Taboo by Casey Hill Read Free Book Online Page B

should use the man’s sentiments to sign off his life.
    Oh well, she thought, putting the photocopy aside and picking up the phone to inform Jones of her findings, perhaps Redmond had studied psychology during his college days or something.
    Suddenly, Reilly sat up rigidly in her seat, an icy shiver traveled along her spine. Damn, how could she have missed it, she thought, frantically scrambling around on her desk for a case file.
    She was wrong in her thinking that she hadn’t come across Freud in a while; she had – very recently. And if she thought about it, way too coincidentally. Reilly scanned rapidly through the crime-scene photos until she found the one she was looking for.
    And there it was.

5
     
    The cop was waiting for her outside Clare Ryan’s apartment.
    He stood up straight as she approached, as though a tough drill sergeant had just come on deck. ‘Bit unusual this, if you don’t mind me saying – especially at this time of night.’
    Reilly smiled at him. ‘Sorry to call you out so late – there’s just something I needed to check.’
    Carefully selecting the right key, he unlocked the door to the apartment. ‘Don’t mind at all, to be honest – much more interesting than sitting around waiting to be called out for the next drunken fight.’
    Reilly stepped into the apartment, the uniform right behind her. The place was dark, long lines of shadows and light came in from the tall windows and altered the perspective in a disconcerting way. She hesitated slightly, wondering why being here now should feel so different from before, especially as the victims were gone and the initial horror had since dissipated. Of course, the death scene always seemed less threatening by daylight, but Reilly suspected that the disquiet she felt at the moment was rooted in something other than the dark. Now she was aware she’d missed something important the first time round, her senses had automatically gone up a notch and it almost felt as though a third party (the killer … the victims even?) was there with her urging her forward.
    Or taunting her.
    The cop flicked the lights on and right away the atmosphere changed. Trying to regain her composure, Reilly headed straight for the bedroom, her companion a respectful couple of paces behind her. She reached inside and, finding the light switch, flicked it on.
    In the harsh light the scene looked almost as gruesome as it had when she first saw it. The bodies had gone but the blood splatter on the wall, now dark and dry, looked even more horrific. And the smell – that distinctive scent of blood, brains and death – still hung in the air, a brutal assault on Reilly’s sensitive nose.
    She stood still for a moment, taking it all in, trying to picture the scene – not as she had before with just Clare and the man, but this time with someone else – perhaps a third party there in the room, and the uneasy knot in her stomach returned.
    Concentrate, she told herself.
    Putting aside her fears, Reilly took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to let her senses take over, trying to imagine it afresh – this time with someone else in the room.
    First the killer shoots Clare in the chest, while the boy does what – just lies there, quiescent? She struggled to figure out how he had restrained them. Then, as Clare lay dying, gasping out her last few breaths with a hole in her chest, he turns the gun on the boy and splatters his brains across the wall.
    Reilly gradually shook those thoughts from her mind and approached the bedside table – the reason she had come back.
    Kneeling down, she carefully scanned the books lined up neatly on the table. She bent closer to examine the pile and still couldn’t believe she’d missed it first time round. But now that she was aware, it was screaming at her.
    Out of all the books on the bedside table, it was the only one that wasn’t covered in blood splatter, which meant that it must have been put there after Clare and her