Flirting with Disaster.

by Jane Graves.

For my wonderful husband, Brian.

Thank you for giving me the wings to fly and a soft place to land. I'll love you forever.

chapter one.

"You think I won't do it?" the man shouted. "Is that what you think? Well, you can d.a.m.n well think again!"

Dave DeMarco bowed his head and let out a breath of frustration. This was not going well.

Five minutes ago, he'd pulled his patrol car onto Highway 4, heading back to the station after a particularly demanding shift, when the guy caught his attention. He was maybe fifty years old, sitting there in his immaculate suit, polished shoes, silk tie, and sixty-dollar haircut, just sitting there, as if he had nothing better to do than watch the world go by. And Dave might not have thought a thing about it, except for the fact that the place he'd chosen to sit was on a highway overpa.s.s, his legs dangling over rush hour traffic.

Dave had radioed the situation, asked for backup, then pulled his patrol car onto the overpa.s.s. He couldn't say for sure whether the guy was serious or not, but most of the time if potential jumpers chose a public venue they were just attention seekers, hoping for somebody to give a s.h.i.t long enough to tell them not to take a dive. With luck, this guy was one of those.

Right now Dave stood ten feet from where the guy sat on the retaining wall, easing as close as he dared. He ticked off the procedures in his mind: Get his name. Establish rapport. Get his name. Establish rapport. Keep him talking. Keep him talking.

He inched forward.

"Don't come any closer!" the guy shouted.

Dave held his ground, glancing down to the highway below, not surprised in the least to see that several cars had pulled over to the side of the road to watch the festivities. And already they'd been joined by a Channel Seven news van. Wonderful. An audience. This was going to be a regular dog and pony show.

"Hey, I'm warning you!" the guy shouted. "Back off, or I'm going over!"

Not likely. If he really did have a death wish, the coroner would be zipping the body bag right about now. But Dave still had to play by the numbers.

"What's your name?" Dave asked.

"f.u.c.k off!"

"Now, something tells me that's not really your name. Try again for me, will you?"

Dave forced himself to remain calm. Patrol cops were taught to be patient problem solvers, and he'd always been d.a.m.ned good at his job. But right now, for some reason, he felt edgy and irritated, wishing the guy had chosen any overpa.s.s but this one on which to make his point. Maybe it had just been a very long day. Most days in recent memory had seemed like very long days.

Finally the guy's belligerent expression faded, and Dave saw a tiny window of communication creak open. "Frank," he said. "My name's Frank."

"Are you armed, Frank? Gun? Knife?"

"No. Of course not."

"Okay. Tell you what. It's a little dangerous on that wall where you're sitting, and I'm thinking maybe you ought to get off it. What do you think?"

"I'm thinking maybe I ought to stay right where I am."

"Okay, then. Tell me why you're doing this. What's the problem?"

"Like you give a s.h.i.t about my problems?"

Dave didn't want to deal with this. He just didn't. He saw a couple of patrol cars lining up behind his on the overpa.s.s, and if he could have handed this one off to anyone else he'd have done it in a heartbeat.

"Just get down from there," Dave said, "and we can talk about whatever's bugging you."

"Yeah, right. Talk. Just how stupid do you think I am?"

Dave glanced at the gold band on the guy's left hand. "Tell me about your wife."

"What's to tell?"

"Got any kids?"

"Yeah. So what?"

"So maybe they'd like their father alive. You suppose?"

He made a scoffing noise. "Right now, I don't know anyone who gives a d.a.m.n if I live or die."

"Now, Frank, you and I both know that's not true."

"You don't know s.h.i.t about me. If you did, and you were me, you'd be up here on this wall, too."

Dave started to say it. He started to say, You don't really You don't really want to do this, do you? Don't you know that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem? want to do this, do you? Don't you know that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem?

But as the words ran through his mind, all at once they sounded like some stupid cliche that even the biggest idiot on the planet wouldn't buy. Lately he was having a hard time believing any of the bulls.h.i.t he told people in his line of work: That if a husband and a wife would just calmly talk things out, they'd come to an understanding. That if a crackhead only went into rehab, he could kick that nasty habit and his life would be rosy. That suicide wasn't the answer, because it was a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Had there ever been a time when he'd believed any of that c.r.a.p?

The truth was that anyone who even thought about committing suicide just might have a few problems that were going to stay with him pretty much through eternity. Dave would bet his last buck that within days of the obligatory psych consult Frank here would be back at it again one way or another, figuratively screaming at the world, trying desperately to make somebody else solve his problems because he sure as h.e.l.l couldn't.

Well, Dave had news for the guy-bold-type, front-page, above-the-fold news: He couldn't solve them, either. Didn't want to solve them. Christ, he didn't even want to stand here and pretend that he did. And as he continued to stare at this man who thought nothing of displaying his mental malfunctions for the entire city of Tolosa, Texas, to see, something inside him snapped.

"So what's the deal here anyway, Frank?" Dave said. "Are you one of those corporate executives who played loose with the stock market and sent his company into the toilet?"

The guy gaped at Dave, his expensive silk tie fluttering in the breeze. "No! Of course not!"

"Find your wife cheating on you?"

"No!"

"Lose your life savings betting on the horses?"

"No! Nothing like that! I just-"

"To tell you the truth, Frank, I don't give a s.h.i.t what you're doing here. And you're right. I don't know a d.a.m.ned thing about you, which means that for all I know, you might be on the right track."

The guy swallowed hard, his eyes as wide as searchlights. He looked down at the traffic whizzing by beneath him, then back at Dave. "What?"

Dave took one step closer and lowered his voice. "Jump."

"What?"

"Simplest thing in the world. Just jump the h.e.l.l off this bridge and get it over with. Then maybe I can get the paperwork done in time to grab a beer and watch the Mavericks game."

"But . . . but I don't want want to jump!" to jump!"

Dave drew back with feigned surprise. "Oh, really? You don't want to jump? Then would you mind telling me why the h.e.l.l you're sitting on this G.o.dd.a.m.ned bridge during rush hour, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up traffic and dragging half the cops and paramedics in the city out here to deal with this?"

"Wh-what I mean," the guy said, "is that I don't want to jump, but I will. I will, if that's the only way-"

"The only way to do what, Frank? To show all those people who have been making your life h.e.l.l that they shouldn't have? To show them that they never should have ignored you and all your problems? To show them the consequences of f.u.c.king you over? Is that what you're talking about?"

"No! Leave me alone! That's all I want you to do! Just leave me alone!"

"No," Dave said, taking another step forward. "You don't want to be left alone. If you'd wanted to be left alone, you'd have gone into the executive washroom, locked the door, and put a gun to your head. You wouldn't be sitting on this overpa.s.s, stopping traffic and providing the local press with a really juicy story for the evening news."

"No! That's not true!"

Dave inched closer. "If it bleeds, it leads, Frank. But you know that, don't you? You know that because you're sitting on this bridge, the press will gather around and the whole world will see all your pain in living color. Isn't that what you really want?"

"Shut up! Just shut up shut up!" Frank clamped his hands onto the edge of the wall, his fingers turning white with the effort. "What kind of cop are you, anyway? I pay my taxes, and this is what I get?"

That really fried Dave. Like he was some kind of social worker or something? What in the h.e.l.l did the guy expect? Day in and day out Dave dealt with this s.h.i.t, playing Mr. Negotiator with wife-beating men, smart-a.s.s kids, drug-addicted prost.i.tutes, and other a.s.sorted users and abusers. And what he'd found out was that there was no solution to any of it. If the guy got up the nerve to jump, Dave could send somebody to pick up the pieces after the fact, but he couldn't fix what drove him out here in the first place, no matter how much tax money Citizen Frank poured into the city coffers. And speaking of tax money, far too much of it was being wasted right now.

Before the guy knew what was happening, Dave took one last step forward and wrapped his arm around Frank's upper chest. In one swift move, Dave pulled him backward off the wall, sc.r.a.ping his suit pants along the weather-pocked concrete and knocking the hide off the heels of his Bruno Maglis. Dave tried to cuff him, but the guy scuffled with him just long enough that his last thread of patience finally unraveled. Dave ordered him down on the ground in a tone that didn't leave any room for disobedience. Once he was licking asphalt, Dave yanked Frank's arms behind his back, clipped on the cuffs, then pulled him back to his feet.

"What's the matter with you?" Frank shouted. "Are you nuts?"

"Yeah, Frank. I'm I'm nuts." nuts."

Frank's belligerent expression slowly crumpled, giving way to a look of total despair. As his eyes welled with tears, Dave walked him to his patrol car amid a smattering of applause and whistles from the road below. He opened the back door and deposited Frank inside.

As Dave was shutting the door, he saw his brother Alex approaching, walking with the self-a.s.sured gait and commanding manner of a police detective born to the job. Essence of cop oozed out of every pore in his body, but that wasn't surprising. Law enforcement was a profession as inherent to the DeMarco family as politics were to the Kennedys.

"Heard your radio call," Alex said. "Thought I'd come by and see what all the commotion was about. You okay?"

"Yeah."

"Nice work. Got here just in time to see you pull him back."

Yeah, he'd kept Frank from taking a dive today. But who was going to stop him next time? And there would be a next time.

There was always always a next time. a next time.

"Pretty slick," Alex said. "So what did you say to the guy to get in close enough to grab him?"

Dave looked away, hating the admiration he saw in his brother's eyes. I told him I didn't give a s.h.i.t about his problems, that he could leap off that overpa.s.s right into a body I told him I didn't give a s.h.i.t about his problems, that he could leap off that overpa.s.s right into a body bag for all I cared. bag for all I cared.

"The usual. Got his name. Established rapport. Kept him talking. Told him that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. You know. Procedure."

He nearly choked on the word. He wasn't sure he was in the frame of mind to follow procedure again as long as he lived.

"I heard the lieutenant say once that they should loan you out for the Middle East peace talks," Alex said. "In twenty-four hours the Arabs and Israelis would be one big happy family."

Dave faced his brother. "To tell you the truth, Alex, right about now I'd probably tell both sides to solve their own problems and leave me the h.e.l.l out of it." He turned to get into his patrol car.

"Dave. Wait."

"I've got to get this guy to Tolosa Medical."

"Yeah, okay, but when you're finished, why don't we go for a couple of beers? I'll buy."

"I've got to get home."

"Aunt Louisa will keep Ashley a little while longer."

Dave turned back. "No. Not tonight. She's been having a little trouble at school, and-"

"Trouble?"

"Nothing big. Big to a five-year-old, I guess. I've got to get home."

Dave started to get into the patrol car again, and Alex caught his arm. "Then forget you. Think about me. I don't get a chance to go out very often, you know. Ever since Val and I got married, she's been keeping me on a pretty tight leash." Alex leaned closer and spoke confidentially. "She's got an evening surveillance tonight. If I play my cards right, she'll never know I stepped out for a drink or two."

That was as big a load of bulls.h.i.t as Dave had ever heard. A private investigator, Val was hardly one of those women who expected their man front and center at the dinner table every evening at six o'clock. Dave heard what Alex was really saying.

Something's eating you. Have a beer or two. Forget about it, just for a little while. it, just for a little while.

Dave sighed with resignation. "Okay. I'll come by for a quick one."

Alex stepped away from the car. "I'll call John and tell him to come along."

Their brother, John, had also embraced the family business, which meant it had been a triple victory for their father, Joseph DeMarco. Even years after being killed in the line of duty, he was still a legend in the Tolosa Police Department. Growing up in that kind of shadow, had any of them really had a choice of occupation?

Alex pointed at Dave as he walked away. "The Onion. Six o'clock. Be there."

Dave nodded and got into his car, refusing to acknowledge the fact that Frank was sitting in his backseat, tears streaming down his face and dripping onto his silk tie. And it wasn't until Dave was halfway to the hospital that his hands started to shake and the realization of what he'd done smacked him like a brick to the side of the head.

You told that poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d to jump.