Page 11 of Simon Says… Fight (Kate Morgan Thrillers #11)

“Right, of course.” She sighed and looked over at Rodney. “Same body type, same basic everything.”

“Well, shit,” he muttered. “We really don’t need another one of these.”

“No, but it looks as if we don’t have a choice.” She looked back at Reese. “Did you ever do another dive to check and see if you can find any other similar victims?”

“I have.” She nodded. “I didn’t find any, but…”

“You sound hesitant.”

“I want to take another look at a couple. They aren’t identical, but I wondered if something might be there.”

“If you don’t have time to do it today, pass them my way,” Kate suggested. “I can then either rule them in or rule them out.”

“Good enough.” Reese turned and walked away.

Kate stood here, holding a file on this John Hobert. It held little info. She looked back at Rodney. “Seems we have to make a death notice.”

He winced. “Or we can send the black-and-whites.”

“We could, but then we won’t learn anything about the family, or personally about the victim. We’ll have to talk to the wife anyway, although we don’t have 100 percent proof yet.”

Rodney was already up and grabbing his jacket. “I know, but they’re the roughest.”

“They absolutely are, and, in this case, the family will be irate that they were told to wait to see if he just showed up again.” Kate shook her head. “If they’d filed a report earlier, maybe he would still be alive.”

“Maybe, but how many times have we had people who just walked away for a bit, looking for a few minutes to themselves? You know, just to rethink their life or their job and felt they needed five minutes alone? We would have so many cases that really aren’t cases if they all filed a report that first evening or whatever. ”

“I know.” She sighed, as they both left the building. “It still sucks for the family who’s waiting for answers, and they are just told to keep waiting for more time to pass.”

“And we also know,” he added, as they walked out to her car, “that time is of the essence. For us, the first twenty-four hours are so important. Yet we often don’t even hear about a case until then or later.”

“Unless it’s a child,” she noted, looking back at him. “At least then it’s all hands on deck, right away.”

*

Simon deliberately walked through the back alley of the scary warehouse, wondering if he could trigger whoever had been calling out to him earlier.

But nothing came this time. He was doing everything else he could to avoid entering that warehouse.

Call him a chicken, he didn’t care, but something was damn creepy about that place.

He did have fighting skills, but nothing that would have an effect on gangs or ghosties.

And he had to admit, ghosties had the power to frighten him.

He shook his head even thinking about it.

This was not exactly the life he’d expected for himself.

And why the hell wasn’t his grandmother ever popping through?

That was a damn mystery to him, though he knew she deserved a rest and a chance to be free and clear in heaven.

But still, this was one of those times when he really could have used somebody here for backup during all these years.

Still getting no response from his grandmother or from his most recent ghost, he realized that his feet were taking him to the one place he didn’t want to go.

The one building that was stuck in his mind as being off-limits.

And yet, even as he got closer to the front entrance, he recognized that he was almost being led there by the will of another.

He stopped walking and waited to see what would happen.

His feet were urged to move again. He let them carry him a little bit farther, then he stopped. “I’m not going in there,” he declared.

A sense of frustration surrounded him. He wasn’t sure what this entity—spirit, ghost, or whatever—wanted, but Simon wasn’t really impressed with the idea of being pulled back to this place.

And, if something were here, he really should get a cop to come check it out.

Better them than him. And yet what would he say?

“Oh, yeah, so a ghost stopped by my place one day and told me that you needed to go in and check out this warehouse.”

That would go over like a ton of bricks.

Particularly if people knew his connection to Kate.

He could see that, for her, this was a way bigger challenge, just because of who she was, but also because of who he was.

They were still working their way through so many different things in their lives, and it was very much on her watch that so much of this depended.

He stared up at the building, realizing his feet were still trying to take him inside.

He swore and took a couple hesitant steps in that direction.

And just when he was contemplating whether he should enter or not, his phone rang.

Immediately whatever had been driving him seemed to groan in exasperation, and Simon stepped back with a smile.

He changed directions and headed off, as he pulled his phone from his pocket.

It was Ariel, his stalker Realtor again.

“I haven’t had a chance to consider the offer,” he muttered. “You’ll have to give me time.”

She paused, then stated, “I can’t hold it forever.”

“Yeah, I know that,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. Negotiations 101, never let them know how much you want it. “But, as always, shit happens.”

She laughed, trying not to show her frustration. “Fine,” Ariel replied, “get back to me when you can.”

He realized he owed her for shifting whatever psychic energy was happening at the time, but he still didn’t want to talk to her at this moment.

Not about something he hadn’t had a chance to do a serious cost analysis on.

He absolutely loved the building she had for sale, but it might not be one that he could make work.

He realized he wasn’t that far away from it right now.

As he looked around, he saw that he was even closer than he thought.

He walked around a couple blocks, and there it was.

The Queensborough. He stopped to look up at the once-beautiful hotel that had been turned into a million other things in the last few years.

Sometimes he wondered what his attraction for these places was, but usually he didn’t even bother to figure it out.

He just knew, and this one was glorious in her old age—yet showing so much of that age, as he soon realized, just by walking around her.

It would cost a fortune to rehab this building, and it might really be better if this one was dropped.

He kept walking, checking it out, looking back and forth. When he turned around again, he saw Ariel, standing on the front steps, a smile on her face.

“Hey,” she greeted him. “I didn’t realize when I called that you were already over here.”

“And I didn’t realize that I was so close,” he replied, with a shrug. “I’m just doing a basic analysis on it right now, but that’s not enough for me to make a decision of that magnitude.”

“I know,” she noted. “It has quite a pull though.”

“It does. I’m just not sure that it’s a good pull.” When she frowned at him, he shrugged. “It’ll be a very expensive rebuild.… I basically have to take it down to studs.”

“But it is steel.”

“I know,” he confirmed, turning to her, “but steel…” Shaking his head, he wouldn’t let her bug him as he turned and walked inside. It took him quite a few minutes before he stopped. His heart was still tugging at him to say yes, but he just wasn’t sure what was driving that.

She looked over at him. “You’re really not sure on this one, are you?”

“No, I’m really not,” he conceded, with a smirk, “and I want a whole lot more surety before I make a decision.”

“You’ve got a little bit of time but not a whole lot.”

“You mean, before you go to other people.”

“Right,” she admitted. “And that’s not necessarily the same thing.

Just because the owners are ready to sell doesn’t mean that anybody else is ready to buy.

But considering the price they’ve dropped it to, and the location, if you just dropped it and rebuilt something completely different, it would be hard to lose money on this venture. ”

He looked at it from that point of view for just a moment and nodded. “Which is exactly what somebody else would do.”

“Sure, and you could too,” she pointed out. “I know you don’t build from scratch very often, but at times you can take the same concept of whatever it is that you’re trying to salvage or save, then rebuild it that much better.”

“I know,” he murmured. “I’ll think about it.”

She laughed. “I’ve heard that a time or two.”

“Yeah, you sure have,” he acknowledged, “and it will still be the same answer. I’ll think about it .”

“I can give you another forty-eight hours, but that’s it.”

He nodded and didn’t say anything.

Ariel turned and walked away.

As she left, he suddenly had that same weird feeling he’d had before. It usually came from one of these buildings when it was one he should buy. He looked around, feeling that sense he’d been looking for before but had yet to feel—until now—and smiled.

Because he never bought one of these buildings without that sensation of knowing it was right, of knowing he really could make this happen.

Knowing that whatever was wrong was something he could fix, or, as Ariel noted, could rebuild completely.

That might be a good project to do here because this old hotel certainly had a lot of years on her.

But that didn’t mean those years would go to waste, even if he did a full redesign.

Thinking about it, he pondered the money involved and then contacted his accountant and made a couple requests to get something on paper to take a look at.

Quinn, his accountant, laughed. “I’ve already done a cost analysis on this building, and you and I both know it.”

“I know,” he replied, “but we’re talking about a much lower price now—or at least I am.”