She added, “But, then again, I haven’t opened up my email today.”
“I do it when I first wake up,” he confessed.
“I used to. Then I decided I needed to have that bit of distance, so I don’t look at work emails until I come in to my desk.”
“That’s probably smart,” he said, “unless you’re expecting information, and then you’ll need to be into it all the time.”
“Well, it’s a fairly recent attempt,” she said, “so I don’t know if it’ll work or not.”
He shrugged. “It seems like, most of the time, information comes in at odd hours, so you’ll have to be a little flexible with it at least.”
“I know,” she said. “I was just struggling and trying something in the way of boundaries.”
He nodded. “And I get that. I really do,” he said. “You’ve just got to find a system that works for you and keeps your head above water.”
She smiled, nodded, and opened up her emails. And when one came in with something odd in the subject line, she said, “Uh-oh. Look at this subject line. ‘Are you there?’ it says.” She snorted. “Like where else would I be?”
He turned and looked at her. “Did you open it?”
She said, “It’s just opening now.” She picked up her coffee, took another big sip, and almost spewed it back into the cup. “Shit,” she said.
He slowly turned, looked at her, and asked, “Is it another one?”
She nodded. “It’s another one.” She studied the image in front of her, a growing disquiet inside. “Looks like the Lions Gate Bridge again,” she said, “and, although it’s a picture of shoes, I can’t tell the sex of the wearer from these. It’s a pair of runners.” She frowned. “Looks like maybe a wallet or something is stuffed inside them.” She scrubbed her face and said, “What the hell is going on?”
“Put it up on the wall screen, and let’s see if there’s anything else.”
She quickly transferred the desktop image to the screen on the wall. Two others in their team walked in just then, talking, Lilliana and Owen. They stopped when they saw the photo. Lilliana’s gaze zoomed in on her. “Another one?”
Kate nodded, as she stood and walked over to stand in front of it. “I just found it.”
“Why is somebody sending you pictures of the aftermath of a suicide?” Owen asked, not expecting anybody to give him an answer.
“This one had a subject line,” Rodney said, coming up beside her, his tone grim. “Are you there?”
“What the hell does that mean?” Owen asked.
“What it means,” Kate said, “or at least what my churning stomach thinks it means, is that somebody is killing people and making it look like a suicide.”
Colby walked up right behind her. “Please tell me that you didn’t just say that.”
Her shoulders hunched. “I got a third email today,” she said, nodding at the front wall.
He walked up to take a closer look. “Jesus. Confirm that a jumper was there overnight,” he said. “And then we need to have a talk about it.”
“Talk about what though?” Kate asked. “If this is murder, I don’t even know what to say.”
“It’s probably not. Odds are it’s just some asshat messing with you,” Rodney said. “They know that first one got to you a little bit because they saw you down there, and now they just want to jerk your chain a little bit.”
“Meaning that it’s just a sicko playing games?”
“Well, the other alternative,” he said, “is that we have a serial killer.”
“That’s not anything anybody wants to look at either,” Kate muttered.
“But burying our heads has never helped,” Colby said, his voice quiet. “This needs a full investigation, if only so we can write it off.”
Kate nodded. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll add it to my stack of paperwork.”