with the lights off and then out onto the patio to watch the city and the stars. The storm had vanished; the night was clear and cool.

He turned on his phone, and he had several messages waiting for him. Some were from the media, which he skipped. The first personal message was from Herb.

“Frost, my friend. You’re all over the news. I’m grateful that things ended well, although I’m sure that doesn’t make what you went through any easier. I’ve got to teach a class at my gallery in the morning, but we obviously need to have a Sierra Nevada together very soon. If you need to talk in the interim, call me anytime.”

The next message was from Eden in her usual smoky voice.

“It’s late. I’m not sure when you’ll be back, but I hope you’re okay. I’m going to bed upstairs. Wake me up when you get home.”

And the last message was from Tabby. It had come in only five minutes earlier.

“Hey. It’s me. Everybody just left. I took a hit of the pain meds, so I’m probably going to be loopy. I wanted to say... actually, I have no idea what I want to say to you. Thanks? I’m sorry? This is hard. I feel like we should... I don’t know... I feel like there are some things...”

There was a pause so long that he thought she’d drifted off to sleep. But then she went on.

“I’m not making any sense, am I... I guess this is the morphine talking. I better hang up before I say something really stupid. Stop by tomorrow, okay? I’d like to see you. Night, Frost.”

He played the message again. And again. Then he went back inside the house. He thought about having a drink but concluded it wasn’t a good idea. Shack hopped off his shoulder onto the sofa, and Frost went upstairs to one of the spare bedrooms, where he took a shower. The hot water revived him. Afterward, instead of going downstairs to the sofa where he usually slept, he went into the master bedroom.

Eden was there. She slept on her stomach on the king-sized bed. He sat down in the overstuffed armchair on the other side of the room and watched her. In his memory, he could feel the touch of her skin and the smoothness and curves of her body. It would have been easy to climb into bed next to her. Wake her up. Have sex with her. That was what she wanted, and a part of him wanted it, too.

Instead, he sat in the chair until his eyes felt heavy, and he finally fell asleep right where he was.

When he woke up, he saw the clock on the nightstand, and he was instantly alert. It was 3:42 a.m. That shouldn’t have mattered to him now, because Rudy Cutter was dead, but he realized that a disturbance in the house had awakened him. Again. It was the same as it had been weeks earlier.

He’d heard something in the house below him. And unmistakably, he smelled the dark burn of Phil Cutter’s cigarette smoke.

Frost went into the master closet and found a lockbox on the upper shelf. His department weapon had been taken from him because of the shooting, but he kept a backup firearm for himself. He retrieved the gun and padded downstairs in his bare feet. The smell of smoke was stronger down here. Shack, his back fur arched, had taken refuge on top of the mahogany bookshelf, but the intruder was already gone.

He saw nothing amiss in the house this time. No Halloween surprises. No alarm clocks. All that had been left for him was a slim manila envelope in the middle of the floor.

Frost picked it up by the edges. He took the envelope into the dining room, where he put his gun on the table and switched on the lights. He turned over the envelope in his hands and saw a message scrawled on the outside:

Rudy wanted you to have this.

The envelope was light, as if almost nothing were inside. Frost undid the clasp and opened the flap. He saw a small piece of paper tucked near the bottom of the envelope, and he overturned it and let the paper flutter onto the dining room table. It was no more than four inches by six inches, with what looked like grease stains on the surface. Using the cap of a pen, Frost turned the paper over and saw that it was a green, lined receipt, the kind used for taking orders at diners.

And at pizza restaurants.

Frost recognized the handwriting on the slip. Katie had written it. He saw the name above the delivery address, too. Todd Clary. Clary had ordered an olive-and-arugula pizza with garlic cream sauce to 415 Parker. It was the last order Katie had ever taken. This receipt was what had sent her on a delivery run that would end in her murder. It still made no sense to him.