The Unlucky (2 page)

Sarah moved on, circling the tower, knowing in the midst of all the carnage she had seen and will see, she too would have a baby one day. She not only hoped Aaron was there to see that day, she hoped he would be the father.

Two security guards trudged by, busy watching the tourists, until one nudged the other and leaned in to whisper something in his ear. Sarah caught what their eyes had found. An attractive woman in a red blouse and short skirt leaned over the railing by the window to catch a better look down. Her skirt had risen up, exposing most of her long legs. The guards had slowed to wait and see if the skirt would continue upwards.

The name
Mike
echoed through Sarah’s mind, subtle and smooth like smoke passing over velvet.

She changed course and approached the woman who hadn’t noticed the men gawking.

“You’re offering front row seats to those guys,” Sarah whispered.

The woman didn’t move at first. Then she lowered her upper body more, exposing the hem of her lace panties.

Sarah frowned.
What the hell?

“Maybe I want the attention,” the woman said, her voice deep and masculine.

Transvestite?

Before the woman turned and gazed upon Sarah, it all came together. It was a man standing beside her, dressed as a woman. He wore lipstick, mascara, a blonde wig and an expression of sheer joy at the drawing of men’s eyes.

“To each their own.” Sarah backed away, a
hmmph
escaping her lips.

The Edgewalk entrance came up on her right. She went to the observation window and watched the people outside on the edge. They were dressed in red suits and tied to a rope that tethered them to a bar-like structure above their heads. Their arms were thrust out as if they were wings while they all leaned out over the edge.

You’d never catch me doing that.

When buying the ram-air parachute, she had looked up B.A.S.E. jumping and discovered that anything less than about 2,000 feet needed a static line, a line that pulled the chute out at the instant the jumper took air. The CN Tower was just over 1,800 feet high. She hoped whoever she gave the chute to could survive with the two-hundred foot deficit.

Five minutes to spare.

The Edgewalkers were heading back to the door, their session coming to an end. Sarah pivoted slowly on her heels and took in the crowd. The two guards had finished gawking at the ladyboy and stood near the door as the walkers came back into safety and were unhooked from their tether.

The crowd had thinned but no one stood out. No single female who appeared desperate. No one crying. Nothing that made anyone look suicidal. But what did suicidal look like anyway?

CCTV cameras were everywhere, filming everything. They had recorded Sarah in several places. They would have clear images of her face. The Toronto police had worked with Sarah several times in the past. It wouldn’t take more than an hour for everyone to know who she was if they needed an identity.

Once she talked the jumper back off the edge, or made her take the backpack parachute, she would be revered, so there’d be no need of cameras and identity searches. Otherwise she would’ve worn a disguise.

One more look at Mike, the dog that he was, made her want to hurt him. For a moment when Sarah had talked to Janet downstairs, she had felt her pain. Aaron had left Sarah in California. It was the first time a man in her life had walked away. Drake was her first love interest, but he’d never walked away. He was murdered. Aaron was her man. Walking away like that hurt. She would’ve denied those feelings years ago, but now it mattered. Closure mattered. And people like Janet mattered. Mike needed to know that.

Sarah slipped by two men standing near the window and moved closer to the entrance of the Edgewalk.

2:15 p.m.

After one more slow, careful look around for a suicidal jumper, Sarah slipped the ram-air parachute off her back and held it in her left hand, keeping her right available for the Walther PPK if she needed it.

2:16 p.m.

She saw her. Brunette. Olive skinned. Prominent nose, intense eyes. Gorgeous girl. Long flowing hair. Possible Italian heritage. The suicidal look was in her eyes—the intensity, the fear didn’t fit for a tour of the CN Tower. Her brown shirt opened in a V, exposing the white of her bra and the purple of a bruise near her neckline. She wore yoga pants that left nothing to the imagination. Without having to glance over to confirm it, Sarah knew Mike would be checking this girl out and that was the last thing she needed.

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 killing 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.