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Kenna held her focus on Terri. She couldn’t grab Ms. Fleming if she started to fall, not from this distance. Also, Kenna didn’t have the strength in her arms to hold a person up most of the time.
She had even less these days, when every part of her body felt sluggish each morning and she had to drag herself out of bed. Slow starts, as if her body had to rev its engine up to full power. She could do the same in the afternoon if she took a long nap.
“Ma’am, step away from the edge.” The first cop was uniformed but with sergeant stripes on his short black sleeves. The highest ranking officer on scene right now. He approached with steady steps.
But who was the guy talking to? Maybe both of them? Her T-shirt fluttered in the hot wind, which didn’t cool her off much. “Terri, I need you to climb down for me so we can figure this out.”
“It’s over,” Terri said. “I’m going to jump.”
The cops spread out, moving closer to Kenna and her client. Terri faced the street, so she couldn’t see them, but that command presence police officers had sometimes felt like a physical thing that hung in the air.
Below them, the crowd had started to chant, “Jump! Jump! Jump!”
The sergeant said, “Terri, is it?”
“I’m not talking to cops!”
“I’m sure your friend here would like to hear what you have to say.”
“She already knows too much. It’s over!” Terri screamed. “It’s so over that I’m going over, and then it’s done.”
Kenna took a step toward her. “Terri, please don’t jump.”
“You just wanna get paid!”
Sure, Kenna had an unpaid invoice on her accounting software, but that was hardly the point. This woman was determined to end her life. No matter what the situation, that would be a tragedy. “This isn’t about money. I want everyone to know what Marshal did to you and to your company. Which means I needyouto tell your side of the story.”
“You didn’t do your job if you need that. You were supposed to find evidence!”
Kenna said, “People need a story. Not facts. A story is what changes someone’s mind, and it’s how we learn the truth.”
The sergeant came closer, catching sight of her gun on her jacket. He looked at Kenna with raised brows.
“I’m a private investigator. Ms. Fleming is my client, and she’s going to get down off that ledge so we can figure out a solution to all this.”
The sergeant asked, “What do you say, Terri? Do you want us to help you find a solution?”
Below, the crowd renewed the chanting.Jump! Jump!
“There is no solution.”
The sergeant moved close enough to grab her. Kenna caught the attention of the closest uniformed officer and pointed to her forearms. In the dim light of the rooftop, maybe he hadn’t seen her scars, the ones that were visible and ugly in the daylight. That was the thing about darkness and shadows—it hid far too much that would be plainly true in the light. Darkness obscured that truth and shrouded it in mystery.
Kenna’s job was to bring those things from the darkness into the light.
She waved the cop over, and as he passed her, she whispered, “I can’t grab her.”
She turned back to the ledge. “Terri, don’t do this. Please. I’ve seen someone die before because they lost hope and took their own life. I know how much it hurts when you have nothing but despair, but you have to know there isalwaysa reason to keep going. What about your niece, Charlotte? What am I supposed to tell her? You’ll be altering her life in a way she might not recover from. There are people who care about you. If you love them, you need to do everything you can to stick around.”
“I know about your boyfriend and that serial killer,” Terri said. “This is just about you not failing again. You don’t care about me. You just want to save yourself the grief. I don’t care.”
Kenna’s heart squeezed in her chest. She had a gold wedding band on her left hand these days. That life with Bradley felt like decades ago, even though it was just a few years. “You should care. This is your life we’re talking about. If you give up, then there’s nothing I can do to help you. And yes, I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life.”
“I’m not going to jail.”
“That’s not up to you, Terri. You can’t wipe it all away. Marshal needs to face justice, and I’ll find you the best lawyer I can who is an expert in clients that have beensuspectedofembezzling.” She added the last part for the cops’ benefit so they understood what she and Terri were talking about.
“I have lawyers. Not that they ever did me any good before. I don’t need Marshal dead. I need him to be the one in jail.”