But still, sometimes…sometimes…she couldn’t help wondering what she was missing out on.
And when Cass got those itchy feelings, Cass went shopping.
Hence the Hermès.
Made from the purest silk twill. Paisley patterned and pleated and colored with the truest dyes. The hues in the scarf collaborated with a dozen different outfits and she wore it often. It wasn’t as if she’d bought the scarf and then shoved it in the back of her closet. That scarf made her feel rich and important and worthy.
Yet here she was, on the verge of trading her life for a scrap of fancy material.
What was wrong with this picture?
She hazarded another look down, saw that a knot of gawkers had gathered and were pointing up.
Oh, joy.
She groaned as fresh nausea rolled through her. And then she saw the television crew.
The wind gusted again, whistling around the side of the brownstone. Could people see up her skirt? Cass blushed.
Okay, it was official. Things couldn’t get any suckier. She was stuck out on a window ledge, in the rain, inches from death and after the noon news hit the air everyone in New York was going to know what kind of panties she wore.
DETECTIVE SERGEANT SAM MASON followed the collective gaze of the murmuring crowd, spied the woman clinging to the ledge of the building he’d been about to enter and his blood ran cold.
He counted the floors. Eight stories up. Bizarre. He’d been headed for the eighth floor.
“Jump,” hollered a punk kid in the crowd.
“Jump, jump.” Another snickering teen picked up the chant as if the possibility of someone’s death was just a big joke.
“Shut up,” Sam commanded, scowling then flashing his badge at the clueless teens. Had people lost all sense of common decency? “Or I’ll arrest you on the spot.”
The punks sobered and did as he said. Sam swung his gaze back to the jumper.
She’d picked a miserable day for it. The light sprinkles that had greeted him three blocks ago when he’d gotten off the subway had changed into a steady drizzle. The wind whipped wild and biting.
Honey, he thought, and mentally willed her back inside, whoever the guy is who’s driven you to this, he’s just not worth it.
She took a step sideways toward the open window several feet to her left. He prayed she was reconsidering her suicide bid. Then she stumbled and almost lost her balance.
The crowd gasped. By some hand of fate, she managed at the last moment to correct herself. Sam’s heart stilled and a flash of déjà vu fisted his gut. In his mind’s eye ten years dropped away and it was his second week on the job as an NYPD rookie beat cop.
That woman had been a jumper, too, distraught over the breakup of her marriage, perched precariously on the Brooklyn Bridge. Sam had sweet-talked, he’d cajoled, he’d made promises he couldn’t really keep and he had sweated it.
The woman seemed to calm down. To grow peaceful and quiet. Sam believed he’d won. He’d held her in his hands for a brief moment, arrogantly thinking that he had saved her. Then she’d met his gaze with her sad, soulful blue eyes that were too big for her face and she’d simply let go, taking that one fatal step backward into the black abyss.
He’d had nightmares about her for weeks afterward, waking in the middle of the night sweaty and guilty. Cringing, Sam briefly closed his eyes, blocking out the memory.
No. He could not, would not, let it happen again. This time he was older, wiser, more experienced, less full of himself. He was being given a second chance. This time he would save her.
He bound into the building, his brain speeding ahead of him, mapping out rescue strategies. One of the elevators was at the ground floor.
“Hold the door,” he shouted, but the doors bumped closed just as he reached the lift.
“Dammit,” he cursed, frantically jabbing the up button repeatedly. He swung his gaze to the lighted numbers above the remaining elevators. None of them were near the ground floor.
Swearing again, he tore around the corner in search of the stairwell.
“Sir, sir, excuse me, sir.”
The lobby receptionist he’d ignored came chasing after him, her heels striking snap-snap-snap against the cement floor. She caught him at the stairwell door.
“Sir, you must check in at the security desk before you can go up.”
“NYPD,” he growled at the woman. “You’ve got a jumper on the eighth floor.”
Startled, she raised a hand to her throat. “Oh my goodness.”
“Call the fire department and tell them what’s happening,” Sam ordered.
She stood there stunned.
“Now!” he shouted and shouldered through the door into the stairwell.
He took the steps two at a time, the vein in his forehead throbbing from exertion. Less than a minute later he burst onto the eighth floor, chest heaving, sweat on his brow. People in the hallway turned to stare, but he ignored them.
Gotta save her. Can’t let it happen again.
He had a chance for redemption. He wouldn’t let her slip through his fingers, wouldn’t be responsible for sending someone else over the edge.
Sam rushed past several offices that he knew weren’t in the right spot. He zipped through a great room thronged with ribbon-thin models in various stages of undress. Any other time and he might have been tempted to ogle, but not today.
Designers and tailors and seamstresses bustled to and fro. Bolts of lush colorful fabric littered tables, with bows and lace and sewing supplies scattered about. Sam’s eyes darted around the room. Clearly, no one realized that a young woman, quite possibly one of their coworkers, was perched on the window ledge preparing to take her own life.
This was taking too long. He had to get to her before she jumped.
He flung open the door of the next office he came to, angling straight for the window. The sign on the door identified it as Isaac Vincent’s public relations office. The person Sam had come here to interview about a string of high-end home robberies worked in this very office.
Weird coincidence.
Except Sam didn’t believe in coincidences. But he had no time to piece the puzzle together.
The office lay empty.
Sirens shrieked. Thank God the fire department was on the way.
Pulse racing, he rushed to the window and poked his head out, just as his old childhood fear blindsided him like a blow to the brain.
Sam Mason was terrified of heights.
2
“HI, I’M SAM. What’s your name?”
Excuse me?
Very carefully Cass turned her head to meet the astute dark gray eyes of the obviously insane man sticking his head out of her office window and chatting her up as if they were at a singles meet-and-greet.
“Um, Cass Richards,” she replied because she’d been raised to be polite. What she really wanted was to tell him to take a hike. Staying on the window ledge was chore enough—she didn’t need him distracting her.
“Cass Richards?” There was a strange tone in his voice.
“Yeah.”