Page 34 of Simon Says… Fight (Kate Morgan Thrillers #11)

K ate went through the most recent vehicle reports that Reese had just dropped off on her desk.

Reese watched as Kate matched them up to the statements from the onlookers.

Apparently multiple delivery vans worked in the area.

Most were white, but a couple were dark blue, and another one was black and was fairly well-known.

She was running through the reports, looking for the one her witnesses had described, hoping that it was at least local and not something they would have to cross the line to even get information on it.

She stopped, tapping the page. “Now we have an interesting one here,” she muttered.

Standing beside her, Reese nodded. “That’s the one I was thinking of too. I’ve been trying to call the owner, but I haven’t gotten anywhere.”

“Any idea what it’s used for?” Kate asked.

“It’s registered as a delivery business, but further research shows that it’s a single person, and it looks as if he made a niche for himself, simply by providing delivery service in that corner of the world,” she shared. “I’ve left a couple messages, but he hasn’t gotten back to me yet.”

“Of course not.” Kate frowned. “I wonder if we can get any idea where else he might be. And I need better photos.”

“Why?” Reese asked, already headed to her computer, yet turning back to her. “Will you go after him?”

“I’ll go talk to him for sure,” Kate stated, looking over at her. “He could be the delivery vehicle that was seen near the warehouse property.”

“Which would make sense if he was delivering stuff.”

Kate gave her a wry smile. “Not to that building. It’s a derelict warehouse. Nobody lives there, and nothing productive is happening in that place.”

Reese frowned and nodded. “Something’s probably close by.”

“Maybe, but he’s definitely somebody I want to talk to.”

“All I’ve got is a P.O. box.” Then she stopped and checked her phone. “Nope, nothing’s registered to the business at all. That’s not right. He needs to have a physical address.”

“Find me his physical address, and I’ll hit it up this afternoon. Also more pictures of the vehicle, if you have anything for it.”

“I can get you something like it, but it won’t be exact.”

“I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”

Reese waved and took off.

With that, Kate got up and headed over to the coffeepot.

Meanwhile, Rodney walked in and asked her, “Hey, are we getting anywhere?”

“Somewhere,” she replied, nodding at him. “I’m still waiting for the coroner over the last body, the skeleton.”

“Chances are, they’ll have to bring in a specialist for that one.”

“I know,” she muttered, “and I’m waiting for Reese to get me more pictures of dark vans, but we may have a line on the delivery vehicle seen in the area.”

“Oh, good,” Rodney said. Then he eyed her intently. “Are you planning on going out this afternoon?”

“Yes, I am,” she declared, with a nod. “I don’t know how many more people we have missing or in this nightmare that we’ve got going on, but I do need to figure out as much as we can before somebody else gets taken.”

At that, her phone rang. She looked down and frowned, as it was not a local number. She answered it to find a Burnaby detective contacting her. “Hey. What can I do for you?”

“I was talking to an associate over in Coquitlam district,” he began, a hardness in his tone.

“Something about you wondering if you have similar cases. I haven’t put this into the database yet, and it’s just happened in the last couple days, but we have a case of what was a missing person who now appears to be the homicide of somebody who’s been very badly beaten. ”

“Where did you find the body?” she asked curiously.

“That’s the weird thing. It was found in the back of a truck in a junkyard.”

“Good God. Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“How long was he missing?”

“Only a couple days,” he replied. “Which matches what you’re looking at, right?”

“Yes. So, tell me, Detective…”

“Detective Mark Zimmer. Call me Mark.”

“Okay, so, Mark, was he by any chance a mild-mannered businessman type?”

“Yes.” He hesitated and then added, “Also he was having an affair. I don’t know if that’s pertinent or not.”

She sucked in her breath as she thought about it. “That would be a very interesting comparison to make, not that we’ll necessarily know for everybody. However, we do have one of the two men recently identified, and—from what we know so far—my victim also had an affair.”

“Interesting,” he murmured. “I can send you this report, if you give me your contact information.” He went on, with a hint of sharpness in his tone. “I really don’t want to see this case get slid under the carpet. I don’t know the family, but it could be anybody.”

“I hear you,” she replied. “That’s part of the problem in these cases. Since the killer could be anybody, unfortunately it seems to be lining up to be a challenge.”

“If this is a stranger abduction, they’re way harder to sort out, as it’s all about opportunity,” he added.

“True, so was your guy about to head out and do any traveling?”

“He was, indeed. He was going on a trip, but, in this case, it was holiday.”

She pondered that for a moment, comparing it to the Sonny Hilton case. “Any idea if he took a cab?”

“He did,” he noted curiously. “Why? Do you have something like that going on?”

“One of them,” she shared cautiously. “One for certain. We have less information on the other victims, and we’re not sure yet on the circumstances surrounding those.”

“Did you get a hold of the cabbie?”

“So far we don’t even have documentation of a charge for a cab.”

Silence came on the other end. “I’ll follow up on that lead right now.” And he ended the call.

She felt the excitement building inside her.

Something was here. Definitely something was here.

And just as she was about to pour a cup of coffee, Reese stopped by with several pictures and more information.

Kate nodded, thanking her, and shared, “It looks as if Coquitlam and Burnaby may have another connected case as well.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “It didn’t show up in the search.”

“It just happened,” she pointed out. “I just got off the phone with Detective Mark Zimmer in Burnaby.… So check on that too if you can. He apparently heard that we might have a serial killer case in the works here. He’s checking up on the cab information on his case right now.”

Her phone rang again, and it was the detective.

“We find no charge for the cab,” he stated, “so that could very well be what we’re looking at.”

“It could be,” she agreed, looking at Reese, who stood beside her. “In which case that’ll be a whole lot harder to sort out.”

“And we can’t exactly put out a warning, telling everybody not to use a cab, or to confirm they know the cabbie, because that just won’t happen.”

“It could be worse,” she muttered. “Thankfully we don’t have much of an Uber presence here yet. That would be way worse.”

“It would give people another alternative right now, though,” he pointed out.

“True enough,” she agreed. “Send me the file, and I’ll run some comparisons here.” With that, she ended the call and looked over at Reese. “That will come over to you.”

“Good, because we need any new related cases.”

“This is a recent one.… He went missing a couple days ago . I don’t know for sure that it means two days ago to Zimmer.

I’ll check it out. Really though, what we’re looking at is who went missing before this guy.

Before the ones we have here. Who is victim zero?

” she stated, her frustration oozing. “If we figure that out, we’ll have a much better idea what we’re looking at. ”

“Oh, you already have a good idea what we’re looking at,” Reese declared, shaking her head as she walked away. “What we have here is another asshole, this one preying on businessmen who are not in very good shape, and somehow a beating is a big part of it.”

Thinking about that, Kate walked slowly back to her desk.

Then suddenly she felt this urge to check up on Simon, realizing something was off with him right now.

She picked up the phone and tried calling him.

No answer. She ended the call, then dialed again, and still got no answer.

Feeling a sense of urgency, she looked over at Rodney.

“I have to go downtown to check up on Simon.” When he frowned at her, she shrugged.

“I can’t reach him, and I’m getting a really ugly feeling. ”

Rodney got up. “I’ll come with you.”

She frowned. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“You don’t know about that for sure,” he clarified, grabbing his jacket. “For all you know, our serial killer has picked him out. He is a businessman, after all.”

She studied him and nodded slowly. “Yet he doesn’t fit the physical description.”

“No, but maybe this guy thinks he’s up for a bigger challenge now.”

“Jesus,” she muttered. “You think that’s what it is?”

“I don’t know what this is,” Rodney admitted, “but what I do know is that we’ve got a killer here creating challenges, and people are failing to rise to his challenge because it’s pretty heavily weighted to the killer’s side. So, what happens when he decides he’s good enough to move on?”

“He’ll go for another businessman, and somebody who’s in a lot better shape but not great shape,” she pointed out. “So, I think, at the moment, Simon is safe.”

He frowned, then muttered, “If you think so.”

“I do, but, Jesus, thanks for putting that thought in my head. I’ll handle this one myself.

” She waved goodbye and dialed Simon one more time.

When she still got no answer, she raced outside and called his foreman.

When the foreman confirmed that Simon had left a few hours earlier, she knew exactly where he would be.

But just to double-check, she called the doorman at his penthouse, only to be told he wasn’t home.