Death Falls. Todd Ritter
it wasn’t a good idea. Seeing Eric again under those circumstances would have been awkward for both of them. Being alone on the bridge with him was awkward enough.
Yet it was also oddly exhilarating. For a moment it felt as if she was once again that shy freshman finally freed of braces and Eric had become that cute senior in Buddy Holly glasses. Memories she hadn’t thought of for decades suddenly flashed through her mind. Most of them were good. Only one was bad.
“Should we push on?” she asked.
They crossed the bridge to the other side, where the path was practically invisible. Now a strip of dirt, it slanted downward, pointing the way to the bottom of the falls. Kat took a deep breath and began the descent, with Eric following close behind. It was rough going. A few rogue branches swiped at their heads while weeds scraped their legs. The waterfall, plunging directly to their right, sent off clouds of mist that stuck to their skin and made the ground muddy and slick beneath their feet.
“So,” Eric said, “are you and Nick Donnelly …”
His voice trailed off, letting Kat pick whatever euphemism she wanted. Dating? An item? Lovers?
“We’re just friends,” she said. “Good ones.”
“How do you two know each other?”
“Nick used to be with the state police,” Kat said. “He helped me with a murder investigation last year.”
“I heard about that. It’s hard to believe something like that could happen in Perry Hollow.”
It was also difficult to imagine Eric’s brother being snatched by a stranger in the woods. Certainly, it was possible. About 80 percent of child abductions by strangers were committed a quarter mile from the victim’s home. But this was a remote area, with only one way in or out. Someone on the street would have noticed a stranger coming or going.
They had reached the base of Sunset Falls. The path leveled off and the trees receded a bit, giving way to a pebble-strewn shore. The waterfall emptied into a deep pool that swirled and churned from the impact. According to official town records, the drop was thirty feet. But from Kat’s vantage point, it looked much higher.
“If someone went over, do you think they could survive?”
“I doubt it,” Eric said. “But someone could get lucky.”
They’d have to be very lucky. A handful of ragged rocks jutted from the water at the base of the falls. They looked sharp and menacing, making Kat think of dinosaur teeth waiting to catch and destroy whatever fell their way.
Beyond them, the creek continued its journey, cutting a path through the land toward the horizon. Was Charlie Olmstead’s body somewhere along its banks? Maybe dragged underwater by branches or lying somewhere in the trees, hidden from view. That was assuming, of course, that he had gone over the falls at all.
“Do you really think my mother was right?” Eric asked.
“I don’t know. But Nick will find out as much as he can.”
Despite tagging along with him, Kat still didn’t want to get involved in the investigation. Her intention had been to stop by, see how Eric had changed—for better or for worse—and let the two of them try to solve the unsolvable mystery that was Charlie Olmstead. She had no desire to waste time before coming to the same conclusion her father had reached.
So Kat took one last look at the falls before retracing her steps along the path. This time, the climb made it even more arduous. By the time they reached the top, both she and Eric were out of breath. Back on the bridge, Kat saw Nick climb to his feet with the help of his cane. Apparently alone time with Eric was over.
“I think the native is getting restless,” she said.
Eric took the lead and crossed the bridge quickly. “Nick seems like a pretty determined guy. Am I right?”
“You have no idea. Once he sets his mind on something, he doesn’t quit until he gets it.”
Kat, following Eric off the bridge, heard a loud creak that stopped her cold. The noise came from beneath her feet, soon changing from creaking to outright cracking. Then, before Kat had a chance to move, the plank beneath her splintered and fell away.
She managed a strangled yelp before falling with it, slipping helplessly into the gap the missing board had created. She came to a stop halfway through it as her rib cage and chest lodged between the boards on either side of her. Kicking her legs, Kat felt one foot splash into the creek. The broken board knocked against her ankle as it floated on the water’s surface. It soon slipped past her and headed toward the falls.
In a flash, Eric was standing over her, gripping her arms. Kat, who had a prime view of his sneakers, saw the board beneath him start to bend from the weight and movement.
“Stop,” she said. “Get on your stomach. Distribute the weight.”
Cautiously, Eric moved into a crouch. Then he was on his stomach, sliding toward her. Just over his shoulder, Kat saw Nick step onto the bridge.
“Kat? Are you hurt?”
He took several quick steps, his cane smacking against the boards. Beneath them, the support beams groaned under the sudden addition of a third person. Kat felt herself drift backward an inch or so as the entire bridge shifted. She and Eric proved that it could support two people. There was no way of knowing if it could handle a third.
“Get off the bridge!” she yelled. “It’s too much weight.”
Nick shuffled backward until he was once again on land. Eric moved backward, too, gripping Kat’s forearms and shimmying until she had enough space to pull herself up and out of the hole. When she heaved herself forward onto its surface, the bridge shifted again, this time in the opposite direction.
Kat got to her feet with Eric’s help. The bridge still felt wobbly as they crossed to solid ground, but she suspected the sensation was just her body, which was shaking uncontrollably. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself. For the most part, she was unscathed. Other than her trembling body, the only sign of her close call was a streak of dirt across the front of her uniform. Kat tried to wipe some of it away as she turned back toward the bridge.
“Someone,” she said, “needs to take a chain saw to that thing.”
A half hour later, Kat was on the phone in her office. She was talking to a skeptical Burt Hammond about the danger posed by the bridge over Sunset Falls. The mayor, probably because he was still miffed about earlier that morning, wasn’t buying it.
“I understand your concern, Chief,” he said, “but that bridge has been closed for going on fifteen years now.”
“Putting a sawhorse in front of it isn’t the same as closing it. It needs to be demolished. I practically fell through the thing this morning.”
“Why were you on the bridge in the first place?”
It was a question Kat should have seen coming. But still rattled from the bridge incident, she hadn’t considered what the mayor would say once she called him. She only knew she couldn’t give him the real reason. Burt Hammond would consider that a waste of manpower.
“It doesn’t really concern you,” she said weakly. “But the condition of that bridge should concern everyone.”
“The town council and I will consider that.”
Which meant they wouldn’t consider it at all. In order to get any results, Kat needed to put it into terms the mayor could understand.
“If someone steps on the bridge and falls through it, he’ll most likely go over the falls,” she said. “If that happens, he’ll probably die and his family will sue the town. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want an expensive settlement on our hands.”
When Burt responded, it was with a subdued, “I hadn’t considered that.”
Kat couldn’t