“Maybe that’s because I haven’t tried it,” he said. He didn’t want to lose a ton of money tonight, but, at the same time, recklessness rode him hard. He walked over to the front table and watched the game go down. With Reggie at his side, they both placed bets, and, when Simon won, he snatched up the money, placed more bets indiscriminately. He won half, lost half, until he saw a sequence to the pattern, and he started playing more strategically. As he won more, the crowd behind him grew. Again and again and again.
Finally he placed it all on one number, staring at it because he knew it was the detective’s badge number, the badge of the very cop who wouldn’t leave him alone. The detective who was on his mind when he went to sleep and the same detective who was on his mind when he woke up. He’d memorized her badge number when she had flashed it for him: 9726. He placed everything on black 26 because he knew, as sure as hell, that one would be dark for his soul.
And when he threw the dice, the crowd erupted all around him. He stared in shock because he’d just quadrupled his earnings and had made more money tonight than he’d made in the last six months.
Reggie said quickly, “Damn. I don’t know what the hell got into you tonight, but that was some serious craziness.”
“It was,” he murmured, just as unsettled now as he had been when he had arrived, only now he was disturbed for a completely different reason. He needed to get out of here and fast. He looked over at Reggie and said, “I was planning to stay and to close down the place, but I think I’ll head home instead.”
And again Reggie just studied him quietly. “Anytime you want to talk, you know you can, right?”
Simon gave a hard nod. “Thanks, I’m fine.” He quickly handled the money aspect, getting a cashier’s check in his name. Then left the place and, instead of walking, hailed a cab. He didn’t want to take a chance with the check in his pocket. As he headed back to his place, he tipped the driver generously, got out, and walked into the front foyer. The doorman quickly opened the door, before he got there. “You weren’t out long, were you?” Harry said. “I figured you wouldn’t return until after my shift was over.”
“I wasn’t expecting to be back this early either.”
“Well, that cop was here looking for you,” Harry said.
“Which cop?” he asked cautiously, but he knew. Darn, he already knew.
“The one who was here before, Detective Morgan or something.”
“Ah,” he said, “did she say anything?”
He shook his head. “She said she would phone you later.”
Simon nodded. Maybe that was partly what drove him, what had him so edgy. Maybe he knew that call was coming.
The problem with having a strong intuition, as he called it, was that it was just enough to get you in trouble, yet not enough to get you out. He would cheerfully never use his abilities again, if he could. But the fact of the matter was, something was going on, and his abilities had suddenly gotten stronger—and a little bit wilder. He had a connection to her that he hadn’t seen and didn’t know what to do with.
As soon as he got inside his penthouse apartment, he put away the cashier’s check and reached for the open bottle of wine but stopped midway. Frowning, he walked over to the decanter on the side and poured himself a stiff whiskey. He headed to the couch, put down his glass, and threw himself atop the cushions.
“What the hell?” he said, reaching out both hands and rubbing his face. “It’s like I’m not even the same person anymore. But, if I’m not the old Simon, who the hell am I?”
Because he’d spent his lifetime being multiple Simons: the one the public saw, the one his foster family saw, the one anybody with any psychic energy saw, and then the one the business people saw. He hid behind different personalities in order to make his world move. But the one personality he didn’t let anybody see was the one deep inside. Even his girlfriends and ex-fiancée hadn’t seen that one. And, speaking of which, he pulled out his phone and sent Caitlin a text, asking if her nephew had been found. The response came back brutallyNo.
“Shit,” he said. He tossed his phone on the coffee table and stared blindly outside his windows at the lights of the night.
Chapter 14
Sunday Morning
The next day,Kate tore out of bed early, had a hot shower, and walked to work. Thankfully she only lived a couple blocks away. As soon as she got in, she realized how damn early it was. Not a soul was here. She perked up at that idea, headed over to put on a pot of coffee. She stood beside it to make sure nobody would come in and steal it from her. As soon as it dripped enough to fill her cup, she strolled back to her desk. She grabbed the new notebook she had been using and headed to the board, where she had posted all the names and related data from the other cases. This was a duplicate of the one she had at home.
With those details up, she added a couple new ones, including the one regarding Ken Roscoe, the subject of her recent conversation with the coroner. That one made absolutely no sense. And it really bothered her. There were ever-so-slight differences between the tattoos, but his was so faint that it was hard to see. It’s almost as if there was a line differentiating some of them. She studied them for a long moment, hating the feeling that she was missing something obvious here.
Finally she stepped back and sat down at her desk. The autopsy reports weren’t in on the little girl nor the adult male. She shook her head. But the new case bothered her. And what was with that little girl? Until Kate got the autopsy report, she didn’t have anything to move on. Street cops had canvassed the area, and nobody had seen anything. But then, nobody ever sees anything, she mused.
She sat back and checked on the night shift details. A peaceful night, thank God.
In a big city like Vancouver, fewer murders happened here than one often suspected, but still an awful lot of unexplained deaths occurred, so they had to check them all first, until the facts were ascertained, and the forensics were in. She also couldn’t shake off the 9-1-1 call, reporting a man who had stabbed his wife to death. And that had been weeks ago.
According to all the neighbors, they had a decent relationship, and, every once in a while, they had some really bad fights. Nobody seemed to be surprised at the death, but some people seemed to think he had done it deliberately. Yet, until the forensics or coroner’s reports came back, it was hard to say. She wondered how anybody ever managed to close their cases, since nobody ever saw anything.
Just then Rodney walked in. He stopped, took a look at her, and frowned. She frowned right back. He grinned. “You’re getting pretty cheeky.”
“I am?” she asked quizzically. “I didn’t do jack shit.”
“Nope,” he said, “you’re just being you.”