No Footprints (2 page)

He gave an ‟I'm listening, not committing” nod.

‟You had to have seen it. Why else would you be here? You weren't just out for a ride.”

‟We saw the fight.”

‟Fight! I pulled her back. If I hadn't, she'd be in the water!”

‟We appreciate that.” But his tone didn't reassure me.

My head still throbbed, but suddenly the urgency struck me. ‟‛
I did one decent thing in my life and you ruined it!
' That's what she said. ‛
You ruined it!'
She hasn't given up! I don't have time to convince you,” I stormed at him. ‟I need to find her. She could be hoisting herself over the railing again right now!” I checked both directions—not a soul. Great clumps of fog shoved across the roadway. Cars in the far lanes were invisible.

‟Look, it's a fluke I even saw her! Just luck I was running along here now. No sane person's on the bridge this late. She could be a hundred yards away climbing over the railing right now. Or there's tomorrow night. We have to find her!”

‟We're alert.”

Whatever that meant! He was still eyeing me. Now I took him in. He wasn't what I'd have expected. McNin—the name on his laminated
ID—wasn't much taller than me, wiry, with brown hair, angular face, and eyes that indicated they'd seen a lot.

‟Believe me,” I repeated. ‟I'm not the one who came here to jump.”

He sighed just loudly enough so I caught it.

‟Hey, I've got a brother waiting for me on the Marin side. He's probably already left me three messages by now. Do I need to prove it to you?”

‟I'm just concerned for you.”

‟Be concerned about
her.
You saw us hit the ground, right? Saw her get up and . . . Where'd she go? She didn't—”

‟Go over? No. Not here, anyway. Not near our cameras. I didn't pass her, so she must've headed back toward the city.”

‟Then we've still got time!”

‟Yeah.” He sighed again. ‟So, who're we looking for?”

‟I don't know her name.”

‟Describe her.”

‟Red jacket—”

‟Like the one you're holding?”

‟It's hers. She left it behind. I'd been grabbing hold of it.”

‟So, we're hunting a woman not wearing a red jacket.
Not
wearing the most visible thing.”

‟I guess.” My head still throbbed.

‟Go on.”

‟Let me think. Dark hair, chin-length. I was so caught by the jacket . . . but underneath . . . Okay, yeah. White T-shirt, fitted, and black pants—slacks, not jeans—”

‟How—”

‟I didn't notice the pants per se, like I would have if they hadn't gone with the jacket. Jeans would have been a whole different look.”

He eyed the tights and long-sleeved T-shirt I'd grabbed for the run and was now shivering in, but said nothing.

‟Listen, we can catch her. How many people are out here this late in a T-shirt? Wait, I remembered something. She had a purse but she dropped it . . . over.”

‟How?”

‟She leaned over and tossed it.”

‟Did she watch it fall?”

‟Nuh uh. She let it go and then took hold of the rail to climb over. Why?”

Suddenly he was all action. ‟Get in.” He motioned to the open-air cart.

‟The purse? Why does the purse matter?”

‟Come on! Get in! Look, the last thing jumpers want is to see how long it takes to hit the water. How long
does
it?
Forever!
That's what survivors say. Plenty of time to wonder if everything they've heard about hitting the water at seventy miles per hour's true. Jumpers are looking for oblivion and those four seconds before they hit, they're the dead opposite—an eternity of regret, fear, and helplessness. You strapped in?”

‟How fast does this thing go?” We were more than a mile from the city side. We had time. But not spare time.

He stepped on the accelerator and we sped off, fast enough through the fog to make my teeth chatter. The hum of the engine seemed to fight the
rat-a-tat
of the passing cars and trucks, and the wind from them was like a finger snapping repeatedly against my right ear. McNin was saying something but I couldn't hear. Already my face was icy. We whipped along the empty walkway. Ahead I could barely make out the giant red ladder of the south tower.

‟That her?” He spat out the words and hit the brake. If I hadn't been buckled in, I'd've sailed off.

‟Where? Oh, there. Can't tell. Move closer.”

‟Don't want to spook her. Is it her?”

I wanted it to be her; I willed it to be. I leaned closer, as if a couple inches would help. ‟I don't think so. That's not a T-shirt, it's a hoodie. And I think . . . yeah, those are jeans she's wearing.”

‟Damn.”

From the roadway, headlights hit my eyes and vanished: bright—black, bright—black. I could barely make out shapes in the murk.

‟Her?” He was slowing again, indicating a long-haired woman with a tall man.

‟She wouldn't have brought a friend!”

‟Just look!”

‟Too small. She was my height—five seven—you must've seen that.”

‟S'okay, we've still got a chance.” He was like a rescue dog, wholly into it now.

He whipped around two male joggers. We'd almost reached the south tower. The great red metal supports leapt out at us. McNin cut sharply left as the walkway angled around the tower.

‟She won't be here,” I said. ‟If she jumped here, she'd hit the cement apron.”

‟People do.”

People do!
People jump
and hit the cement base at God-knows-how-many miles per hour!
No wonder McNin was hot to find her.

‟But she won't be jumping beyond this.”

‟How come? Oh.” I spotted the hurricane fencing above the railing. ‟Ah, that's to keep jumpers from—”

‟To keep them from landing on the workers below!”

‟Jesus!”

‟Believe it.”

‟Keep going! We can still catch her.”

‟Hang on.” He stamped on the accelerator. We whipped along the empty walkway to its end and stopped. ‟That's it,” he said. ‟She could have parked any of six places, gone down to Fort Point, under the roadway to the lot, or anywhere along Lincoln Boulevard. Or she could be walking through the Presidio.”

The Presidio! Nearly 1,500 acres, a lot of it wooded. There'd never been a San Franciscan who wasn't pleased this spectacular former army base had survived since 1776 intact. Until us, now. ‟If she made it in among those eucalypts, she's gone.”

‟Yeah. It's good, though,” he said, as if convincing himself. ‟Good she's already made her try . . . November . . .”

‟Busy?”

‟Start of the holidays, the lonely season. If you've got family you're out of touch with, parties you're not invited to, no plans—”

‟‛By the weekend I'll be dead.' That's what she said.” Suddenly I was so cold I felt like my skin would shatter. But I couldn't give up, not now, not yet. ‟What about the bathroom?”

‟Over there.”

I checked. Empty. Reality was setting in. ‟I just can't believe,” I said, stepping back onto the cart, ‟that I could pull her back from the edge and then have her just disappear. Like she never existed.”

‟That's the lure of the bridge. No mess, no pain, no consequences. Or so they think.”

‟Yeah, sure, no pain, maybe for them. For the family—waiting, never knowing—pain doesn't let up.” I was thinking, of course, of Mike's disappearance and Mom never leaving the house for more than a day in those two decades lest he should come home and find no one there. Thinking of the false hopes, the deadening disappointments, the numbness. Of never
crossing the Golden Gate Bridge without wondering . . . of my favorite brother who'd vanished and stayed gone twenty years, and of the stranger wearing his skin whom we'd finally found. But this woman ... ‟I just can't believe we could lose her. There's got to be something—Wait. A bicycle. Maybe in the fog—did you see it?”

‟No. Definitely no. That's something we note.”

‟I passed one, about a hundred yards before I spotted her. No rider near it.”

‟If it's gone—good sign. Not a bad sign anyway.”

‟What about those joggers we just passed? They must've seen her.”

‟Okay, but . . .” He shrugged. But he started back to the cart with what seemed like hope.

We caught them a hundred yards onto the bridge. I soon realized why McNin had shrugged. ‟A woman? On a bike?” The taller guy mused. ‟Maybe. Dunno. Didn't get in our way.”

The short one was running in place. ‟We're focused. We got held up this afternoon; now we're really late. We were pressing. When we do this bit, we don't even see the skyline. Like I say, we're focused.”

McNin took their contact info, but the look he gave me said ‟dead end.”

‟So,” he said after a moment, ‟you want a ride back to this most patient brother of yours on the other side?”

Omigod!
All those years Mike was gone, never a day had gone by without my thinking of him, and now here he was waiting for me and I'd totally forgotten. ‟Thanks.” As we drove north I turned on the phone and mea culpa'd to his voicemail, ‟But a nice cop's speeding me toward you so turn on the heater for me.”

It was quarter to six. Dusk had passed to night, and, as often happens, the wind had suddenly eased up. In fifteen minutes the walkway'd be
closed. The ride was easier now—clear of pedestrians. Even so, it was still Arctic, with both of us shivering. For the first time I looked beyond the railing to catch a glimpse of the city skyline. Nothing but gray now. When he slowed to skirt the north tower, I said, ‟How can people jump in this kind of weather? It's so—”

‟They go all the time.
All
the time. Two, three a month, and those are the ones we know of. The water”—he was shouting over the noise—‟it's deceiving. Looks warm and soft, brown. Like they'll land easy, like floating down to a nice pillow. But if you'd seen those bodies . . .”

I couldn't bear to think about that. ‟McNin, she said I'd ruined it. She said she'd be dead by the weekend. D'you believe her?”

He slowed the cart. ‟She could go either way. Take this as a wake-up call. Or just get more pissed and be back like she promised. No way to tell. Not with what little we know of her.”

‟I just can't believe—”

He put a hand on my shoulder. ‟Believe.”

I clutched her red jacket tighter to me, uselessly. It was ridiculous to be freezing and not put it on, but how could I?

Almost in slow motion it seemed now we rolled onto the Marin side. The parking lot was nearly empty. There was a young couple curled around each other on a bench, and one bent-over old guy in a watch cap at the bus stop. None of them were even facing the water. ‟There,” I said, ‟that silver convertible.” The top was now up.

‟You want me to explain to your brother?”

‟Nah. I'm a big girl. But listen, thanks. Will you keep an eye out?”

‟I'll let you know.”

I extricated a card.

‟Stunts. Hey, I'm impressed.”

‟Call me. I'll get you a set pass. You'll be bored 99 percent of the time, but the other one could be dynamite.”

He looked down at the card again, then up, and finally said, ‟Okay then, huh?” If only the woman we'd been searching for knew how much we cared. Slowly, he guided the cart toward Mike's car.

I expected to find Mike slumped behind the wheel, expected to hear Black Rebel Motorcycle Club running down the battery, expected the heater to be on blast. But the car was silent and empty. ‟He's probably in the john. I've kept him waiting long enough.”

‟I can stay with—”

‟I'm fine. But you'll let me know if you hear anything. Anything! If you even have any idea, right?”

‟Yeah.” With that, he pulled loose, turned the cart around, and sped off, leaving me alone with the cold and all my fears. I could still feel her body against my chest as I heaved her back. She couldn't just disappear and . . . die! Suddenly, I was desperate to get out of here, back to the warmth of Mom's kitchen.

To life.

I tried the car door—locked, dammit! What was this about? We never used to lock cars. I moved to the downwind side, squatted for what little protection the vehicle could offer, and pulled out my phone to see how many messages he'd left. I was just putting finger to key when the old man I'd noticed began hunching toward me. Did he want to know why Bridge Patrol dropped me here? Or was the guy just hoping for a ride? Did he—

It wasn't till he was nearly to the car that I recognized him.

‟Omigod!” I would have laughed if it weren't so strange.

He straightened up to his full six foot two and instantly dropped thirty years. When he pulled off the watch cap his red curls sprang out and he was Mike again.

‟What happened?”

‟A woman tried to jump,” I began, and had to stop to get myself back together. ‟She seemed okay. And then—this is weird—you blew the horn. She looked over at you. And then she climbed over the rail. I managed to pull her back. She fought me. She wanted to step off, into nothingness—so cold—”

He pulled open the passenger door. ‟Get in and we'll turn the heater to blast. This baby'll do everything short of making you a hot toddy.”

The imminent promise of warmth compared to the icy water of the bay . . . I shook off the thought. Illusion! I pushed away what might have happened, what could happen tomorrow, and focused on this moment, the feel of the seat, the sounds of Mike climbing in, the grind of the ignition, the blast of cold then warm air.