Chapter 17
In the darkof evening, Kate directed Simon to drive to a corner where Kate thought they would be best hidden, where she and Simon had a full view of the back of the kid’s house.
“You know they could go out the front door,” Simon noted.
She nodded. “I know, but I’m expecting that, wherever they’re going, they need to drive, so they’ll need the vehicle.”
“You’re thinking it’s all of them?” he asked, horror filling in his voice.
She shook her head. “No, and I don’t really know yet,” she admitted. “There’s only really one viable suspect.”
He frowned. “I get that, but you think the killer would have learned that by now.”
She smiled at him. “Maybe.” She settled back into her seat, sniffed the air, and asked, “What did you buy?”
He snorted. “You said,coffee and take-out burgers, so I bought lots of both.”
She stared at him. “Lots?” she asked in a surprised tone.
“Well, how long will we be here for?”
“You’re into cold burgers?”
“Absolutely,” he replied. “After growing up not knowing when food would be available,” he explained, “I don’t turn down burgers, hot or cold.”
She shook her head. “Are you telling me that you’ll turn on the engine, open the hood, and warm them in there or something, if needed?”
He grinned. “You know that trick too, do you?”
“Are you kidding? A whole cult of people cook on the manifold,” she noted, chuckling.
He reached around into the back seat and pulled up the fast-food burgers. Immediately the smell of salty, greasy fries and burgers filled the air, and her stomach rumbled in joy. “I wish you would feel the same way about smoked salmon and caviar.”
“Never had either,” she replied, as she reached for a burger.
He reached out and snagged her wrist, staring at her. “Seriously?”
She looked up at him. “Cop job, cop salary. No time, no money. Remember?”
“We’ll have to fix that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not everybody has your money, you know? I don’t even know how you make your money because no way buying all these shitty old buildings and fixing them up is making you the big bucks.”
He chuckled. “You’d be surprised. What’s unusable to some is a gold mine for others.”
“And what does that do for your conscience then?”
“My conscience is clear because some of them go to low-income housing, some of them go to senior centers, some of them go to families who need a helping hand.”
She stopped and looked at him. “Like women’s shelters?”
“I support a large number of those as well,” he noted quietly. “But they aren’t ones that most people know about.”
She nodded. “I get it,” she replied. “The ones set up by women in trouble, knowing what it’s like to be out there on the streets, when they’ve got an abusive husband or boyfriend after them. Way too many of those kind of men are out there.” She unwrapped her burger, looked at it, and gave him a fat grin. “You got pickles and fried onions on the burgers?”
He shuddered. “At least you got the right burger.”
“Why? What’s on yours?” she asked curiously.