Simon Says_. Walk (Kate Morgan #6)(59)
Author: Dale Mayer

What kind of place are you in?

 

It’s dark, like a bedroom. I’m chained to a wall. There’s a bathroom. I can get that far but nowhere else.

 

Does he feed you?

 

Yes, he comes in, drops food, and leaves it behind.

 

Has he hurt you?

 

She started to cry at that.

 

He hesitated, then added, I need to know.

 

Yes, she whispered. He does.

 

Has he raped you?

 

No, no, she said softly. Then she added, Not yet.

 

The chances of him raping her at this point weren’t great. Chances were, this was somebody other than a sexual sadist, or it was somebody working his way up to it. Can you see around the room? Can you see a shape of a window? Can you see anything?

 

No, she replied, there’s no light. There are no windows.

 

So you’re high up in an attic?

 

She sighed. Maybe, she replied in a lament. When he comes in, he drops the tray on the floor and backs out again. He never loosens my chain or takes it off or releases it in any way.

 

Does he talk to you? Does he say that somebody’ll pay? Does he say who’s responsible for this? Does he say what he wants you for?

 

No, he doesn’t say anything.

 

Has he ever laughed? Received a phone call? Have you ever heard anything?

 

Nothing, she whispered. Absolutely nothing. He groaned, and she started to cry again. Please, please, find me. And, with that, she was gone.

 

As Simon came out of his meditative state, he reached for his coffee, his hand trembling. He wasn’t sure how often he had connected with a person he could communicate with in such a way, but it was working this time. So everything else in his life and in his abilities were changing. Almost immediately his grandmother’s voice wafted through his mind, telling him that his gifts would shift and change, until they cemented themselves into a certain set of talents. Until then, he couldn’t count on anything, and yet he could gather a lot of good information, if he sifted through it.

 

“Sift through it,” he muttered.

 

What do you sift through when nothing’s here? What do you sift through when there’s just a voice, a person on the other end, a person he had connected to who couldn’t help him? At that, he bolted to his feet. He closed his eyes, facing the downtown Vancouver core, sending out a message, asking his mind, his energy, which direction to go to find Samantha, to find where this message from Samantha came from.

 

Almost immediately his grandmother’s voice snapped into his brain again, with another tidbit that he had forgotten over the years.

 

There is no time. There is no distance. Sometimes you can even reach into the past and speak to people who have come and gone already. You cannot count on anything, not until your talents lock in. And, even then, depending on what goes on in your life, circumstances could set them all off again.

 

Simon swore, but, as he stared out at the late-afternoon sun, it seemed to him that maybe, just maybe, he was staring in the right direction. He closed his eyes and slowly rotated, using his senses to tell him which direction Samantha was in, knowing it was one of those foolish little things that nobody would trust and that nobody would believe. Yet he had no choice but to at least try.

 

As soon as he got to the same mental point where his instincts prodded him to stop, he opened his eyes, and he was facing the same direction. With a heavy sigh, he stared out at the miles and miles of city before him. It was possible that Samantha was here locally. It’s also possible that, if he continued in this direction, he’d reach Chilliwack, not even a two-hour drive away.

 

He picked up his coffee, sipped it, wondering what he was supposed to do. Then he realized that it didn’t matter what he was supposed to do. He really only had one option. He couldn’t deal with anything to do with Kate’s case because no information was coming his way. But Samantha was out there. Samantha, a prisoner of some psycho asshole, who was keeping her locked up, possibly in an attic.

 

Frustrated, infuriated, he checked his watch, noted it was almost 5:00 p.m. now. If he went out, he could then, in theory, continue to test this little bit of directional information he’d sussed out. If he couldn’t help Samantha or Kate in one way, maybe he could help in another.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 14

 

 

 

 

 

Kate dragged herself inside her apartment and made it to her shower before the exhaustion hit her. She’d stopped at her martial arts training for an impromptu session, burning off some building frustration over her case.

 

Even her master nodded. “You need this tonight.”

 

“I do,” she murmured.

 

What had followed was such an intense session that she knew she’d be sore for days to come. She’d expected to see Simon after this, but, when he wasn’t at his apartment, she’d come straight home. Maybe he needed distance; it couldn’t be much fun with the police all over him because of this case. Not to mention stirring up bad memories.

 

When she stepped out from her shower, she opened the fridge and stared at what looked to be a very sad bluish mold on top of her block of cheese, some stale bread, and a jar of peanut butter. She slammed the fridge shut and leaned her forehead against it, realizing how little interaction she had with her own space anymore. She wasn’t here long enough to have groceries that could maintain freshness, so she rarely shopped, and, when she was out—mostly because Simon was with her—her meals were spent with him, more often than without.

 

Frowning at that, she sent him a text message. Where were you? She got a response.

 

Downtown.

 

She straightened and stared at her phone and hesitantly called him. When he answered, she asked, “Whereabouts downtown and why?”

 

He snorted. “Hi, Kate. How are you? How was your day? Hope it was fine. Mine was good. Thanks for asking.”

 

She winced. “Yeah, I know. I suck at all these rules to relationships,” she muttered, then audibly sighed. “Thanks for making me feel bad.”

 

He laughed. “Now, if I thought it would make you feel bad, I wouldn’t say it.”

 

She groaned. “So you want to tell me where you are, and why you are there?” He hesitated, and she spun around, looking wildly around her apartment. “Did you come up with something?” she asked in a low voice.

 

“No, not really, nothing that I could put a finger on to give you,” he admitted. “As I don’t have anything to offer in terms of these other damn victims, I was wondering about Samantha.”