Hidden ( CSI Reilly Steel #3) (37 page)

‘
Do you have that power?’

She looked at
Jacobs. ‘Yes.’

For the first time, she could hear warmth in McAllister’s voice.
‘Your name suits you. I hope you can give some of that steel to my children. Help prepare them for the challenges out there.’

‘Mr McAllister,’ Reilly continued.
‘Could we talk in person? I can come to you now if you’d like?’

Jacob
s’ eyes widened. That last bit hadn’t been his suggestion.

T
here was a long silence. Finally McAllister’s radio crackled back to life. ‘No commitments, no promises. Just talk – and come alone this time.’

She nodded. ‘I promise
. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Just give me time to get my coat.’

‘
I’ll be looking out for you.’ With that, McAllister disconnected.

Reilly looked at Steve.
‘OK?’

He shook his head
reluctantly. ‘I don’t know. You’re sort of doing my job for me, but … his defenses are definitely down at the moment, so it might be best to roll with what he wants, at least for the moment.’

‘So what do I say?’ Reilly asked, already regretting her impulsiveness.

‘Like McAllister said, no commitments, no promises, just talk.’

‘About what?’

‘
He’s starting to move forwards,’ replied Jacobs, ‘thinking about leaving. You have to help him to find a way to voluntarily walk out of there.’

She nodded. ‘That’s what I’m hoping.’

‘Just remember he sounded vulnerable, and that combined with liquor and firearms is a toxic mix.’ 

She gave a watery smile. ‘
Jeez, thanks for putting my mind at ease…’

Steve
grabbed a mobile phone off the counter top. ‘Trust me. You’ll be fine, he’s already opened up to you. Take this and try and keep us updated as much as you can. We’ll have a team in place to act quickly if things get sticky.’

Reilly slipped the
phone into her pocket. She knew what she needed to do, her FBI hostage training had taught her a few things about situations like this.

She knew the golden rules
: keep him talking and observe. Then she went through a checklist of what she needed to do once inside: establish the children’s whereabouts, draw a mental picture of the layout of the room, and assess the weaponary and threat level posed by McAllister. And most importantly, keep all communication lines open.

She sighed. If McAllister didn’t kill her, O’Brien surely would.

It had been a long time since she’d had to draw on this part of her training, and even then it was more geared towards hostage-takers with specific demands. McAllister seemed different, his only demand was a simple ‘leave us alone’.

She
glanced at her watch. ‘It’s after seven thirty. I’ll try and call in by eight, whatever happens.’

‘OK,
I’ll be waiting. Be safe – and remember, Reilly, you don’t have to resolve this now, tonight,’ Jacobs told her. ‘It’s enough to just get McAllister thinking about it, and talking about how to end it. Drawing him out of his fantasy is a major first step. Keeping him there is another.’

She gave a
grimace. ‘I’ll  see what I can do.’

Chapter 37

Lucy looked around the empty house. Given that McAllister was holed up in a completely different hideaway, it seemed clear that the attempted abduction of Jade Carney was not carried out by him, but by somebody else entirely. Someone who had been using the identity of a man that had died many years ago and had been spooked enough to take flight.

The GFU
had been called back to the house after the discovery of a burned-out van that had nearly caused a major fire at a local industrial estate.

Whoever had been living here was not coming back. The question now was
, how could they identify him?

‘
Where do we even begin?’ Gary looked over Lucy’s shoulder into the living room. ‘It’s like a timewarp in here. My gran used to have those ducks flying over the mantelpiece.’

‘
Everyone’s gran used to have those,’ Lucy replied drolly. ‘That still doesn’t help us figure out where to start. A fresh scene we can handle; there are usually some obvious things to start with.’

He grinned. ‘You mean like a body or
a big pool of blood?’

She shook her head indulgently.
‘Be serious for once.’ She picked up her tool kit, and headed towards the stairs. ‘I’ll get the upstairs.’ 

‘
Suit yourself.’ Gary stepped into the living room. ‘Welcome to the nineteen seventies…’

All was quiet in the house as
the forensic techs continued working in their own little bubbles, methodically examining each room, identifying trace and collecting evidence, hoping that something they found would help them to unlock the true identity of the person who’d lived there.

Ga
ry had started with the couch. He liked couches, they collected the detritus of people's lives – not just loose change and missing remote controls, crumbs and old tissues, but hair, skin follicles, useful things with DNA attached.

He pulled out the cushions and sta
red at the couch in disbelief. He had never seen anything like it. ‘Who the hell keeps their couch
this
clean?’ he muttered to himself in wonder.  Either the guy never sat on the couch, or he vacuumed it every bloody day of the week.

Dropping down on the floor, he peered under the couch – his other
favorite place for finding the debris most people left as part of the residue of everyday living.  Nothing. No old pens, no lost keys, coins or odd socks. This guy had the cleanest, most unlived-in home he had ever seen. 

Which begged an interesting question – did he actually live there, or was it just a useful address, somewhere to get his mail, to visit from time to time to keep up the appearance of living there
? Or maybe he knew to expect a visit and had had time to wipe it down?

Lucy was
experiencing a similar situation upstairs. The bathroom was immaculate, the bedrooms clean, the bed unslept in, not even a toothbrush or hairbrush to be found.

Like Gary she peered beneath the furniture
, in the backs of the closets, all the usual places where they might find trace. Whoever he was, he wasn’t leaving any signs of his existence.

She focused on
the bathroom again – her father would love it. Jack Gorman was fastidious about cleanliness in the home, and liked nothing better than a gleaming bathroom that smelled of bleach. He would be right at home here, she thought as she turned back into the hall. 

And it was right there and then
that something caught her eye. Was that a stain on the bathroom floor?

Lucy
paused, moved back into the room, and stared. Wrong angle.  She stepped back again, paused in the doorway, and this time she could see it. A faint shadow of a stain on the tiles. She dropped to her knees and sniffed.  The smell of bleach was especially potent in the flooring.

‘
Nice view.’ 

Lucy peered over her shoulder
at Gary who had come up the stairs.

‘
Stop gawking at my ass and hand me the luminol,’ she ordered.

‘Think
you’ve got some blood?’  Gary pulled out the spray bottle and handed it to her.

‘There’s a faint stain, there and there,’ she pointed to the places she had seen, ‘and a strong smell of bleach.’

Gary watched as she sprayed luminol across the floor, up the tiled wall and the side of the bath. 

As the fine drops of liquid settled they stared – slowly but surely, in several places on the wall, a bluish luminescence glowed in the brightly lit bathroom, the tell-tale sign of blood.

‘Camera.’

Gary handed it to her, and she took several pictures of the gleaming patches before the luminescence faded.  Finally she stood up and handed him the camera.

H
e scanned back through the shots she had just taken.‘Well spotted.’

Lucy
smiled, quiet satisfaction on her face. ‘If that isn’t blood spatter, I don't know what is…’

As they said it, the implica
tion sunk in for both of them. Gary met her eye.  ‘Better call it in. I’ll go check the rest.’

While Lucy was on the phone, Gary got out a
stepladder and positioned it on the landing beneath the hatch to the attic. He climbed halfway up, and took out his dusting kit. Setting up a tool tray on top of the stepladder, he placed dark fingerprint powder, a brush, some print tape and a knife into the tray. Then he gently dipped the brush into the powder and used light, short brushstrokes to apply the dust to the door.

‘
You beauty …’

A
lmost immediately several good fingerprints started to appear as the powder stuck to the oil and grease left behind by whoever had been accessing the attic.

There were lots of them too;
the attic had obviously been frequently used. Unusual in itself, perhaps.

He took the tape and cut several strips
, placing them over the fullest prints collecting as many variations as possible before storing the samples away in his kitbag.

Then he climbed a little higher and placed two hands squarely onto the hatch itself, not sure if it opened up or down.

He pressed against the door as one edge lifted and the other stayed fixed on a hinge,
then pushed the door all the way until it stayed upright on its own. Inching higher on the ladder, he twisted his body so he could reach the inner ledge and stuck his head though the attic opening.

The first thing th
at struck him was a musty smell; the odor of long-dead mice he thought, unable to see a thing in the darkness. As his eyes adjusted he reached for his pocket torch, lifting it up while using his other hand to keep his balance on the ladder.

Flicking on the beam, he reeled back in terror. His
heart pounded in his chest and his heavy breathing through the dust mask caused a mixture of sweat and condensation to build up around his mouth and nose.

What the fuck…?

Dozens of eyes were staring back at him.

Chapter 3
8

Reilly could feel the butterflies in her stomach as she made her way down the laneway towards the old smelting house. The van had been ordered, but would wait by the trailer until she called and okayed it. 

While
everything sounded good in theory, she knew from her previous conversation with McAllister that he had an ever-changing grip on reality, so she only hoped that by the time she got there, he wouldn’t have changed his mind about talking to her in person.

No, Reilly thought, dismissing any doubts. She would convince him, she was confident of that. The children were going to come out safe and sound, and she was going help to reunite them with their families. 

She
moved past the last turn before the gate, and just as she did so, something in the darkness caught her eye, a movement. 

A man darted from the bushes and sca
mpered across the muddy ground onto the driveway. His camera bounced against his chest as he ran.

‘
Who the hell are you?’ Reilly demanded, her voice a low hiss. 

He hel
d his hand out. ‘Paul O’Connor.
Sunday News
.’

Reilly
’s heart thumped. ‘I don’t give a damn which rag you work for, you shouldn’t be here!’

He shrugge
d, as if such abuse was part of the job.

‘Get out of here now!
You’ll ruin everything ...’ Reilly shoved him away to the side, out of view, terrified of the implications. Had McAllister seen him?

If he had
, what would he do? She pulled out her phone to call Jacobs – the best thing to do was try and get rid of the photographer.

She pressed the
call button, all the while berating O’Connor. ‘Get the hell out of here –
now
,’ she repeated hoarsely. ‘Do you hear me?  Better get out of my sight if you don’t want to spend the next seventy-two hours in a jail cell.’

‘
Oh come on, give us a break …’

‘For Christ
’s sake, there are
children
involved here!’

It was as far as Reilly got – one glimpse at the guy’s face told her that
her plans for a smooth resolution had already gone to hell. She looked round –  standing in front of them was David McAllister, his shotgun pointing right at them.