But she couldn’t say that. She wasn’t even sure if she believed it anymore. They were all inside her head. Monica. Brynn. Christie. Their fears were her own now. Somehow, she’d failed them.
“The mind is a powerful thing, Lucy,” she said quietly. “A surgeon can’t give you any guarantees, and neither can I. But I can promise you one thing. If you want to take the first step — if you want to cross the bridge — you won’t be alone. I’ll be with you the whole way.”
Frost waited near the doors of Saks Fifth Avenue while Lucy went inside Francesca Stein’s office building. Behind his sunglasses, his eyes went from face to face in the Union Square crowd to see if anyone was watching Lucy. When he was satisfied that no one was, he crossed the street and did a circuit of the street performers and the homeless who haunted the plaza. He’d learned over the years that they made the best spies.
He’d found a photograph online that was similar to the mask he’d seen overnight. Half a dozen people recognized it. The mask was hard to forget. Even so, no one had seen the man behind the mask, and no one had seen him come or go in the square. The Night Bird was careful.
His forensic team hadn’t given him good news. The compact disc that Frost had found in the parking garage had been wiped clean of fingerprints. The same was true of the Cutlass that had been left outside his building. The car had been stolen a week earlier, and the license plates had been swapped. The electronic tracing on the man’s texts, e-mails, and online posts had ended in an anonymous account.
Every clue turned out to be a dead end.
Frost bought a hot dog and waited for Lucy. The cable cars came and went on Powell Street. It was a sunny Monday afternoon, warm and still. He checked his watch over and over, because he was impatient for Lucy to be out of Francesca Stein’s office. He didn’t want her in there at all.
An hour passed before he saw Lucy emerge from the building lobby. He waved to her, and she waved back. She cut across the street traffic to meet him, and she was a little breathless.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah! Fine!” She saw his worried face and said, “Really, Frost, I’m fine.”
“How’d it go?”
“I like her. I think I might go ahead with it.”
“Lucy, let me solve this case first,” he said. “Give it some time.”
“I will. She wanted me to wait, too. Are you worried about me?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” she said. “Are you busy? Do you want to go somewhere? You can debrief me. Isn’t that what secret agents do?”
“I’ve got to talk to Dr. Stein myself,” Frost said. “How about we meet up a little later?”
“Yeah, definitely.” She was in a very good mood.
“Alembic? Ten o’clock?”
“Perfect.”
Lucy turned away, but Frost stopped her with a gentle hand on her wrist. “Lucy? Be careful, okay? I asked you to keep your eyes open, and I mean it. If you see anything that looks suspicious, call me.”
“If I spot any creepy masks, I will scream.”
“I’m serious,” he told her.
“I know you are. I like that you want to protect me.”
25
Ten minutes later, Frost showed the photograph of the mask that the Night Bird had been wearing to Dr. Stein.
“Do you recognize it? Have you seen a mask like this before? Or does it have any special meaning for you?”
The psychiatrist stared at it and couldn’t seem to look away. He could see that the mask struck a chord in her memory. She knew it from somewhere.
“Dr. Stein?”
She broke out of her trance and handed him the photo. “No. I’ve never seen it.”
“Are you sure? You reacted as if you had.”
“No, I’m sorry. Why are you showing me this?”
“A witness spotted a man in a mask like this at the scene where Brynn Lansing went off the bridge. I saw him, too.”
Stein looked surprised. “You did? You saw him yourself?”
“Yes, I saw a man wearing this mask in Union Square, and I saw him again last night outside my house.”
She frowned. “I don’t like that at all.”
“Why?”
“He’s making you part of his game, Inspector. It’s personal now. If I were you, I’d be very careful. Are you any closer to finding him?”
Frost shook his head. “Not so far. As you say, he’s playing games with us. He’s leaving clues, but the clues haven’t led us anywhere. We don’t have any DNA or fingerprints. He hasn’t shown up on any surveillance cameras. Whoever is doing this is tech savvy, too.”
“Tech savvy?” Stein asked. Her forehead wrinkled with concern.
“Yes, he knows how to cover his electronic tracks, and he seems adept at hacking remote apps. Why, does that mean something to you?”
“No.”
But he thought it did. She was deliberately keeping him in the dark.
Frost retrieved another evidence bag from his pocket. It contained the brass button he’d found in the parking ramp where Christie Parke had been abducted. “Do you recall seeing anyone wearing a suit coat with buttons like this? Or someone with a coat that had a missing button?”
Stein shook her head. “Sorry. It looks pretty ordinary.”
“Unfortunately, it is. I’m not even sure it’s connected to our suspect.”
“I wish I could help, Inspector. I want this person found as much as you do. Probably more.”
“Do you?” Frost asked.
She stared at him. “Excuse me?”
“Do you want him found, Dr. Stein, or are you protecting him? Because I think you’re holding out on me.”
Stein got up from her office chair. She went to a Keurig coffeemaker on the credenza against the wall and made herself a cup of coffee. She gestured to offer him one, but he shook his head. While the mug filled, she didn’t talk. She took the coffee back to her desk and sat down again. She studied him over the lip of the mug as she drank.
“I’ve told you everything I can tell you right now,” she said, as if she were choosing her words carefully.
“I’m a lawyer as well as a cop, Dr. Stein. I know a lawyerly response when I hear one.”
“I’m not trying to be difficult, Inspector. The instant anything happens to free my hands, you’ll be my first call. Until then, I can’t betray my patients. I’m sorry.”
“Does that mean you think this man is one of your patients?”
“I didn’t say that at all.”
Frost sighed in frustration and shifted the focus of his questions. He removed his phone from his pocket and put it on the desk between them.
“Do you ever use music in your therapy?” he asked her.
“Of course. Music is very powerful for activating emotions and memories. I select music carefully for each patient.”
He pushed a button on his phone, and Carole King began to sing.
“Do you know this song?” he asked.
Stein gave him a puzzled look, but she nodded. Her eyebrows rose as she heard the reference to the night bird in the first verse.
“Is this a song you’ve ever used?” he asked. “Have you played it in therapy with any of your patients?”
“No.”
“Well, it seems to mean something to the Night Bird. He used this song with each of the women who died. This seems to be what triggered their breakdowns. In every case, the song started playing, and that was when they had a psychotic reaction. Is that possible?”
Stein listened to the song. He could guess what she was thinking. It was strange to think of this pretty song as a murder weapon. The psychiatrist nodded. “Yes, music can be a trigger for behavior, based on hypnotic suggestions. Sometimes I’ll encourage patients to play a certain song as a soothing technique for their anxiety.”
“Can you interpret anything from his choice of this particular song?” Frost asked. “Does it mean anything to you?”