"Okay. You want to sit back down? Want some coffee?"

"No. No. Let me just tell it." She steadied herself, a subtle squaring of the shoulders, stiffening of the spine. "I ditched the date from tedium, grabbed a cab. We'd gone to dinner and a club uptown. I got here about one-thirty, I suppose."

"You live in this building?"

"That's right. Tenth floor. Apartment 1005. I paid the cab, got out on the curb. It's a pretty night. I was thinking, It's a beautiful night, and I just wasted it on that jerkoff. So I stood there for a couple minutes, on the sidewalk, wondering if I should go in and call it a night, or take a walk. I decided I'd go up, fix a nightcap, and sit out on my balcony. I turned, took another step toward the doors. I don't know why I looked up – I didn't hear anything. But I just looked up, and she was falling, with her hair spread out like wings. It couldn't have been more than two or three seconds, I'd barely had time to register what I was seeing, and she hit."

"You didn't see where she fell from?"

"No. She was coming down, and fast. Jesus, Dallas." Louise had to pause a moment, rub the image from her eyes. "She hit so hard, and with a really nasty sound I'm going to be hearing in my sleep for a long time. It couldn't have been more than five or six feet from where I was standing."

She drew another breath, made herself look over at the body. Now there was pity over the horror. "People think they've reached the end of their ropes. That there's nothing left for them. But they're wrong. There's always more rope. There's always something left."

"You think she jumped?"

Louise looked back at Eve. "Yes, I assumed… I said I didn't hear anything. She didn't make a sound. No scream, no cry. Nothing but the flutter of her hair in the wind. I guess that's why I looked up." She thought now. "I did hear something after all. That flutter, like wings."