The Night Bird (Frost Easton #1)

“Is that all you have? Paranoia? Insults? You’re boring me, Sis.”

Frankie didn’t stop. She simply went on. “I’ve been wondering all day what this was really about. Why you did it. I mean, I know you hated Dad, but even for you—to kill him? To push him off a cliff? The sister I know would laugh, or swear at him, but she’d never lose control. No, there had to be something else. Something that drove you over the edge.”

“I’m not going to sit here and listen to this nonsense,” Pam said, but she made no attempt to leave.

“Don’t worry. I’m not wearing a wire. This is just us. You and me.”

“Well, how sweet.”

“I really couldn’t figure it out,” Frankie said, “but then I remembered something you said. You reminded me that all of those New Year’s weekend discussions were just an excuse for Dad to tell you what you were doing wrong with your life. And you’re right. He did that all the time. Why would this year be any different? The thing is, I’ve been remembering his infuriating questions for days. They were about risk this year. About my doing something terrible that put someone else in jeopardy. I didn’t understand, because I kept thinking I was the only one there. What did I do that he disapproved of? Who was I putting at risk? But it wasn’t me. He wasn’t asking me any of those questions. It was you.”

Virgil came to the table again and poured more champagne. Frankie waited. Bitterness brewed in Pam’s eyes, but she smiled as if nothing were wrong.

“Question,” Frankie said when they were alone again. “Is it acceptable to pursue your own selfish satisfaction when it causes risk to someone else?”

“Go screw yourself, Sister.”

“Question,” Frankie said. “So it’s okay to risk another’s life or happiness simply because you really want something?”

Pam’s pretty face was a mask of hatred. She lifted her champagne glass. “Is that all? Are you done?”

“No, there was another question,” Frankie went on. “Back then, I couldn’t be sure I heard it right. I figured I was wrong. He couldn’t have said something like that, not to you. But I wasn’t wrong, was I? I heard exactly what he asked you.”

“Oh? And what was that?”

“Question,” Frankie interrogated her, leaning across the table and grabbing Pam’s wrist. “Are you and Jason still sleeping together?”

Pam hesitated only a moment, then freed herself and took another drink of champagne. She spoke without a hint of shame in her voice. She was nonchalant. Casual. As if they were talking about the weather.

“Yes.”

Frankie closed her eyes. She’d known what the answer would be, but she still had to wait for the breath to come back into her chest. “How long?”

Pam shrugged. “Since last fall. And don’t climb on your moral high horse with me. I know about you and Darren Newman.”

“Nothing happened between us. I never touched him.”

“No? You just fantasized about him. A murderer. A rapist. Do you feel good about yourself?”

“Shut up,” Frankie snapped.

“Face it, you wanted Darren more than your own husband.”

“Do you think that gives you the right to sleep with him?”

“I don’t ask you for permission for anything I do,” Pam retorted.

“My God, what a heartless bitch you are. Are you in love with him?”

“Oh, please.”

“Is he in love with you?”

“Grow up, Frankie. Why are you so concerned about love? Did you have a different father than I did? Neither one of us knows what love is.”

“So why did you do it? Spite? Revenge?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Pam said. “Yes, I’ll admit, I loved the idea of humiliating you. Every time I heard another of your success stories, I wanted to say, ‘Oh, really? Well, I’m sleeping with your husband.’ But I don’t overanalyze everything, Frankie, not like you. I wanted it. He wanted it. So it happened.”

“Dad found out?”

Pam sighed. “Yes, our interfering father. He saw me and Jason outside the building when he came to visit. We were kissing. This was right before Christmas. Of course, he was full of righteous indignation. He swore to me that he would tell you about the affair if I didn’t stop. When we were hiking that morning by the ocean, he wouldn’t let it go. He kept lecturing me about ruining my sister’s life. I didn’t care about that, to be honest, but he said he would cut me out of his will, too, and I knew he was serious. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

Frankie could see them on the cliff’s edge. Arguing.

She could see Pam’s hands on his chest.

She could see him fall.

“You saw us,” Pam went on. “You’d gotten ahead of us, but you turned back while we were arguing, and you saw us. I begged you to forget it. I said it was an accident, that I got angry over all those years of emotional abuse, that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. You believed me. You may be a psychiatrist, but you fell for my poor, poor pitiful me act. So you asked Jason to wipe it all away.”

Frankie stood up from the table. Her legs barely supported her, but she didn’t want her sister to see her trembling.

“I want you out,” Frankie told Pam. “You have twenty-four hours to get everything out of my place. Take Jason with you. I never want to see either of you again.”

Pam raised her glass in a toast and picked up a menu. “Whatever you say.”

Frankie wanted to do something. Slap her. Hit her. Throw the champagne in her face. But she didn’t. She stalked from the restaurant onto the street, and when she was on her own, beyond the view of the windows, she finally broke down. Tears welled up and poured from her eyes. She fell against the wall and beat her fists against the stone. People stopped and offered help, and she waved them away. She wailed, even though she didn’t even know what she was crying for. In the end, she felt nothing. She was dead inside.

A text tone sounded on her phone. She wondered if it was Jason. Or Pam. What could they say to her now?

Instead, it was from Frost Easton.



I’m here.



Frankie composed herself. She wiped her face as best she could and hugged herself against the chill as she headed toward Union Square. It was dark. The lights of the city didn’t lift her heart. The shadows felt ominous, and the mounds of the homeless under blankets in the doorways depressed her. Right now, she wanted to be anywhere but here. She wanted to leave the city and never look back.

She found Frost waiting for her on a bench in the park. It was their prearranged meeting place. He could read her face, and he seemed to understand that her world was falling to the ground brick by brick. She liked his empathy. She liked the worry that she saw in his eyes.

“That didn’t take long,” Frost said.

“No, it didn’t.”

They were silent for a while. He knew she needed time. Frankie felt another tear slip from her eye, and she quickly wiped it away.

“Did she say anything?” Frost asked finally. “Did she admit it?”

Frankie took a breath, deciding what to tell him. She had to choose whether to acknowledge to the world what her sister had said. What she’d done. And why.

“No, she didn’t,” Frankie said.

“She stuck to her story? Even with you?”

“I’m sorry, Frost. She didn’t say a word.”

He pursed his lips and studied her face as if she were wearing a mask. She didn’t think he believed her, but he seemed to understand there were places she couldn’t go. She owed Pam nothing, but still she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t turn her in.

“I think she’s guilty, but I can’t prove anything without a confession,” Frost told her. “Your father is dead, and your memory—”

“Is gone,” Frankie said. “I understand. She’s going to get away with it. There’s nothing I can do about that.”

It was the end. The journey stopped here.

“So how are you?” Frost asked.

Frankie stared at the park. She’d spent so many days here. Day after day that melded into years. “Free,” she said. “And alone. I’ve cut the cord with both of them. Permanently.”