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CHAPTER THIRTY

“Any word from your contact?” Keller says breathlessly into the microphone connected to her helmet. She’s feeling the weightlessness as the chopper soars through the sky. McCray called in a favor and got a Santa Cruz SAR team to get them to the Golden Gate Bridge—a drive that would’ve taken an hour and a half in traffic. They’ll touch ground in less than twenty minutes. She’s had a few flights in Bureau helicopters, but it still makes her anxious.

“Do they see him?” she asks. Cody Carpenter sent his mother what can only reasonably be interpreted as a goodbye note.

McCray shakes his head. “Bridge patrol is searching,” he says, his voice distorted in her headset.

The helicopter whizzes through the sky and Keller hopes they’re not too late.

McCray is tapping on his phone with intensity. She wonders if he’s explaining to someone, the dean of Santa Clara University, perhaps, where he’s going, what he’s doing. He’s in tricky jurisdictional territory. Facilitating the meet at UC Santa Cruz with another campus police department was justifiably within his authority. But charging to San Francisco clearly is not.

Keller’s in murky waters herself. She texted her mentor Stan for guidance and, in minimalist Stan fashion, he replied with only a section of the federal criminal code: 18 U.S.C. § 115. She’ll look it up later. If Stan is wrong and it means saving a kid, she’ll take whatever heat comes her way. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, as her husband is prone to say.

“If he’s there, they’ll find him,” McCray’s voice breaks through the static of the headset. “When I worked in the city back in the day, they’d get about forty jumpers a year. They have a lot of experience…”

Keller swallows hard at the bleak statistics.

As if reading her thoughts, McCray says, “My buddy’s with the California Highway Patrol and has talked down dozens of people. Saved a lot of lives. They know what they’re doing.”

“How many didn’t he talk down?” Keller wonders out loud.

Soon, Keller can see the magnificent suspension bridge spanning the strait connecting the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The chopper touches down in an area not far from the bridge.

They’re met on the ground by a man in a windbreaker and khakis. He and McCray greet each other like old friends. He introduces himself as Anush Rohani-Shukla with the CHP.

“Thanks for coming,” McCray says.

“For you, of course. How’s the babysitting job at the university going?”

McCray replies, “ Me babysitting? You seen your girlfriend? I have shoes that are older.”

Banter out of the way, the discussion turns all business.

“The patrol made rounds. They haven’t seen anyone. They had a guy last night who took the leap but got caught in the suicide barrier. He’s in bad shape—that net’s like landing on a cheese grater. But he’ll live. He was in his forties and doesn’t match your guy.”

Rohani-Shukla calls over two young men who wear yellow reflective vests. He asks Keller to show them the photo Cody Carpenter’s mother sent to see if they recognize the specific area.

Keller’s heart is thumping, adrenaline tearing through her, as the officers debate locales.

One of them says, “I think it’s near lamp sixty-eight, they’ve been doing some construction over there.”

Another says, “I think it’s on the east side. We kicked a kid out of that area a few weeks ago. He wasn’t a jumper, an artist drawing the bay. I can’t swear it was your guy, but…”

Within minutes, two groups have deployed to two different areas on the bridge. Rohani-Shukla, McCray, and one member of the security patrol go to the area where a kid was seen drawing. It’s the most likely locale and it makes sense to send the more experienced team there. Keller isn’t trained in suicide prevention, after all. She and the other patrolman rush to the second location.

The young patrolman is serious; his job demands it, she supposes. He takes her to a small area near lamp 68—they appear to map the bridge based on numbered lampposts. It’s midafternoon and crawling with foot traffic. Tourists taking selfies. Joggers. Moms pushing strollers. And six lanes of traffic whizzing on the other side of steel barriers. Ominous blue signs are posted along the route: CRISIS COUNSELING. THERE IS HOPE. MAKE THE CALL . Emergency phones punctuate the pathway. It’s heartbreaking. She’s heard of places like this—a forest in Japan, a sea cliff in Australia—that seem to summon the hopeless who see no other way to escape their pain.

Keller dares a glance over the edge. She feels a current cleave through her at the 250-foot drop into oblivion. It’s amazing anyone survives.

The officer stops at a trash can, one of those large concrete cylindrical bins. Behind it is a hinged metal gate. It’s padlocked and opens to a pathway largely concealed by overgrown weeds. Keller imagines an eighteen-year-old kid climbing over. The officer unlocks the gate and they head down the slope.

The sudden chime of her phone startles her. She answers the call. It’s Cody’s mother. She’s hysterical, her words tumbling out so fast and frantic they’re difficult to comprehend. Cody just sent her a text saying he loves her, but he wants to join his dad. Keller’s gut roils: Maybe Cody saw them coming down the hill. He could already be gone.

“We’re doing everything we can to find him,” she tells Cody’s mother.

As she hangs up she spots a figure through the brush below. “I think he’s here,” she says to the young officer.

The officer talks into his radio, a static-laden voice responds.

“He wasn’t at the other location. They’re on their way,” the officer says. “Wait— What are you doing? We need to wait for—”

Keller is already a dozen yards ahead of him, moving quickly.

She turns back to him. “The kid just texted his mom goodbye. He knows we’re here. There’s no time.”

She doesn’t wait for the officer’s reply.

She moves slowly down the hill; one wrong step and she could go sliding into the abyss.

“Is the protective net under here?” she asks the officer as he follows.

“It should be. But there are gaps.”

Of course there are.

She passes some type of storage shack and heads down another path. Beams jut out where the land and bridge meet. She looks out at the water, recognizing the spot from Cody’s photo.

Then she hears a voice.

“Don’t come any closer.”