Chapter 5
Kate walked into her department the next morning, frowned over at Reese, who was here waiting for her in the bullpen. Reese frowned right back. Kate declared, “If you have bad news, I don’t want to hear it.”
Reese smirked and replied, “You’re about the only person I can give this bad news to though.”
“Oh, great,” Kate muttered. “What does that mean?”
Reese paused, then blurted out, “There might be another one.”
“No, no, no,” Kate ranted. “Oh, hell no. You don’t understand how this works, Reese. This is an oddball one-off between-holidays killing. We do not have another one.”
Reese gave her a sad smile and handed over a file. “I found it over in the Coquitlam files.”
“And?”
“It’s from about two years ago. I know how you like paper copies, so I made you one. And you know where you can find the online file.”
“Okay.” Kate frowned as she accepted the folder and asked, “Why the devil would a case that happened two years ago have anything to do with my current case? Why now?”
“I don’t know,” Reese replied. “I can’t tell you that, but what I can tell you is that it may or may not be connected, but I wouldn’t let it pass by.”
“No, of course you wouldn’t.” She thanked her as Reese walked away.
Then Kate headed to her desk, took off her coat and threw it around the back of her chair.
She then pulled out her keys and a little card pocket she carried, dropping them into the top drawer, along with her phone, and headed for the coffeepot.
She’d had one cup this morning at Simon’s, but the traffic had been just hectic enough that she was craving a second cup to shake off the traffic blues. By the time she managed to get a cup and returned to her desk, Rodney was there, talking with somebody passing through the bullpen.
He looked up as she walked by. “Hey,” he greeted her, then frowned. “What’s with the face?” And he froze for a moment. “Unless … we caught another case.”
“I don’t know whether we caught another case or people just like me to catch cases that might be connected.”
His eyebrows shot up, and he asked, “How could anything be connected to the Believe case?”
“That’s what I don’t know,” she admitted. “So, we have to find out.”
He shook his head. “It was just a between-holidays one-off. People have a hard time over the holidays.”
“You’re telling me,” she muttered, glaring at him. “All I can say is that Reese handed it to me when I walked in. I haven’t had time to check it out yet.”
He frowned at that and asked, “Why not me?”
“I don’t know. Did she see you? She’s not favoring me, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Kate pointed out. “But she saw me as I walked in and brought it over. So, I rather imagine I just got lucky.”
He smiled, obviously relieved that she wasn’t being favored.
She asked him, “Have you ever thought that was a problem around here?”
“No,” he declared forcefully. “It’s not that. I just had that split-second moment where I wondered if she deliberately didn’t contact me.”
“I don’t think so,” Kate replied. “I’ve never known Reese to play favorites. Have you?”
“No, and this game isn’t for favorites anyway.”
“Exactly,” she agreed. “You and I both know that. Unfortunately Reese unearthed something and had to hand it off to anybody who had a moment to handle it.”
“Yeah, that’s true enough,” Rodney admitted. “Sorry. I was just having a moment.”
She nodded and didn’t say anything. Yet, in the back of her mind, she wondered how many of these moments he was having.
If it was an issue, the last thing she wanted was to cause trouble with any of the team, especially coming in the way she had, as an unwanted replacement for a really great guy they loved working with, but he died. Yet what could she do about that?
Although, with the increased success rate they had enjoyed since she’d been here, it might be considered perfectly normal for some to have hard feelings, but she hoped not.
She just didn’t want to be in the middle of office politics and just wanted to focus on what was important—getting the job done.
As she sat down, she pulled up the online Coquitlam case file.
She quickly scanned through the details, as Rodney pulled up a chair beside her. “What does it say?”
“Reese is right in the sense that it’s definitely something we need to check out. Both cases share two major similarities,” Kate noted, “and they make my skin crawl.”
Rodney frowned and took a look at what was on her monitor. “How can they both say Believe in a card?”
“Yeah, that’s the thing that got to me. Also did you see this?” Kate pointed to the handwritten addition.
As Rodney read it, he frowned. “And a red ribbon? Jesus.”
“Yeah, and a red ribbon,” she confirmed.
“Okay,” Rodney began, “we need to contact the family and find out who all knew anything about what was going on in this guy’s life at the time he was killed.”
Kate sighed. “You know that won’t go over well.”
“That’s quite true. It’s been, what?” He looked at the report and glanced through it. “A year and something?”
“Almost two, I think. Yeah, closer to two years.”
“That definitely won’t go over well with the family.”
“Yeah, but on the other hand,” she pointed out, “maybe they’ll open up because it looks as if we’re trying again.”
“If people only knew how much trying we do and how little time we have before the next case comes along,” he grumbled, as he returned to his desk and was on the phone within minutes. When he ended his call, he turned to Kate and called out, “They’re willing to talk, but she was pretty upset.”
“What was her relationship to the victim?”
“Sibling. The victim was her brother.”
“Okay, let’s make a trip.” She glanced at her watch. “Nobody else is in yet.”
“Nope, and Lilliana felt she was coming down with something yesterday. Hopefully it’s not that really bad flu. I’m not sure whether she’s coming in or not.”
“Right,” she scoffed. “Par for the course since we’re constantly shorthanded these days.”
He nodded but didn’t say anything. They got up just as Colby walked out of his office, muttering to himself. She waited until he looked up.
He frowned as he saw the two of them preparing to go out. “Now what?” he asked.
She told him about the second case that Reese had brought her, and his eyebrows shot up. “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” she confirmed, her tone somber. “So, we want to talk to the victim’s sister and take a look at the crime scene. Although it is now a rented apartment. So, we probably can’t get in, but I want some idea if we’ve got the same setup.”
He just stared at her for a few moments, his jaw twitching, and he finally relented. “Good God. I thought for sure this would be a one-off.”
“Yeah, you and me both,” she agreed.
“A one-off hopefully and a one-and-done.” Colby groaned. “Lilliana called in sick. She’s picked up whatever bloody flu has been going around the place. So, odds are, she’s probably out for a good two days or more.”
“So, we are truly shorthanded, down to just the two of us?” Kate asked. “And don’t say budget cuts. After so long, we no longer hold out any hope for a replacement for Andy. And what is going on with Owen? An extended Christmas holiday, my ass.”
Colby sighed. “Lean on Reese and the department’s two assistants whenever you can.”
She snorted at that. “We’ll be gone for most of the day, back-and-forth with this second case. And I want to go to whatever church is close by.”
Colby turned very, very slowly. “And why is that?”
She frowned, not sure how much to tell him, not sure she had grounds to get him worried.
Yet it might be a shock if later something did come from Simon’s words.
“So, none of this is for real, for sure, nothing like that. But Simon …” She let his name hang there for a moment, and Colby closed his eyes.
“Simon what?” he muttered.
She smirked. “Yeah, now you know how I feel. I got hit with this shit when I got home last night. I walked in to find he had crashed and was just coming out of a vision.”
“What did he see?” Colby asked, facing her.
“I was staring at him, the one pulling him back out,” she shared, trying to keep her tone neutral. “So, anything you want to say, I’ve already said myself.”
Now Colby snorted. “Fine, go on. What exactly did Simon find out?”
She began, “As usual, it’s not that he found out anything, but he tapped into something.”
“Spit it out. Stop procrastinating.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s a big word for you.” Colby just glared at her. She smiled and added, “I don’t know if it means anything, but …” Then she told him about Simon’s vision and the mention of that word again.
“Seriously? The man in his vision actually said, Believe?”
Beside her, Rodney chimed in. “Not just that, but he also texted her, right about the time that we got the first case, and he wrote something about believe even then.”
“Yeah,” she confirmed, “he did.”
“So, you’re thinking a church?” Colby asked.
“Not necessarily,” she hedged, keeping her voice low. “With a woman praying, possibly about getting pregnant, it could be someone waiting for … Is any fertility clinic around the corner from a church?”
Colby frowned at her. “We’re in a big city that has virtually everything.” He waited for her to continue.
Kate added, “I’m not sure Simon’s vision directly connects to either John’s death or the older death of Kurt.
I don’t know if any church is nearby either crime scene, especially with a fertility clinic beside it.
I’ll ask Reese to get on that. So, I’ll focus more on a local church close by each deceased’s apartment.
We’ll just have to check it out.” She turned to him and shrugged.
“I haven’t decided anything yet.” And, with that, she left him standing there, staring after her.