The Watched (CSI Reilly Steel #4)

THE WATCHED

Reilly Steel #4

Casey Hill

The right of Casey Hill to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author. You must not circulate this book in any format.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. It always worked like a charm in the movies – put some chloroform on a rag, hold it over the person’s mouth and out they went.

Too bad this wasn’t the movies.

First of all the fat bastard remained conscious and fought back, almost landing a punch before being silenced with a rock. Then the skinny bitch made some weird snoring sounds before she stopped breathing altogether.

Apparently
the quantity of chloroform in relation to the weight of the person it was being used on was an important factor. Too little didn’t work and too much could kill. Again, not something discussed in the movies. Lesson learned.

He
had always been a quick study. Dragging the mismatched couple behind some rocks, he waited for another couple to pass along the narrow stretch of secluded beach. He wasn’t picky; all that mattered was that he got one male and one female. He preferred they both be in their twenties but they could be a little older, just as long as they could pass for younger in the right conditions.

He sat on a large rock
staring at the sea for half an hour, just another tourist relaxing in the spring sunshine. To add to the image of an easy-going beach bum, he’d even draped a damp beach towel beside him on the rock – though it wasn’t damp with seawater.

This
part of the beach was too rough for sunbathing, but a well-worn path cut through the rocks, making it perfect for couples looking for some privacy. A salty breeze blew in off of the gulf, cooling the sweat on his skin. He didn’t mind waiting; thrived on it actually, felt his mind sharpen when the wits of those around him became muddled and foggy.

He heard them first and turned as they came around the bend, their
arrival interrupting his musing. He was pleasantly surprised; two perfectly chiseled blonds: Surfer Ken and Big Boobs Barbie looking so cosy with their arms around each other, with golden tans and matching black swim gear. With the way the rocks hemmed in the sandy path, they had no choice but to walk within inches of where he sat, and he greeted them with a lazy, deceptively uninterested nod of his head.

Then, t
he moment their backs were to him, he sprang. He’d doused the ends of the towel in the right amount of chloroform this time, and quick as a flash he grabbed it and shoved it into their faces.

It still didn’t work instantly like in the movies, but between the narrow confines of the path, the shock of the unexpected attack and the way the victims were wrapped so closely together, they barely had time to struggle before the
solvent completed its work.

As soon as their bodies stopped twitching, he
pulled back the towel and checked their pulses. Still alive. Perfect.

He couldn’t help but smile. He’d got it
right on the second take, and after that was even able to get them into the bed of his truck with relative ease. Not that it was actually his truck.

The vehicle
rumbled to life with a quick twist and then he was on his way. As he drove, he wondered if he should find himself a theme song, something to play in the background while he worked.

Turning
on his radio, he selected a classic rock station, and turned the volume up as loud as it would go. He grimaced at the music; he wasn’t a fan. Rock had no finesse.

Then, distracted by
flashing lights in his rearview mirror, he turned off the radio, the wail of a siren filling the cab of the truck. Damn. The pickup truck he’d ‘borrowed’ was twenty years old and in no shape to outrun a police car. He had no choice but to pull over.

Damn it again. For
all of his carefully laid plans, he’d gone and got himself pulled over for speeding. He chastised himself for the rookie mistake, but some of his frustration faded as he realized only one police officer seemed to be in the car. Maybe the situation was still salvageable.

He watched
in his side mirror as the beefy cop exited his car and immediately reacted to muffled sounds coming from the truck bed. OK, so maybe he hadn’t got the dosage down as well as he’d thought.

The officer put his hand on his sidearm and cautiously appr
oached the rear of the vehicle. ‘Hello,’ he called out, ‘this is the police. Is there anyone under the tarp?’

Not pausing to check
underneath, the officer drew his gun and pointed it at the driver’s side window. ‘Sir, I’m going to ask you to please step out with your hands over your head.’

He
wished he had a gun of his own, but it had never crossed his mind to bring one. He wasn’t a killer, after all; he was an artist. That first attempt at the beach had been an accident. But he also wasn’t a quitter, and wouldn’t back down from an obstacle, no matter how tricky the solution.

Tenacity, drive, ambition – weren’t those qualities what
separated the mundane from the great?

The one thing the pick
up truck’s cab did have going for it was a wide, sliding rear window. It’d been open when he’d nabbed the vehicle and had since tried to close it with no success. Now he was thankful for the malfunction.

He started to open his door, t
hen with the cop’s full attention on that he grabbed the bottle of chloroform from his bag and, with just the quickest of glances to aim, tossed the remaining contents of the bottle at the officer’s face.

The cop screamed and gurgled as the chemical burned his eyes and throat, but the
man didn’t pay any attention. He had more important things to worry about.

He dropped the empty bottle into the truck bed, turned back around and put the truck into gear. The tires spun as he reversed and swung around toward the officer, knocking him to the ground. He didn’t hesitate as he drove forward over the
cop’s head, grinding it into the asphalt with a vicious turn of the wheel and a bit of extra gas. He knew that the area would soon be swarming with police officers and briefly considered finding a new location for the rest of his project. One glance toward the descending sun eliminated that possibility.

No time for any more mistakes.

Thanks to that son of a bitch now he was going to have to rush. And everyone knew what they said about rushing perfection.

The blond
cried and pleaded for her life as he yanked her off the truck bed.

He frowned, wishing he’d thought of gagging her when he’d hogtied her. Not t
hat her screams weren’t perfect; they really were. He was just afraid she’d wear out her voice.

He dragge
d her a half-dozen feet to a large tree he’d selected a few hours ago, leaving her there for a moment before returning with some heavy chain. He bound her feet to the tree, then removed the rope that connected her wrists to her ankles. She wriggled, trying to move her body, but the effects of the chloroform made her movements sluggish. He wrapped the second length of chain around her still-bound wrists and secured the other end to the hitch of his pickup truck. Taking a moment to eye up the length, he then climbed back into the driver’s seat. He inched forward, just enough to tighten the slack in the chain, and then stopped.

She was screaming uncontrollably now,
justifiably terrified and no doubt guessing what was going to happen. He really needed to put a stop to that noise though – she should conserve her energy. He’d be pissed at going to all of this trouble to make things just right only to have the main attraction screw it up by passing out from exhaustion before the real fun began.

The man
walked over to Blondie and crouched next to her. He leaned down and whispered in her ear, ‘If you care about that guy you came with, you’ll shut the hell up.’

‘
Please don’t hurt us,’ she pleaded, eyes wide and full of fear. He saw a bit of a spark in them too; a rebellion that meant she was a fighter, even when begging for her life. That was good. He needed someone who wasn’t going to just give up and go along with what was about to happen. ‘I’ll do anything you want.’

‘
I just want you to stop screaming.’

She quieted, the occasional whimper escaping, but he didn’t care about that. It didn’t take much energy to whimper.

Satisfied, he returned to his male victim. This one didn’t need to be gagged. The first thing he’d done after knocking them out was to stitch the guy’s lips together with heavy black thread. He didn’t get to scream at all.

He
was heavier than he looked though, certainly heavier than Blondie in any case, and fought like a crazed pig while being pulled out of the truck. All that flailing had sent the empty chloroform bottle bouncing around the truck bed. There were only a few drops left.

It took some shaking, but he got every last drop onto
the victim’s shirt and then pulled it up over the struggling man’s nose. Moments later, the guy passed out again, much to the man’s relief. This was turning out to be much more physically demanding than he’d anticipated.

Dragging
the guy up to the cab of the truck, he wrestled his deadweight body into the driver’s seat. In the back of his mind, he was very aware of time passing, knowing that any moment the mess he’d left back on the main road could lead to his discovery.

But again,
art can’t be rushed.

Using the always-useful duct tape,
he bound his victim’s hands to the steering wheel and his feet to the accelerator. The remote-controlled wireless webcam went on the dashboard. He turned the radio back on and frowned, wishing he had more time to find the right music to underscore the scene. But as so often happened to even the greatest, he was out of time.

He grabbed two wooden wedges from behind the seat and shoved them in front of both front tires. After making sure they were secure enough to prevent an accident, he put the truck in drive. As long as
the guy didn’t move, Blondie would be just fine.

Then, closing the driver’s door, he took out a cell
phone, leisurely dialing 911. When the operator answered, he spoke, his tone as frenzied as his expression was serene. ‘Oh man, I think he’s going to kill her. You have to send a squad car out here. Hell, send frickin’ SWAT. The guy’s beating the crap out of some girl – oh, shit, he just pulled a gun on her. And he’s making her – just hurry!’

He dropped the
cellphone on the ground and walked away, imagining what it would be like for the main players to realize what was going on and what was about to happen. They’d be so excited to know they were going to be such an indelible part of history.

He knew he was.

The man hurried on, wanting a front-row seat for the big reveal.

CHAPTER
1

EIGHT DAYS EARLIER

Reilly Steel parked the Garda Forensic Unit
van alongside the curb near an apartment complex in West Dublin.

A
nother day, another crime scene. She looked out the window to see that there were several emergency services vehicles parked outside the main doorway of the complex, and the area immediately around the entryway was cordoned off with crime scene tape. The building seemed to be part of a multi-use development of commercial units on the ground floor below residential apartments rising five or six stories high.

Getting out of the van, Reilly grabbed the
kitbag containing her dust suit and forensic toolbox from the back seat and headed in the direction of the doorway.

A
growing crowd of onlookers stood behind the tape, waiting for something to happen so they could post it up on Twitter or YouTube, she thought darkly, wondering why everything – including (and perhaps especially?) people’s misfortunes – needed to be recorded and shared around the world for entertainment purposes.

The
entrance to the building was understated: a large gray-framed door with frosted glass and a wall-mounted intercom on the right-hand side. The door had been propped open by a Garda traffic cone. Reilly hurried through the entryway and was struck by the pungent aroma of some kind of herb or spice – tamarind, she decided – likely coming from the Indian restaurant that had taken up residence in one of the commercial units.

‘
Reilly Steel, GFU.’ She offered her ID to the officer standing sentry at the lift.