Chapter 10

K ate slowly lowered the wineglass in her hand and stared at Simon. "Wow. Did you really just say that this homeless guy gave you some psychic warning about the Feldspar case?"

"I'm not sure it's the Feldspar case as much as the Feldspar house ," he noted, with a thoughtful expression. "Somehow it's connected to the Paragon property I'm looking to buy. Remember how I initially found Shawn sleeping in the Paragon stairwell?"

"Yeah, you found some homeless guy camping in there," she noted, eyeing Simon strangely and then staring far off. "And he gave you my name?"

"I know. I get it. It's weird, and it makes no sense."

"Yeah, you're right about that," she declared. "Weird, makes no sense, and yet how did it come up that the Feldspar murders were even connected?"

"Shawn asked me out of the blue if I knew anything about the Feldspar place itself, and then he told me it was connected to that Paragon property that I am currently interested in."

She stared at him and asked, "What's the address of the property you're looking at?" When he gave it to her, she typed it into her Notes on her phone, but then shrugged. "I don't really know what I'm supposed to do with that information, but at least I have it."

"Maybe nothing," Simon muttered in exasperation. "What was I supposed to do, not tell you?"

She stared around the living room. "Sometimes I wonder if I'm not better off without any of your information."

"That may be true, and I can certainly keep it to myself, if you prefer."

She gave him a wry look. "Would you really?"

"No, not if I thought it would do some good, which I can't tell you because I just don't know. You would be the one to know."

"Right," she murmured, "and I get that. I really do, and I'm not blaming you in any way."

" Gee, thanks ," he quipped in a heavily sarcastic tone. When she glared at him, he asked, "What do you want from me?"

She sighed. "Wouldn't it be nice if a ghost would tell you that Hey, X, Y, and Z happened, and here is the murderer ?"

"Yeah, wouldn't it?" he snapped. "So far that hasn't happened, but, rest assured, you'll be the first to know when it does."

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "We're both frustrated by this turn of events, so let's not fight. I didn't come here for that. I just don't know how to react sometimes, when you tell me these things."

"How about just take note of the information without judgment?"

She winced and nodded. "Wouldn't that be nice?"

"Yeah, wouldn't it?" he muttered. Then he got up, grabbed the wine bottle, and quickly refilled his glass. She watched as he walked over and topped hers up as well .

"I'm sorry," she said, "It's… it's just so frustrating."

" Yeah? "

But no give was in his tone. She knew that it had to be more frustrating for him, yet she never quite remembered that part, not before she opened her mouth and blasted him for something. She groaned. "So, I'm not sure of the rules to this relationship." When he glared at her, she raised her hands in frustration. "Now you look as if you're really pissed."

"I am, so don't say shit like that. Our relationship is what we make it, and, if we screw it up, we screw it up all on our own and not because of some stupid unwritten rules."

She smiled at that. "Now that makes more sense to me that anything else tonight," she admitted.

"Then don't go saying shit like that."

"Shit like what?" she asked, staring at him. "I'm really not trying to pick a fight here."

"Good," he growled, "because, for somebody who's not trying, you're doing a hell of a good job."

She sat back and stared at him. "Want to go for a walk then?" He glanced at her, and she saw the instinctive no starting to form, and she just shrugged. "I just thought it might change things up, take us out of it a little bit, so we aren't stuck in the same energy." At her use of the word energy , his gaze narrowed, and she raised both hands in frustration. "I don't know what to call it. I just thought, if we changed the scenario, maybe we can get ourselves out of this fight faster."

He blinked several times and then nodded. "Actually, that's a good idea."

She got up and walked to the door. "Come on then. Let's go." Together the two of them went down the elevator, waved at Harry, and stepped outside.

She stopped on the walkway, took several slow deep breaths, and whispered, "I hadn't realized just how much I needed some fresh air." When he frowned at her, she shrugged. "I've been on the phone a ton today, instead of running around. With everything so rushed, I just have no time anymore."

"I'm not sure there ever was enough time," he muttered. "Time is one of those things that we take for granted, until all of a sudden we don't have it anymore."

"I would agree with that," she said, with a nod. "It's just sad because you try to do everything right, but you still end up screwing up."

"If that's a comment in reference to our relationship," he stated, with half a laugh, "you haven't screwed up."

She stared up at him. "Seriously? I feel as if I've done nothing but screw up."

"No, not at all," he muttered, "and I don't want you ever thinking that."

"What do you want me thinking, Simon?"

"Nothing about relationships is easy, and my particular gift doesn't help either," he began, "but I certainly don't judge you for what you consider screwups. They're not really screwups. We just have to adjust, the same as everybody else. It would be absolutely lovely if I had some rule book on how to handle my ability , but I don't."

"What about your grandmother? How did she cope?" Kate asked.

He shook his head. "Her relationship experiences were even worse."

"In what way?"

"She encountered a lot of hardship in maintaining relationships in her world. Most of the time, as I recall it, she was alone, and that was very hard on her."

"The more I hear about some of this stuff, the more I realize that it's not so much a gift but almost a curse."

He laughed. "Pretty sure I've mentioned that before."

"Maybe I just wasn't listening." She groaned, reached out her hand, and he quickly laced his fingers with hers. "Sometimes it's a bit much, so I back off, trying to find some semblance of balance—almost refuting everything you say or wanting to refute it but not knowing how. So it just becomes something I dismiss. At least that's my initial gut reaction."

He didn't say anything at first, and they just continued to walk. "I guess one suggestion would be to double-check what happened regarding that Feldspar case."

"I've had the files pulled," she shared. "I just haven't had even a minute to look at it."

"Are you still looking at that recent suicide-turned-murder?"

"It's definitely a murder case," she muttered, "and what makes me even angrier is that it involves a greedy wife."

"I don't have any answers for you on that case," he admitted, "but it seems to me as if greed runs everything."

"And how sad is that?"

He looked over at her and smiled. "Very sad, but not our sad."

Surprised and yet half understanding what he said, she nodded. "I guess that's one cheerful point in our favor, isn't it?"

"We don't get very many of them," he noted, "so let's take what we can get. Honestly, we have a lot of good things in our lives.… Both of us just need to remember that."

"I agree," she muttered. "You just threw me when you connected your building with my current case and with me."

"And yet," he pointed out, " I didn't do it. Shawn did, the homeless man who sees and talks to ghosts."

"Right, so maybe we should talk to him," she muttered, staring off into the distance.

"We could," he replied, understanding what she was getting to. "As I understand it, he's not long for this world. He wasn't expected to make it this long." When she frowned at him, Simon shrugged and added, "He's got a heart condition of some kind."

"Ah, it can't be very easy living on the streets if you've got some health condition too."

"I'm not sure being on the street is easy at any point in time, but he didn't ask for any help to get off the streets. He just asked for food, and he sat there in front of me and ate it."

She smiled at Simon. "Of course you gave him food. A lot of people wouldn't have."

"Maybe, but I am not a lot of people."

Sensing something in his tone, she turned and looked at him closely. "I didn't mean any insult by that either."

He let out a heavy sigh and replied, "I know you didn't." They continued to walk along the harbor, and he took a deep breath, soaking in the fresh air. "Are we still on for the weekend?"

She nodded. "Yes, no major panic is happening right now. Obviously I'm still dealing with this case, but nothing's broken at the moment." She took a minute, looking at the far-off lights. "As much as I could hope that something will break my case wide open, it won't be that easy to get to the bottom of what's going on here."

"How come? "

"Because I'm waiting for forensics," she muttered. "That just adds to the frustration."

"Of course." He didn't say anything for a while. As they crossed the street, he asked her, "How about dinner out tonight?"

She smiled at him. "That might be a good idea."

He steered them to a small restaurant nearby and said, "I've never been in here. Shall we try it?"

She nodded. "I'm game." As they stepped inside, she looked around. "I should have known. Is this another Italian place?"

"It is, but more from the Sicilian area, so not Mama's brand."

"No, not Mama's." Kate laughed at the misery in his tone. "Have you been back to see them in person?"

"Several times," he replied.

"How is the family?"

"Holding on, but still pretty upset and grieving in many ways. They keep asking about you."

"We could also have gone there," she noted, "except, if we're walking, I guess we don't really have a whole lot of choices."

He chuckled. "If we just keep doing what we're doing, we'll get back there eventually."

"You order in all the time," she added, "so that makes a huge difference to them."

"It does, and it's one of the reasons why I do it because it does make a difference, trying to keep everybody in business, but I can't do it all."

"No, you certainly can't, and you shouldn't feel as if you have to." He gave her an odd look, and she shrugged. "I know you help a lot of people, more that you don't tell me about, a lot of people who nobody knows about," she shared. "And that's all right. You don't have to tell anyone, but you also can't save everybody in this world, Simon. Everyone has their own problems, and not all problems can be fixed."

" Hmm . Is this a good thing to remind you of down the road too?"

She winced. "Probably not."

He laughed. "You know there are worse things than to go to our grave knowing that we tried to help, even if we didn't succeed every time," he noted.

"Maybe, but I would still rather go to my grave successful at helping rather than a failure."

"It's not a failure if you are trying," he reminded her.

"No, it's not, but it sure doesn't feel much like success either."

"So, how will you change that?"

"Tomorrow I'll dig into the Feldspar family murders," she muttered, "and I still have to research the Paragon building and talk to your homeless guy."

"What about Amie, who may or may not have killed her husband?"

"Yeah, I'm letting something rattle around at the back of my brain on that one," she muttered. "I'm not sure that it'll be quite so easy or open-and-shut by any means."

"Probably not," he muttered, turning to face her. "Did anybody else want her husband dead?"

"I don't know," she admitted, thinking over the details. "The boyfriend maybe, but Amie and her husband were already talking divorce—according to Amie."

"Right, so that doesn't mean the husband would say the same."

She chuckled at that. "Not sure that the husbands ever say anything when it comes to this shit."

"In your cases they can't. They're dead." When she glared at him, he just smiled. "Come on. Don't shoot the messenger, please. Let's eat." And, with that, he quickly took a table at the far end of the restaurant.

She sat down and smiled, as she looked around. The place was great, and the ambiance was perfect. "It's nice in here, and I really like the decor. It has a very old Italian look to it, almost like that district in Vancouver."

"It does, doesn't it?"

They were served quickly, and the place wasn't terribly busy, so it gave them even more privacy, as they continued to talk and just unwind a bit. When their dinner was in front of them, she smiled at him. "This really was a good idea."

He nodded. "It was. We need to get out and about for our own good a little more."

She sighed. "Then maybe we won't be quite so touchy." When he snorted at that, she grinned and admitted, "And, yeah, I'm usually the touchy one."

"No, it's both of us, and we just have to remember that."

In the back of her mind, she was already thinking about Feldspar and what it would mean in terms of her other case. It's not that she didn't have time for another case, but she wouldn't be given any leeway to open it up. The one thing her department didn't do was cold cases. They had a whole separate division for that, but she didn't really want to bring them in. How could she possibly tell them that her clues came from a homeless man who spoke with ghosts, a reluctant psychic, and then the ghosts themselves? That thought alone gave her goose bumps.

As she scooped up a slice of pizza, she asked Simon, "Did Shawn happen to share what the Paragon ghosts said about it?"

Simon shook his head. "Just something about being connected to the Feldspar family."

"Family," she repeated. "That's pretty open-ended."

"It's too open-ended," Simon declared, "but hopefully it does give you something."

"It does, just not very much right now."