THE OBITUARY WRITER
Maya Cross heard about the third victim at 6:00 AM, when her phone buzzed with a text from her editor.
“Third jumper. Mercy Bridge. Need 500 words by 8. Name is Clara Bennett.”
She read the text twice. Rolled out of bed. Didn’t look at the empty space beside her where her husband used to sleep.
Ryan had moved out three months ago. She still wasn’t used to the silence.
She made coffee. Black. Sat at her kitchen table. Opened her laptop.
Clara Bennett. Thirty-four. Worked at a call center. Lived alone. No children. Survived by a sister in Hartford and a mother in a nursing home.
The details came from the police report, from the sister’s tearful statement, from the neighbors who described Clara as “quiet” and “kept to herself” and “seemed sad lately.”
Maya had written these words before.
Almost exactly these words.
She opened her archives. Searched for “Mercy Bridge.” Two names appeared.
Sarah Chen. Jumped fourteen months ago. Thirty-one. Worked at a pharmacy. Lived alone. No children. Described as “quiet” and “private.”
Elena Vasquez. Jumped six months ago. Twenty-nine. Worked at a daycare. Lived alone. No children. Described as “shy” and “kept to herself.”
Three women. Same bridge. Same age range. Same living situation. Same adjectives.
Maya stared at the screen.
Coincidence, her editor would say. Copycat, the police would say.
But Maya had been a reporter for twenty-two years. She had learned that coincidences were just patterns you hadn’t explained yet.
She picked up her phone.
“Hey, it’s Maya. Can you pull the full case files on the Mercy Bridge suicides? I need to see something.”
The voice on the other end—her source at the police department, a clerk who owed her a favor—sounded nervous.
“Maya, those cases are closed.”
“Then no one will mind if I read them.”
A pause.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Maya hung up.
She looked at the three names on her screen.
Sarah Chen. Elena Vasquez. Clara Bennett.
Three women.
Three deaths.
And somewhere, a pattern waiting to be found.