“I—I don’t know,” he said.
“Right.”
There was a long silence between them, and he finally said, “Go back to sleep.”
“I’d love to. Why did you leave tonight? Why didn’t you just stay until I had to go to work?”
“I don’t know,” he murmured. “If I figure it out, I’ll let you know.” And, with that, he hung up.
She lay back on her bed, staring at the ceiling above her. Without the lights on, the room was full of shadows and darkness. She looked around, feeling a sense of comfort in what was the usual, the normal. How would she feel if this were not her normal, if this wasn’t usual?
Of course it would be scary, and she would feel fear, depression, anger, grief—not the same things that this woman was feeling apparently, if Simon was connecting in any way that could be believed. She winced at that because there was a lot of belief required in this. A lot of trust and an acceptance that what he was doing was something he felt he needed to do. And a belief that there was no other way out of it. She’d seen him; she had heard the same nightmares that his ex had witnessed and had taken videos of, something Kate could never do. It surprised her that, after that scenario, Simon was comfortable enough to sleep beside her.
Then again, she had worn him out.
With a tiny smile playing at the corners of her mouth, she rolled over, punched the pillow a couple times, and closed her eyes. As she slid into a deep sleep, the answer came hurtling into her brain. She bolted upright, reached for the phone, and called him.
His voice was groggy and disoriented when he answered. “What’s the matter?”
“Simon, is she blind?”
There was dead silence on the other end of the phone, and then he said, “Good Lord, I don’t know.”
“It would explain why the other senses were heightened,” she murmured. “And why… why the hearing is so amplified, and so is the sense of smell. And maybe that blindness is the source of her tears. Maybe that’s the grief and the sadness.”
“It’s possible,” he said slowly. “I hadn’t considered that.”
“I know. Neither did I. I was just sleeping, when it hit me.”
“Wow, when things hit me in the middle of the night, they rarely wake me up. I wake up in the morning with the answers.”
“Apparently I needed to have this answer now.”
“It’s possible. Let me think about it.” And, with that, he hung up.
But she knew she was right. She didn’t know how it connected to her cases, but it felt right. It would explain the shadows too. Maybe she was going blind; maybe she had been going blind for a while. Kate didn’t know, but, as she checked the time, it was five o’clock already. She groaned. She would have to be up at 6:30 a.m. anyway. What were the chances of getting some sleep now? Not much, she realized. She hopped up, had a hot shower, and got dressed, then sat in the kitchen and had a cup of coffee, staring out into the early morning light. Full of pent-up energy. She realized she wanted to go for a run. She should have done that before her shower.
Groaning, she quickly changed into her running gear and raced from her apartment. She lived downtown, so not a whole lot of enlivening areas to run in, but, at this hour, it was just too gorgeous to stay inside. As she hit the pavement hard and fast, she realized it would be more of a sprint than a jog. Probably the stress inside her, the tension that was always coiled up there, waiting for her to find an answer. That feeling of desperation that she needed to get this case closed, before it became buried under fresher, newer cases that had information and threads that she could follow up on. How was one supposed to work with basically nothing, knowing that victims’ families, friends, people were out there, waiting for answers?
She shook her head, trying to pull back the shadows, and ran harder and harder and harder. When her feet slowly calmed down, she turned around, only a few blocks away from home. And that was a damn good thing because now she was very tired.
She rubbed her eyes, feeling the sweat collect in the corners, burning and stinging her tear ducts, flushing them out. That was what she thought anyway, since she wasn’t the teary type. But, as she slowly walked back to her apartment, swinging her arms and trying to loosen up her joints, she realized that this blind woman, whoever she was,couldbe connected to her case. Maybe she was alone now because of one of these accidents. Maybe she had been in one of the accidents. Kate didn’t know. Maybe it had nothing to do with these cases at all. Maybe it was a case Simon had yet to spring on her.
She didn’t like the idea of that.
Kate shook her head, walked up to her apartment, and stepped right back into the shower, and this time she stood under there, enjoying the hot water as it hit her shaky body, soothing some of her muscles that would pound and ache for the rest of the day. When she stepped out for the second time, she quickly braided her damp hair, wishing she’d found time to get it cut, then dressed in a no-nonsense black T-shirt and black jeans once again. She put on her holster, grabbed her jacket, and headed out. By the time she walked into the station, even without the time-saving efficiency of driving her vehicle, she was still early.
She put on the coffee, and, when nobody showed up to grab the first cup, she happily took it and headed to her desk. And, with that, she opened up a blank document and started to write, letting the information in her brain pour out. She recorded the ideas she had talked about with Simon, added the information about the woman Simon was dealing with, and then realized there wasn’t a whole lot else. She grabbed the list of numbers they had been trying to call and checked the list of victims’ family and friends.
Instead of the dozen there, the last time she looked, she found a few notes added, saying that Rodney had connected with four and found nothing of interest. She quickly added notes from the Wellington guy, who had called her back last night, then made calls to the others. She connected with two, and once again dealt with the teary backlash of them asking why she was bringing it all back up again.
When she got to the last one on her list, it was from an accident a year ago. When a guy answered the phone, he said he was on his way out to work.
“Look. This is really crappy timing,” he growled.
“I’m sorry. I just—I’m trying to follow up on a series of other accidents we have.”
“Which is why I was on board with changing that traffic pattern,” he snapped into the phone. “My daughter would be alive, and my wife would be almost whole again,” he snapped, “if that accident hadn’t happened.”