Simon Says_. Walk (Kate Morgan #6)(84)
Author: Dale Mayer

 

When the door opened beside him, he roused only to feel something hit his shoulder, and he frowned, trying to understand what was happening, when the alarm bells went off. Only they were a little too slow. Then he realized, with every ounce of his being, it had been a whole lot too late.

 

When he woke, he was on a cot, inside a tent. He groaned, feeling his head burning again with the same pain he’d been dealing with earlier.

 

A calm person beside him said, “Don’t even try to struggle.”

 

He opened his eyes again, after crashing and trying to reawaken. He tried to twist and look at the voice but there was no give in his bonds.

 

“You can’t see me.”

 

The muffled tone indicated he was trying to hide who he was.

 

“I don’t even get to know who is doing this?” Simon asked in a quiet voice, gathering his strength for whatever was to come.

 

“No, you really don’t need to.”

 

The voice was thicker than Simon would have expected. “Why is that?” he asked.

 

“In one way, you won’t be around long enough to care, and, in another,” he said, with an obvious sneer, “I’m trying to decide how long I want to keep you here. There’s a certain advantage to having you at my whim.”

 

“How do you figure?” Simon asked, startled to even consider that somebody gave a crap about that.

 

“Well, for one, you’re not the high and mighty Simon, doling out money, as if you’re some benevolent overseer.”

 

Simon stretched slightly against the bonds holding him, his mind caught on the other guy’s words. “So you know who I am, but I’m not allowed to know who you are? How fair is that?”

 

“Ah, but that’s the world we live in,” he replied. “Nothing’s fair in life. Nothing’s fair about helping the people who you think need help, only to have them turn around and do something completely opposite to that help.”

 

Simon pondered that, his mind racing, trying to figure out who could possibly be here. “You’re the one who’s hurting all these women.”

 

“Women?” he asked in a mocking tone. “Some women, definitely a male or two in there.”

 

“Two?” Simon asked hesitantly.

 

“Well, one for sure, but he was such a mouse that I’m not sure he deserved to be called a male.”

 

Simon clearly heard disgust in his kidnapper’s tone when speaking of Luca. “You want to tell me what your beef is with me,” Simon asked. “I’m sure we can work it out.”

 

The guy laughed. “I’m sure you think you can work it out, but … I’m not so sure I even give a shit.”

 

“Which is an interesting conundrum then,” Simon noted, “because I don’t know what I’m supposed to have done wrong.”

 

“I’ve pondered that for a while, wondering why I do this. … I started because of something that you did, and I blamed you for it, and I made other people pay, but, since then, I’ve been blaming you all that much more, and I’m not sure it’s fair.”

 

Simon frowned, not sure that he liked where this line of discussion was even going. “If it’s not fair, why am I still a captive?”

 

“Because, if you know who I am, you would for sure involve that lovely little girlfriend of yours,” the guy said in a mocking tone. “And you’d try to stop me, and I’m pretty well done with people trying to stop me.”

 

He strained to hear whether his kidnapper was male or female, but the voice was disguised, just enough that it could have been either sex, and that in itself was frustrating. “So what is it that you blame me for originally?” he asked, trying to understand. “It would be nice to know what I have done wrong.”

 

“It sure would,” he agreed, with a note of humor. “But, as I’ve come to realize, I might have used you as a scapegoat to do what I wanted to do in the first place.”

 

“To hurt people?” Simon asked. “Because that’s what you’re doing.”

 

“Oh, I absolutely am hurting people, and I’ll be the first to admit it now, and … it’s probably not very good of me to be doing it.”

 

“No, it’s not good,” Simon stated. “Hurting people is rarely a good thing, so I have to wonder why you’re doing it, who you are planning or hoping to hurt through all this.”

 

“That isn’t quite so easy to sort out either,” he said, with a half laugh. “It all stems back to Elizabeth.”

 

He jolted at that. “Elizabeth? Seriously?”

 

“Yeah, seriously.”

 

“What about Elizabeth?” he asked cautiously. Knowing that at least now they were dealing with the person who had been involved in Mary Clement’s murder. “Did you have anything to do with Mary’s death?”

 

“Oh, I might have helped her die of her injuries from that asshole. I should have taken him out then too, but he did the job himself.”

 

“I don’t think so,” Simon clarified. “I thought he was in jail still.”

 

“Maybe, maybe not, doesn’t matter,” the guy said. “If he’s in jail, I can’t get at him anyway, and I have to trust that somebody else in jail will take care of him.”

 

“So you want revenge for what happened to Elizabeth?” he asked in confusion.

 

The guy gave another mocking laugh. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

 

Holding his own temper in check, Simon asked, “How am I supposed to get it if nobody explains? You’ve been attacking people, torturing them, hurting them terribly, all for what?”

 

“All because I wanted to,” the guy explained. “Maybe they deserved it. Maybe they didn’t. I’m not sure I care anymore. You start off with such high lofty ideals, and then you give them up pretty fast.”

 

“You don’t have to,” Simon disagreed immediately.

 

His kidnapper laughed again. “Not having to is a whole lot different than not wanting to, but then I wouldn’t expect you to understand. You’re the one full of all these lofty ideals. You help at various women’s shelters. You drop off money to help people buy groceries, giving pennies on the dollar. All those things makes you feel as if you are Lord Bountiful.”