At that, a hand was slapped over her mouth, and she was jerked backward. “Don’t you say a fucking word,” the man said. “Don’t say anything at all.”
She groaned, struggling, but Simon couldn’t even hear a word.
He walked along the lip on the outside of the bridge, getting closer to them, and said, “Come on, Mali. Come over here to me.”
“She’s not going anywhere,” the man said, as he pulled her closer to the railing.
Simon said, “Hey, hey, hey, don’t you even think about throwing her over.” He was still on the outside of the railing, and he shuffled closer and closer, trying not to think about the cold inky churning water below. As he got nearer, the other man pulled back.
“You can’t keep going.” The guy laughed. “It looks like your safety line will only take you so far.”
That was very true. Simon was almost about out of rope here and knew he would have to decide if he would unhook himself and jump over onto the main portion of the bridge.
At that, the guy picked up Mali—making her scream in panic, fighting her attacker—and held her on top of the railing.
“You know, up until now,” Simon said, “I wasn’t even sure what charges they would file against you, but the minute you drop her off that bridge, it’s murder one.”
“What the hell do you know?” he sneered. “It wasn’t premeditated.”
“Well, that’s not quite true,” Simon said, “considering all the emails you’ve been sending to the people on the chat groups.”
“What are you talking about?” he said in shock. “And what do you even know about it?”
“Oh, let’s see. I know that you’re blackmailing these people into committing suicide. Thirteen times now, isn’t it? Mali here would be fourteen.”
The guy just stared at him, shocked. “Who the hell are you?”
“Someone who cares about your victims,” he said quietly, “but I don’t really give a shit about you.”
At that, the other man sneered. “You can’t say anything about me,” he said. “You know nothing about me.”
“I know that your twin died. I know that your mother’s dead,” he said, thankful Kate had shared that information moments ago.
The guy just stared at him in shock. “No, no, no,” he said, “no way you could know any of that.” Nervously he climbed a little bit higher, still holding Mali in his arms. She was frantic, trying to grab onto the railing.
Simon was almost close enough to snatch her out of his arms. “I do know that,” Simon said. “What I don’t know is whether you helped your mother and your brother die or if this is something you came up with afterward.”
“What difference does it make?” he said. “I’m all alone.”
“Of course you are, and being alone is not the easiest place to be, but you sure as hell didn’t have to make other families suffer by losing loved ones they care about.”
“Nobody in her family cares about her,” he snarled. “She’s better off dead.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute,” Simon said.
Mali was crying and screaming hysterically. By now traffic had backed up around them, as people stopped. Others honked and tried to weave around them because nobody wanted to get stopped on a bridge. Of course not everybody saw what was happening either.
In the distance, he heard sirens coming. “Oh, the cops are here,” Simon said. “What will you do now?”
He just laughed.
“Don’t you drop her—” Simon said, and, with that, the man tossed her off. Screaming, she went over.
Simon lunged forward and grabbed Mali by the leg, just as the laughing man threw her off. Her weight sent Simon flying off the bridge, knowing that, when they hit the end of the rope, the snap on his grip would be horrific. They plummeted down, and the safety harness jerked hard, but he hung on to her.
Mali screamed, as the rope came to the end of its line abruptly. They were dangling upside down, but she was safe. She reached out, grabbing for his hand, pulling herself up, until she was wrapped around him, both dangling upside down.
He held on to her and whispered, “Just stop moving. We’ll get help. See? Look.”