Simon Says_. Walk (Kate Morgan #6)(57)
Author: Dale Mayer

 

“Maybe you want to run that past our psychologist,” Colby noted, looking squarely at Kate. She stared at him and immediately shook her head. He frowned. “We do have a new one, you know?”

 

“Yeah, sure,” she grumbled, glaring at Colby. “Haven’t really worked with this one, and honestly I can’t say I really want to.”

 

“It’s not a request,” Colby declared, his voice firm.

 

Her shoulders slumped, and she nodded. “Fine,” she muttered, “but I don’t expect she’ll help.”

 

“It’s a he, so keep your sexism to yourself.”

 

She snorted at that. “Says you, but I’ll try.” And then she looked over at Rodney hopefully. Rodney immediately shook his head. “Yeah, no. I am not taking that on. You are riding solo for this jaunt.”

 

“Oh, but you’re supposed to job-shadow me anyway,” she countered, with a big fat grin. “So I’m dragging you along with me. You can be my … what you called it earlier, … my shield.”

 

“Why would you need a shield?” Rodney asked. “It’s almost as if you’re scared of him.”

 

“Yeah, I remember the last one I had to talk to,” she grumbled, under her breath. “I’ve avoided every other one since.” At that, Colby stared at her, and she shrugged. “Hey, scary people and all that.”

 

“Not so scary,” he pointed out, “but very helpful. Find the psychology and motive of this guy behind doing this shit and get a profile worked up.”

 

“If they’re connected, which is what we need to know, preferably first,” she considered out loud, “otherwise we’re just making stabs in the dark.”

 

“Yeah, taking stabs in the dark is kind of what we do,” Colby stated. “Hopefully you’re taking educated, logical stabs in the dark. Right now, the only connection in any of these current damn cases is Simon.” He faced Kate. “Maybe it’s time to bring him in.”

 

“He’s been in several times. I’ve made sure that Rodney was in on all of them.”

 

“Anything?” Colby asked.

 

“No, nothing,” she replied, showing her palms. “Nothing other than the fact that somebody is targeting him or using him somehow to play this game.”

 

“It’s that game usage that I don’t like,” Colby noted in a disgruntled tone.

 

“Right, you and me both,” Kate acknowledged. “And the fact is, we do theoretically still have a fourth victim that we haven’t found yet, according to that Main Street graffiti art.”

 

“If we’re listening to the graffiti,” Colby pointed out.

 

“And yet how can we not because, once again, the only connection between the three recent torture-murders is Simon and the graffiti was on one of his buildings.”

 

Colby closed his eyes for a moment, pinched the bridge of his nose, and nodded. “So you expect there’ll be another victim?”

 

She tapped one of the four photos on the whiteboard, among the other possibly associated victims who were killed earlier. “I’m thinking it’s her.”

 

“Why?” asked Colby.

 

The other team members gathered around to look at the woman’s face. She looked as if she were twenty, twenty-five, with long brown hair, but remarkably average.

 

“Just because …” Kate began, yet frowned. “I don’t know why. I need more than just because, but it feels like a just because.”

 

“Christ, you’re sounding more like Simon every day,” Owen remarked from behind her. She rounded on him, glaring, and he raised both hands in mock surrender. “You just said it. We need more than a just because.”

 

“I know. I know, but this one fits. She breaks away from these other three possible because her death was way later. It’s as if these other three were victims all at once. Then whatever happened, and the killer went to sleep. So this fourth woman is current. This one’s in our wheelhouse. It’s in our neighborhood. It’s exactly the same MO, even closer than the original ones. I’m not saying that he refined his process at all because this is definitely the work of a deranged mind,” she explained, with an eye roll, “versus somebody who’s sane. But I’m wondering if we can connect this one in particular to Simon. If so, that would give us something to go on.”

 

“So, call him,” Colby said, “preferably right now.” And he crossed his arms and leaned against the door jamb.

 

Kate took her phone and snapped a picture of the photo on the board, sent it to Simon, and then sent him a text. Do you know this person on the left? It was one of the case files we are trying to connect.

 

When her phone rang almost instantly, she winced and put it on Speaker, saying, “Simon, I’m in a meeting, and you’re on Speakerphone.”

 

“I don’t know her,” he stated. “I know of her.”

 

“Okay, and what do you know of her?”

 

“She, her mother, and her sister were at one of the women’s shelters that I know of,” he stated.

 

“Great,” she murmured. “And would they have known you or of you?”

 

“Only if they saw me there at some point in time, but it’s not a place that lets in males, if you know what I mean.”

 

“So how would they have seen you?” Rodney asked in the background.

 

“When I dropped off the cash,” he explained, “and I usually do cash drops after a poker night. I’ll walk by and knock on the door. We have a little knock system, and the manager checks the peephole, sees me there, opens the door. I’ll hand her a wad of cash, and I walk away.”

 

The others all looked at each other.

 

“So …” Kate prompted, and then she fell silent.

 

“Exactly,” Simon said, with a sigh. “If somebody had seen me, then that’s what they would have seen.”

 

“How did you know about this woman in the picture?”

 

“Because I’m the one who sent her to the women’s shelter,” Simon said, with exasperation in his voice. “Same as I sent Annie, your young drug-addicted prostitute, to the same shelter. I sent her directly to this one, actually,” he added.

 

At that, Kate stiffened. “When did you do that?”