It came from everywhere and nowhere. She froze. Fear rippled up and down her skin. Mist blew in front of her eyes, and spiny tree branches in the alley knocked together with each cold gust. She stared into the fog and listened for the voice again. It was night, and that was when the Night Bird came out to sing.

Frankie held her breath. She heard nothing, only the wind and the hypnotic thunder of the waves. The more time passed, the more she believed that her brain had conjured the voice. It wasn’t real. She clutched her purse tighter on her shoulder and headed for her car. She made a point to walk, not run, but every few steps, she glanced behind her, peering through the cloud. She was alone. When she reached her car, she got inside and immediately locked the door. Her hands were trembling.

She switched on the engine. Her headlights lit up the rocks on the seawall, and she screamed.

Todd Ferris was standing in front of her car.

Her hand jumped to the gearshift. She wanted to put the car in reverse and drive away, but she didn’t. Todd stared at her through the windshield, and she stared back at him. He didn’t move. There was something in his eyes that made her uncomfortable. Grief. Confusion. Anger. She realized that she didn’t know him at all. Even so, he was the man she’d come to see.

Frankie shut down the car and got out. Todd stayed where he was, so she walked toward the beach. His feet were in the sand. The black water rolled in behind him. His thin brown hair was wet.

“Dr. Stein,” he said, so softly that she could barely hear him. “I thought that was you.”

“I rang the bell at your apartment, but there was no answer,” she said.

“I was walking on the beach. What are you doing here?”

She listened to his voice before answering. She tried to decide if the strange whisper could have come from him, but it was impossible to be sure. She didn’t even know if she’d really heard it.

“We need to talk, Todd.”

He shrugged and wandered along the boardwalk beside the beach, and she walked beside him. He wore a sweatshirt and shorts and sneakers with no socks. He stared at the ground, with his mouth turned downward in a frown. When they reached a bench, he sat down and put his hands on his knobby knees.

Frankie sat down, too. “I tried calling,” she said. “You put the wrong number on your patient form.”

“What number was it?”

She checked her phone and read it off to him. He shook his head.

“No, sorry. I swapped two of the digits. I do that sometimes. It’s a kind of dyslexia.”

She noticed that he didn’t correct the number for her, and she doubted that he’d made an innocent mistake.