Simon Says_. Walk (Kate Morgan #6)(89)
Author: Dale Mayer

 

“What was she like when Elizabeth left the first time?”

 

“She was angry, pissed off, and I told Helen how Elizabeth needed time, that she needed space, that it was a good thing for her to be on her own right now, and that we couldn’t always choose relationships that we wanted because we needed to do the right thing and let people heal, how Elizabeth needed to heal, needed to grow. Her mom had died, and that was a pretty ugly scenario, and Elizabeth was … lost. I don’t think that she would have stayed with Helen, even in the beginning, but I don’t know that.”

 

Kate nodded and pulled out her phone and pulled up the photos of the four earlier victims. “What do those faces mean to you?” Kate asked Lisa, showing her the photos.

 

Lisa stared at Kate’s phone. “One of them was somebody Elizabeth was really good friends with, and one of them was somebody she hated.”

 

“So again, the connection is the women’s shelter.”

 

“Yes,” Lisa confirmed. “They both stayed here, not for long obviously. I didn’t know either of them were dead though.”

 

“They were cold cases from a long time ago,” Kate explained, “about the same time that Elizabeth left.”

 

Lisa’s eyes filled with tears. “Helen needs help,” she said quickly. “She needs professional help.”

 

“She needs more than help, if she’s the one who’s been killing people,” Kate stated, turning to look at the older woman. “What about this Samantha, do you know her?”

 

“I don’t,” she said immediately. “But I do know that Helen has helped a few people privately. Sometimes we know somebody who doesn’t want to come into the shelter because they’re too scared, and I generally let Helen handle them. So it’s quite possible that she does know Samantha.”

 

Kate snapped, “I need you to come to the station, and I’ll bring a team in.” She stopped, considered all the other women here and added, “We need to move these women to another shelter. We need them to be safe.”

 

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” Lisa wailed. “No, you’re supposed to tell me that I’m wrong.”

 

“I hope to God that you are wrong,” Kate declared, “but, at the same time, I’m not sure. I’m trying to get ahold of Simon as it is.”

 

At that, Lisa gasped. “Helen was going to contact him about some remodeling here. I told her not to bother, and she laughed and said Simon could always tell her no, but she needed to ask him about adding a couple more bedrooms. She thought it would be a fairly simple job.”

 

“When was that?” Kate asked, staring at Lisa in horror. Her stomach wrenched, as she realized just a couple hours ago is how long she’d been trying to contact Simon. “What are the chances that Helen’s the one who attacked Simon?”

 

At that, Lisa winced. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Dear God, I hope not. He’s always been so good to us.”

 

“Yeah, you’re not kidding.” Kate stared at the woman, who might have been complicit in covering up Helen’s misdeeds. “Where would she take a victim? Where does she have another location or a spot that she feels comfortable, where she might have taken these women?”

 

Lisa kept shaking her head. “It couldn’t be her. It couldn’t be her.”

 

“I’m not saying it is, and I’m not saying it isn’t, but where would Helen take somebody?”

 

“I don’t know,” Lisa cried out.

 

“Does she have a favorite park? Does she have a favorite location? Where does she go for holidays? What places does she talk about a lot?”

 

“She … goes camping,” Lisa remembered. “She has a place not far from here, and she likes it because she can drive right up to the spot, and … it’s a place she’s used for years.”

 

“Where is it?” Kate asked for directions.

 

Lisa named the park and then whispered, “She has a quiet space here too. A place she likes to go and destress.”

 

Kate slowly turned to look at her, her phone in her hand, typing a text to Rodney in progress. “When you say a quiet space, what do you mean?”

 

Lisa stood and led the way through the house to the back and a staircase. She motioned up. “It’s up here.”

 

Kate moved slowly up the narrow staircase to the second floor, then opened a door to another staircase.

 

“It’s at the top of the house,” Lisa called up to Kate.

 

Kate stared at her in shock. “When were you up here last?” She moved to the next staircase, hating yet already knowing what was up there.

 

“Never. It’s her space,” Lisa admitted. “I have enough trouble with the stairs as it is.”

 

“And do you hear anything that might be going on up there at any time?

 

“No. The house is soundproofed. Helen did a lot of it herself. She said she needed to rail and to cry out in her frustration and pain.” Lisa had a defeated look in her eyes. “She had a horrible childhood. Sexually abused, tortured. Her father was a sadist and made her life hell. Sometimes she finds it hard even now. So I had no problem giving her this space. She does so much for everyone else that I knew she needed it.”

 

But… the abused had become the abuser… at least that was the track Kate had locked onto.

 

Kate was already halfway up the stairs. She turned to Lisa and said, “I’ll be right back.” And, with that, she entered the small dark room and stopped. “Anyone here,” she asked in a low voice, as she brought out the flashlight on her phone. A weird light reflected off the black walls. Until it landed on a small woman, tied up on a small mattress, and the fear in her eyes broke Kate’s heart.

 

Kate approached slowly, even as she pulled her badge from her pocket. “Samantha, I presume?”

 

The other woman nodded frantically and burst into tears.

 

*

 

“Simon, it’s nice and easy. You take a step when I tell you to take a step, and, if you don’t take a step, I get to hit you some more. It’s a game I learned as a child. You’ll see how fun it is soon.”

 

Simon was barely conscious. He heard the instructions in the back of his mind, and the voice was coming from afar, but blood dripped down his eye, and his hands were tied behind his back. Although the drugs had somewhat eased back, he was groggy and struggling to stay cognizant. Then he was given a prod, and it had an electric jolt to it. He bolted forward, and his kidnapper laughed. Only the voice was different now. He stopped and tilted his head to the side.