The Watched (CSI Reilly Steel #4) (14 page)

She stopped, her cursor hovering over a link to a video
clip, debating whether or not she wanted to do this.

No, she didn’t, but someone had to.
Reilly clicked on it and waited as the video loaded, a chill settling deep into her bones. Again, something had been niggling at the back of her brain since she’d heard the horrific details of Holly’s death, and now she thought she understood why.

Her roommate
in her Quantico freshman year, Ellen, had been obsessed with horror movies. Reilly had tried to avoid them as much as possible. With her past, she didn’t need a horror movie to tell her just how twisted the world could be.

But d
espite the care she’d taken to switch off as much as possible, there had still been times when she took in the odd showing. A piece from one particular movie – a clip of which she was about to click on now – had happened to be on during one of those times.

At the time,
Reilly remembered being mildly repulsed by the movie, but it had seemed so far-fetched that it hadn’t bothered her as much as some of the others Ellen had watched.

The internet video had finished loading and
started playing. As a chained-up woman struggled and called out for help, Reilly couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the blond actress in the movie and the late Holly Young.

‘Damn,’
she whispered, every hair on her body standing on end.

Images
mixed in her head. The photographs from Alice Young’s house interchanging with the face of another, more familiar, little blond girl. The violence of a young woman being torn asunder. The blood pooling on the floor beneath Reilly’s own mother’s body. The actress’s screams emanating from the computer . . .

Reilly
let out a shaky breath and squeezed her eyes shut. As she’d been told to do when the memories came knocking, she repeated the little poem her shrink Dr Kyle had taught her years ago.

‘. . . L
ay you down and take your rest; Forget in sleep the doubt and pain; And when you wake, to work again . . .’

The words and rhythm soothed her, helped her collect herself, and she opened her eyes. Her mind cleared and she could focus again.
She knew well that her mind’s greatest asset was also its greatest weakness.

She had an eye for detail, a brain that processed information in a way that most people couldn’t understand. The downside to that was that it was often hard for her to turn her brain off, to move beyond a problem before it was solved.

When something particularly bad stuck, it was nearly impossible for her to get it out. Dr Kyle had understood that in a way no one else had. After numerous hits and misses with various treatments, finally the solution presented itself. Give the brain something else to ruminate on and it would let go of whatever it had been holding on to. Hence her decision to go into crime scene work, where there was something to think about, something to puzzle over, every waking hour.

She muted the volume
on the laptop and, after taking a deep breath, let the movie clip play through one more time.

‘A killer with a taste for the dramatic . . .’ Todd’s assessment of the murder scenes popped into her brain once again. That was an understatement.

Reilly
wasn’t entirely sure how much to tell them, or even how to do it. Part of her wanted to protect anyone from ever having to see what she’d seen. Just the memory of it was enough to make her feel nauseated all over again.

She’d
avoided Daniel for most of the day, heading out for a ten-mile run on the beach when she heard him arrive back from the grocery store, then taking her time in the shower, wishing she could wash away the memory of what she’d seen as easily as she could the sand and sweat.

She’d told
him that after her shower she was going to take a nap, blaming residual jet lag. She wasn’t sure if he’d believed her, but it was either that or try to keep her expression under control and she didn’t think she was that good an actress. She needed to tell him and Todd at the same time. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have to have once, let alone twice.

Despite her claim,
Reilly didn’t nap at all; she couldn’t have even if she’d wanted to. Instead, she spent the hours before Todd was due to arrive examining the video clip for anything that may have been missed. A notebook lay next to her, filled with her scrawling script. Questions. Observations. Details. So far, not much else that could help. This killer was definitely meticulous in his staging.

Only after she heard a car pulling into the driveway did she emerge from the bedroom, hoping she
looked disheveled enough to allay any suspicions that might distract them.

She set
the laptop and notebook on the coffee table and sat on the couch, tucking her feet underneath her. The smell of reheated Cuban food was almost enough to tempt her. Unfortunately, her mind was still too filled with the gruesome images she’d seen to consider eating.

‘
Anything new?’ The question was out of Daniel’s mouth before Todd shut the front door behind him.

For once, Todd didn’t take offense at his father’s brusque tone.
‘We finally got a hold of the 911 call reporting the first murders.’ He took the beer Daniel offered him, looking like he needed it. ‘Male, nothing really unique about his voice. Sounds in the background indicate that the call was made near the crime scene, which fits with the scenario the caller described. Problem is . . .’

‘
Because it was a burner, it looks more like the killer actually placed the call.’ Daniel finished the statement.

‘
Exactly.’ Todd gulped down half of the beer before continuing with a quick summary of everything they’d learned. It didn’t take long.

Reilly
waited until Todd was finished before she spoke. ‘I found something.’ Her voice was quiet.

‘You tracked down suppliers for
the cameras? That was fast,’ he said, eyes widening in surprise.

Reilly
shook her head and took a deep breath. She spoke slowly, choosing each word carefully. ‘I wasn’t sure how exactly to tell you this other than to just come out and say it. There’s this slasher horror movie from 1986, called
The Hitcher
. At one point, a female character is chained between two trucks.’

The expressions on Todd and
Daniel’s faces told her that they immediately understood the significance, and she forced herself to continue. ‘At first I thought maybe the killer got the idea from the movie.’

‘
At first?’ Todd echoed, nearly choking on the words.

‘
In the original film, the camera pans away when the trucks . . .’ Reilly swallowed, fighting down the sour taste in the back of her throat. ‘The clip I found online, there’s a cut from the movie to . . .’ She forced the words out, ‘There’s a cut to the filmed murders.’

She watched as her words registered. The color drained from the faces of both father and son, and she saw her own nausea reflected on their faces. She twisted her fingers together almost to the point of pain and wait
ed for the men to say something, though she had some idea of how they must be feeling.

Earlier, when she’d played back that short clip from the movie, she’d spotted another in the listing below, the part where viewers who liked this also liked that. It was titled ‘Extended Cut’. Playing this one,
the familiar camera pan away that happened in the movie abruptly stopped, to be replaced with something that looked far too real to be fake.

Reilly
had bolted from her seat, tossing the laptop aside. She’d barely made it into the bathroom before her lunch made a reappearance. It was one thing to see the aftermath of a horrific crime, but quite another to watch it in full Technicolor.

She
had remained sitting on the cool tiled floor while screams echoed from her laptop speaker, each one piercing through her head. No matter how talented the actress, there was always a quality that couldn’t be faked, something that couldn’t be held back at that moment when screaming was all that could be done, when it was no longer a conscious choice but an involuntary reaction.

While the first glimpse had told her what she needed to know, she
still had to play it again to really see exactly what was there. And there it was again. Where the original clip had panned away from the victim, the film had been spliced with video of Holly Young’s death intercut with her boyfriend Aaron’s.

The difference in quality of film alone told her that the original film and the new material had been shot with different equipment, decades apart.

‘You’re telling me,’ Daniel said, his voice hoarse, ‘there’s a video online where people can actually watch Holly . . .’ He stood abruptly and Reilly wondered for a moment if he was going to be sick.

‘
It’s not just her, either.’ She forced herself to keep going. ‘I suspected that if the killer had set up the first scene as some kind of homage to a well-known movie, maybe he’d done the same with the second one.’ She opened her laptop. While horrific in and of itself, this was going to be the easier of the two clips for the Forrests to watch. ‘This was just posted online yesterday. The original movie’s called
Deep Red
.’

Reilly
didn’t watch the clip as it played through. She didn’t need to. The images she’d seen today would be replaying through her mind enough on their own. She kept her eyes on Todd’s face. She didn’t know enough about the second murder to be one hundred percent certain that the details matched.

Todd uttered a low
curse and her heart clenched. ‘I’m guessing that means I was right? That’s the most recent victim?’

‘
Down to the fucking heating coil in the tub.’ Todd slumped back in his seat. ‘The son of a bitch isn’t just imitating movies, he’s adding to them.’

CHAPTER
15

‘Fuck,’ Bradley spat.

‘
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I said.’ Todd leaned back in the office chair the following morning. He rubbed his hand over his face, eyes bloodshot and burning from lack of sleep.

He’d considered calling Bradley immediately after
Reilly had shown them the videos last night, but had ultimately decided that he’d need a clearer head to be able to explain the significance of what she’d found, and how best to pass the information on to the investigative team without stepping on toes.

He hadn’t gotten much sleep though, his conversation with
Reilly running round and round in his head. Finally, he’d given up and called Bradley from the car and met his superior at the lab before anyone else arrived. An empty bottle of energy drink sat next to his computer.

‘
You do know the DA’s going to have our asses if they find out where this information came from,’ Bradley said as he sat down. He held up a hand when Todd opened his mouth to speak. ‘I’m not stupid. I know you’ve been throwing your dad’s office a bone or two to help with his own investigation.’

Todd exhaled.
He knew where Bradley was coming from and normally he never wanted to be the one to bring in extra help, insisting that they could handle it themselves, but this was different. This was Holly. He was always just going to do what needed to be done.

He was also relieved in a way, too. The confirmation of the existence of a serial killer with such a gruesome and distinctive MO meant that it was a dead cert the department would be calling on the services of their on-call criminal profiler. Which meant that his dad’s office would soon be cleared to work with them, there would be more eyes and ears on the case and Todd wouldn’t have to worry about breaking protocol.

If everything his father always said about ‘Saint’ Reilly was true, there was a good chance she could be a godsend on this case. A part of him knew he’d been unfair to her the other night with that crack about her being his dad’s favorite. It was stupid and he’d been a little bit drunk, but the truth was he envied the unconditional respect and affection Daniel had always had for Reilly Steel right back from their academy days.

Still, that wasn’t Reilly’s fault, and
the fact was she’d been nothing but helpful since her arrival. Finding those video clips was a major breakthrough, no matter how horrifying and upsetting . . . Todd’s stomach clenched afresh. He looked at his partner.

‘About the videos . . .’

‘
Already thinking about it.’ Bradley was reaching for the phone. ‘I’m going to call Detective Reed to update him – and then get the Cyber Crimes Unit to try and trace the clips’ origin. I’m sure Peni will be thrilled.’

‘
Is there any way . . .’ Todd wasn’t quite sure how to ask the question. ‘Do you think it would be at all possible to get the murder clips taken down? It’s just, knowing that there are people watching . . .’

‘Let me talk to Peni and I’ll see what she says,’ his colleague assured him. ‘Don’t worry; this guy’s got no chance of getting an Academy Award.’