“Well, if you can handle this,” he stated, “you can pretty well handle any of the paths in Vancouver.”
“Good to know,” she said.
“Although,” he added, “I don’t know how safe it is.”
She looked at him inquiringly.
He raised his eyebrows. “Two women were murdered here this morning.”
She winced. “I know. I’m actually a cop.”
His eyes lit up. “Seriously?”
She nodded. “Most people don’t react like that. Why the interest?”
He laughed. “I don’t know. I always think what people do is fascinating.”
She frowned. “It’s not always a terribly fascinating job though,” she stated dismissively.
“I don’t know. It depends what department you’re in.”
She didn’t answer and just waved. “Thanks for the info. Maybe I’ll try it again on a Sunday.”
He replied, “Well, Sunday is actually a busy day too. I mentioned Saturday, but really it’s the weekends, you know? It’s nice. It’s outside, and it’s challenging but not superhard. You’ll get a pretty wide range of people here, everything from those out for a stroll with their babies or walking their dogs to serious marathon-running athletes out here.”
“And that’s the joy of Vancouver too.” She laughed. “It’s all here, all available, and everybody is happy to mingle.”
He nodded. “If they stay out of my way, I’m happy,” he said. “I get pissed off when they fill the whole pathway, going four across, and some places it narrows down to two across. It just takes a little bit of respect to make people happy at a place like this,” he explained, “but, when you get assholes out here, who step in your way or slow down your pace, it gets to be a problem.”
Curious, she asked, “Any confrontations out here?”
“It happens.”
“What? Like road rage on a running path?”
“Sometimes,” he replied, “but I don’t know thatconfrontationin the word I would use. You know when you’re running in the zone, and you think that the place is yours? So, when somebody steps in your way because they’re not being terribly thoughtful about what’s around them or about why people are here, it can be irritating. It’s pretty much just like any place else really.”
“So true,” she muttered.
She headed back to her car and leaned against the door as she drank some water, thinking about his words. That scenario was possible too. Maybe the two women had pissed somebody off on the pathway. Maybe that’s why the path had been chosen. It stillseemed like an odd place because it was too busy, too exposed, too likely that somebody would see the dead bodies. But then again, maybe that’s what the killer wanted. Maybe he wanted them found fairly quickly.
In that case, why? A lot of runners came to this park, and you could guarantee that the bodies would be found right away here. So why would somebody want them found quickly? Why now versus later? She thought about it, but no answer came to mind. Unless this person wanted something—or could avoid something—by having the dead women found earlier. And again that didn’t make any sense.
Frustrated and tired, but with her muscles humming, she climbed into her car and headed home. It might have been a shitty day for some people, but she felt good after that workout.
Once home, she crashed for the night.
*
Sunday Morning
The next morningSimon woke up, missing Kate. Even though it was Sunday, he went about his normal daily business routine—except the markets were closed. He couldn’t help himself, and, at the end of the day, he waited outside her station. He hadn’t told her that he was here, and he wasn’t planning on it. He was hoping to catch her when she came out. He didn’t know whether she’d driven to work or not, since they hadn’t spent last night together. That was something else that was starting to piss him off, but he didn’t dare say anything. He didn’t dare push any harder. He wanted her to want to be with him as much as he wanted her by his side.
She wasn’t to that point yet. She’d come a long way, but she wasn’t ready. He didn’t know how much of it was his supposedgift. She didn’t like his psychic gift, and, so far, it had been somewhat helpful with her cases, yet not helpful enough. As she had told him before, what he shares with her is not the stuff that she could put before a judge and jury. So, to date, he would say she found his psychic gift was probably 50/50.
He often had nightmares and dreams, caught whiffs of bits and pieces, but they were in the distance, as if a curtain obscured them. He liked it that way because he could turn his back and carry on. But this last vision wasn’t that way. This last time he was actuallyinthe victim, like a possession or whatever, as she’d been plowed to the ground and strangled. He had experienced her horrible death. That wassonot what he wanted.
He could still feel his heart pounding, the adrenaline pumping through his body, as she raced down the trail, filled with the sheer joy of what she was doing, the exhilaration of feeling her muscles burn, as she pounded and stretched them further and further to the max with her efforts. And then the complete shock as something came out of nowhere and slammed her to the ground. He sat here—outside, on a street bench, in the heat of the summer afternoon—almost shivering. He huddled over his coffee, wondering if this sense of foreboding would ever go away.