Page 16 of Simon Says… Fight (Kate Morgan Thrillers #11)

K ate got up the next morning, her mind full of the old man sleeping in the Running Mate . As she headed out to the kitchen, she looked at Simon. “Will you check in on Arnie today?”

“Of course.” He nodded. “I’ll confirm there’s some food for him this morning.”

She suggested to him, “You could always offer to pay for euthanasia for his dog.”

“I’ve thought about it,” he said, with a sad smile. “I think, in his mind, he wants Elsie to go on her own.”

“Sure, and maybe that’s an option. I don’t know. As long as she’s not in pain, that’s fine, but at some point in time…” She left it at that because she was already late for work and only so much she could say in this case.

As she walked out, he snagged her into a hug and just held her. She hugged him back, and then he leaned down, kissed her, and added, “Look after yourself out there.” And, with that, he turned and headed back into the kitchen.

She walked outside, still thinking about Simon as she got into her vehicle and headed to work.

They’d come so far, and yet, in so many ways, they still had a way to go.

But she was definitely learning to understand who he was and what he was up to.

When she walked into the office, Reese was dropping off information on her desk. “What have you got?” Kate asked.

“It’s more information on the three other cases I gave you,” she replied.

“I contacted the detectives in each one. Everybody more or less said that they were muggings and really not worth another look. However, when I told them that we had two similar cases on our desks, that got quite a bit of interest from all of them. So, these are a few answers to my follow-up questions for you.” Reese stopped in the process of turning back to her desk and added, “None of them were much of a help except that it establishes a pattern.”

“Meaning that nobody knows, nobody sees, nobody was around in any of those three cases?”

“Exactly.” Reese gave her a sad smile. “Nobody saw anything.” With that, she returned to her office.

When Rodney walked in, Kate stood up, grabbed her coat, and announced, “Come on. We’re heading out.”

“Okay, where are we going?” he asked, even while in the act of taking off his jacket.

“Downtown to a warehouse area, where someone says they heard somebody crying out about not being a fighter and not wanting to get involved.”

Rodney’s eyebrows shot up. “You have a witness?”

“Nothing so clean or simple as that,” she replied, with a wry look in his direction.

“Simon?” he asked in delight.

“No, God no,” she muttered. She punched her partner lightly as she passed him, still heading to the door. “And you shouldn’t be so happy if it was.”

“Hey, if we can get information, I don’t care where it comes from.”

“Oh, I hear you, and sometimes I agree. In this case, although the witness is involved, a completely different scenario is happening. Just don’t ask me how it all came about because I haven’t quite figured that out yet.”

“Good.” He smiled. “Let’s go, and you can fill me in on the way.” As they walked outside, he added, “You better let me drive.”

“And why is that?” she asked, looking at him with suspicion.

He grinned. “Because you tend to be a little more preoccupied these days.”

“I am not.”

“Are too,” he noted, with an equally childish response. She rolled her eyes as she got into his vehicle and gave him the address for the warehouse in question. As they pulled up to the derelict building, he found a place to park. Approaching the old building, she walked up the front steps.

He looked at her and muttered, “This is a pretty interesting area.”

“Is that what you call it?” she quipped, as she stared at it. “It looks pretty dodgy to me.”

“Me too,” he agreed, “which is why I’m fascinated that we’re even here.”

“If there was another location, I would be there,” she declared, “but, in this case, it looks as if we’re supposed to be here.

” As she walked into the main part of the warehouse, she heard the echoes of the empty hollowness all around her.

“Is there anything more dead than a deserted building that has sat unloved for all these years?” she muttered.

“I think this one is slated for demolition,” Rodney shared, as he pulled it up on his digital files. “It’s also a bad area for drug deals and prostitution.”

“Of course it is,” she muttered. “It’s really free housing, and everybody will treat it that way.”

He looked over at her. “You’re in an odd mood this morning.”

“Yeah, you could be right,” she conceded, and then she told him about the old guy that Simon had brought home.

“He took him to the Running Mate ?” Rodney asked in astonishment.

She looked over at him and nodded. “Yes, and the old guy, Arnie, he’s waiting for his beloved pet to pass on before he tries any of the shelters.”

“Good God,” Rodney muttered. “Poor guy. What a way to die, waiting for you and your pet to cross over.”

“I know, but, not having had a pet all my life, I don’t necessarily understand, although I’m not against it,” she added. “It’s obvious to me that the dog is very important to him. Plus, Elsie looks as if she may not make it through the weekend.”

Rodney nodded. “I tell you though, some of those old dogs, they may look that way, but they keep going for years.”

“And that is a real concern in this case because I think Arnie’s counting on her passing first, so he can get a little more comfortable somewhere.

And, of course, Simon is chomping at the bit to change the world because there doesn’t appear to be any decent housing for men, not the way there is for women. ”

“But this guy wouldn’t qualify anyway.” Rodney shrugged. “He’s not abused, he’s just homeless, and that’s an entirely different story.”

She nodded. “Agreed, but the whole thing has sent Simon off in a couple different directions.”

“If he’s got the money, I guess he can always start something.”

She laughed. “I pretty well told him the same thing.”

“I’m sure he loved that.”

“Not necessarily, but he does understand why we would say it because we see the problems. Still, it’s really hard to find anybody who’ll help.”

“You’re not kidding, especially not the government. Shelters are around here, and I think one for men is nearby,” he pointed out, “although it might be privatized.”

“I’m not sure that anything like that can be privatized, but I can understand it being private,” she clarified.

“Exactly.”

“So, the question that remains is whether there is a place for this guy to go to, or is he stuck on the streets until… ?”

Rodney stared at her as they walked through the lower levels of the building.

“He’s stuck if he can’t get into one of the shelters.

They obviously have an overcrowding problem, and we never have enough places for anybody who needs a shelter.

Still, we have somewhere he can go, but he must sign back up the next day to get a hot meal, then turn around and carry on over and over again. At least until the weather warms up.”

“God, what an existence,” she muttered, shaking her head at it.

“And it’s not just him,” Rodney added.

“No, it isn’t. Quite a few people live like that.”

“We see them in our work all the time,” he noted. “It’s interesting that this one really got to Simon.”

“He got to Simon—or maybe it was the pet. Arnie seems pretty taken with Elsie,” she noted, with a smile. “Last I saw Elsie, she was tucked up in a blanket and looked as if she was in heaven.”

“Probably warm for the first time in many days,” Rodney noted. “People forget about how the pets don’t have an easy time of it when their owners are homeless.”

“I can see that,” she said. As they walked through the building, she looked around, taking in the interior. “Empty, derelict, and yet not, somehow.”

“What does that mean?” Rodney asked.

“A spooky atmosphere hangs over the entire place,” she shared, still looking around, frowning.

He grinned. “I love how Simon is rubbing off on you. You could yet end up being a psychic yourself.” She turned and stared at him in horror, making him burst out laughing.

“God, why would you even say that to me?” she muttered. “Don’t I have enough issues already?”

“You sure do,” he confirmed, with a big grin. “On the other hand, maybe those issues are things you can deal with in a different way.”

“ Sure ,” she muttered, with an eye roll. “Enough talk about psychics.” But just then came a slight crash upstairs that made them both freeze. She looked at him and whispered, “Meet you at the top.” And, with that, she took off running.

He swore behind her, as he tried to catch up, but he was huffing and puffing when he finally reached the third floor. He almost slammed into her.

She held out a hand and pointed. And there, off to the side, was what appeared to be somebody crawling on the floor. She called out, “Hello, we’re the police.”

A quiver came from the form on the floor, and the man whispered, “Help me, please. Dear God, please help me.”

She walked over, her weapon ready, as Rodney did a quick search around them.

As she approached, she looked at the man and asked, “Are you in need of assistance?” When he looked up at her, she winced.

His face had been pulverized and so swollen that she was certain he could barely see.

She holstered her weapon and dropped down beside him.

Calling out to Rodney, she said, “Get an ambulance in here now.”

The man at her feet whispered, “Dear God, thank you, thank you.”

“You want to tell me what happened?”

He shook his head. “I’m not even sure,” he said, half sobbing. He made several attempts to get up, and then, with a cry, collapsed back down beside her, unconscious. It was twenty minutes later before the paramedics arrived, and he was loaded up and taken to the hospital.

Rodney looked at her grimly. “What the hell is going on here?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “but that could have been just a mugging.”

“Just a mugging? Are you fucking kidding me? He was worked over pretty good.”