Simon Says_. Walk (Kate Morgan #6)(37)
Author: Dale Mayer

 

She nodded. “I feel better too because, if you ask me now, I was pretty dead yesterday,” she admitted.

 

“How’s Simon doing?”

 

She shrugged. “Pissed off, upset, and angry that somebody would be killing because of him, in his name even.” She shook her head. “How would anybody feel to know that somebody was doing this because of them and yet not tell Simon in what way he was supposedly responsible.”

 

“But that’s part of the game, isn’t it?”

 

“Well, that’s the thing. Simon was getting visions of games, games of chance, racing horses and craps tables and whatnot. He thought it was maybe about gambling, but then the message came for him—in whatever way, shape, or form you want to take this,” she added, with an eye roll. “This wasn’t about gambling as much as it was about that our killer was bored and had decided to up the ante, and, for whatever reason, he had locked on to Simon.”

 

“That’s pretty thin though,” Rodney replied skeptically. “Upping the ante? Somebody who’s been playing games of chance for a long time and putting money where his mouth was has decided that tossing a dice, where you get a different answer every time, that’s … that’s not enough of a challenge?” he asked doubtfully.

 

“I know. None of it makes any sense yet. We’re all reaching for clues. And who knows? Games could be a euphemism for torture, like passed away is a nicer way to say died.” She sat down at her desk and quickly logged in to her computer. “The thing is, in a stupid way, it does make a certain sense.”

 

“How so?” he asked, turning to look at her.

 

“Because the game isn’t for Simon to get into. The game is for this asshole. He’s making it more challenging for himself, which is why I go back to the fact that this isn’t his first time killing. This might be a personal vendetta against Simon, just so the killer has someone else to blame for his own serial killer addiction. This is about the killer, who’s been doing this for a long time, and that part has become boring to him. So now he wants to up the ante by bringing in Simon, adding in Simon’s pain, maybe putting into play Simon’s torment. Hell, this killer even drew me in from the beginning, giving Patricia that note addressed to me here at the station. This killer was asking for our detectives to get on the killer’s trail. Maybe that’s what this is all about. Maybe he’s just been doing so much for so long that he needed something to shift it so it was more exciting for him.”

 

At that, Rodney winced. “That thrill-kill MO will be a little rough to track down then.”

 

“Especially when we know absolutely nothing about the player. I don’t even know if this guy is local,” she said. “Simon himself has got quite a global presence. He knows a lot of people out there, and one of the things that is quite feasible is that our killer may be used to traveling the world, and we could be looking at cases that have absolutely nothing to do with Canada,” she suggested.

 

“Which means, once again, it’ll be almost impossible to track our killer,” Rodney pointed out.

 

“Which is why,” she added, “I think he’s bored. He’s been killing long enough and has never been caught, and he’s blasé. It’s not a challenge anymore. And we are walking around blind, with no leads.”

 

As her other team members filed into the room, Kate began anew. “But consider this. If this killer has been doing this for a very long time, and the thrill is gone, yet he can’t get out of his compunction to murder, you know what that’s like. We’ve seen that with serial killers, with druggies. They get a certain hit from doing this, and then, over time, it’s not enough of a high.

 

“Maybe he’s been a contract killer, taking out enemies—ours and others—for years. Maybe he does it strictly for the money. Maybe he does it for favors. Maybe he does it because, hey, he can. I don’t know,” she admitted, getting to the same excited outbursts she so often got to, and no one tried to stop her in any way.

 

“But now his high from these killings is not enough of a high. So he’s experimenting with what he can do to make it a bigger hit for him. So that, when he kills somebody else, knowing that we’re walking around with stupidity all over our faces,” she guessed, “maybe that makes him feel better. Maybe he gets a bigger high. However, he really wants Simon to get into the game, so the killer has a bit of a challenge to start giving a crap as to what he’s doing on a day-to-day basis.”

 

Lilliana sat down on her chair beside her. “I am glad you woke up on the right side of the bed.”

 

Rodney snorted at that, but Kate ignored him.

 

Lilliana added, “That’s a pretty fucked-up mentality.”

 

“Yeah, sure is,” Kate agreed. “And, no, I don’t have any proof, but …” And then she thought about it and nodded. “It’s starting to have a real feel to it.”

 

“Whatever the hell that means,” Owen said, as he walked in and sat down at his desk. “What the hell?”

 

“And yet she’s not necessarily wrong,” Sergeant Colby added, as he joined them.

 

She was startled by his acceptance of her suppositions; he had obviously heard her excited hypothesis.

 

“We have seen a couple cases like this before—not here, not locally,” Colby corrected himself. “But globally, there have been a few other cases where people have been almost bored doing whatever they’re doing, and they’ve tried to up the ante for more of a challenge. Obviously we’ve got a sick individual here, somebody who is completely desensitized to his effect on people. Otherwise why do you first kidnap your victims, making them walk into rivers, blindfolded, if it isn’t because the killer’s bored.”

 

“He’s an asshole.”

 

“Definitely a bottom-feeder.”

 

“All true because he wants some fun, because he needs something in his life to give him that high again. Then, when you think about his releasing Patricia, promising that he’ll leave her alone if she does what he wants, but killing her anyway? That’s the part that really cements that boredom element for me. He isn’t here about the killing as much as he’s here about Give me something in life to make me feel better, and then turns around and takes away a life all over again,” Colby shared, with a nod. “Whether we like it or not, we seem to have somebody who’s running with his newest theory, testing an experiment.”

 

Lilliana shook her head. “Sick fuck,” she muttered.

 

“Maybe, but he’s our sick fuck now,” Colby stated, with a look in Kate’s direction. “And we want him in our interview room, preferably damn fast.”