Page 25 of Simon Says… Fight (Kate Morgan Thrillers #11)

“Don’t do your best,” Anna snapped, her tone harsh and raspy. “Just find him and kill him. Please, just take him out, remove him from this world, because anybody who could do something like this to my poor Sonny should not be allowed to live,” she murmured. And then she started to sob again.

Kate got up and, after sharing her condolences and trying to comfort the woman one more time, quickly exited the hospital room. When she got outside, she contacted Rodney. “The wife confirmed that’s him.”

“How?”

“She was able to describe some birthmarks, and, with the doctor’s assistance, we were able to find them, exactly as described,” she explained.

“So, it looks to be that’s exactly who we have.

He took a cab from the office, and I have his flight information here.

I’ll forward it to you right now. The wife’s name is Anna, and our victim is Sonny Hilton. ” She quickly emailed it over to him.

“We’ll need to know what cab it was,” Rodney noted.

“Anna didn’t know, but maybe his office does,” Kate suggested. “They might have an account with somebody.”

“I’m on it,” Rodney replied.

And, with that, she got off the phone. She stood outside for a moment, taking in a couple deep breaths as she contemplated her next step.

Lilliana called her a few minutes later. “Hey, I hear you’ve got another victim.”

“Maybe,” Kate replied. “It’s a little early to know if it’s the same deal, but I would bet on it.”

“In that case, we’ll go with it,” Lilliana stated. “If you need my help…”

“I’ll call,” Kate stated. “Right now Rodney is looking into the cab that picked him up. I’ll make a phone call to Reese next.”

“Good idea,” Lilliana noted. “Stay in touch.” And, with that, she ended the call.

Phoning Reese next, Kate asked for a rundown on every one of the victims that they currently had, looking for any similarities, any clubs, medical issues, suicide watch groups, and anything else that came to mind.

She only added the suicide watch groups because of the one case recently where it was all connected through a group like that.

Reese snorted. “Do we add that to all our lists now?”

“No,” Kate muttered, with a sigh. “Yet this guy has been beaten to a pulp. So, it’s really just… sadistic,” she added. “And there appears to be an escalation in our killer’s behavior. We need to find him and find him fast, before the next businessman goes missing.”

Reese hesitated, and Kate filled in the silence. “I know,… and, chances are, we’re already too late.”

*

Kate sat down on a bench off to the side in the hospital hallway and started making notes.

They had to find the vehicle, the gray van, which wasn’t much of a description, but it was something they couldn’t afford to let up on.

They also couldn’t afford to forget the fact that they were close to the US border.

As much as they didn’t want to consider that this killer was border hopping, leaving his victims up here in Canada, still it was a possibility and could be exactly what was happening.

The cab though, for Sonny Hilton, that was something she was anxious to run down. She hadn’t even finished her notes when Rodney called.

“Got an update on the taxi,” he began. “It was a Yellow Cab, and the taxi company told me that Sonny wasn’t there for pickup.”

“Wasn’t there for pickup?” she repeated. “How did that happen?”

“When he didn’t show, the cabbie called the number that put in the request and were told something like it was a mistake, like he had another ride, something like that. The cabbie didn’t have any details, was very busy, and headed off to the next pickup.”

“But that makes no sense,” Kate noted, frustrated as hell. “Why would Sonny have canceled the cab?”

“We’re assuming he canceled it,” Rodney pointed out, sounding dispirited too. “It could have just as easily been the killer.”

“Good God,” Kate noted. “That would imply our killer knew the cab was ordered and may have had some insight into Sonny’s travel arrangements.”

“That’s what it would look like,” Rodney agreed. “And it is an interesting consideration, but for somebody to have canceled the cab…”

“We need to contact the place where Sonny worked,” she said.

“I’ve already tried to call them, and they’re looking for a manager to call me back.”

“Of course they are,” she grumbled in exasperation. “Guess what? They don’t get to wait for a manager. They’ll get me.” She checked her watch. “I can be there in a few minutes.”

“I don’t know about that,” Rodney stated, “given the traffic.”

“I won’t give them too much time to come up with some other story.”

“Do you think they had something to do with it?” he asked.

“I have no idea, but I won’t let the opportunity to sort it out just slide, all because they’re waiting for a chance to talk to a manager and to get their stories straight,” Kate declared. “Let’s just hope, for their sake, there’s a manager when I walk in.”

With the address written down, she headed for her vehicle.

As soon as she found the building in question, she stepped inside, only to find the office was upstairs.

It was a company that dealt in medical devices, and, noting that, she headed up there.

As soon as she stepped inside the main entrance, the receptionist looked up and frowned at her. Kate frowned right back.

She held out her badge. “I have a few questions.” The woman looked at the badge with almost a recoiling effect.

“We did say that we were waiting for a manager.”

“That’s nice,” Kate muttered, “but one of your sales people is in the hospital in very bad shape, and we need to know why the cab that was supposed to take him to the airport was canceled.”

She looked at her. “I don’t know that answer.”

“So, you don’t, but somebody here should,” Kate stated, staring her down. “I want to speak to that person, and I want to speak to them now.”

The woman shook her head. “I can only tell you that no manager is here.”

“I don’t care if no manager is here or not,” Kate snapped, her tone hard, her voice getting louder. “Do you have a CEO? Do you have a director? Do you have anybody here?” She stared at the woman with an implacable expression, trying to convey that she wasn’t leaving until she talked to somebody.

Hearing a cough, she looked up to see a man standing nearby, wringing his hands. “There really isn’t anybody here at the moment,” he said apologetically.

“That’s nice,” she quipped, turning to look at him. “But this place must have somebody from middle management around.”

“A lot of them work from home right now,” he explained. “So, nobody is necessarily here, at least not physically.”

“In that case I’ll talk to you, and you can provide me with their contact information, and, while I’m standing here in your office, I will contact them myself.”

His eyebrows shot up, and he looked over at the receptionist, who just looked relieved that he was there. “Come into my office,” he said, then led Kate to a small room just down the hallway.

As she stepped in, she looked around and asked, “Who is the CEO, and who would have been Sonny’s boss?”

“I would have been Sonny’s boss,” he replied, his tone careful. “I am Tom Barnes. Are we speaking in past tense?”

“No,” Kate replied, “but Sonny won’t be showing up for work anytime soon.”

He swallowed hard and nodded. “Did I understand that he’s been beaten up?”

“First, let’s talk about why the cab was canceled that was supposed to take him to the airport.”

“It was a mix-up,” he said. “I would normally have taken him to the airport myself because I live in that direction, but his flights were booked early enough that I couldn’t get off work, due to meetings, so he booked the cab.

Then my meetings were canceled,” Tom explained, “so I was supposed to take him.”

“And then what happened?”

“I told him to go outside and wait, but then I ended up on a phone call. When I went back outside to take him to the airport, he wasn’t there.”

“And?”

“I sent him a text, asking if he was on his way to the airport. I didn’t get an answer, but I presumed that’s where he was.

” Tom frowned and added, “He gets testy if things don’t go as planned, and this is not the first time he would have walked out and not responded.

I just figured that he grabbed a cab anyway. ”

“So, he would have taken a cab?”

“Yeah, and he would have just grabbed a cab close by. He wouldn’t have ordered it. It would have just been any cab that he could have hailed as he stood outside.”

She got up and looked out the window to the streets below.

“Cab companies troll this area on a regular basis,” he stated. “Lots of businesses are around here.”

“And I would have thought most businesses would have phoned in for cabs.”

“Yes, we do, and on a regular basis,” he agreed. “But sometimes… Sonny can be one of the more…”

“Difficult people to work with?”

He winced. “I don’t want to speak ill of him.”

“I don’t care if you speak ill of him or not. I need to know who he is, what he’s like, and how he got himself into this situation.”

“All I can tell you is that I expected to take him to the airport, but, when I went outside, he wasn’t there, and we never heard from him again.”

“And that didn’t cause you enough concern to follow up or to put out a report on him?”

“No,” he admitted, “but, now that you say it that way, I feel as if I’ve completely missed something.”

“Would he have been expected to check in with you upon arrival at his new location?”

“No. He traveled all the time, coming and going from deals constantly, and we have no company protocol for that.”

“And how was he regarded by others in the office?”

He stared at her. “He wasn’t here all that much, what with the travel, but, as far as I know, everybody got along with him. Honestly, he wasn’t here enough to not get along with him.”

She stared at him. “Meaning?”