“Okay, and the next couple?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, “but it isn’t a stretch to think that maybe she was disrespecting him.”
“Well”—she stopped, then frowned—“it’s a theory,” she grudgingly noted.
“Gee, thank you,” he said, with a mocking tone. “I appreciate that.”
She smiled. “No, it’s a good theory. I don’t know that it’ll have any legs, but it is definitely something I need to check out.”
“To check out as long as you actually have man-hours available.”
“We have two new victims,” she stated. “So believe me. I’ll get all the time I need right now, particularly if it means stopping a third set of victims from showing up.”
“I get it,” he said. “Nothing like having the potential for public outcry, like what will be happening here to make the police add more manpower to a case.”
“And yet you can understand that, when there’s nothing for us to go on, we soon get assigned to other cases,” she explained.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we all had the ability to do what we needed to do? But, with killers coming out of the woodwork on a regular basis, sometimes there’s just no time for any of this.”
“We have to make the time,” she declared, “and believe me. Right now? I’m making the time.”
*
It was sucha good theory, and one Simon couldn’t seem to get out of his head for the rest of his day. If it were him, just what would he do? And that was the question that bothered him throughout the course of the day. Because, of course, he’d have planned out his escape route exactly. He wouldn’t have left anything to chance. And he certainly wouldn’t have left his escape to chance. Going up the tree was just one option to avoid being seen—before and after the murders—like a hidey-hole.
If anyone found out where he was, then he would be in a worse place. But the chances of anybody finding out that he had gone as far up into the tree as he had would most likely rule outsomebody coming after him. If he played his cards right, that tree would be the killer’s bolt-hole—a place to go when nothing else was working.
Simon still didn’t understand why these particular victims were targeted, and he knew that that was something Kate was mulling over constantly too. Motive was everything.
Why would somebody do this to these people? He understood the first two better because of his vision but the next two? Not so much. And he also knew that no way in hell he wanted another phone call, saying Kate was on a third case that was exactly the same.
The public outcry would be expected, yet he could hardly blame her. She was working the case as hard as she could. If there wasn’t a whole lot there, what was she supposed to do? That problem was something that he had never really considered before. Like what was she supposed to do if there were no other leads? He frowned at that, wishing he could do something to help her.
He also worried that she would head back there to the running paths again today. The cases just haunted him, and he had been absolutely no help so far. He had nothing here to give her any assistance.
He kept looking for visions with numbers, looking for anything that might help. In the past, there had always been a little bit of something that came through his psychic senses, even if it wasn’t much help. But it’s not as if this case had safes to open or a numbers game to follow. It just seemed like his related visions were completely useless. How the hell was that something he or Kate could use? He also wondered if maybe his connection was too tenuous because he couldn’t relate to this crime or to its victims.
He didn’t understand what the connection was to the other woman in his nightmares and visions—kissing her partner,going back to bed—but obviously she was a runner. The fact that she hadn’t died yet was huge. The fact that she didn’t even appear to be a victim was remarkable.
Simon didn’t want her to become one, but he still didn’t see what his connection to her was. Like how do these people reach out and just snap onto his psyche? From his perspective, it seemed like,Hey there. Let me just sit here and fill your mind with this shit. I know you’ve got nothing better to do.
If he could figure out what the connection was to this woman in his nightmares and his visions, then maybe he could develop a better understanding of why this kept happening. He understood his connection to that very first case—the pedophiles’ case—where he’d met Kate. That was easy, a given even. Pedophiles victimizing children was something directly related to Simon’s own life. But the murders of runners? No, that didn’t make any sense. So why the hell was he connecting to this one woman, the one who leaves her bed to run but goes back to her lover?
He shook his head, wishing that the answers would come as easily as the damn visions did. Had to be some reason for them, and it just got him more depressed than anything to realize that all of this was happening and was beyond his control. However, being shown these uncontrollable visions, he wanted to know why? What for? Sure, he had a logical mind, but that wasn’t necessarily what he needed to figure out these psychic messages.
If nothing else, it caused him more stress to realize that, somewhere along the line, this person in his latest vision was attracted to him or was reaching out to him. At least that’s what he thought was happening. Maybe she wasn’t doing it consciously; maybe it was her subconscious. Maybe the guy that she was with had the same name as him. Maybe that was the only connection there. He frowned at that. Was it really that simple? Could it be something that simple? He didn’t know, andhe didn’t know because there was obviously no way to prove it. One way or another he was stuck in this same damn limbo.
“Hey, Simon.”
He shook himself out of his reverie and turned to see his foreman walking toward him.
The foreman stopped and said, “Whoa, man. You okay?”
He nodded slowly. “I gather I don’t look okay. Is that it?”
“You look like you’re ready to murder somebody, actually,” he admitted. “In which case, I think I’ll talk to you later.”
Simon gave a snort of laughter at that. “Well, considering we’ve worked together for a very long time, I highly doubt you’re my target.”