Page 9 of Simon Says… Fight (Kate Morgan Thrillers #11)

At that, Simon winced. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that myself.”

“Me too,” she muttered. “But not for the sake of the work ahead of us. But more so because these other people were in other locations, different venues and jurisdictions, with nothing to put it together as being a single killer. One was in West Vancouver. One was out in Coquitlam. Plus, we have one in Burnaby. Now we have the most recent one downtown, in our jurisdiction.”

He just stared at her.

She nodded. “In each case, the victim appeared to have been thrown into the harbor.”

“The same harbor?”

She frowned. “That’s a good question. They were all found in the water.

Were they all put in at the same place? I don’t know.

Were they all meant to float to the same location?

I don’t know,” she admitted, still frowning as she thought about it.

“I have to bring that up with the team—or Reese. We might have to take a look at tidal patterns to know exactly where the bodies came from, see where they would have been put in, and see if anything was caught on street cams thereabouts.” She immediately starting texting on her phone.

He continued to frown at her, and she nodded.

“I know. So, as much as I don’t want to think that some serial killer thing is going on, apparently we have to consider the potential that something connected is definitely going on.

” She threw herself down onto the couch and then frowned.

“Do we have any wine? I could really use a glass.”

He laughed. “Do we have any? Come on .” He walked over to the sideboard to the temperature-controlled wine cupboard. He opened it up so she could see twenty-odd bottles.

Her eyebrows shot up. “I don’t think I’ve ever even looked in that cupboard before,” she shared, as she got up and walked closer.

“Of course not,” he noted, “because you would consider it not yours .”

She looked at him, then nodded. “Of course it’s not mine.

But now that you have it open—” She grinned, as she eyed several of the bottles.

“We should have something, depending on what would go well with dinner, of course.” Then she looked over at him and frowned.

“The problem is, I have absolutely no idea what’s for dinner. ”

He chuckled. “I’m not even telling you what’s coming for dinner.”

Just then Harry called out on the intercom system, “It’s here.”

“Apparently,” Simon noted, turning to her, “you’re about to find out anyway because our dinner has just arrived.” He reached for a bottle of red and brought it out.

“Good,” she muttered. “I always sleep like a log after a red.”

He nodded. “It doesn’t have the same effect on me, but I do know other people who have the same issue.

” He walked over to the elevator, just as it opened to reveal Harry with the bags of food.

“Thanks.” Simon took the bags and handed him a tip.

Harry just waved him off, refusing the money, then headed right back down again.

“See what happens?” she pointed out, with a laugh. “You tip him so often, he’s just like,… Leave me alone .”

“Everybody can use a little help sometimes.”

“Sure,” she confirmed. “I won’t argue with that. I think a lot of times people could use a whole lot more than a little bit .”

He smiled and nodded. “Agreed. Let’s dig in, shall we?”

She walked over, opened up the bags, and froze, sniffing the air. Frowning, she tore into the packages.

He laughed, absolutely loving her reactions to each food delivery.

When all the food was revealed, she looked down at the ribs and pointed. “I keep forgetting they have these things. We order pasta so often that we should add something else sometimes. What a treat.”

“I agree,” he replied. “I just wanted something a little heftier in the protein department today.”

With her mouth already full, she just nodded. When she finally could speak, she said, “I’m totally okay with whatever you order,” she muttered. “I’m just so hungry that sometimes I lose track of the fact that food is a necessity and that I need it.”

“I know,” he replied, frowning at her. “I would be a hell of a lot happier if you wouldn’t forget that quite so often.

” She just rolled her eyes at him, making him laugh.

When she slowed down, he noted that the first wave of insatiable hunger had been calmed somewhat.

He smiled. “Now maybe you can enjoy your second helping a little more.”

She nodded. “When you’re that hungry, it’s so hard to slow down. Even though you know you should, but I find things that I should do are easier said than done.”

He chuckled. “Yes, that’s true,” he muttered, “but you’re doing fine.”

By the time they finished dinner, they still had tons of leftovers.

She just sat here and looked at them happily.

“I’ll be more than happy to eat these tomorrow.

” She picked up her wine and moved to the couch, where she sprawled on her back, taking up the bulk of the space.

She patted her tummy and said, “Okay, that was way too much food ingested in a short amount of time, but I’m so grateful to have had it. ”

When he sat down on the floor beside her, she tried to shift to give him space, but he refused. “It’s all good,” he told her. “Just stay as you are.”

As she relaxed, he could see the stress dropping off her in waves, and he realized what another one of these cases would do to her.

He also knew that no way she would ever change jobs or would even consider doing anything different.

Yet it was hard to watch her fade away with effort every time.

It always came around to justice, and she ended up with some pretty-crazy cases solved, but the toll on her was excessive.

“I’m fine, you know,” she muttered, without opening her eyes.

He snorted. “You’re completely crashed on my couch,” he pointed out, “so forgive me if I don’t believe you. It’s hard for me to see that as fine .”

“Let me rephrase it then. I am currently in a food coma, after having a fantastic meal that I didn’t have to worry about cooking or picking up or paying for,” she clarified with a smile, as she opened her eyes and faced him. “And that is not something to worry about.”

“That sounds better at least,” he murmured.

After a few minutes of silence, she asked, “For what possible reason… would somebody want to beat people to death? Particularly people who are not likely to have much fight in them or to present much of a challenge?”

“Dominance and control,” he stated.

“Sure, dominance and control, but you must have something more than that. Why would you pick these people if that was the only thing?”

“It probably isn’t the only thing.”

“What I get out of this,” she added, not sitting up, “is somebody who’s been treated the same way and is being publicly or privately mocked in such a way that he can’t let it go.”

He looked at her and nodded. “That’s an interesting idea.”

She just smiled and shrugged. “I do get them every once in a while.”

He laughed. “You get them all the time,” he noted. “And I would agree that it’s probably got something to do with that, but there also has to be a particular reason why these specific victims were chosen.”

“I know,” she conceded, with a groan. “And I think it’s… the businessman element. Well, that is one thing, but the lack of physical fitness, lack of fighting ability, or something along that line, is a completely different thing altogether.”

“I think that just ensures that it’s a victim he can subdue, a fight he can win. So, maybe this isn’t about dominance as much as it’s about winning,” he murmured.

She thought about that and nodded. “That makes sense in a way. It sucks, but, if so, then he should have this entire world full of people who aren’t in the best of shape and who could potentially be his victims.”

“So, why choose these ones?” Simon repeated.

“Exactly. I have to see if there’s any connection between them.

I’ve got Reese on that, looking to see if she can make any connections between the businesses they worked at, between where they lived, or even hotels they stayed in when traveling, or that kind of thing,” she murmured.

“But also a mess of other points could be involved here too.”

“Of course, but if you already see a connection…”

She nodded. “Yeah, I just wonder about the psychology of that.”

He hesitated and then spoke. “I know you really don’t want to, but you could contact your local untapped shrink on staff and ask.” She frowned but didn’t dismiss the idea, so he would take that as a win. “Do you still see him?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” she grumbled, “but not if I don’t have to. Why would anybody want to go see him on purpose?”

He smiled. “Because it makes them feel better.”

“It doesn’t make me feel better,” she declared. “It’s more like nails on a chalkboard, and they’re scraping the inside of my skin. I don’t want to experience that feeling any more than absolutely necessary.”

He winced at the description and shook his head. “That’s a particularly unpleasant way of looking at it.”

“Yep, it sure is,” she muttered, her eyes closed.

“And you’ll leave all this alone tonight, won’t you?”

“Well,… I will,” she said, “when I fall asleep. In the meantime, I’ll just see if I can sort out in my mind what kind of psychopath would do this.”

He laughed. “There’s no end to those who will do it, but the reason why differs with each killer.”

“Yeah, it does,” she agreed, her eyes opening, turning to him again. “Motivation is everything. But in order to figure out the motivation for this, I still need to know what happened to him to trigger it.”

“Maybe,” Simon replied, “and maybe you just need to know that the same person is doing it and figure out what you need to do to stop it.”