He sat back and looked at her in surprise. “No, we don’t,” he said. “But, in your heart, you need to know. You need to know where you stand. So, when push comes to shove, when this all blows up in your face, that you have a leg to stand on. As for motivation, you need to know why you are doing this, who you’re doing this for, and whether you’ll continue to do this.”
“And what the hell isthis?” she snapped.
“Dealing with him on cases,” Rodney said quietly. “And, if you can’t trust him, why are you even sleeping with him?” With that, he got up and walked out of the bullpen.
*
Simon’s Sunday Night
Lying in bedthat night, alone and wishing to hell he had gotten up and gone to her place, Simon stared up at the ceiling, hating the feeling that he was on the cusp of something major, and yet knowing, if he took the right avenue, it would go better. And, if he took the wrong avenue, it would go worse. Either way it would be tough.
“How the fuck can that be?” he asked, reaching out and scrubbing his face, before rolling over, punching the pillow, and pushing it farther up under his head.
“If I go one direction, it should be good, and the other one should be bad. So how can they both be bad?” It wasn’t even so much that they were both bad, but neither would provide the relief he wanted. He suspected that it was highly connected to these visions, which were out of his control. So, when he had absolutely no control over who he connected with, when to connect, how to connect, or what to connect over, why would anybody want anything to do with this? As he lay here, sleep was a long way off. He felt his body drifting deeper and deeper toward sleep. Right there, at the edge of his consciousness, the wordsDo itslammed into his head again.
He groaned, rolled onto his back, and said, “Fuck off.” But, of course, it wasn’t so easy as that.
Almost instantly he saw the bridge, with the same sneakers, the same hands gripping the railing, and somebody leaning over the edge, staring at the water. It had never occurred to him, but did these people go to their jump-off point time and time again, as if getting up the courage to make the jump? Because, if that were the case, somebody should be monitoring that location on the bridge and getting out there and stopping her.
Her. It felt like a her, but he didn’t know. He didn’t have any reason to say her or him, but it felt like a her. And that was good enough for him.
He sat up, reached out in his mind, and said,Don’t. Just go home. But he felt no connection. As if his connection to her and this other voice was on Mute. He thought about it for a long moment and then whispered, “Don’t. Just go home.”
Trying to use the same tone, the same mentality, and, in a soft whisper, telling her, “Go home. It’s fine. Go home.” But she wasn’t listening. She leaned farther and farther over the railing. He saw the whitewater churning below. For whatever reason the current was moving off to the left, and waves crashed down on the rocks. It was dark out.
“Go home,” Simon said. “Go home,” he repeated, trying to be more emphatic, more forceful. Trying in some way to have the ability to change the outcome. Because the thing that really drove him crazy was that he had no way to control this. He was nothing but an observer. If he couldn’t do something to change the outcome, how the hell would any of this matter? Why the hell was he going through this to only suffer and watch someone die?
Then he stopped and thought, was it really another person manipulating her, or was it her own psyche whispering,Do it? Was he connecting with that part of her, that part that was desperate to end it all? In which case, how was he even supposed to change it? Or was change not an option? That complete helplessness drove him to more questions.
As he lay here, he felt the same water rushing under his feet, the same fear pressing in on him, the sadness welling up from deep inside. He wondered what the hell it was from. He tried to find out, to delve deeper, but there seemed to be a wall. He was only getting to view it, like a movie playing out in front of him, but there was no audio, except that damn voice that said,Do it.
If only there was a way to identify her. He sent a text to Kate.She’s there on the bridge right now.
Expecting a response and not getting one made him angry. Why was he the only one who was worried? It wasn’t so much that it was only him, but Kate didn’t even believe in what he was doing. Hell, neither did he for that matter. How could he blame Kate for not believing him when he didn’t believe it himself? This was just bullshit, all of it. He groaned and got up, heading for a shower, and instead found himself getting dressed.No, no, no. But soon he was dressed, grabbing his keys and wallet, heading outside, and grabbing a cab.
For whatever reason, he didn’t even want to drive himself, helpless to do anything but follow along. As he got near, he had the driver drop him off at the spot he was looking for, telling him to come back in maybe forty minutes. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”
The cabbie looked at him in surprise and just said, “I don’t know. I’ll have to loop completely around to pick you up again.”
“Go have a coffee and come back.”
The guy shrugged and headed over to West Vancouver.
Simon walked along the bridge, looking to see what was going on. He saw a woman walking up ahead. He came quickly up behind her, wondering, worrying, but the woman seemed to be fine. She was just walking ahead, getting more and more nervous when he came closer behind her. He called out to her, “Hey, I’m just walking. I’m not a threat.”
She didn’t slow down; instead she broke into run and kept running. He couldn’t blame her honestly. He was a single guy down on the bridge in the dark. He walked back to where he thought the actual sighting was but couldn’t see anything over the water or on the bridge itself. He groaned, smashed his fist on the railing, then turned and headed back to wait for the cabbie.
As he sat on the curb, cursing his impulsiveness that brought him here, his phone rang.
“Where are you?” Kate asked in a peremptory tone.
“I’m down at the bridge.”
“Did you see her?”
He felt the worry in her voice. She did care. “No,” he said, his tone heavy. “And no sign that she jumped either.”
“Well, that’s a godsend.”