The Unlucky Read online

  As she neared Sarah’s position, the girl brought her hands together and typed furiously on a cell phone. The time on the clock to Sarah’s right confirmed it was as Vivian had predicted. Maybe she could pull the girl aside, talk to her before she made a scene.

  But that option died instantly as the girl darted for the open door. Mike was about to shut it. She jammed her forearm inside just in time and yelped as the door closed on it.

  “Hey!” Mike exclaimed.

  Sarah jumped into action but was too late.

  Mike went to say something else, but the girl raised her hand and jabbed the base of her palm toward Mike’s face, shutting down any further argument from him. He stumbled back, released the door and grabbed at his bloody mouth.

  The jumper yanked the door open and stepped out onto the platform with no form of protection—no ropes, no tethers. She staggered on her feet for a moment in the wind, dipped her head and moved away from the door toward the edge.

  Sarah got to the door, but before opening it to go after the jumper, she dropped the ram-air backpack low and swung it into Mike’s unsuspecting face. It smacked his hand into his injured mouth. He groaned and squealed under his breath. The other guard had moved away as he talked on his radio.

  “Stop fucking around at work,” Sarah said. “Now your wife is going to hear about it and Janet’s pissed. Not to mention the other girls you’ve been sleeping with. Best you quit your job and leave town, asshole.”

  Sarah slipped through the door and pulled it closed behind her.

  The jumper snapped her head around to see who had followed her out. She raised her hands to ward Sarah off, a pained, frantic expression on her face.

  “Stay where you are or I’ll jump,” she yelled, her voice almost swallowed by the wind.

  Sarah took a moment to collect herself by lowering her center of gravity as the wind buffeted from all sides. The height was unimaginable.

  To focus on the jumper was to stop from falling. To not focus on the jumper was to experience vertigo, spin around and be lost to the air.

  She thought she had prepared for this but nothing prepared her for the abyss to her right. She could almost feel the Grim Reaper in the area, waiting for the soul of the one who fell. The one who swooned and fainted, lost over the edge because of an extra strong wind, or a light-headedness at the immensity of the height.

  She set the parachute by her feet, raised a hand so as not to alarm the jumper, and got down on one knee. It may have appeared calming to the jumper—a non-threatening posture—but it was more to gather herself.

  “It’s okay,” Sarah said loud enough to be heard over the wind. “I’m here to talk.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. I have to die. That’s all there is to it.”

  “No. You don’t. No one has to die.”

  Famous last words, Vivian whispered inside Sarah’s head.

  What does that mean? Sarah asked, but Vivian quieted.

  The girl’s gaze shifted toward Sarah with those intense eyes, her hair billowing up behind her head with the wind. “I do. I have to die.”

  “Tell me why, then,” Sarah said. “Why do you have to die?”

  “No,” the girl shouted. “Because if you found out what’s going on, you’d want to die, too.”

  “What could be so wrong that you have to die?” Sarah adjusted to her other knee. The wind calmed for a moment. To her left, the window was smeared with the faces of people as if they were spread on the viewing glass with a butter knife. Random flashes of cameras blinked as people took photos and filmed what they thought was about to be a suicide. Sarah idly wondered how long before this was on YouTube.

  When she had glanced away, the girl had moved closer to the edge. One strong wind from behind could easily send this girl tumbling to certain death; she was that close to the edge now.

  “Let’s talk,” Sarah shouted. “I can help.”

  “How?” the girl yelled back, her words laced with what sounded like anger. “How can you help? I don’t know you. These people are too powerful. They’re hidden, underground. There’s nothing anyone can do. I’m finished. I’m used up. I’m done. I can’t face my father and I won’t go on living like this anymore. They have left me no options.”

  Tears filled her eyes. The girl dropped to her knees and for that brief instant, Sarah was sure she was going over the edge.

  “Wait!” someone yelled from behind them.

  Sarah spun around. Two armed guards had opened the door and stepped out behind her.

  “Ma’am, please step back from the ledge.”

  “Fuck you!” the girl shouted, then moved so close that her knees cleared the edge. All she had to do was lean forward now. There was nothing stopping her. “Get back or I’m gone.”

  Sarah waved frantically for them to retreat. They hesitated.

  “Go!” she shouted. When they hesitated again, she drew her weapon, aimed it slightly left, away from their faces and the people inside, and fired. The report was loud but muffled by the noise of the wind, the message clear. The door slammed shut, and even over the wind, she heard the lock engage.

  The jumper hadn’t moved. But now she was crying, her upper body shaking with sobs.

  “I can help,” Sarah said. At a loss for words she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Vivian hadn’t offered explanations as to why this girl was supposed to be talked down. All Sarah knew was to be there on time and to bring the parachute and the gun.

  “You can’t help. It all ends in death and I refuse to be cremated.”

  Sarah frowned. Cremated?

  “Here, take this,” Sarah said. She held out the parachute. “Jump then, but take this.”

  “I came to die, not jump with a parachute.”

  Something caught Sarah’s eye on the wall to the left of the girl. A large red sign advertised what the Edgewalk participants were experiencing. It depicted a large photo of the CN Tower and its total height of 553 meters, just over 1,800 feet. A red dot the size of a golf ball coupled with a red arrow said, You Are Here. It was clearly marked as the rim where the Edgewalk took place and the height was written in big bold letters as 356 meters.

  That left the Edgewalk 800-feet short of the recommended 2,000 feet for a jump with this kind of parachute, minus the static line. The parachute would have to be already open at this height. Sarah wasn’t a skydiver, but from her brief research, it was dicey for a B.A.S.E. jumper to make it without a static line from this height. Or they’d at least have a nasty landing. Although, she surmised, it would probably be better to have a parachute than not have one at all.

  The girl swung her legs over the edge and dangled them, her hands on her thighs. It appeared she was examining where she would land over a thousand feet below.

  Through the wind and the sounds of the city, the distinct wail of sirens made its way to Sarah. The police were here and there would be more on their way. Now she would have to explain how she got a gun past security. She would probably get that security guard Janet in trouble as cameras would pick up how she let Sarah in even after the metal detector beeped.

  But all that could be handled later.

  “There has to be something I can do,” Sarah said. “Is there anything you want?”

  The girl made eye contact with Sarah.

  “All I want is to die, to finish this. Then the raping will stop. The torture, the humiliation, degradation, and constant flow of men will stop. Death will set me free. It all ends with death. I refuse to be cremated. My suicide will spark an investigation. Maybe someone will find out what’s been happening. Maybe my death will help others escape these people—”

  “Tell me about it. I can help you.” Sarah moved closer, parachute in one hand, gun in the other. “Let’s get to the bottom of this together.”

  The girl sawed a wrist across her eyes, wiping them. “You don’t understand. This life isn’t for me. I want to die. I’ve made my decision. I’m already dead on the inside. All I’m doing is kill
ing the outside. Then no one can have me anymore. I’ll be free.”

  Sarah moved closer still. Peripheral vision offered movement at the windows as cops filled the observation area, displacing the gawkers. The moment was upon them. The girl was going over if Sarah didn’t do something within a few seconds, but she was still too far away to make a grab at the girl’s arm.

  Literally, this was a do or die moment.

  The wind abated. She had broken out in a full body sweat. Eight feet in front of her the girl looked as if she sat on a dock overlooking a lake, dangling her feet in the water, bent forward in an attempt to locate fish or stare at her reflection. This was lunacy.

  “Please, don’t,” Sarah said. “It’s not worth it.” The girl didn’t acknowledge her. “At least take this then. Strap it on. Pull the cord and jump. It’ll give you a chance.”

  “I don’t want a chance. If I live after this, they will hunt me down and kill me. But not before tying me to a bed for six months and having every ape of a man do whatever he wishes to me. I’m ruined. It’s okay. I accept that now and take back the power over my own life.” She turned to Sarah. “Why can’t you accept it?” She scooted her buttocks closer to the edge. “Sometimes death is the right answer.”

  The realization of what was happening struck Sarah like marbles in a sock hitting her in the temple. She stumbled on her knee and tilted toward the edge.

  She wasn’t supposed to save this girl. She was supposed to meet her, hear her out. Nothing could save this girl. Her mind was made up and Vivian knew this.

  The access door opened behind Sarah. The cops probably figured out Sarah wasn’t doing a good job of negotiating the girl back from the edge.

  The girl looked past Sarah’s shoulder. “I told you to stay inside. Now I have to jump.”

  Sarah’s hand numbed. Vivian?

  Her arm numbed.

  A blackout? Now?

  Then Vivian took over her gun hand. She raised it against Sarah’s will. Inside Sarah, there was no conflict. Whenever Vivian took over, it was Vivian knows best. Her insight far exceeded anything Sarah could grasp or possibly know at any given moment.

  “Stop!” was all Sarah could think of saying as the Walther PPK was aimed at the girl’s head.

  When Sarah comprehended what Vivian was doing, she tried to fight her sister’s control over her body, but to no avail.

  “Freeze!” a man yelled behind her.

  The girl was smiling so wide, her bloodshot eyes slitted and the whites of her teeth jutted between her lips. She truly was at peace. She had made it and it was on her own terms.

  The jumper tilted at a forty-five degree angle. One second she was sitting on the edge, the next she had gone too far to recover. In that brief moment, Vivian applied pressure to the trigger of the Walther PPK repeatedly.

  The word No! shot through Sarah’s mind as the gun fired against Sarah’s will. Before the girl disappeared completely over the edge and out of sight, bullets entered her chest and neck.

  Then the girl was gone, along with the fine misty spray of blood from Sarah’s bullets.

  Movement at the window stopped. Everyone was frozen in a gasp of shock. This would go down as a murder in cold blood, even though the girl would’ve died anyway. Cameras recorded it. This wasn’t a suicide after all. For whatever reason—and only Vivian knew that at the moment—the girl needed to be murdered. That was why she got Sarah to buy the ram-air parachute.

  It was not to save the jumper. It was for Sarah’s escape.

  Oh no, she thought. Fuck my life.

  As Vivian relinquished her arm and Sarah regained control of it, the Walther PPK slipped from her grasp. She swung the parachute around her back and jammed her hands through the straps. How could she not see this before? You talk jumpers off ledges. You don’t offer them a parachute, a free, safe ride to the bottom. They wanted to die, not risk their life.

  Instead of getting up and offering a larger target for the police, their guns already out, Sarah whispered a silent prayer to God, cursed Vivian for fucking with her, and rolled over the edge of the CN Tower, pushing with her legs away from the building to avoid bumping into it on the way down, instantly gaining intense speed.

  Within a second of open air, she yanked the rip cord and hoped it was enough.

  The wind whipped her face back and without goggles, her eyes watered almost to the point of blindness. She wiped at them in an attempt to see where the hell she was headed. When the chute opened it drew back on her arms and stomach. The ground was still so far away that she imagined herself vomiting and wondered if it would beat her to the ground.

  The wind buffeted her, forcing her toward Lake Ontario as the falling sensation in her stomach eased. It was like the world’s most insane roller coaster with no track and no secure car to sit in, just open air and a wish and a prayer.

  She glanced up at the rectangular chute to reassure herself it was open and working. Two toggles dangled on either side of her. She grabbed them and attempted to steer right, then left. It worked to a certain degree.

  With one look over her shoulder, she saw the elevator heading up the side of the CN Tower. It was packed with at least ten people, all in police uniforms. Even from this distance, she could tell their eyes were on her.

  She turned back and concentrated on making a safe landing somewhere. She would need to exit the area fast, get somewhere safe and find out what Vivian was up to.

  A huge green landing strip looked like the best possible solution—the baseball diamond where the Blue Jays were playing a home game. She steered that way as the dome of the Rogers Centre was coming up fast. Already people in the audience were looking up at her descent, pointing skyward.

  A moment later she cleared the edge of the open roof, steering for a perfect shot down the middle of the field. But she was too high, coming down toward the bleachers at the back. There would be no place to have a running landing.

  She yanked on the left toggle. It nearly flipped the parachute upside down, tossing her sideways. She released it and pulled easier on the right one. It straightened her out as she flew over second base, heading toward the outfield.

  To her left, the gigantic Sony Jumbotron picked her up and the crowd went wild.

  She tugged on both toggles at the same time just before smashing into the ground. Then she was running, the ground coming too fast. She hit it hard, smacked a knee, dropped onto her right shoulder and rolled, the lines of the parachute wrapping around her.

  The crowd cheered her insane landing, the raucous noise energizing her as she pulled herself out of the chute, untangled her legs and got to her feet, pushing the rest of the chute away from her.

  Just like the day she ran out of the Rogers Centre with Drake Bellamy, she stood ten feet from the exit they had used. Baseball players and Toronto Police were running across the field toward her.

  She took off at a fast clip, made the exit in seconds flat, disappeared around a corner, hit a door to the outside and ran into traffic where she hopped into a waiting taxi.

  “Hundred bucks to get me away from my controlling boyfriend. Go now!”

  The driver dropped the car in gear and left rubber on the pavement as he peeled out.

  It wasn’t for at least two blocks before she started breathing normally again.

  Then Vivian started talking …

  Chapter 2

  The minister held the Bible in one hand as he read from it. The words drifted and rolled with the soft summer breeze, falling on the ears of the mourners. Some cried, others held strong in their vigil of grief as they stared at the wooden coffin, a single rose resting atop.

  Timothy Simmons held his composure and waited for the funeral of his daughter to finish. Under other circumstances, he would have appreciated the others that showed up to honor her. He would have been more gracious to them, more open. But grieving the only daughter he ever had, and at such a young age, muddied his social abilities. He had muttered his thanks, nodded his awareness of what
was happening and spent the rest of the funeral acting the part of a dazed zombie who might be mingling through the crowd trying to decide which brain to chew.

  As a cop on the Toronto police force going on twenty years—now a detective—Tim had seen a lot of death, even caused a few. But the death of his only daughter—and by gunshot—brought him to a place of anger where only retribution could ease his suffering or offer closure. Friends and family whispering to one another, stealing glances his way, thought they saw sadness and grief on his features, but they didn’t. The tears were fury and the tight jaw, locked features and stern expression was one of absolute aggression. He would find the woman who did this. He had been a detective long enough to find her quickly. He would learn what motivated her to shoot his only daughter and then he would drive her to his associates at the warehouse, where they would ruin her without killing her, leaving that pleasure for him.