*
Simon walked backinto his apartment; it was only lunchtime, but he was tired. He quickly shucked off his clothes, feeling the grime of the day. He’d actually gotten into the plumbing today on one of his projects, something he tried to avoid if he could, but it was necessary. They were replacing some pipes there and were shorthanded. The day he couldn’t step up and do the job was the day he needed to retire, but a shower was definitely in order.
Clean and dressed once more, he headed out to the living room, looking forward to the sandwich he’d picked up at his favorite deli. He sat down at the kitchen table and bit into it, and his gaze landed on the leftovers he had yet to clean up from last night. Frowning, he pulled the phone toward him and texted Kate.How are you?
He didn’t expect an immediate reply. She would get back with him when she had time.
Yet he didn’t get an answer even hours later.
Chapter 13
By the timeKate made it back home again, she was worn out, having knocked off seven more places. Twelve down. Another seven to go. She had really pushed it at the end, hitting a drive-through and picking up burgers as she drove on. Her destination was home for a shower and a good night’s sleep. She walked up into her apartment, unlocked it, and sat down, eating her burger. Just a few bites in, she stopped, burger in her hand, then shook her head and asked, “What the hell are you doing?”
She looked around at her sparse furnishings and noticed that dust had accumulated at least one-quarter-inch thick on the nearby bookshelf. She couldn’t pull a book from it because she hadn’t taken her books out of the boxes yet. She could be over at Simon’s right now, sitting in front of that incredible view, having a cappuccino or a fancy coffee of her choice, looking forward to a good night’s sleep.
Instead she came back here, alone. Why? She knew part of the answer had to do with the fact that Simon somehow centered her focus and made all the other things in life a greater priority. She found that dangerous when she was on a case, though everything about him was dangerous when she was on a case. He’d been a help in some ways, but she’d spent the whole damn day chasing down that stupid window. Although she’d seen plenty of them, there hadn’t been enough details in Simon’s paper napkin drawing to decide which window they truly sought.
That had become obvious because, very quickly, she’d recognized that, while all the windows were similar, they were definitely not exactly like the window in his picture. She needed something a little more definitive to add to his sketch. Yet what right did she have to call and to hound him for more information? And then she thought of the poor woman currently being tortured, plus the one she presently had in the morgue, with broken ankles, broken wrists, her vocal cords cut, not to mention the two cases she’d read about today in Alberta.
She picked up the phone and called Simon. When he answered, she stated briskly, “I need more details on the window.”
“Good evening, Kate,” he replied in a gentle voice. “Rough day?”
“Yes. I’ve been looking at churches,” she explained. “Twelve of them today. I have seven more to go. All of them had big windows and similar looks, but none were exact.”
“Well, of course not,” he agreed. “They had all been built in different areas at different times, so they would have been designed by different architects.”
“Which means I need more details in order to pinpoint a location.”
Simon was silent on the other end for a moment. “So the drawing wasn’t enough?”
“I just said that, didn’t I?” She knew her voice was overly testy. She didn’t mean it to be, but that calm, quiet voice of his was so very disruptive.
“You know I can’t just turn it on.”
“I know,” she replied. “I get that. And when it’s on, you can’t turn it off.”
“I’m working on that part,” he noted, and she heard fatigue in his voice.
“You know I wouldn’t ask—”
“You would ask for the moon if you thought it would save your victims.”
“Yes,” she admitted, “I guess I would. I just keep thinking about Chelice, our missing woman, and Cherry, the woman in the morgue, and the two cases I read more about from Alberta today. All like the one from many years ago, when Rick Lord’s sister was murdered.”
“Were they exactly the same?”
“Close enough that it had to be the same killer.”
“Or a copycat?”
“Or a copycat but it would have to be somebody who Rick shared very specific details with, and why would he tell anyone?”
“I’m not sure,” Simon noted. “Maybe to save his own soul.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I’m not a shrink.”
“Do you have one at the station?”