Simon Says... Ride (Kate Morgan Thrillers Book 3)

by Dale Mayer

  Kate winced. “I’m very sorry for your loss, but I do have a few questions I need to ask you.”

  “No,” she sobbed, “I can’t answer anything.”

  “Nothing about your daughter’s life here?”

  “No. She insisted on transferring over there because of that guy. And she hadn’t been the same ever since.”

  “Not the same in what way?”

  “She just became really snooty, as if she was too good for us all the sudden. She didn’t have time to visit with her father or me. She didn’t have time to even say hello to her grandparents. She was completely wrapped up in her own life. She was never like that beforehand.”

  “Before what?”

  “Before she transferred. She was happy here, and we were delighted to have her close by.”

  Kate winced at that because so many parents lost their kids when they ventured out into the brave new world and became somebody else. Usually that somebody else was indicative of how honest they were being when they were at home, compared to finding out who they really were when they were loose. Sometimes they connected with the wrong people and became someone nobody recognized. Really no way to know if independence and freedom were something that they would handle.

  Kate asked a few more questions, but the mom really didn’t seem to know much about Paula’s friends. Her parents hadn’t spoken to her in the last couple months. They had tried to send texts, but their daughter basically ignored them.

  When Kate mentioned Candy’s name, Paula’s mother said, “I remember something about her.”

  “What about her?”

  “My daughter didn’t like her.”

  “Okay, any idea why?”

  “It was the boyfriend. I think it had to do with Paula’s boyfriend.”

  “Would that be the one she met back in Toronto?”

  “Yes, she went away on some workshop, and he was there. They hit it off and kept in touch. He’s the one who convinced her to head out west. When she got the transfer, we were all devastated but more so because of him. I never did trust anybody who would do something like that.”

  “Do something like what?” Kate asked, not sure she was getting all the story here.

  “Deliberately try to separate her from her family.” The mom sobbed loudly. “We were really close before that.”

  “I hear you. Does she have other family? Any family out west? Did she have a job? Did she have any friends she stayed in touch with?”

  “Not since that man,” she said.

  “We’re talking about Brandon here, right?”

  “Yes, that was his name, Brandon.”

  “Fine, and what about friends from back home? Did she stay in touch?”

  “You know what? I saw her friend Bethany here not very long ago, and she was asking me if we had heard from Paula because she hadn’t. Bethany was pretty heartbroken because Paula had completely ignored her since she moved.”

  “Which is too bad,” Kate said. “And she didn’t make any other friends here in Vancouver?”

  “Just that one group,” the mother said. “I think they were all the same in that group.”

  “I do know the group you’re talking about, but I was hoping that maybe she had somebody special.”

  “No, but, if you’re looking for who killed her, I would look at him first. Look at Brandon first.”

  “Had they broken up? Was there any reason why he would try to kill her?”

  “I don’t know except maybe to get rid of her,” she said in a vicious tone.

  Kate winced at that. “I mean, I get that’s a possible answer, but we can’t make an assumption like that. She traveled a long way to come here to be with him.”

  “And yet, when she got there, she was pretty upset about him. Something about another woman coming to university for him, I think.”

  “So Paula made the move, thinking she would have a serious relationship with Brandon, and they didn’t have one because he had another girlfriend?”

  “Yes, exactly. She called me in tears. I tried to get her to come home again, but she was determined to win him back.”

  Kate frowned at that. “So, it sounds like a love triangle gone wrong then … in many ways.”

  “It was wrong right from the beginning. I don’t know what he said to get her to go there, but he had no intention of being her boyfriend ever.”

  “Yet she didn’t seem to know that, right?”

  “No, she didn’t at all. My girl used to be naive, but I doubt she is now.”

  Ouch, that was an ironic statement, but Kate wouldn’t remind the poor woman that her daughter was dead. That was hardly fair, given the circumstances. At the same time, it was obvious that the mother was overwhelmed and looking for somebody to blame. “I may have to get a hold of you again. In the meantime, just know that we’re working on your daughter’s case.”

  “Please find who did this,” she bawled. “My Paula was a beautiful person, and she didn’t deserve this.”

  With that, Kate hung up and sat here, frowning at the phone.

  “What’s the matter?” Rodney asked from beside her.

  “I just talked to the mother of our latest victim. And honestly it’s almost like I was talking about Candy, the one whose room it was, not Paula, not the one who died.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Just the way the mother described her daughter. Either she really didn’t have a clue about who her daughter was or hadn’t seen the changes she had made after moving here.”

  “What do you mean?” Rodney asked.

  “She made it sound like her daughter was a complete innocent, with no idea what was going on in the world, until Brandon, the rich kid with his lawyer on tap, lured her into coming out west, like she had no idea what she was getting into.”

  “Ah, so Mom isn’t ready to accept her daughter as an adult capable of making choices that she didn’t agree with?”

  “Something like that, yeah. I guess all parents get surprised by the decisions of their adult children, don’t they?”

  “I think they like to think they know who their children are. But then, when they hook up with other people, and, sometimes under that influence, they become somebody else.”

  “Scary thought,” she said.

  “Not really. I think it’s part of being a parent. You have to love them enough to let them go, then hope that, over time, they come back again.” Rodney sighed. “And I mean that geographically as well as morally.”

  “Yeah, I guess, but I wonder how many actually do.”

  “It’s easier than ever to stay in touch with each other now,” he said.

  “But it’s also easier to hide. People’s lives are crazy busy in some cases. Thus it’s much easier to just, you know, pretend to be too busy to have anything to do with people.”

  “You’re right there too, but, considering that we have all these things—like, cell phones that are basically hand-held computers in our pockets, plus FaceTime and social media groups and other apps to stay in touch—I think that most people would say that they’re more connected now than they ever were.”

  “I wonder,” she said.

  “Aren’t you?” he asked.

  “I don’t have anybody to connect with.” She looked at Rodney. “My mother is in a home, and she’s not quite all there, and, when she sees me, she goes into a screaming fit anyway.”

  He winced. “Still because of your brother?”

  “Absolutely. She was married to that huckster who took all her money, and I think, in her mind, I’m probably to blame for that too.”

  “Wow, you’re really a terrible human being, aren’t you?”

  “In a way I am. At least for thinking that losing her mind was the easiest answer for her because that way she didn’t have to own up to her own behavior. But it left another bad memory for me.”

  “Your stepfather, where is he?”

  “He died in a car accident,” she said absentmindedly. “And, yeah, more proof that I’
m a horrible person when I say, Good riddance.” He stared at her in surprise, and she shrugged. “He was not a good man. He beat the crap out of her, stole all her money, and left her behind, broke and devastated, for someone else to take care of.”

  “Wow, nice family.”

  “Yeah. The best part of the family disappeared when I was seven, and it was all downhill from there.”

  “Sorry, I know all that is hard for you.”

  “I don’t talk about it much. But you asked, so it’s fine.” With a shrug and a smile, she said, “Now we need to talk to the rest of that uni gang.”

  “That should be fun.”

  “Yeah, Paula’s mom says arrogant Brandon’s responsible for her daughter’s death.”

  “It’s not as if we’re against the idea.”

  “He’s a jerk, so, if it is him, I would be delighted. However, despite my glee, we can’t project it.”

  “Right, but we’re sure not getting any further on whoever killed our cyclist,” he said.

  “No, which is another odd thing.”

  Rodney nodded.

  “And, if it’s once a year, and there’s a pattern, then, in theory, there won’t be another killing for another year. Yet we have Paula Mallow’s dead body. And potentially Candy’s, still to be found.”

  “Are you saying there’s no connection?”

  “No, not necessarily. We can’t assume that. It would just mean that something triggered a change in the pattern.”

  “Right.” Rodney’s smile was grim. “So let’s hope we don’t get another one.”

  Just then both their phones went off. They shared a look, and both groaned.

  “I think you spoke too soon.” Kate grimaced.

  “I shouldn’t have spoken at all,” he said.

  They both answered to find out about yet another victim. As Kate stood, she looked over at him. “Now you need to bite your tongue.”

  “The DB’s up in the same area too.”

  “I know.” Her voice was soft. “I’m just hoping it’s not connected.”

  He nodded. “Let’s go.”

  “You driving?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I’m driving.”

  As they headed to his car, she thought about the odds of yet another victim in that area not being connected. “I wonder how many traffic fatalities we have up in that area.”

  “We can pull the stats later, if you think it’s important,” he said.

  “It’s not that I think it’s important. I’m just wondering what the odds are that this guy has done it again.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” he said.

  “I wish we could deal with one case at a damn time.”

  “Not enough hands, not enough hours. We’re assigned the first one, and, because of your connection, we’re assigned the other. Don’t forget. The rest of the team has other cases of their own.”

  “I know, and it’s great that we share notes, but I’d really like the time to dig fully into one for once, with all my focus there,” she said.

  “In this case, you don’t have that option, and you get to dig into more than one.”

  She sighed. “I get that. I really do. It just sucks.”

  “You just clear off your plate and compartmentalize, so you only have one on your plate at a time and can give it 100 percent of your focus while you can.”

  She looked at him, then frowned. “You know, in theory—”

  “Let’s just go with it,” he interrupted, before she could get too far.

  She laughed. “Let’s just hope this one is open-and-shut.”

  “Are they ever?”

  “Yes, just not very often.”

  As soon as they arrived at the scene, a crowd had already gathered.

  She groaned. “Is this the exact same corner?”

  He nodded as he stood here, grim faced, looking out at the crowd. “I wonder how many people are duplicates.”

  “Let’s start getting photos, and then we can at least match interviews to the photos.”

  And that’s what they did. While everybody was still shuffling around, Kate and Rodney walked around the crowd themselves and took photos of everybody standing here, watching. When somebody protested, Kate looked at him. “Really? You’re standing here, gawking at a crime scene, and you’re complaining that we want to know who you are?”

  The kid immediately backed up. “I just didn’t know what was going on.”

  “In that case, give me your name and phone number,” she said, immediately pulling out her notepad. He glared at her, and she patiently waited, until he finally mumbled it out and then took off.

  She noted who he was and why he was here for future reference. As she walked over to join her partner, Rodney put a hand on her shoulder. “You need to come see this.”

  Kate walked over to where Dr. Smidge was crouched in front of the victim. He looked up at her. “You need to get on this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Because this is the second one.” He pulled back the victim’s hair, so Kate could see the hole behind the ear.

  “Good God,” she whispered. She couldn’t see the victim’s face. “Give me a look at the face, will you, Doc?”

  Quickly he brushed the victim’s hair to the other side, so Kate could see, and she stared in shock.

  “I gather from your expression that you know her?”

  She nodded. “We were in Candy’s apartment last night with Paula’s body,” she said in a low tone. “This is Candy.”

  He stared at her, then at the victim. “I’m thinking your cases just collided.”

  She grimly focused on the scene before her eyes. She turned, looked over at her partner. “We need to get that whole group back in. That’s two of their numbers gone. Both of the females. That leaves the four males.”

  He pulled out his phone. “I’ll start setting it up. You want to talk to them individually?”

  “I do, but I want them all down at the station.”

  He nodded. “We’ll be a while, checking into everybody here.”

  “That’s all right. I’m sure we can get some help, maybe from the local beat cops. We need to get statements from everybody. We need to know what the hell happened and how this happened twice without anybody seeing anything.”

  “Oh, somebody saw something,” the coroner said. “You can be sure of that. But getting them to talk now? That’s a whole different story.”

  She hated to admit it, but he was probably right. Still, she’d do the job and work the case, and, at the end of the day, she’d catch this asshole one way or another. She didn’t know what the hell was going on or what the motive was, but when two cases combined into one, things could get very interesting.

  *

  At the end of the day Simon felt a whole lot better, at least he hoped so. Some weird images were knocking on his brain, but he found a way to successfully put out the door knocker that read Nobody Home.

  He wasn’t sure if it would work or not, but he had to control where and when. Now that he was home, a glass of wine in his hand, lying on the couch in front of the big bay windows that overlooked the beauty of Vancouver, he opened up that same internal door. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

  At that time nothing was there, and he took another sip of his wine and just relaxed, thinking that maybe it had been all for naught. Maybe that whole sink into it and allow it to happen thing was bullshit. Just as he considered that, a floodgate of images—or maybe not images but blacks and grays, like shadows, passed through his head. All accompanied by his damn magnified smell again. This time though, the wine aroma was amplified. He bolted upright on his couch, almost spilling it. But he sniffed the aroma and breathed the bouquet that slammed into his senses, once again on overload.

  He slowly leaned back into his couch again. “What the hell is going on?”

  And he noted more images, more of everything really, and all at the same time. Including good smells and bad smells. He cried out, “Wha
t does this mean? What is it you want? I don’t understand how to interpret this.”

  Then he heard tears and that weird noise in the background, that almost worrying sound again. The sound that had driven him crazy earlier. Here it was once again, driving through the back of his brain. He groaned. “That I don’t need,” he muttered. But apparently nobody was listening to him.

  As he sunk down into his couch again, all he could do was witness everything flooding through his mind, which circled back around and dashed in again for a second viewing. Yet nothing, absolutely nothing, made any sense. Through it all, he heard this sad weeping, and that crying was amplified so much more inside his head that he felt sick with the sadness of it. He shook his head, wondering who it was and what made her so distraught.

  “Can I help you somehow?” he whispered ever-so-softly.

  What came back nearly broke his heart.

  “No.”

  Chapter 13

  Later that day Kate walked into an interview room, a grim smile on her face. Brandon was here with his lawyer. Rodney sat beside her and turned on the recorder. The two of them introduced themselves. Rodney added, “Interview with Brandon Frost and his lawyer in Interview A.” Rodney stated the date and time.

  The kid crossed his arms, then leaned back and crossed his legs, a smirk on his face.

  “Tell us the last time you saw Paula Mallow.” Kate stared at him.

  “Ms. Paula.” He sneered. “A couple days ago.”

  “Can you be more specific, please?”

  “I don’t know that I can be. Why?”

  “Answer the question, please.”

  “I can’t. I don’t know when I last saw her.” And then he stopped. “Oh, wait. She might have been at the party last night.”

  “She might have been at the party last night,” Kate repeated for clarity’s sake. “And when might she have been at this party?”