By
USA Today Bestselling Author
Dale Mayer

Detective Kate Morgan has settled into her position and, although straining under her new caseload, is working hard. Simon is still a big question mark in her world—and his “gift” even more so. Dealing with a frustrating series of drive-by shootings has brought a three-year-old drive-by case to the forefront …

Simon had hoped that his visions would have stopped, especially now that the police had solved the pedophile murders. No such luck. But these new visions are confusing, chaotic, and nonsensical. Unwilling to share yet more disjointed and meaningless information with Kate, he keeps it to himself. Until he sees a pattern and connects to a woman, … one who is suicidal.

While Kate understands his physical and mental torment, she’s underwhelmed by the lack of detail in his latest visions—until she looks into another issue and finds out that the number of suicides are higher than normal, as in way higher …

This book opens with Kate at the scene of a suicide, a jumper off the Lion’s Gate Bridge. She notices a pair of heels neatly placed where the woman had jumped and wonders why. Speaking with the officer in charge of the scene they both note that suicides have been much higher this year. With nothing really to be done there she heads out to get coffee in the False Creek area. She’s sitting watching the sunrise when she’s joined by Simon.

While Kate doesn’t understand his psychic gift, and seriously he doesn’t either, there is an undeniable attraction there. They just really need to get to know each other.

This is a favorite scene.

She looked over at this man, someone she was struggling to keep at arm’s length. But the more she tried to do that, the less it worked. After all, she’d found her way to his corner of the world, hadn’t she? As if her body had a mind of its own. She sipped her coffee and studied him over the rim of her cup. “Why are you up so early?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” he said. He spread his arms along the back of the bench, studying her. “Why are you?”

She shrugged. “I was awake already and heard news on the scanner about a jumper.”

He winced. “That’s always tough, isn’t it?” Then his gaze sharpened. “But you’re a homicide detective,” he said. “So surely suicides don’t come under your domain.”

“All unattended deaths are investigated.”

“So you just follow police scanners for fun? Don’t have enough cases now, so you have to go find new ones?”

She laughed.

“You’re just not ready to tell me.” She shrugged. “It’s probably nothing. I guess I’m wondering if there’s anything to be done for the mental health problems we have in town,” she murmured, giving him a partial answer.

He looked over at her, then reached a hand across to cover one of hers. “You know that you can’t help everyone, right?”

“Wasn’t planning on it. Yet I care about a lot of things,” she said, “and kids are number one.”

“Missing kids, you mean.”

She glared at him. She still couldn’t believe she had opened up enough to tell him about Timmy. Then, given Simon’s history, it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

“That’s better,” he said, with a nod. “I was wondering what was going on that made you look so maudlin.”

“I wasn’t,” she protested.

“Were too.”

“Was not,” she snapped back. He left it at that. After a moment, her shoulders eased. He was right. “I guess just seeing another jumper …” she said. “I mean, it’s like there’s one every day right now.”

He looked startled at that. “Is it really that high?”

“Not quite. If I were to count all the bridges on the Lower Mainland, it’s especially bad,” she said. “It seems much higher than normal.”

“Well, last year was bad overall, and this year has been a pretty ugly one so far too.”

“I know,” she said, “and I get that people are losing their loved ones, their businesses, their homes, plus their families are breaking up. We didn’t even need the pandemic for all that to happen, yet just so much else is going on all the time. The pressures of today’s world are immense, and handling it all seems to be a special skill set that a lot of people don’t have. And, all too often, I think drugs and other enabling issues help bring it all down too.”

He shrugged. “And again, there’s only so much you can do.”

“I know,” she said. “A whim sent me down there. I hadn’t been there at that wee hour of the morning in a long time.”

“Why would you ever be in that area at that hour?” he asked in surprise.

“When I was a teenager,” she said, “sometimes I would go sit on the bridge.” He sat back and stared. It wasn’t hard to understand what he was thinking … She shrugged. “I never really considered suicide,” she said, “but I did know several people who had completed the job, and it always shook me to realize that death was the best answer they saw. I’d sit there and ponder what the attraction was. That water is cold, dark, and often rough. What a way to go.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know because I haven’t told you. I haven’t told you much,” she said, with a shrug. “It’s not like we know each other.” He snorted at that. “Knowing each other requires taking time to be with each other.”

“You mean, not just screwing like minks when we’re together?”

“Well, okay, that’s pretty damn nice too,” he said. “But getting to know each other, that’s a process that takes time.”

“Well,” she said, “it’s also a process that requires I open up a little bit— and you too.”

At that, his lips turned down, and she nodded. “Right,” she said, “not exactly your style either.”

He frowned. “Maybe,” he said, then turned the subject away from him. “Was there anything different about this suicide scenario?”

“No, not really,” Kate said. “She was pretty close to the shore and got caught up in some driftwood. So, instead of floating past or sinking, she was held right there for the divers.”

“At least her family will get some closure and can lay her to rest,” he said.

“True, yet it still makes me angry.”

“Except anger isn’t the emotion I’m seeing on you right now,” he said. “It’s more what I would call defeated. As in, already too emotionally involved.”

She shook her head. “I’m definitely not,” she said, with half a smile. “But maybe weary. I just turned in which was a long and difficult case.”

“You solved it pretty damn fast, considering.”

“It should have been solved a long time ago,” she said, staring off into the distance. “So many more victims because it wasn’t.”

“And again, not your fault. You weren’t even a detective then. What’s it been? Four months now?”

She nodded slowly. “Four and a half.”

“Well, you’ve already shaken things up in the department and earned a commendation for having done so well.”

“Yeah, and I appreciate that,” she said, “but I wish instead that the kids had been helped.”

“Don’t we all,” he said heavily.

She smiled at him. “See? You’re no better.”

“Hey, you’re the one who’s making me depressed this morning.”

She laughed. “Well, I’m heading off to work anyway.”

“Did you get any sleep last night?”

“I did,” she said, “but it was a …” She shrugged. “It was a rough night.”

He frowned, as she got up and walked away. “You could say goodbye, you know.”

She reached up a hand and, without turning around, called out, “Bye.”
Dale Mayer. Simon Says… Jump (Kindle Locations 105-157). Valley Publishing.

Arriving at the office she gets a strange e-mail. A picture of her on the bridge looking at the shoes. It’s strange and disturbing. Her boss has her open a case file with it just in case it turns out to be relevant.

The other case they are working on is a drive-by that possibly connects to another a few years earlier.

Simon’s first involvement is when the number 13 pops into his head. He has no other reference so he just sends it to Kate. The next thing connects him to the suicides, one of his long time friends has jumped, it both surprises and saddens him.

In this journey we feel both the frustration and intensity of the investigations. Needing to find answers and following every lead regardless of how thin.

I love the way these stories develop and the relationship with Kate and Simon, well, it’s certainly sizzling but Kate really has to come to terms with his visions as she gets a close up look at what’s begun to happen with him.

I couldn’t put this book down and I can’t wait for the next one in this series.

5 Contented Purrs for Dale!

Dale Mayer

Dale Mayer is a USA Today bestselling author best known for her Psychic Visions and Family Blood Ties series. Her contemporary romances are raw and full of passion and emotion (Second Chances, SKIN), her thrillers will keep you guessing (By Death series), and her romantic comedies will keep you giggling (It’s a Dog’s Life and Charmin Marvin Romantic Comedy series).

She honors the stories that come to her – and some of them are crazy and break all the rules and cross multiple genres!

To go with her fiction, she also writes nonfiction in many different fields with books available on resume writing, companion gardening and the US mortgage system. She has recently published her Career Essentials Series. All her books are available in print and ebook format.