“You okay?” Ava asked as she rushed to Pawlowski.
“Yeah. I should have got him. I’m…”
“But you’re okay?”
“Yeah…”
Ava could tell that Pawlowski was more embarrassed than anything else, so the decision to leave her and pursue Fairfax was an easy one. She made her way back down the hall and saw Fairfax disappearing through a door marked STAIRS. A smart move, she thought, to not wait for the elevator.
“Freeze, Fairfax!” she bellowed.
But Fairfax had no intention of freezing at all. He rocketed through the doorway and she could hear his heavy footfalls tearing up the stairs.
Up?Ava thought.Really? Why are you going up?
She drew her sidearm as she came to the stairwell door, opening it up and quickly pivoting inside. Fairfax was not there waiting for her. Instead, she could hear his feet above her, stomping further up the stairs. She gave chase, rushing up the stairs and taking them two at a time. Her primary hope was that she was simply in much better shape than Fairfax and she’d be able to catch up to him. She supposed his goal was to go up several floors and perhaps lose her in the maze of construction. And once there, maybe he’d try to bait her into a situation where he could pitch her off the side—much like he seemed to have done to Alfred Perkins.
With this possibility in the back of her mind, she continued treading upwards. She ran as fast as she could, realizing just how close Fairfax’s footfalls were starting to sound against the concrete steps. She’d lost count of how may flights she’d climbed. Nine? Ten? She just didn’t know. It may have been as many as a dozen.
What she did know was that she could now hear Fairfax’s breathing, coming hard and labored. If she could hear that even over the thunderous booming of their footfalls, he must be just a flight or two ahead.
Apparently, he knew this as well. The sound of his rampaging feet came to a stop, interrupted by the sound of a pause, a door opening, and then more footsteps, only fainter this time.
She arrived at the next landing just in time to see the door leading back into the building closing. The small sign by the edge of the doorframe read: 21. She was astounded as she opened the door and entered the hallway. The chase had gone by quicklyand her legs felt like they were pumping fire, but she had not expected to have climbed so high so fast.
The hallway wasn’t completed. The foundations were up, as well as the many levels over her head, but the walls weren’t finished. There were studs and foundational boards set in place for most of it, but there were also open, empty spaces here and there, allowing access to the exterior of the building for the workers. Through those breaks, she could see beams and struts, just like she’d seen near the top of the Chrysler Building.
At first, she didn’t see him. There were several rooms to her right—or, rather, the shapes of rooms, just as unfinished as the walls to her left. If he was hiding in any of them, she’d spot him easily enough. And if it came down to a fight, she did have a gun. Not that she thought she’d need it.
But then, just as she started down the hallway, she saw him. He was about a quarter of the way down, standing on one of the exposed beams that was visible through the access point to the exterior. As he stood on it, the wind whipped at his hair and his shirt. Ironically, his shirt had come untucked in the chase; the wind caused his shirt to flap in a way that clearly showed the torn section along the back.
Ava stopped walking for a moment as their eyes locked. She then started moving so slowly that it was barely even progress at all. She needed to get closer to him—needed to make sure she got the arrest.
“Don’t do it, Mr. Fairfax,” she said. She had to raise her voice a bit to be heard over the wind.
“You’d rather I come with you and go to jail?”
Ava said nothing. She continued to inch her way forward. She also made a show of holstering her weapon and then placed her hands in the air. “Is that an admission?” she asked. “Do you need to go to jail?”
“I’d change it if I could. I was just…I was so mad. And the opportunity was right there. I had to do it. And when I did…Christ…he reached out and grabbed me. Tore the tail of my shirt and nearly pulled me right off the side of the building with him. Thank God this shirt is cheap.” He laughed nervously at this, and the sound of it made Ava wonder if he’d really jump. He simply sounded far too scared to do it.
“Come back in here,” Ava said. “Come back in and we can talk about it.”
“I killed a man,” he said. “Thereisno talking, right? It’s jail.”
“Yes. Very likely. But isn’t that better than death? You’ll still have family and friends. You’ll still havelife.The idea that she was trying to talk him out of jumping when she now knew for certain what he’d done was odd. It made her feel very uncertain of herself.
“I...I can’t,” he said. “I’m scared to move.”
Of course,Ava thought. “Hold on,” she said.
She moved forward making sure not to peer out through the opening to the beams. Sure, this was nothing compared to the heights she’d looked down from at the Chrysler Building, but she was still twenty-one stories in the air. The wind slipped in through the opening, catching her hair and blowing it about. She stepped to the opening and extended her hand to him. Even without looking down, she felt a bit dizzy.
Fairfax was weeping as he slowly reached for her hand. She did her best to keep eye contact with him and it was because of this that she saw the sudden change in his eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
“Wh—” Ava started to say.