Simon says run, p.1
Simon Says... Run, page 1
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Books in This Series
About This Book
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
About Simon Says… Walk
Author’s Note
Complimentary Download
About the Author
Copyright Page
Books in This Series
The Kate Morgan Series
Simon Says… Hide, Book 1
Simon Says… Jump, Book 2
Simon Says… Ride, Book 3
Simon Says… Scream, Book 4
Simon Says… Run, Book 5
Simon Says… Walk, Book 6
About This Book
Introducing a new thriller series that keeps you guessing and on your toes through every twist and unexpected turn….
USA Today Best-Selling Author Dale Mayer does it again in this mind-blowing thriller series.
The unlikely team of Detective Kate Morgan and Simon St. Laurant, an unwilling psychic, marries all the unpredictable and passionate elements of Mayer’s work that readers have come to love and crave.
Some cases are clear-cut and make sense, and then there’s this one. Two women, avid joggers, out for a hard Stanley Park Fun Run. Both dead. Both at the same time. Both on the popular park trail. rail running up and down hills dodging rocks and trees is rough, sometimes deadly. But this killer has a unique method for taking out his victims—one that doesn’t leave any forensic evidence. Detective Kate Morgan focuses on the victims, … until two more are killed.
Awakening in the night with horrible nightmares, Simon St. Laurant curses his life and hates having ever traveled down this strange pathway, particularly when the visions come out of nowhere. This case, though, involves a much more personal element that terrifies him.
As Kate gets closer to finding out the truth, she finds herself following the path to becoming the next victim.
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Prologue
Saturday, One Week Later, Mid-September
Kate Morgan woke up early in the morning, still at the penthouse apartment of Simon St. Laurant. She rolled over and tried to sneak out from the covers. Almost instantly an arm came around and pulled her back down.
“It’s Saturday.”
She froze. “It is?”
He nodded. “It is. You’re off work.”
“Jesus, I don’t even know what day it is anymore.”
“Well, if you would take some of the time off that you have coming and rest a little bit,” he said, “I wouldn’t have to worry about you quite so much.”
“You worry too much,” she replied instantly. The arm around her tightened, and she cuddled in closer. “In that case,” she decided, yawning, “I’ll just stay here a bit. Maybe we can have breakfast for a change.”
“Normally, you’re up and out of here before breakfast is even possible.”
“And normally, you’re up and out of here, buying and selling the world,” she replied.
“Foreign markets and stock exchanges open up early,” he explained.
“So, why the hell are you still here now?”
“It’s Saturday. They can go screw themselves.”
She laughed. Just then her phone rang.
He froze, tucked her up closer, and said, “Don’t answer it.”
She rolled over and looked at him. “You know I can’t do that.”
“I know.” He sighed, then kissed her gently. “Go ahead, answer it then.”
She reached over and grabbed her phone to see the Caller ID. “What’s up, Rodney?”
“We got a new case,” he said, his voice grim.
“Yeah, what kind of a case?”
“You mean, outside of dead bodies?”
“Bodies?”
“Yeah, two, on the Stanley Park jogging trails.”
“Runners?”
“Yeah, both women, both late twenties.”
“Shit. Shot or what?”
“No, we’re not exactly sure what happened. But it sounds like something might have been sprayed in their faces. Gassed maybe, but Smidge’ll have to tell us what it was,” he noted. “Anyway, I got the first call. I’m here, and I’m tagging you.”
“Great,” she mumbled. “Simon just told me that I needed to take a few days off.”
“And he’s right. You do. But you didn’t set that up.”
“Nope, I’m coming,” she replied. “You know me. Anytime somebody needs me—”
“More than that,” he added, “I think this will definitely be your case. At the very least I want you on it with me.” And, with that, he hung up.
She smiled at her phone. “You know what? I think that was actually a compliment.”
“Remember that teamwork thing?”
“I’m working on it,” she grumbled. “I’m working on it. Oh, and don’t plan on jogging the Stanley Park trails today.”
“Not planning on doing any jogging—especially now.”
She smiled, got up, and said, “I don’t even have time for a shower.”
“Yes, you do,” he argued. “Just make it fast.”
She hesitated, then nodded. She was in and out in five minutes to find him with her clothes all laid out.
“And dirty clothes again.” She swore softly.
“In this case it doesn’t matter,” he noted, “because we spent most of yesterday sitting around the house, doing nothing. So, you’ll be good to go. These are the ones you came in the day before.”
She looked at them in surprise. “Did you wash them?”
“Yeah, I did it last night.”
“Shit, you’re handy to have around.”
She walked over to give him a quick kiss, but he snatched her up into a hug and kissed her thoroughly, then added, “And you remember that.”
With that, she was gone.
Chapter 1
Detective Kate Morgan slid under the yellow tape and headed down the slight slope to the running path. She glanced around, orienting herself. A lot of jogging trails were along the beach. Matter of fact, jogging trails wound around all over, not just up and down the beach, and she wasn’t even exactly sure how far inland they went. A parking lot was off to the side, where four vehicles and numerous cop cars were currently parked. She glanced around but found no sign of Rodney.
As she headed in the direction where everybody was walking, she held up her badge twice, as people approached. They just nodded and let her go on through. She hadn’t been on the job long enough to know too many of the running trails, but, when she considered the number of them in the area, she wondered whether they were even technically on Stanley Park land. She would have to pull up a map to figure that out.
She saw a group of first responders had convened up ahead and noted that the attack had occurred just close enough to the parking lot that anybody could have lain in wait. Nobody would even know whether the victims had gone for a run yet. She understood from the quick description she’d gotten from Rodney that two women were killed, which presented its own problem. How did you kill two, without alerting one of them that something was wrong?
Unless more than one killer was involved. Although it happened, multiple killers working together weren’t the norm. And, if they were, they were usually couples. But then why would anybody attack two joggers? And two female joggers at that?
Kate shoved her hands in her pockets, frowning, as she contemplated the area. It was a warm sunny day, and there hadn’t been any rain, so any tracks the killer and the victims left would be easy to find. Assuming, of course, that there were any and that they were distinguishable from all the others, since this place was a heavily used jogging path.
As she approached the crowd, Rodney separated himself and walked toward her.
He smiled. “You made good time.”
She nodded. “Traffic was pretty light. I’m surprised we’re so close to the parking lot.”
“Yes, and that’s just compounding things. There are no cameras, nothing along this area to give us any assistance.”
“Of course not,” she grumbled, “and the parking lot itself is off the main thoroughfare. So, even if cameras are on the main road, it would be hard to see anyone coming in or out of this corner.”
“Yeah, we’d have to go back to that last main intersection,” Rodney noted.
“We might have to. But, at the moment, we have absolutely no indication that this person even drove in. And how many stops are there along this path? Like half a dozen?”
“Three different parking spots have easy access to the path, but these jogging paths are like a spiderweb all around the area,” he explained. “So really the killer could have come from any direction. It won’t be clear and simple at all.”
“Is it ever?”
He just laughed.
“So, what do we know about the victims?”
“Both easily identified, both carrying cell phones with those little attachments on the back for carrying cards. One had a credit card, and the other one had her ID.”
“Students?”
“No, actually,” he replied, “and that was my initial thought too, but they’re locals. Both of them live on Pendrell Street by Stanley Park.”
“Oh, nice area.” She rolled it around in the back of her mind. “And makes sense, considering where they run.”
“It does, and it’s really been developed in the last ten or twenty years.”
“Yeah, that’s a joke,” she said, turning to look around. “What square inch of Vancouver hasn’t been developed? Property prices have gone so sky-high that anything even ten years old is worth dropping and putting up as something brand-new.”
“No argument there,” Rodney stated. “So, back to our victims. Both are married. Both have jobs, and apparently this happened just a couple of hours ago.”
“Who found them?” she asked.
“A group of joggers. They meet every morning at six and come out this way.”
“So, these women were out here before them?”
“Yes, although the bodies were still warm when they found them.”
“How did they die?”
“Well, you can ask Dr. Smidge that question yourself.”
She snorted. “Oh boy, he won’t want to see me.”
“Well, it’s been a little bit of time since that last case piled up on his desk.”
She shook her head. “It won’t matter.” She sighed. “He’ll still blame me for it somehow.”
“Well, keep me out of the line of fire,” Rodney suggested, with a laugh.
She shook her head, as she walked toward the crime scene. Smidge was there bent over examining something. But the medical staff had two gurneys at the ready, just waiting for the go-ahead to load up the victims and take them away. She had wanted to ask Smidge something, but, as he straightened up and turned around, he caught sight of her, and his glare was the first thing she saw. She raised both hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I didn’t kill them.”
“Well, you better find out who did,” he barked. “Two at a time, really? Seriously, like I don’t have enough work already? I’ve only just barely dug out of your last mess.” With that, he shook his head and stormed back to his wagon, grumbling all the way.
She sighed and looked over at Rodney. “How come you got off so lightly?”
“Hey, I stay out of his line of sight,” he admitted, with a grin.
“Well, at least he’s still speaking to me.”
“You’re about the only one he talks to,” Rodney noted. “You should remember that.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll keep that in mind while he’s barking at me all the time.” Of course that didn’t mean anything. She had to deal with him, and generally they ended up getting along. But he was hard at it and overworked, and that was nothing new. In a big city, like Vancouver, there was a steady stream of crime. It didn’t ever seem to slow down, and the authorities had no short supply of murders—to the point of feeling as if putting two people in the same room would result in only one coming out.
She had learned a lot about humanity in her lifetime, beginning as a child—when her brother had gone missing, and nobody knew anything about it. Nothing they were willing to talk about at least. That’s the part that really got to her.
She knew that people had to have known something, but nobody had ever spoken up. Whether it was out of fear of the person who committed the crime, reluctance to have the police looking into their own lives, or just because they didn’t want to get involved—that inconvenience factor—she didn’t know. It had been a hard-learned lesson. Now she just stayed on the side of cynical at all times. It made for less disappointment that way.
Dr. Smidge ordered the bodies to be collected; then he stepped over to Kate. “Hope you catch this guy.”
“We will,” she replied, a note of confidence in her voice.
He looked at her and rolled his eyes. “Preferably before he kills again.”
She winced at that. “Depending on the motive, that could be a little tough. Do you have a cause of death?”
“At first glance it’ll be strangulation,” he stated, “but they were also sprayed in the face with something.”
She nodded. “That’s what I heard, and I did see something there at the neck. Plus, their faces looked very contorted.”
“Well, that would go along with the strangulation,” the coroner confirmed. “Something else I don’t quite understand and will definitely have to take a better look at, but I don’t think how we found them is how they were left.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“The same ligature was wrapped around both necks.”
“At the same time?”
He nodded. “As if they were both down on the ground and rolled over, kneeling or something,” he suggested. “We found them side by side, but there was only one ligature mark on the front of one woman. And there’s no mark around the back of her neck. So, both heads were together and yet slightly apart.” Smidge demonstrated, cocking his head off to the side. “And just one rope wrapped around both necks.”
“That sounds strange.” Kate thought about it and asked, “It would take them longer to die, wouldn’t it?”
“It’s almost a garrote, so not necessarily,” he countered. “It cut through the skin in places. I’ll let you know more when I get through the autopsies.”
She shoved her hands in her pockets again, as she watched the medical team load up the bodies. “Any idea what would have been sprayed in their faces?”
“From the look of it,” Dr. Smidge replied, “I’d say it’s probably bear spray, but again I’ll have to test it.”
“So, that would have immediately caused them to panic and to become disoriented. As they fought the burn, the rope was likely thrown around both of them. But it’s not likely they were being cooperative,” she commented, as she took in the scene. “They’ll be freaking out, clawing at their eyes, definitely not standing still. It would be almost impossible to get a rope around both of their necks at the same time.”
“There is bruising on one of the women,” Smidge added.
“So, it’s possible they were hit somehow and stunned, and then, after they were dead, they were separated?”
He nodded. “They were lying next to each other, and the rope was off to the side.”
“And it’s an actual rope?”
“I said a rope, did I not?” he stated in a testy voice. “But I also said that it was more of a garrote as well.”
“Whoa, whoa, hang on a minute. So, you’re saying that he killed them and then came back with another weapon and killed them again?”
“I’m not sure,” he admitted, “unless the rope has some wire through it.”
She frowned. “I really want to see that rope.”
“And you will, whenever forensics is done with it,” he snapped.
She glared at him, and he glared right back. “Fine. … Answers as soon as you can.”
“Answers when I can,” he corrected.
And probably more as a matter of form as anything, he generally didn’t get along with very many people. The fact that he spoke to her at all, even in a testy voice, was a testament to the relationship she’d slowly been working on.
Yet he remained standing by her and the crime scene.
“I wonder if the rope didn’t quite do the job or something,” she muttered, her mind still caught on that one fact. “Particularly given the angles, with the two of them tied together.”
“That’s quite possible,” the coroner agreed. “In which case it makes sense that the rope was left behind because it would have been deemed a failure.”
“So instead he’s taken the garrote with him,” she theorized, “leaving us with next to nothing to work with.”
“Not a whole lot anyway,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Two at a time now. Jesus Christ, what next?”
“Don’t even ask.” She cringed. “You and I both know that, when it comes to this crap, there’s no end to what might come next.”
“I know,” he replied. “Time for me to find another job.”
“That won’t help,” she argued. “Even if you did leave this career, these pictures won’t leave your mind.”
He stopped, looked at her, and asked, “Do they ever leave yours?”
She grimaced and shook her head. “No, they sure don’t.”
“Exactly, how can they?” he noted. “The best we can do is hope for a good night’s sleep at some point before we die.”
