The Watched (CSI Reilly Steel #4) (5 page)

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, t
he 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.

‘What’s going on, Daniel?’

The reply came out in a whisper. ‘My god-daughter, Holly.’
He paused, appearing to struggle with what he had to say next.

Reilly tensed, desperately wanting to know what was upsetting him so much, but at the same time reluctant to hear the details of what was bound to be terrible news. Anything that could reduce Daniel Forrest to tears was not to be taken lightly.

‘She’s been murdered.’ His voice broke on the final word, his fingers curling around hers.

‘
Oh, Daniel.’ Reilly wrapped her arms around her old friend’s shoulders, pulling him toward her.

‘She was only a kid,’ Daniel managed, between gasps.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Reilly kept repeating, hating herself for the obligatory useless platitude. She knew better than anyone how empty those words sounded, but she also knew that there were no words that wouldn’t sound empty. No sentiments or condolences that could possibly soothe away the grief and anguish that came with getting the news that someone you loved was gone forever.

They sat togeth
er until twilight began to fall, as Daniel tried to overcome the initial shock of the phone call. When finally he sat forward and wiped his face, Reilly saw the expression on his face change from grieving friend to what she’d always called his ‘work mode’.

While maintaining the compassion needed to do what he did,
Daniel had always had the uncanny ability to set aside his emotions and view things in a clinical manner when he needed to. She knew that even though he was still hurting, he’d be able to focus. She was somewhat of a pro at that herself.

‘
I told Todd to try and get the department to hold off. I want to be the one to notify her mother. She lives nearby.’ Daniel stood. He held out a hand to help Reilly to her feet, keeping her hand in his for a moment longer, taking a last little bit of comfort before releasing it.

‘Will you let me come along? That’s if you don’t mind the company.’

He shook his head. ‘You just got here . . . you’re still jet-lagged, to say nothing about the fact that you’re supposed to be on vacation . . .’

Reilly shook out her legs. Her muscles were still stiff but the beer had helped. ‘Don’t be stupid. I’ve been sitting around on my ass for over a week now. It’ll give me something to do. And you’ll need moral support.’

‘OK, if you really don’t mind, I’d appreciate it. Thank you.’ He nodded tiredly but then took a deep breath and she saw his features settle into what Reilly had always thought of as his scary face. She’d seen it a few times with a handful of cases, the ones that really got to him. And she’d once seen that same look reduce a six-foot-four, 250-pound drug dealer to tears. ‘I guess I could do with some moral support.’

Reilly stood up with purpose, jet lag already fading into the distance, and wondered why she managed to smack face-first into death and violence everywhere she went. It was almost as if it sought her out.

Throwing one last longing look at the beach, she followed Daniel out to the front of the house to where his Chrysler SUV was parked in the driveway; the cicadas sounded louder than usual in the now eerily still night.

So much for a vacation.

CHAPTER
4

Back at the CSI lab in Tampa, Todd could feel Bradley watching him. Not directly of course; but his partner was a master of the sideways glance.

From the moment he’d revealed his relationship to the victim, Todd knew he was going to have to tread lightly. With their forensic toxicologist on vacation
, and the usual fallback field technician on maternity leave, the unit was short-staffed enough that Bradley had said he wasn’t going to take Todd off the case unless it became necessary. Translation: keep it together, professional and by the book, or sit this one out.

At the
crime scene itself, that had been harder.

Bradley had directed Todd to concentrate on the vehicle, the ‘driver’ and the surrounding area, but every once in a while, Todd had caught a glimpse of blood-stained
blond hair waving in the breeze and it had hit him like a punch to the stomach.

Holly
was gone. He’d fought back the new flood of emotion and continued with his work. In a way, the familiar monotony of cataloging evidence had helped keep him from losing his composure . . . again.

Now
in the lab, it was easier to just think of the victims as evidence and not by name. There had been a crime and it was his job to process the evidence, point the detectives in the right direction and give them what they needed to convict the killer.

‘
We’ve got an ID on the male vic,’ Dr Owen Kase announced as he entered the lab. In his late thirties, he’d been the chief medical examiner in Tampa for six years and was good at his job. He was also a complete ass, but if the good doctor could help figure out who did this, Todd vowed he’d never say another word against him.

Both Bradley and Todd looked up from
their workstations and waited. After an unnecessarily dramatic pause, the doctor continued. ‘Aaron Overton, age twenty-one. Prints in the system from a drunk and disorderly a couple of years ago.’

Aaron. The new guy
Holly had said she was dating. The one she’d gushed over the phone about for twenty minutes the last time they’d spoken. Todd swallowed hard. He’d suspected as much, but to hear that the person Holly had loved had been the one who had – intentionally or not – killed her made him sick.

‘
You could’ve just sent Matthew over with that.’ Bradley crossed his arms over his chest, uncharacteristic impatience tingeing his voice. Usually only the doctor could ruffle the normally cool investigator. ‘What else?’

Dr Kase
grinned and Todd clenched his hands, fighting back the urge to mess up the doctor’s chiseled jaw. Though punching the medical examiner wasn’t exactly keeping it together. Besides, no one but Bradley knew of Todd’s personal connection to the case and it needed to stay that way.

‘
Toxicology came back. It seems our killer used chloroform to incapacitate both victims.’ He handed Bradley a folder. ‘I found traces of the compound around both victims’ noses and mouths. What’s more interesting, however, is what I got inside the mouth and trachea.’

Todd’s fists loosened. So he
really did find something.

‘
Cotton.’

‘
Cotton?’ Bradley repeated.

‘
Specifically, brightly colored cotton fibers soaked with chloroform.’ The ME sounded smug. ‘My guess is . . .’

‘
Beach towel,’ Todd cut him off and ignored the resulting glare. ‘No one would think twice about a guy walking along the beaches with a damp beach towel.’

‘Right.’
Owen’s tone was petulant at having his moment of glory stolen. ‘Anyway, both bodies had traces of saltwater in the hair, indicating that they’d both been in the ocean a few hours before their death. The female victim’s body was covered with debris and sand, which was to be expected given the manner of her death and being dragged along the ground. What was unusual, seeing as he was inside the car, was that the male was also covered with similar amounts of sand and some of the same debris. I gave the particulates to Emilie to analyze.’

Emilie Ryan was the newest member of the team. At twenty-four, she was actually
the youngest lab technician in Tampa’s CSI history. She was also the most cheerful person Todd had ever met. Even when she passed by a table full of gruesome crime scene pictures, her wide smile never faltered. Granted, she never really studied them in close detail, but in this line of work it was still rare to find someone with such a positive outlook on life. Though he guessed that over time, that would change.

She only occasionally went out into the field depending on the workload, and had only been with them a few months; another reason why Todd didn’t want to be forced to take a back seat during this investigation.

‘Thank you, Dr Kase,’ Bradley said, opening the folder and scanning the contents. ‘I’ll pass this information along to the detectives. Let us know if you find anything else.’

‘They must’ve been
moved,’ Todd mused, when the ME had left. Bradley looked at him and he explained. ‘The victims, I mean, after he overpowered them with the chloroform.’ He swallowed the lump in his throat and continued. ‘The nearest stretch of beach was way too rough for swimming.’

‘
Maybe they walked?’ Bradley pulled up a map on his laptop and sent the image to the large Powerpoint projector screen at one end of the lab.

‘Well, h
ere’s where they were found.’ Todd pointed at the map. He trailed his finger down the long stretch of coast before coming to rest at a spot several miles away. ‘And here’s the closest point they could’ve gone into the water.’

‘
With that type of terrain, they wouldn’t have walked any further than a dozen yards before giving up,’ Bradley said. He reached for his phone, understanding the point Todd was making. ‘We’ve only got a secondary crime scene.’

While Bradley made the call
to the investigative team, Todd turned his attention away from the map and back to the duct tape he’d been examining.

As expected, hai
r and skin trace decorated the inside of the tape, some dotted with blood. He took a couple of samples to type, but only because it was standard procedure. The chances of the DNA not matching the victims were nearly non-existent. When they caught the guy, though, they would need to make sure all i’s were dotted and t’s crossed.

Once he
’d processed the tape, he moved on to the next evidence bag.

The keys had been taped into the ignition with the same type of duct tape. There were two keys on a plain metal ring, one for the truck and one
so far unidentified. Todd turned both keys over in his gloved hands, eyes narrowed as he searched for anything noteworthy. Nothing. He heard Bradley come up behind him as he slid the keys under his microscope. Maybe there was a partial of some kind to be found . . .