Jill Jackson - 02 - Voodoo Doll by Leah Giarratano Read Free Book Online Page A

these haven't been wet. And a vehicle had been parked off the road next to where I found them. There're ten butts in here. Someone waited there a long time, smoking, yesterday at the latest.' He shrugged. 'Might not have been them. But it probably was.'
    Jill stared at his profile as he scanned the tool shelves. Maybe Delahunt had just found their best bet for DNA from at least one of the perps.
    'Two saws missing.' He pointed his chin at the stencilled patterns.
    'Yeah,' she said.
    'You wanna check out the murder site?' he asked. Like he'd asked if she wanted to get a pizza.
    'Okay,' she said.
     
     
    Jill could physically feel Eugene Moser's suffering in the room in which he died. His blood shrieked from the walls, ceiling, floor, demanding the witness understand the horror he'd endured. She stood in a vortex with the screaming, turning slowly in the middle of the room, buffeted by each arc of blood, drenched in the pain.
    'The safe's through there.'
    Gabriel stood at her shoulder, and she started at his voice, pulled from the nightmare. She glanced around again. The room was every bit as grotesque, but at least it had stopped howling.
    The floor plans referred to this room as 'the media centre'. Ten reclining leather armchairs sat in two rows in front of a wall. On the ceiling above the wall, Jill could see a recessed opening where the screen must drop down. In the middle of the house, the room had no windows, and the doors sealed completely to shut out all light. The artificial lights rendered the scene somehow more garish. She could see no surface unmarked by blood.
    She followed Gabriel through the room towards an opening in the wall – some kind of door – which stood slightly ajar. It was the same colour as the wall and she could see no handle. Were it closed, she doubted she could have found it again.
    'It's not on the floor plan,' said Gabriel. He walked inside.
    The size of a large walk-in robe, this room had obviously housed the guns. Display racks were empty, their black bolts open. A small safe stood ajar, some papers scattered on the floor in front of it. A monitor at the back of the room depicted four views of the house and grounds, each scene changing after thirty seconds or so to exhibit another part of the property. On the screen, Jill watched Derek Reid walk into one of the quadrants; in another, two uniformed officers stood guard at the front door.
    'So this is a panic room,' said Jill, speaking her thoughts aloud. 'First time I've seen one. Except for that movie, of course.' She looked down at a computer under the monitor. Everything had already been chalked. She noticed the time display on the electronic equipment.
    'Shit,' she said. 'It's already gone twelve o'clock. We'd better get back to the library.'
    Gabriel was on his hands and knees. Was he sniffing the floor? Hearing her words, he stood and followed her out.
    Outside the media centre, Jill made straight for a set of French doors at the back of the house. She needed air that did not reek of blood.
    In contrast with the starkly modern media centre, this room held a chaise longue and several ornate cabinets full of trinkets. Jill opened the glass doors onto a pretty courtyard, sheltered from the rest of the yard by flowering shrubs. A semi-circular stone love-seat watched over a fishpond; two fat golden carp swam lazily. Jill followed their movements and saw that the pond flowed under a small bridge and out of the courtyard, apparently to a larger pool elsewhere.
    'This is pretty good,' said Delahunt.
    'Yeah,' she answered flatly.
    'At least one of them can't handle what's going on.'
    'What are you talking about?' She realised he was not looking at the fish.
    'Vomit.'
    'Huh?'
    'Here,' he said, pointing to a shrub behind the folded-out doors. 'Someone was sick.'
    On the ground, in the bushes, someone had thrown up.
    'Could have been one of us,' she said.
    'Could have been one of them,' he countered. 'Saw what his buddy did and couldn't take