The Watched (CSI Reilly Steel #4) Page 3

  ‘Holly,’ he whispered, feeling the strength go out of his legs. He staggered, struggling to stay on his feet, then swallowed, fighting down the bile in his throat.

  That caught Bradley’s attention. His head came up, pale eyes widening when he saw his face. ‘Todd?’

  Todd didn’t answer. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the body, the familiar blond hair matted with blood and dirt, mischievous sparkling eyes now horribly glassed over.

  He turned and ran a few steps away, barely making it back to where the other cop had vomited before contributing his own lunch to the mess. He looked up to see Julie Sampson staring at him, scorn evident on her face. He didn’t care.

  Todd put his hands on his knees and closed his eyes, before immediately opening them again, the image of that face seared into the back of his eyelids. All of the horror he’d felt at the other scene earlier, the anger that someone could do that to another human being, all of that paled in comparison to the myriad emotions racing through his body just now.

  This wasn’t just some faceless, nameless corpse. It wasn’t even someone he felt sympathy for. This was Holly. The chubby little girl with pigtails who’d begged him to push her on the swings on summer visits. The scabby-kneed, gawky eleven-year-old who always wanted to hang out with the closest thing she had to a big brother and was overjoyed when he’d taken up a permanent job in Tampa. The beautiful young woman who’d called only a few months ago to tell him that she’d met the man of her dreams. The little girl who used to adore playing with that babushka doll.

  Todd’s knees finally buckled and he didn’t try to stop himself this time. A part of him wanted to pass out, to not have to deal with this a second longer. But he didn’t faint, and he ignored the urge to curl up and let his grief overtake him. Summoning up a reserve of strength he didn’t know he had, Todd shakily pushed himself to his feet.

  ‘Come on, man,’ Bradley asked as he strode across the sandy ground, his face unusually serious. ‘Not more than two minutes after you rag on a cop for losing his lunch, you nearly pass out yourself? I know this is bad, but what’s with the rubber chicken routine? We’ve seen more disturbing things in the drain of the locker room showers.’

  At first Todd just stared at Bradley, struggling to process his colleague’s words, the attempt at levity not registering on a conscious level. Finally he managed to utter a few words. ‘I need to call my father.’

  CHAPTER 3

  Reilly cried out as she bolted upright, her naked body bathed in sweat.

  She pressed her hands against her chest, feeling her heart pounding against her palms. Despite the darkness, she didn’t want to turn on the bedside lamp. It was irrational, she knew, but even a child sensed that the fear experienced through nightmares didn’t ever fully burn away until touched by the light of day.

  Her pale blue eyes were wide, straining against the curtain-drawn darkness, and she fought the automatic urge to reach for a sidearm. Even a weapon-free three years in Dublin hadn’t quelled that instinct.

  She felt wooly and disorientated, much like she had when waking up in a hospital bed barely a week before. The last thing she’d been able to remember was running that scene in the apartment block, and packing away the evidence bags before starting to dust the table for prints.

  After that, nothing, until she’d come to, alone and frightened, in Tallaght hospital.

  Scrambling at the time to try and figure out what had happened, Reilly thought back to what she’d been doing at the crime scene. The dust . . . the table surface had been covered in a fine powder, icing sugar she’d presumed, when taking samples. It was then that the horrible realization struck her. The mask . . . she’d neglected to pull the mask down over her mouth. Which meant that she must have inhaled some of the dust, and it clearly wasn’t organic icing sugar. A rare situation in which her typically reliable nose had worked against her, she thought, remonstrating with herself for being so careless.

  Reilly had spent three full days in the hospital under observation until the doctors were confident that whatever substance she’d consumed was no longer a threat to her. The GFU lab were still working on analysis of the powdered substance and Reilly still had no idea what had upended her in such a way.

  Once she’d finished berating herself for her stupidity, the following two days flat on her back in the hospital were the worst she could remember. First off, she was lonely – Mike was on vacation in California, so there was no one to visit or sit by her bedside.

  Chris, arguably her only friend in Dublin close enough to visit, was deeply engaged in the associated murder investigation, and her colleagues at the GFU were heavily backed up, especially now they were one member down.

  Chris had offered to call her father and update him but Reilly didn’t see the point as there was nothing he could do but worry, and she certainly didn’t want Mike to cut short the first vacation he’d had in decades.

  But the situation illustrated for Reilly just how few relationships she’d made in the city since her arrival, and highlighted the sense of disconnection she’d been feeling lately. Save for flowers from her team at the GFU, and a couple of quick phone calls from base to check on her progress, she’d spent most of the hospital stay on her own, feeling as low as she could ever remember.

  Until the call from Inspector O’Brien, on day three. After a brief exchange of niceties and polite enquiries about her health, the chief got straight to the point.

  ‘The incident is currently with GIA,’ he told Reilly in his typical no-nonsense tone. ‘Standard procedure in such a case where somebody gets injured on the job, you know the drill.’

  Reilly knew all about Garda Internal Affairs.

  ‘Well they have been kicking up a bit of a stink about the fact you weren’t wearing a mask,’ he continued, and her heart sank. ‘Of course, I’ve pointed out your exemplary record and advised them not to create issues where there doesn’t need to be any, but we just have to go along with it for now.’

  Hundreds of thoughts rushed through her head. She’d fucked up, hadn’t she? Was she being suspended? It was her own fault; she’d been so distracted lately she wasn’t thinking straight – forgetting the mask was a greenhorn mistake.

  ‘It’s really an ass-covering exercise,’ O’Brien continued, ‘and I don’t want you stressing about it. In the meantime you’ll need to take leave – time off to fully recover till things settle down. Fully paid, of course. And I’ve arranged to pull in some cover to make sure GFU runs smoothly in your absence,’ he continued, leaving Reilly under no illusions that the matter wasn’t up for discussion.

  ‘How much time?’ she enquired tentatively, trying to gauge what the response would be, or indeed what this ‘enforced leave’ would mean for her future.

  ‘Just while we await the GIA findings,’ O’Brien replied crisply. ‘It’ll be a few weeks; six at the most. After that we can review accordingly.’

  She understood how slowly the wheels of bureaucracy moved, but still six weeks felt like an enormous length of time. It was now close to the end of April, which meant it would be at least mid-June by the time she was back. Six long weeks without work to occupy her? Reilly didn’t really know how to feel about it, and guessed she should feel angry or upset. But instead, a strange sense of acceptance washed over her – relief almost. With the way she’d been moping about lately, maybe some time off could turn out to be a blessing in disguise?

  Shortly afterward a GIA representative contacted her to arrange an interview, and once Reilly had recounted to him every aspect of the crime scene search in painful detail, a sustained period away from work and its associated responsibilities awaited her.

  For the first time in her professional life she had absolutely nothing to do and all the time in the world to do it. The question was, what was she going to do with it?

  The answer came to her as she checked out of the hospital on yet another dull and damp Irish spring day.

  Now, the sight of her surroundings – howe
ver unfamiliar – was comforting. She ran her fingers through her hair, yanking hard when she hit a tangle. The pain was sharp, immediate, and drove the last of the sleep from her mind.

  Reilly reached for her cellphone, and swore when she read the time. She’d just wanted a short nap to help with the jet lag and now she realized that she’d been sleeping almost all afternoon. She scrambled off of the bed and looked in the mirror above the dresser. Scowling at her reflection, she headed for the bathroom. A shower was definitely in order.

  As the hot water pounded into her travel-stiff muscles, Reilly still tried to tell herself that what had happened over the last week or so wasn’t just a dream, and that she really was here.

  Standing in the shower, she squirted generic brand shampoo into her hands and made a face at the astringent smell. Seemed they didn’t keep the guest bathroom stocked with the good stuff.

  Then her stomach growled in protest and she realized it had been hours since she’d last eaten, and she still needed to unpack.

  But not until she got something to eat, and right then Reilly could eat a horse. She just hoped the fridge was better stocked than the guest room.

  Going downstairs, she was distracted by a warm breeze coming through the open doorway and the sound of waves washing gently against the shore. She wandered out onto the ocean-front deck and inhaled the warm, salty air. She’d always loved being by the beach, loved the way the ocean waves rolled in, smoothing the sand and wiping away traces of everything.

  And she’d been unprepared for how much she’d missed that.

  Dublin had a beauty of its own, but there were times when Reilly longed for the heat of summer, real summer. The gentle breeze that came off the Gulf of Mexico this evening was warm, salty and comforting, and the knot that had been in her stomach since she’d flown out of Dublin airport the day before gradually started to ease.

  Reilly knew he was there before he spoke, but she waited for him to break the silence. ‘Sleep OK?’ Daniel Forrest was sitting in one of the deck chairs beneath the lanai covering.

  ‘Longer than I’d planned, but good, thanks.’

  ‘Beer?’ He held a long-neck bottle out to her.

  ‘Thanks.’ Reilly had never been much of a drinker, but this evening she welcomed something to take the edge off, as well as something to cool her down. She took a sip of the chilled alcohol. It was a few hours before sunset and the Florida heat was still enough that the cool liquid soothed as it slid down her throat. ‘And yes, everything is wonderful. I’m glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me.’

  ‘No problem. I’m just glad you finally took up the invitation. Even if – and this is just a guess – the decision was slightly forced on you . . .’ Persistence was Daniel Forrest’s middle name, but she wasn’t yet willing to discuss the reasons for her out-of-the-blue call last week, asking if she could come and stay at his beach house.

  After hanging up his FBI boots, Reilly’s former Quantico tutor had semi-retired to his holiday home in Clearwater Beach almost eighteen months before. His four-bed wooden colonial house was situated in a quiet, residential part of the popular Florida beach town, and located right on the white sandy beach of the Gulf of Mexico. It was an idyllic location and even better than Daniel had described during his many phone calls entreating her to visit since he’d moved there from Virginia. A behavioral psychologist by profession, he was now freelance, occasionally working for the local law enforcement agencies on a consultation basis, as well as running investigations on behalf of private individuals and companies.

  Their relationship ran deep: somewhere between father and older brother. Daniel had been in his mid-forties when they’d first met a little over a decade ago when Reilly was a wide-eyed rookie at the FBI’s training academy.

  She’d had a crush on him at first, but so had most of the females in her class. Ruggedly handsome with salt-and-pepper hair, warm brown eyes and lots of charisma, Agent Forrest had never lacked for attention. Though it hadn’t taken long for the crush to turn into legitimate admiration absent of romantic notions. Daniel was brilliant and engaging, treating his students with respect and challenging them to excel. But they both knew that his relationship with Reilly ran deeper than student/teacher. He knew all about her family difficulties and troubled past, and had been there for Reilly at the very worst times of her life – on one occasion even travelling as far as Dublin to help her out and show his support.

  Now, Reilly took a seat beside him and closed her eyes, letting her head rest on the back of the aquamarine-painted wooden deck chair. She knew she should go into the kitchen and get something to eat, but right then she was almost mesmerized by the sound of the waves crashing into the shore.

  As usual, it was almost as if Daniel could read her mind. ‘I made fish tacos,’ he said, standing up. ‘Local grouper is great here, especially blackened.’

  Reilly’s mouth watered at the very notion. She hadn’t eaten fresh fish tacos in years. Oddly for an island country, the Irish weren’t much of a fish-eating nation. And Cajun-blacked grouper with guac and salsa, all washed down with a cold beer . . . it sounded like a feast for kings.

  Easing back into the chair while Daniel bustled around in the kitchen, she realized how much she’d yearned for home comforts as well as good weather. And the light . . . it was hard to describe how different the world seemed when bathed in sunlight, and it seemed so long since she’d seen a sky as blue as this one.

  When he returned with the tacos along with a fresh round of Coronas, Reilly launched on the food as if she hadn’t eaten a morsel in years. Afterward, she took up Daniel’s offer of a tour of the property. They skirted the small dipping pool just below the deck, and took the wooden steps leading down to the beach.

  The fine white powdery sand was still warm on her bare feet, and she was again struck by how much she’d missed the joys of living in a hot ocean-side environment. The Irish coastline had its own wild beauty, but there was something to be said for the feel of sun-warmed sand between the toes.

  ‘So, anyone new in your life?’ Reilly decided that Daniel’s earlier inquisitiveness deserved a response. After all, turnabout was fair play.

  ‘Let’s see.’ He gave her a mischievous glance. ‘Since we last spoke, there’s been Maria, Danielle, Grace, Stephanie, then another Maria . . .’

  ‘Seriously?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘You really haven’t changed. I’d hoped the slower pace of life would mean you’d finally start getting serious with someone.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ Daniel said, shaking his head. ‘I’m not looking to get married again. Once was enough for me.’

  ‘At least your son comes by it honestly.’ They reached the shore and Reilly let the water splash over her toes. She remembered his son, of course. Good-looking in that ‘almost too pretty for a guy’ way. They’d both attended Quantico around the same time; he was only a few years older than her as she recalled, and she remembered him as being amicable, if a little distant. While she would trust Daniel with her life, her relationship with Todd Forrest had never really progressed past basic pleasantries.

  ‘That he does,’ Daniel said. ‘Just don’t tell him I said so.’

  She quirked an eyebrow in her old friend’s direction.

  ‘Despite a stellar career with Tampa CSI, Todd’s still in the “proving myself” stage of life,’ Daniel clarified. ‘I thought kids were supposed to grow out of that.’

  ‘He will,’ Reilly reassured him. She couldn’t resist adding with a grin, ‘Eventually.’

  Daniel smiled benevolently at her. ‘You know, the first time I saw you . . .’ his voice slowed a little, taking on the familiar cadence he always used when explaining a theory or outlining a suspect’s profile. ‘You were this skinny twenty-year-old with big blue eyes and blond hair pulled back in a haphazard ponytail.’ He gave a fond shake of his head. ‘And you were wearing a suit like something off Law & Order but didn’t look old enough to pull it off. I remember wondering if you’d be tough enough to
take being a woman in a mostly male environment, never mind up to the challenges of working in this crazy field of ours. And yet, as you stood there in the doorway, I watched your face change, almost as if you knew what I was thinking. You set your chin and marched right up and introduced yourself to me.’

  ‘And you said,’ Reilly continued playfully, taking his arm, ‘“Steel, if you keep that same stuff in your backbone, you’re going to do just fine.”’

  ‘And you certainly did. But—’

  Suddenly, Daniel’s cellphone rang. The Florida sun was now slowly inching its way toward the horizon, casting stunning orange/red rays across the sky and causing blinding reflections in the water.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Reilly heard him ask, suddenly alert. Then he swore and she looked at him, perturbed. Daniel rarely ever cursed. She saw that his tanned face had turned pale, and he looked like he was going to be sick.

  Concern flooded through her. He wasn’t old, but he wasn’t exactly young either. Heart attacks for people in their late fifties weren’t uncommon, even for someone as athletic as Daniel Forrest. Hadn’t there been some ice skater who’d collapsed at practice and died when he was only twenty-eight?

  Daniel moved away from her and strode off a little way down the beach, still talking to whoever was on the other side. Reilly could only hear snatches of the conversation but whatever it was, she knew it couldn’t be good.

  Eventually, he started to turn back toward the house. ‘No, hold off for as long as you can. I want to be the one to tell her.’ His voice shook as he spoke. ‘And Todd, keep me in the loop on this. OK?’

  Todd? Hadn’t he just mentioned that his son worked with the local PD? That plus Daniel’s reaction could only equal something bad. Still, she was puzzled. The former FBI behavioral profiler had experienced countless horrible things in his line of work; same as she had. What made this so different?

  Back at the house, Daniel sank down onto one of the deck chairs, setting his phone aside without a glance. Then he buried his face in his hands, and Reilly was shocked afresh to see his shoulders shaking. She crouched in front of him, tentatively reaching for him. When her hand touched his, he looked up, not trying to hide the tears in his eyes.