Free Spiral by Paul Mceuen Page B

His own discovery, someone else’s, Liam barely seemed to notice the difference. He loved every new development, every step up the scientific ladder.
    There was no way that Liam Connor had jumped from that bridge.
    DOZENS OF PEOPLE PUSHED AGAINST HIM, CROWDING FROM all sides. Jake’s stomach churned. He hated death, despised it. Not in the way most people did, ones who mostly feared it. Jake hated it as an enemy. Hated what it took, what it left behind. Jake was in the Army for four years, a time that included the First Gulf War. No soldier spends time in a war zone without getting to know death’s sight and smell. But familiarity had bred contempt. Jake found death to be a colossal waste. Someone’s alive, and then not. It was sudden. Stark. Irreversible.
    An unmarked helicopter swept in from the west, dipping down over the dorms of West Campus and pulling up directly over the gorge, hovering dead still. The door was open, and Jake saw a cameraman hanging out on the skids, lens pointed straight down. The local station must have hired the pilot to bring them over.
    “Check this out,” said a student to his right. He had his phone out, showing it to a friend. “It’s on CNN.”
    Jake took out his iPhone, carved himself out a little space up against a parked car. He pulled up the CNN website, found the footage rolling. The view was from directly overhead, the suspension footbridge maybe a hundred yards below, a thin ribbon of blue metal hanging over empty space. The bridge was empty except for a lone policeman. Crowds on either side were held back by yellow police tape and a phalanx of officers.
    The camera view zoomed into the gorge. Jake counted seven people: an officer taking pictures, two more watching, two EMTs, and two more in plain clothes that Jake guessed were also police. Their movements were choreographed, professionals going about their jobs.
    The view from the camera pulled back, then panned over to the waterfall upstream from the rescuers, the remnants of an old hydroelectric station clinging to the walls of the cliff. The water was running hard, plunging over the waterfall, cascading downward.
    The sound of the broadcast was inaudible in all the noise around him. Where the hell was the volume? It was a new phone; he hadn’t had it more than two weeks. He found the volume, turned it up. Nothing. The mute? Where’s the mute? The itchy dread in Jake’s stomach was building, his initial disbelief eaten away by the acid of information coming in. If this was on CNN, then—
    The camera swung back, zoomed in on the accident scene. In close on the victim.
    There .
    The image was grainy, but there was no doubt. The old brown coat. The shock of white hair.
    Jake felt as though he’d been punched in the chest. He lowered his phone, hardly believing it. He looked up to the helicopter suspended in the sky.
    Around him, people were yelling, struggling to be heard over the noise of the helicopter. Everyone was packed in tight, jostling him, elbows in his sides. The crowd surged, knocking Jake against an empty police cruiser. He barely noticed. All he could see was Liam and Dylan a week before, laughing their heads off, running Crawler races in the gardens of decay.

6
    AT THE POLICE STATION, MAGGIE WAS FURIOUS. THEY KEPT saying her grandfather killed himself, but she was certain they were wrong. “It’s impossible,” she said for the tenth time, pacing the room.
    “I know this is a terrible shock. I’m very sorry. But please try to calm down, Ms. Connor,” the police chief said. His name was Larry Stacker. He was neatly dressed, short brown hair, a blue tie over a white shirt. Maggie thought he looked like a banker.
    “No way,” she said, shaking her head. “He had no reason. He was healthy. He was—” She looked away, trying to regain control. The office was modest, the painted concrete walls bare, save for a couple of diplomas and a picture of the Cornell campus from above. She expected the head of the