“Says you.” He pointed up ahead. “Here’s the first one.”
As he drove around the block, she stared up at the top. “Well, I can see where the window is,” she noted, “but that looks like a pretty deserted building across from it.”
“Is that a problem?”
“No, actually it looks promising.” At that, she got out, studying the church. “It’s a similar window, but it’s not exactly like the other ones I saw.”
“Well, that’s the thing about church windows. I know vanity is supposed to be something that you don’t really want to encourage when you’re religious, but it seems like the churches were always these huge monuments to the god of their choice at the time.”
She nodded. “That’s not exactly the way most people would like to hear it described though.”
“Maybe not,” he agreed, “but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s pretty well what it is.”
She smiled. “At least in this case, we will do a quicker check because the building is empty.” She looked at it and asked, “Why don’t you just buy it?”
“Why? Do you think I have nothing better to do than buy more buildings?”
“Well”—she shrugged—“yeah.” And, with that, she laughed and headed toward the building across from the church window.
He smiled and followed. At least, she was in a good mood. Kate in a good mood was a dynamite force to be reckoned with. Kate in a bad mood was hell on wheels. Get out of her way, or she’d steamroll over you. But, man, she got the job done, and you had to respect that. You might not like it, but she got it done and got it done well.
All he could do was follow in her wake.
Chapter 14
Not even anhour later, Kate studied this old ramshackle building, the second one on their list of possible locations where the latest missing woman may be held for torturing. “Has this been slated for demolition, I wonder?” She noted the Hazard and Danger signs and the big fence around it.
“Not necessarily. They do this to keep people off the property,” Simon explained, “but there’s always a way in.”
“You want to find me one then?” she asked on a laugh.
He pointed to where the fence was separated off to the side. “There’s an easy one.”
She nodded, and, following him carefully, they walked through the fence.
“So now we’re trespassing,” he stated, turning to look at her.
She nodded. “I get that, but it’s not like anybody’s here to be disturbed.”
“There is, and then there isn’t,” he replied. “There’ll probably be a certain element of homeless men.”
“Maybe,” she agreed.
As they entered the building and climbed up to the other floors to be in alignment with the nearby church window, she looked around. “The walls aren’t completely here.”
“Nope, and that’s something to consider too. The noise factor.”
She looked at him. “Yeah, well, the noise may or may not be an issue.”
He stared at her with a raised eyebrow.
“He slices their vocal cords.”
He winced at that. “Just another reason to capture this asshole.”
“We don’t need any reasons,” she argued. “We’ve got so many victims right now that we’re all just itching to get this guy off the street.”
“And yet nobody else noticed?”