Not the bullet wounds, Frost thought. He didn’t know about the wounds inside. It was cruel enough to torture a person’s body, but it was even worse to torture someone’s mind. There was no surgery for that. No gauze pads to press against the blood, no stitches. He began to understand the temptation of manipulating someone’s memory to make the past go away. He wondered if, given the choice, Lucy would want to forget everything. Erase the last week of her life that began on the bridge with Brynn. Forget the Night Bird.

Forget Frost, too.

Then he stared at the stark white walls and thought, This is what a blank slate looks like. This is the emptiness that’s left when your memory is gone. It didn’t seem any better than the alternative.

Finally, finally, he heard sirens drawing closer.

The police officer who drove Frankie home loved to chat. She wasn’t in a mood to talk, but that didn’t bother him.

His name was Harmon Krug. He was one of the largest human beings that Frankie had ever met, with a chest so deep that he had trouble turning the steering wheel. He was bald, with no neck and hands that resembled baseball gloves. He slouched in his seat to avoid grazing the roof of the car with his head.

“So you’re a shrink, huh?” Harmon asked, in a voice that had its own amplifier. “Messing around in people’s heads, that’s gotta be weird. Most of the people I meet, I don’t think you’d want to take a good look under the hood, know what I mean?”

Frankie didn’t answer. She closed her eyes and leaned against the cold window of the squad car, but Harmon didn’t take the hint.

“I guess everybody’s a freak about something. Hell, it’s San Fran. People say we got more than our fair share of the weirds, right? I’ve got a brother who lives in North Dakota. Him and his family come out here, and they watch the pride parade, and they can’t believe it. Of course, then he calls on Christmas, and he tells me they’re eating lutefisk. You ever had lutefisk? Soak fish in lye until it’s some kind of jelly? No, thanks, that’s weirder than anything you’ll find in the Castro District.”

Frankie couldn’t help but laugh. It felt good to let go of some of the stress of the past week.

“I suppose you deal with phobias and stuff,” he said.

“Sometimes.”

“Spiders, snakes, germs, all those?”

“All those,” she said.

“Sidewalk cracks,” Harmon said. “Are there really people who can’t walk on sidewalk cracks? What’s that about?”

Frankie sighed. “Phobias aren’t rational, Harmon.”

“Yeah, but sidewalk cracks?”