“I did too,” Kate said. “So either she didn’t tell us everything, or he found another way to get to her.”
“Yeah, I suspect it’s both,” he said.
“Did it ever occur to you that it’s possible she killed her sister?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I couldn’t even begin to tell you.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s disconcerting to consider that he could have something like that on her.”
“How would he know though? That’s the question.”
“I don’t know. Maybe he haunts the newspapers. Maybe he’s haunting the suicide support groups and then researches them. Maybe he befriends them to gain their confidence and finds out their secrets, then uses it against them.”
“Of course,” Simon said instantly, “this is what he’s doing. Somehow, somewhere along the line Mali must have confessed something to him, either that she’s afraid she might have done something or that she’s such a terrible person and needs to die because she did do something.”
“But of course that doesn’t mean that she did.”
“No,” he said, “we all know what that mind-set is like. How far away are you?”
“We’re at least fifteen minutes out,” she said. “How about you?”
“I’m heading toward the bridge now.”
“Can you see her?” she asked evenly.
“No, not yet, and it’s getting damn dark out here.”
“What about anybody else?” she said. “Any lights or anything?”
“Nothing, just the traffic,” he said. “Never a shortage of that. I’ll let you know as soon as I see something.” With that, he hung up, and, all on their own volition, his feet started to run. He swore. “If you keep doing this,” he roared into the darkness, “I’ll need proper running shoes!”
He was in his loafers, not exactly the best thing for speed. He was fit and in good shape, but he hadn’t expected to sprint for a mile. By the time he hit the center of the bridge, he was wondering what the hell was going on. Because there was no slowing down, and his feet kept him running and running and running. Finally they came to a dead stop. He froze and looked at the railing. A man and a woman stood there, but they were arguing. He wanted to approach because something was ever-so-slightly familiar about her face, but he wasn’t exactly sure if it was Mali.
Underneath the bridge, he saw scaffolding. He frowned at that. He knew that the city was doing a lot of work on the bridge, topside and underneath, but did anybody realize what was going on? He wondered if he could get down there. Any way for him to get below where Mali stood. Could he stop her, or, if she jumped, could he help her?
He studied the construction work and pulled out his phone, calling Kate. “Work’s being done on the bridge.”
“There’s always work being done on the bridge,” she said. “So what?”
“It’s in same area where they are.”
“They?”
“I think it’s Mali, and a guy’s with her.”
“Oh,great.” Kate thought out loud. “I could get ahold of the construction crews, the city workers, and see just what the plan was and what was down there. Maybe they could get a helicopter here.”
At that point, Simon also noted that a lot of work had been going on right where he stood. He’d seen part of it before, but he’d been on the other side of the bridge. This time he was on the right side of the bridge for a change, where the scaffolding was underneath. They must have been doing some reinforcement work or maybe even just a paint job; he didn’t know.
He slipped over the side and made it onto the scaffolding, where the safety rail part of it had already been ripped off. Had some kids done that? It should never have been left open like this. Yet, since the scaffolding was closer to the water, the wind kept slamming one portion of it against the bridge, banging it over and over again. Simon crept his way down until he was as close as he could be, beneath where Mali stood with the man. The cold wind had a bite to it. Add in the growing darkness and the lonely spot,… talk about unnerving. He heard them arguing.
“You need to do this. You know that,” he said in that soothing tone.
“Oh, God, I don’t want to call my parents,” she said. “Please don’t make me.”
“But I’m not making you do anything,” he said, with that horrible snarky voice that Simon had heard time and time again. “This is all you. It’s got nothing to do with me.”
She started to cry louder and louder.