Simon Says... Scream Read online

  Simon Says… Scream

  A Kate Morgan Novel

  Dale Mayer

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Books in This Series

  About This Book

  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

  Excerpt from Simon Says… Run

  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

  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.

  It’s taken some time, but Detective Kate Morgan’s various relationships are gelling at work—and even at home. Until Simon starts screaming in the middle of the night. Worried and not sure she’s up for this, Kate distances herself from him. When a tortured female body shows up, Simon’s visions are of no help, until he describes one specific injury, … the same injury on Kate’s latest case.

  A case getting weirder as more is uncovered. A similar tortured death happened more than a decade ago, where the killer was caught and served time. As a suspect he looks good for this current case because he’s now out and back in society. Except he has a solid alibi …

  This isn’t the only victim though, and, as the Vancouver PD Homicide Unit digs deeper, Kate’s team finds several more cases—all with connections to the same suspect. But Kate’s still not convinced.

  Too much more is going on, and she’s determined to get to the bottom of this, before someone else dies a painful death …

  Sign up to be notified of all Dale’s releases here!

  Chapter 1

  First Sunday of September, Wee Morning Hours

  A scream from hell woke up Simon. He bolted from the bed and spun around in a panic. In the dark and nude, he tripped over his clothing on the floor, as he raced for the window. He didn’t know where that scream had come from, but—

  “Jesus Christ, what’s the matter?”

  He stopped, turned, and slowly reoriented himself.

  Kate sat up in the bed and stared at him. “Simon? What’s the matter?”

  “An unholy scream.” He held up his hands, so she could see them trembling.

  “From where?” she asked, sliding out from under the covers. “The hallway? Your neighbor?”

  She quickly pulled on her panties and jeans, then a top over her bare chest, as she walked to the front door. She stepped out into the hallway, coming back in again.

  He stared at her. “I think”—he took a deep breath—“I think it was inside my head.”

  She groaned. “Not another one.”

  He gave her a lopsided smile. “Hey, Kate. This isn’t my doing. Remember that.”

  “Hey, Simon. This isn’t what we wanted either. Remember that.”

  “I know.” He nodded. “And it’s been a long time.”

  “It has, at least a couple weeks.” And, with that, she gave him an eye roll.

  “I know. Sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” she noted, “but it would be good if you could explain a little more.”

  “There’s no explaining,” he murmured. “This is just insanity.”

  “I get it,” she agreed. “I really do.”

  “Good, because this is just too much.”

  “You don’t know where or when or what or who?”

  “No.” His expression was grim. “Just the most horrific scream.”

  “A woman?” Kate asked, and he nodded. “In pain or fear?”

  He looked at her, frowned. “Pain.”

  “I get it. Somebody being tortured.” She sighed heavily.

  He slowly nodded. “I think so.” He paused. “I wish not, but I think so.”

  She nodded. “Oh, great. Here we go again.”

  Chapter 2

  Sunday Early Morning

  The Vancouver showers just wouldn’t quit as Kate stood over the remains in front of her. Puddles had formed on the sidewalk and down along the back of the alley. The rain poured down on the woman’s body, tossed atop the full contents of a dumpster, left open. As for the victim’s cause of death, Kate couldn’t be sure just yet. She saw so many bruises, so many injuries, so much blood.

  One thing was for sure though; her vocal cords and throat area had been slashed. The coroner would determine if the vocal cords themselves were actually cut. Kate didn’t really want to get close enough to take a better look. But, in spite of herself, she knew she had to.

  As she tilted the woman’s head slightly to the side and up, Kate confirmed that her throat had, indeed, been cut. Swearing slightly to herself, she stepped back, muttering, “Torture is one thing. This is something else again.”

  At her side, Rodney looked at her. “What did you say?”

  She shrugged. “Some torture is obvious”—she pointed at the dead body—“but this seems to be a step above.”

  “Is there a step above?” he asked cynically. “It looks just like murder to me.”

  “It does, but then why cut the vocal cords?”

  He looked at the woman’s bloody throat and shrugged. “If it’s her vocal cords, it was probably part of the throat slashing that killed her.”

  Kate frowned as she studied the body. “I don’t know that we can put a cause of death to it yet.”

  He snorted. “I get that we have to wait for the report,” he noted, “but her throat has definitely been slashed.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, and both wrists are broken. Both ankles are broken, and you can see bone on the back of that calf, where some of the muscle has been stripped back.”

  He looked, then turned back to her and frowned. “But again, none of those would be cause of death.”

  “No.” She sighed. “I guess I’m just hoping that the asshole who did this had her so drugged that she didn’t know.”

  Rodney swallowed. “You’re thinking all that was done while she was alive?”

  Kate nodded. “Yes, I do. But again, we’ll have to wait to hear it from the coroner.” Just then his vehicle drove up. She turned and nodded as Dr. Smidge got out. “He’ll be happy with this.”

  “He’s never happy with us,” Rodney quipped with a half smirk. “But we’re just doing our jobs.”

  “He’s not even upset with us,” she admitted. “We’re just the messengers.”

  Smidge walked toward her, a glare in his eyes.

  She nodded and gave him a bright smile. “Lovely day, isn’t it, Doc?”

  His eyebrows shot up, even as the rain poured over him. “I didn’t bring a hat or an umbrella,” he announced.

  “Won’t matter,” she said. “You won’t do much here anyway.”

  He continued to glare at her, stepped up, and looked down at the woman i
nside the bin.

  “God damn it,” he muttered. “We’ll need to go through all that garbage too.”

  She nodded. “Absolutely. Forensics is on their way.”

  “Interesting.” He shook his head. “As if she were the last thing tossed in.”

  “And no attempt to cover her up either,” Kate murmured.

  He nodded at that. “Was the lid open?”

  She nodded. “It was open. Body was found by a homeless man.” Kate turned to look around the corner, where the man should still be sitting. He was, thankfully, but he was tucking into a big bottle of some golden liquid at a pretty fast rate. Probably to haze out the scenes in his mind. It would be her job to pull those scenes back up front and center again, so he could tell her anything he might be hanging on to. “Shit. He’s the one over there, drinking up,” she murmured.

  The coroner looked at him, nodded. “I would be too, if I were him.”

  She smiled. “Well, I’d like a coffee myself, and the dang coffee shops aren’t even open yet.”

  “The street vendors aren’t here either,” he grumbled. He bent down, took a look at the body, without actually touching her, then pulled out gloves and started doing an exam. She opened her mouth, when he flat-out stated, “Don’t even ask.”

  She snapped her mouth shut. “How do you always know?”

  “Because you guys are all the same. It’s the first thing out of your mouths every time. Cause of death, time of death, all of that.” He snorted. “As if I’ve had a chance to even figure any of it out.”

  “Well, we were thinking cause of death was the slashed throat,” Rodney suggested.

  “He was,” she clarified.

  At that, Smidge turned and stared at her. “What’s your vote?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t like very much about this one at all, … so I won’t hazard a guess.”

  His eyebrows popped up. “What? You won’t go for the obvious?”

  She shook her head. “No. The obvious in this case doesn’t work for me.”

  “Explain,” he barked.

  “She has been too badly tortured,” she detailed. “And I’m thinking those are severed vocal cords.”

  He looked at her in approval. “You’re right. It cut her vocal cords. And this is a cut to her throat”—he pointed—“but I’m not sure it’s what killed her. It’s not very deep.”

  She nodded. “I was thinking he might have been almost killing her and bringing her back, almost killing her and bringing her back,” she suggested. “And cutting her vocal cords meant nobody would hear her. He could torture her for as long as he wanted to.”

  At her side, Rodney muttered under his breath, “Jesus Christ. I didn’t even think along that line. Who the hell would?” He turned and frowned at Kate, dumbfounded.

  She shrugged. “It’s a big city. It’s dense, and who has a space private enough for a woman to scream—like she would have from the pain,” she said quietly. “The severed vocal cords are a given.”

  “So what do you think killed her?” asked Smidge, as he continued to examine the body.

  “Well, I’m really hoping,” she added quietly, “a shitload of drugs are in her system.”

  “There probably are. I just don’t know what and how much yet.” Smidge stood. “You’ll get more when I get more.”

  She nodded quietly.

  “Do you ever think of going into this field?”

  “No.” Her headshake was adamant. “I’m doing what I do now, and that’s about as far as I can go.”

  “Hey”—he shrugged—“you’re doing the part I don’t do. We need all of it.”

  With one last glance at the body and the dumpster and the mess all around, she turned and nodded. “We need everybody on board for this one.” Kate wrapped her arms around her chest. “It feels ugly.”

  “That’s because it is ugly,” Smidge agreed, giving her a look. He motioned at two guys, who lifted the body from the dumpster and placed it on the plastic laid out for that purpose. He added, “No clothing and no ID, nothing to identify her.”

  “Any tattoos?” she asked quietly.

  He looked at the dead woman again. “No. Nothing I’m seeing at the moment anyway. But then the body’s still a mess.”

  With the corpse in front of them, the gruesomeness of what had been done to her was even more apparent. One breast appeared to have been cut off, and chunks of flesh were missing from her thigh and her pubis.

  Kate shook her head. “I really don’t like the missing pieces.”

  “In what way?” Rodney asked, his tone snarky. “Just think about it though. It might give us something to go on.”

  She shook her head, frowning. “I mean, that’s possible, but why those pieces? Why there? Was he just experimenting? Was he curious? What the hell,” she said in disgust. “Wouldn’t it be nice if people would consider a human body as sacred and something to be honored instead of desecrated?”

  “We’re living in the wrong times for that,” the coroner argued. He stood again, barking orders to his team. He walked toward her. “I don’t need to tell you to catch this asshole, right?”

  “No, you don’t need to tell me,” she repeated quietly. “It’s at the top of my priority list.”

  “Damn good thing,” he noted. “But it’s not your only case, is it?”

  She shook her head. “That would be way too simple to say that and to work each case in that way.” She sighed. “We did just close a couple though. So, with any luck, we can get started on this one, while it’s hot.”

  “You need to,” he agreed. “I know we’ve had budget cuts. There are always budget cuts, but we need to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

  At that, Rodney turned and looked at Smidge. “What do you mean?”

  He faced Rodney, his mouth firmed into a straight line. “Whoever did this had fun. How long will it be before he decides that he needs to get that same fix again?”

  “It won’t be long,” Kate guessed, quietly shoving her hands into her pockets. “It won’t be long at all.”

  And, with that, she spun and headed over to talk to the drunk. Unfortunately, as she got to him, his head bobbed against his knees, and he had passed out in a stupor. She groaned, reached down, shook him awake, but all she got was mumbles.

  “Whoa, whoa. Whaa … t do you … you want?”

  But he wasn’t conscious enough to talk with her about this. She motioned to one of the police officers, standing off to the side. “Can you take him down to the drunk tank?” she asked. “He’s the one who found the body, so we’ll need to talk to him when he’s sobered up.”

  Then she joined Rodney, still standing here, staring at the crime scene. “Forensics will be here for a while. Do you want to help go through the dumpster?”

  “Hell no, I don’t want to,” he replied. “Chances are they won’t find anything anyway.”

  “No, but we can’t take that chance,” she added quietly.

  Just then the Forensics team arrived, and she was ushered to one side.

  “There goes our chance anyway,” she muttered. “You know how territorial they can be.”

  “Which is nice,” Rodney noted, “because, honest to God, we don’t want to be in their faces, and we don’t want them in ours.”

  “Never quite works so nice and clean as that though, does it?” She gave him a half smile.

  He shook his head. “If this is the only case, we do need to canvass everybody around here.”

  “I know. I was thinking of that,” she noted. “This is mostly a business district, and it’ll be dark in the evenings, but a group of homeless people should be up and down this area all the time.” Kate frowned as she reoriented herself. “Maybe if we check out this alley, we might find somebody who saw something.”

  “Anybody who was here is long gone,” Rodney stated. “You know that. It’s the law of the land out here. Self-preservation means, Get the hell out before the cops come.”

  “Unfortunately you’r
e right about that,” she agreed, “but it doesn’t help when it comes to getting witness information. What about cameras?” she asked, turning to look.

  “There’ll be cameras on the main street,” Rodney noted, “but not a whole lot when it comes to these alleyways though.”

  “Still, the main street will give us something.” She walked to the corner and took a look. “An all-night coffee shop is up at the corner.” She pointed. “Looks a little bit on the seedy side.”

  “Did you hear what you just said? An all-night coffee shop in this part of town?” He shook his head. “This is Hastings Street. I’m surprised anything is all-night here.”

  “Unless it’s rented by the hour,” she suggested.

  “Only if they have somebody around to rent to,” he muttered. “I’m not exactly sure anybody around here will be doing the tango in a coffee shop.”

  “Well, they probably are. They just won’t admit to it.”

  He laughed. “True enough.”

  Crossing the street, they headed into the coffee shop. As it was, one woman, looking very tired and old, sat on a stool behind the counter. The coffee shop had only a couple tables, and it wasn’t any bigger than a postage stamp. Kate pulled out her badge, identified herself, and asked if the woman had any cameras outside the shop.

  The woman glanced at Kate and shook her head. “Nope. No cameras around here,” she replied. “They did that for a while, monitoring the whole works. But, after so many break-ins, they couldn’t get coverage anymore from insurance, and the equipment was so cheap that you couldn’t tell who it was anyway. The owner figures it’s cheaper to replace a couple tables and chairs, and they even bought these solid cabinets, instead of the glass ones, for when the break-ins happen. We post signs that we don’t have cash after midnight, so nothing’s in the till anyway.” She shrugged. “It’s a lot better that way.”

  “I guess,” Kate offered. “We’ve got a body in the dumpster across the road.”

  The woman snorted. “Seriously? Again?”

  At that, Kate’s eyebrows shot up. “What do you mean by again?”