Page 21 of Simon Says… Fight (Kate Morgan Thrillers #11)

“Why don’t you go dig up the history on this building? See if we have any idea when it became derelict and who may have been interested in it in all these years.”

“You don’t really think somebody who has a history with the building would have done this, do you?” he asked, staring at her. “Isn’t this more a case of motive and location?”

“It might be,” she admitted. “I don’t know, but until we get there—”

“I know. I know,” he muttered, raising both hands. “Jesus, I need to go clear my head before I start throwing things.”

She laughed. “Yeah, you do that. If Smidge sees you pulling something like that, he’ll be all over me.”

“Are you kidding? If he finds out what I just did, he’ll be all over me for that too.”

“I’m not telling him,” she stated, with a smile. In the distance, she heard a voice snapping in her direction.

“Not telling me what?” Smidge asked, as he walked toward her. “And what the hell are you doing bringing me more clients?”

She smiled at him. “Oh, good, it’s you. Glad we got the best man for the job.”

He stopped and glared at her. “Compliments don’t work with me. You should know better by now.”

“Maybe so,” she conceded, keeping a knowing smile on her face. “But this is something that we’ve seen, yet in many ways, we haven’t.”

“What is it?” He stopped as he got to the tarp, and his face lit up with curiosity. “Now this is interesting. That’s a lot of animal activity.” He looked around and asked, “Derelict building?”

She nodded.

“Weather, probably completely stripped by animals,” he pointed out. “Teeth marks along the bones. Bones have even been separated to a certain extent.” As he lifted the tarp farther, he noted, “Somebody’s been in here, working on this a little more than you would have expected.”

“Possibly,” she noted cheerfully. “That’s why I’m so glad to see you.”

He just nodded, his head tilting. “I’m definitely not happy to be here, but at least this one’s interesting,” he muttered.

She laughed. “They’re all interesting,” she declared, “but this one’ll be a little more than the others.”

“The others?”

“We found a man here,… alive, beaten badly, almost to death it seemed. I’m hoping that he isn’t on your table already,” she said. “I haven’t checked in with the hospital.”

“When was that?”

“Early in the morning.”

“It’s not on my table yet,” he stated. “I got two women in overnight, and a car accident with three seniors in the back seat, but I don’t have any new able-bodied males.”

“I wouldn’t say able-bodied .”

He stopped, eyed her slowly, and shook his head. “Oh no, no, no.”

She nodded. “Oh yes,” she declared, “and, as far as I can see, it could very well be connected.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense. That extends the timeline beyond one year, at least.”

“Our killer may have been interrupted in the process of his serial killing mode,” Kate suggested, “or he could have changed his MO. It could be that he has multiple dumping grounds.”

“That would make it very unusual.”

“It would, but there has to be a reason as to why one versus another.”

He shook his head. “You know what I’ll say.”

“Yes, I do know what you’ll say,” she said, with a smirk.

“And because I do know what you’ll say, let me go get to my job, so I stop bringing you more bodies.

” And, with a laugh, she got up and walked farther away, so she could take a look at the world outside the windows and get a lay of the land.

It still looked very much like an opportunity to dump somebody.

But was it important? Outside of the location, was this important to the other killer, if two separate murderers had been dumping here?

Did her killer even have any idea that this dead guy was hidden here?

*

Simon was happy to escape the chaos that was about to ensue before the police and the coroner finally arrived.

As he walked to the next jobsite, his mind was still thinking about the insistent voice he heard that led to the decomposed body.

Was it really the voice of that dead man, his soul speaking to Simon?

Was it really that easy for these beings to contact him?

Was it easy to just say, Hey, Simon, my body is missing, so get over there .

Because that wasn’t something he really expected from his psychic gift.

Maybe if his grandmother were around, he would have some traction with the dead, although that thought just raised the reality that, if she were here, she would be laughing her fool head off at him for not having listened to her in the first place.

“Right, Grandma,” he muttered out loud. “You were right. I was wrong. But I really wish you were around to help me right now.”

He didn’t understand why, if she had abilities, she couldn’t give him a hand and come back.

But then she probably needed as much of a holiday as he would need by the time his life was over, so there was that too.

That almost brought a smile to his face because who the hell got a holiday from life?

Is that what death was? Was it an escape?

Was it something else entirely? He didn’t know and found it all pretty damn confusing.

His foreman walked up to him and asked, “Are you okay? You look like you saw a ghost.”

Simon winced. “I ran into my partner outside of a warehouse. I guess some guy got beaten up over there last night,” he began.

“No way.”

“I went along while they were wandering through, checking out the rest of the building, and we ended up finding an ancient body,” he added, keeping the explanation simple.

His foreman’s eyebrows shot up. “Seriously? You’re not kidding, are you?”

He shook his head. “No. And believe me that it wasn’t fun.”

“Good Christ,” his foreman muttered. “If that were me, I do love my wife, but, in that case, I think I would be telling her to keep her work to herself.”

Simon laughed. “Wouldn’t that be fun,” he muttered, with a shake of his head. “It is something she tries to keep to herself, but, every once in a while, I get mixed up in it.”

“That would only happen once with me,” his foreman declared.

“I can barely go to the hospital to see sick people, and, even then, it’s just not a place I want to be.

” He shook his head. “Can’t stand hospitals, can’t stand funerals, won’t attend them,” he declared, with a strong headshake.

“Nope, not having anything at all to do with the dead.”

Simon smiled at that. It wasn’t exactly an option in his case. Or, at least, he didn’t think so. Maybe he could shut it off, but he figured that option was no longer available to him now. He could be wrong, but, so far, it didn’t appear that anybody was listening to him.

As his foreman started to walk away, Simon added, “I need to know if there are any issues today.”

The foreman shook his head. “You go deal with your dead guy woo-woo stuff. I’m all good here,” he muttered. “Just keep that crap away from me.”

Simon snorted. “It’s not as if I was planning on bringing any bodies over.”

“God, can you imagine?” he asked, turning to look at him, with a horrified expression.

“We have to acknowledge that, chances are, something like that could be found on our projects. We keep opening up all these ancient buildings, and you’ve got to wonder how many we’re disturbing.”

And, with that, his foreman shook his head. “Oh no.… Hell no.… Everything’s fine on the job here, boss. If I have any problems, I’ll text you.” And, with that, he turned and headed off, shaking his head, mumbling to himself.

Simon stared after him for a long time, realizing that they had been blessed so far in that they hadn’t had anything of that nature happen at any of their projects.

They hadn’t opened up anything and found something they weren’t expecting, which was a godsend as far as Simon was concerned, and something he didn’t want to even consider now.

But over time, quite likely it would happen at some point. He was buying derelict buildings. He frowned at that as he hurried on with the rest of his day, wondering at the different thoughts and beliefs people had when it came to the dead.

When Kate called him a little bit later, he asked her how her day was going.

“Better now,” she replied. “I’m back in the office. We don’t have an ID on our latest victim yet, and he’s down at the morgue, getting a full workup.” She hesitated, then went on. “It’s way too early to tell, but…”

“But,” he repeated cautiously.

“According to the initial examination, it does appear that he’s been brutalized. We can’t tell yet if that’s just a lot of animal activity or something different. I know that the longer Dr. Smidge looked at it, the quieter he got,” she shared, “and that’s always a bad sign.”

“I thought he was always silent to everybody but you.”

“I don’t know about that,” she noted, “but he definitely tolerates me better than the others. We’re not exactly bosom buddies though.”

He nodded. “Will you be in the office for the rest of the day?”

“We need an ID on this skeleton guy, and I still have to get to the hospital and check on our other victim. I did phone this morning, and the staff expected him to come around today. They were supposed to call me, but I haven’t heard anything so far.”

“Right,” Simon agreed, “that should be a priority, as he might tell you something.”

“He should, but he was also in rough shape.” She paused, waiting…

Simon groaned. “You’re wondering if I have anything else, and the answer is no.”

She pondered that and added, “If you’re not that far away, maybe pop in, and we’ll at least get a statement from you on the skeleton we found. I should have done that right at the beginning.”

“You should have, but you already had the information, so it wasn’t much of an issue or a high priority, based on other things that needed to get done.”

“Exactly,” she said, “but you’re right.”