He looked at her and said, “The case files not going anywhere?”
She shook her head. “It seems like nothing’s going anywhere at the moment.”
“Well, maybe this will help, and you’ll find something about whatever it is that’s going on,” he said. “Who knows? Maybe it’ll produce something fresh enough to work.”
She nodded. “That would be nice.” She tossed one last look at the picture on the wall and said, “I’ll send these off to Forensics.”
“Good idea,” her sergeant said. “Did you send the others?”
She nodded. “But I’ll tag them with this third one, and then I’ll check in with the PD and see what we’ve gotten overnight for jumpers.”
And, with that, she sat down, ignoring them all, as she took care of everything else going on in her world. But, inside, she was using it as a means to escape their looks and their curiosity as to why she had been targeted for this.
She truly had no answer, but that wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference to whoever was doing this. They had a reason; she just didn’t know what it was yet, and that was quietly terrifying. She hadn’t done anything wrong in her world that she knew of, but it wouldn’t change anything.
Several calls later, she’d done what she had set out to do, but the information was oddly disquieting, even though she had the confirmation she needed.
Rodney turned around to face her. “Anything?”
She nodded slowly. “They’re still searching for the body. It was on the Lions Gate Bridge, so West Vancouver PD responded to the call.” He sat back and exhaled. She nodded. “I know. And there was something in his shoes, like we thought. The officer in charge hasn’t seen the report yet and wasn’t on the scene, so he didn’t know more, but they will forward the details as soon as it’s logged.”
He nodded. “And what do you want to do now?”
“I want to go to all three of the jumper scenes,” she said quietly.
He looked at her in surprise. “They’re hardly crime scenes.”
“We don’t know that, do we?”
He looked at the front wall where the latest jumper’s shoes picture was no longer visible, and he said, “You know something? It might be good to go anyway.” He hopped up, grabbed his jacket, and said, “Come on. I’ll drive.”
“I can drive,” she said.
“Canandshouldare two separate things.”
She glared at him. “It’s not a problem.”
“Hey, when suicide pushes your buttons, then we do the best we can to make sure they aren’t pushed any further.”
“It just makes me feel like a wimp,” she said. “I should have gotten over it.”
“When a friend goes that way, I think we’re all left with a question mark as to why and what we could have done,” he said. “Nothing like guilt to rack you over, time and time again.”
“And the stupid thing is, even after all the years, you still don’t know, you still don’t understand. So you still have questions.”
“And that’s human nature, right? And when you care, not a whole lot you can do about it. You just keep asking the same questions and never get any different answers. Maybe this time you can get a different answer.”
She looked at him in surprise. “But these aren’t people I know.”
“No, but they’re people that other people know.”
She winced at that. “Ouch. That’s part of the problem. The friends and families are out there, waiting for somebody to come home or waiting for an answer or waiting for something we can’t give them.”
“Well, maybe this time we can,” he said, with a bright smile. “Remember. Stay positive, and let’s keep hacking away at it.”
“Oh, I’m positive,” she said. “Positive we’ll figure out what the hell is going on.” And she was. This guy was starting to piss her off.
Rodney looked at her as they walked out. “Now you’re getting angry.”