her own weight as ballast.
Gemma stepped up onto the bench seat and then up another level to balance on the bricks just inside the wrought iron fence. Only mere feet higher, the wind was stronger, blowing her hair into a mad tangle about her face. She didn’t spare a glance for the deadly drop below, but turned to the desperate woman just out of reach. “Ma’am, I’m Detective Capello of the NYPD. Please don’t go any farther.”
Tired blue eyes flicked in her direction before moving away.
The baby continued to wail, the screams rising to an eardrum-vibrating pitch.
Gemma raised her voice to be heard clearly while still keeping her tone calm and soothing. “Ma’am, I’d like to talk to you. To help you. But we can’t do it here. Please give me your hand and let’s step down. Any problem you’re having, we can work it out.”
“There’s no point.”
The successful tactics of crisis negotiation were so ingrained, repeating the question to reinforce to the woman that she was being heard was an instantaneous response. “ ‘There’s no point’? Why do you think that?”
For the first time, the woman looked down. Gemma followed her gaze, down over vertical lines of windows, and what felt like miles of brick, concrete, and steel, to the dimness of light and sound below.
She was running out of time to make a connection. Normally, the longer a negotiation went, the more time was on the side of the negotiating team. But that didn’t count when you were balanced on a ledge only a handful of inches wide above a seventeen-story death drop. She had only minutes, at most. “Ma’am, let’s start with your name. Can you tell me that?”
“Joanna.”
“Joanna, I can see you’re at the end of your rope, but what you’re doing is very dangerous. For you and your baby.” Out of sight, Gemma gripped the man’s hand harder and felt the answering hold in response. Her lieutenant would have her head for taking such a chance, but there was no time and no other way to get the woman back inside. Taking a deep breath, she extended her free hand. “I can help you, or I can find someone who can. Take my hand. Come back in, talk to me about what’s upset you.”
“What’s upset me?” Joanna’s head whipped toward Gemma, even that small, isolated movement causing her to wobble slightly on the ledge.
But the life in her eyes gave Gemma hope. Joanna had just opened the door to a conversation that could save two lives. “Tell me about it.” When the woman’s lips folded into a tight white line, Gemma pushed on. “I’m a great listener. I might even know a little bit about what you’re feeling.”
“You have children?”
“No, but I’m an aunt several times over, and I’ve watched my sisters-in-law with their newborns. Those are tough days. I know you must be feeling stretched to the breaking point. How old is your baby?”
“Four weeks tomorrow.” She took one hand off the pillar and slapped it over her ear. “And she won’t stop screaming. I need her to stop screaming. I can’t do anything to help her.”
Gemma eyed the infant, trying to evaluate if there was any way to free her from the sling. Wrapped too tight. “That must be very distressing for you. You must feel useless, but it’s not your fault.”
“I’m her mother. If I can’t help her, who can? Her father works shifts and can’t be home all the time. I. Just. Need. To. Make. It. Stop.”
Her expression never changed, but Gemma’s heart rate spiked at the slightly hysterical edge in Joanna’s tone. This wasn’t working. Time to try a different tack. “Haven’t you thought about life with her? Watching her first steps? Dropping her off at her first day of kindergarten? Helping her find her feet in life with your guidance? A daughter needs her mother for that.”
A scene streaked through her mind at her own words: Huddled bodies, terrified eyes, screaming, a gunshot. Feeling utterly alone in the middle of the chaos.
She pushed it away. Focus.
As if hearing Gemma’s words, the infant’s wail dissolved into a weak whimper punctuated by squeaky, gasping hiccups.
Joanna’s hand dropped from her ear to reach behind her and scrabble for the pillar.
Gemma reached out farther, leaning far enough over the wrought iron railing to make her mouth go desert dry. “You feel alone and overwhelmed. Like nothing you do is right, and you’re going to mess her up. Like some days you can hardly get out of bed. But this isn’t the way. Don’t you love your daughter?”
Joanna’s eyes slid closed and a single tear broke from her lashes to trail down her pale cheek.
“Help me save her life. You brought her into this world, now keep her safe in it. You’re not alone. There are many people who want to help you. Who will help you. You just have to reach out your hand. Trust me, Joanna. You both have so much to live for.”
Joanna took a shaky breath and opened her eyes. Then she reached out with her left hand.
Gemma caught it in hers, feeling the tremor that wracked it.
How lost would you have to be to not only feel the need to take your own life, but that of your child as well?
Gemma prayed she’d never experience it.
“That’s it, step slowly to your left. Slow. Careful. That’s it. Just about there.”
When Joanna stepped up to the railing, hands appeared from all around, closing over arms and clothing, coaxing her over the railing, and the two women in and back down to safety.
The young mother’s knees buckled and Gemma went down to the floor with her, wrapping her arms around both woman and child as Joanna broke into sobs.
Gemma rubbed a hand up and down her back soothingly. “It’s going to be all right. You’re going to make it.”
A hand squeezed her shoulder and Gemma looked up to find Frankie standing behind her.
“You’re amazing,” Frankie said, grinning. “My mother would be so proud of you.”
The laugh that bubbled up was part joy, part overflowing nervous energy. Now that she was down and safe, Gemma shivered with a delayed adrenaline reaction.
The baby between them made a small noise and Gemma pulled back far enough to run a hand over the warm, downy head.
Two lives saved and a family brought back from the brink of devastation.
Not bad for a Saturday night out on the town.
CHAPTER 2
Gemma crowded the last golden ball into the layer of tomato sauce pooled on the platter. “Rachel, the arancini is ready,” she said, turning to face her sister-in-law. “Can you carry it out?”
The slender blonde shifted to reveal the baby balanced on her hip. His toothless gums gnawed at the tiny hand jammed into his mouth as a long line of drool slid slowly down his chin. “I would, but I’d need two hands for it, and...” Rachel indicated
