“My God,” she buried her face for a moment, then looked up at the deranged man on the bridge. “You’re nuts,” she yelled. “I didn’t kill my sister,” she said.
“You did,” the man said. “You said you did. The world is better off without you, you know that.”
“No,” she said, bawling her eyes out. “It isn’t. It isn’t.”
As Simon held her tight, he looked up at the would-be killer and asked, “And your mother?”
“What about her? She was weak. All she cared about was the fact that my brother was gone,” he said, leaning over and laughing at them. Then he held up something that glinted in the bridge light.
The fucking animal had a knife.
“He was always the favorite.”
“That’s not true,” she whispered, her breathing labored, still in Simon’s arms. “He told me that his brother committed suicide, and that ever since then he’d been lost. And his mother finally came around to seeing that life was better if she wasn’t here because she was responsible for his suicide.”
That made sense. Simon’s arms started to tremble. Where the hell was Kate? He couldn’t hold Mali for much longer. Then how long would it take for a knife to cut this line…
“Police! Hands up.”
Chapter 20
Kenneth Walker staredat Kate and swore. “I’m not going down with them,” he said, as he held the knife over the rope.
“That won’t cut through in one fell swoop either,” Kate said, her voice calm and controlled. “Do you really think they make safety lines out of twine?”
He stared at her and said, “I’m not going down for this.”
From below Kate heard a woman yelling.
“Why don’tyoujump? You just wanted me to jump because you were too chicken, too scared to do it yourself.”
He yelled down, “Shut up. I’m out of here. I’m not jumping, so just shut the fuck up.”
“You’ve been trying to get the courage to jump yourself, to end your pain.” Mali cried out. “You’re the one who loved your twin. You’re the one who missed him so badly that you couldn’t go on without him, but you couldn’t do it. You didn’t have the strength or the confidence to do it. You spent all your time making other people feel bad, driving them to commit suicide, when it was really you who wanted to die. What is it you’ve been saying to me?Just do it.”
“Step away from the bridge and put the knife down,” Kate told Walker.
The man suddenly held up his hands. “Okay. Okay, don’t shoot.” He dropped the knife, grabbed the railing, and jumped off.
It was hard to see in the darkening evening; Kate raced to the railing, but she hadn’t heard even an audible splash. Kate looked frantically in the water below. There was no sign of him. The black water churned endlessly below. As she raced to Simon, he spoke to the construction crew.
Simon said, “Pretty damn sloppy that you left all this out here but a good thing for us.”
Hearing an odd sound, she watched the construction crew winch up an exhausted Simon and Mali. By the time they reached the safety of the bridge deck, traffic was stopped in both directions, plus cops and an ambulance had arrived. Rodney stood at her side.
“None of this gear should have been left here,” Simon said quietly, standing on the ledge of the bridge, hanging on, while Mali still clung to him.
“It wasn’t supposed to be,” the foreman said, “but we ended up with a problem with one of the crew. He had to go get medical attention fast, and we didn’t have anybody to guard this. What a shit show.”
“Yeah, you’re not kidding,” Simon said, as the construction guy helped Mali back onto the bridge. Simon scrambled over the railing, then stopped and took a deep breath. He looked at Kate, gave her a lopsided grin, and said, “I don’t think I’ll like bridges anymore.”
She snorted. “I’ve never liked bridges myself.” She walked over, gave him a hug, and said, “Good job.”
He shook his head and said, “If that’s what you call it.” As he turned to look at Mali, she stood there, staring down at the water, mesmerized. He immediately reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.
She turned, smiled up at him all teary, and said, “I’m okay. Honest, I am.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “You weren’t supposed to be here at all. You were supposed to stay home.”