CSI Reilly Steel 9, page 1
Last Girl Alive
A CSI Reilly Steel Novel
Casey Hill
Also by Casey Hill
SERIAL
VICTIM
HIDDEN
THE WATCHED
QUANTICO
ONE LITTLE MISTAKE
PRETTY GUILTY SECRETS
THE PERFECT LIE
LAST GIRL ALIVE
Copyright © Casey Hill 2022
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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.
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All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
About the Author
Also by Casey Hill
1
‘Shush,’ she whispered ‘You know how he gets …’
Cici’s stomach ached with fear and her heart hammered beneath her ribcage as she wrapped an arm around her sister’s shoulders and placed her other hand gently across her mouth.
All was still; the calm after the storm. The only sounds were the ticking of the old grandfather clock in the hallway, interspersed by low almost inaudible staggered sobs from the kitchen.
It was pitch dark where they were, but the sisters always felt safe in their cubbyhole beneath the stairs. The tight space and tapered ceiling was comforting.
Though three-year-old Emmy was growing impatient.
‘Me hungry.’
‘Mama said to wait till she called us. Here, take Blankie.’ Cici handed over the ragged old muslin that she typically teased her sister about, but felt grateful for now.
She pulled Emmy closer, laying her tiny head on her lap. Watched her twirl a fair ringlet through her finger and simultaneously suck her thumb as she clutched the blanket.
Then she strained her ears once again — the sobbing seemed to have stopped. It felt to Cici like they had been hidden away for hours, yet the noise of smashing dishes and vibration of furniture tumbling over, still rang in her ears.
He had been kind lately. It was so long since he’d needed to punish anyone. And they had tried so hard not to make him mad.
A stray tear ran down her cheek and dropped onto her sister’s hair.
Finally exhausted, Cici rested her head against the wall behind her and drifted off, praying that this time their mother had not been too severely punished.
Then she bolted upright. Had she slept for a second — or an hour?
The clock still ticked away in the hall, while Emmy’s breathing was deep and regular as her sister lay sleeping on her lap.
She still couldn’t tell if it was day or night, though the rumbling of her stomach at least told her it had been a long time since she’d eaten.
Gently, she eased her snoozing sister’s head away so she could edge towards the cubbyhole doorway. She knew that Mama had warned her to stay in here, yet something was wrong, something was … different.
Cici crouched through the small door and stood up — a dart of pain shooting through her as she uncurled and fully straightened her body.
It was dark out; the only light coming from the partially ajar larder door. She stealthily pushed it open, heart in mouth as she tried to be quiet.
The harsh bright of the florescent lights caused her to raise her hand to her face as she tried to make sense of the scene.
She’d seen him face-down and passed out many times before after drinking that nasty water. But this time, a dark crimson pool surrounded his form and there was something … a handle … protruding from his back.
Cici felt no urge to run and check on him; on the contrary, she felt some of her fear subside.
Then hearing a noise from nearby, she turned quickly to look for her mother, but instead saw Emmy’s eyes squinting in the light, as her baby blankie fell to the floor.
2
Sean Shaughnessy was not a man who scared easily.
He’d been swimming in the shark-infested waters of Dublin's criminal justice system for a long time, and represented some of the city’s most prolific criminals. His allegiances had made him very wealthy and feared by his Law Society peers.
So the house alarm alert on his phone was just a nuisance, but likely nothing more than that. Robber scum knew to steer clear of his gaff if they valued their kneecaps. The advantage of friends in high (or low) places, depending on your perspective.
Course there was always a chance of some random junkie or blow-in operating in the area, but Sean knew a couple of phone calls would soon sort that kind of thing without having to deal with cops or insurance companies.
Nothing to worry about.
He pulled up to the gates of his house and pressed the mounted buzzer on the right-hand side pillar, before the electronic gates started to open.
The external beacon was flashing, but the noise was low; meaning the alarm had been going off for over thirty minutes before switching to quieter volume so as to avoid breaking sound pollution laws.
Sean stopped his Jaguar F-type between the pillars, blocking the sensor beam to stop the gates closing.
Better safe than sorry.
If some chancer happened to bolt from the house, better to give them an escape route than have them trapped like a rat in a corner.
Switching off the car engine, he glanced up at the front windows to check for any signs of life, but nothing.
Still, an inexplicable wave of anxiety crossed his mind before he shook it off and prepared to make a dash to the door to avoid getting wet in the rain.
Key in hand, Sean went to put it into the lock and reached for the front door handle.
As he did, a brief spark of light flashed across his eyes, the skin of his hand seemed to become at one with the handle, and his body was wracked with instant searing pain.
The scent of burning flesh and melting skin were the last sensory messages relayed through his nervous system; accompanying violet spasms so severe they caused several of his joints to dislocate, before finally Sean’s heart stopped beating altogether, what skin remained melting on his fingers slid from the handle, and he slumped to the ground in a smouldering heap.
3
Detectives Chris Delaney and Pete Kennedy drove hurriedly along the bus lane, blue lights flashing and sirens blaring.
‘Out of the way, gobshite,’ Kennedy flattened his palm to the centre of the steering wheel, adding a car horn to the cacophony. ‘Feck’s sake, they could do with teaching some of these morons in the driving test how to respond to emergency vehicles …’ Glaring at the driver as he passed, he eventually manoeuvred the car onto the footpath.
Chris couldn't help but cringe upon seeing a hapless pensioner hunched over the steering wheel of the offending car.
‘Poor old divil probably thought you were trying to pull him over for using the bus lane,’ he said, steadying himself as the tyres bounced on dismounting the kerb. ‘Next left should be us.’
He indicated to a tidily landscaped South Dublin housing estate entrance; a large granite boulder with the name of the development engraved across the front.
A little way in, ambulance lights were already visible five or six doors up on the left hand side, and first responders walked sideways past a car partially blocking the entrance to the property that was their destination.
A uniform came to greet the two as they approached the house.
‘Garda O’Rourke - you might remember we worked on the Staunton case out in Howth a couple of years back.’
‘Ah, yes — how ar
O’Rourke grimaced. ‘Messy one. You might have heard of the deceased - Sean Shaughnessy? Criminal lawyer for the rich and infamous.’
‘Holy shit, Sean Shocks? They’ll be wailing in the valley tonight so,’ Kennedy said, referring to the drug crime stronghold on the Northside of the city known as The Valley, and where criminal defence lawyer Sean ‘Shocks’ Shaughnessy was something akin to a god.
The three men continued to talk as they walked toward the house, Chris zipping up his jacket to protect against the driving rain.
‘To be honest, we thought it was a domestic thing when it was called in by some fella delivering junk mail …’ O’Rourke moved though the gateway blocked by a brand new Jaguar, and the detectives followed; Kennedy’s amble girth necessitating a squeeze up against the soaking wet chassis.
‘Wouldn’t it be more in your line to get this thing out of the bloody way?’ he grunted as he (only just) cleared the gap between car and pillar.
‘It’s locked. Keys are on the victim, but to be honest nobody is inclined to go searching for them…’ O’Rourke stood to the side and indicated a crumpled heap outside the front entrance to the house.
Chris’s nose wrinkled and he instinctively put a hand to his mouth as he got closer. Even in this wind it was still possible to pick up the stench of burnt flesh.
And coming closer, it became pretty obvious why nobody wanted to seek out Sean Shaughnessy’s car keys.
‘Good Jaysus…’ Kennedy muttered to nobody in particular.
It looked as though a single key had somehow become fused with the victim’s right hand while others in the bunch had melted into his palm.
The lawyer’s body was face down in front of the door, legs twisted beneath him at impossible angles. It was a horrific spectacle and a new one for Chris, who at this stage thought he’d seen everything.
‘You said you thought a domestic accident at first?’ he looked dubiously at O’Rourke.
The officer nodded. ‘Power surge or something. First thing we did was go around the back to look for the meter box — see if it had tripped out maybe.’ O’Rourke led them back towards the rear of the house. ‘That’s when we saw this.’
A glass panel in the back door was smashed and the door itself stood wide open, while a mixture of muddy footprints and windswept rainwater coated the floor beneath.
Through the doorway, they could see back through the house and Chris spied an electric cable leading from a nearby socket to the front door; the wire crudely attached to the metal handle with duct tape.
For some reason the set-up put him in mind of that old Christmas movie, Home Alone.
Except it obviously wasn't the Sticky Bandits they were dealing with here.
‘GFU notified?’ Kennedy asked, referring to the forensic unit.
O’ Rourke nodded. ‘Yeah, Steel’s on her way.’
‘She’s back on the job … already?’ Surprise evident in his partner’s voice, he looked at Chris as if he had all the answers.
He nodded, unwilling to get into anything in front of the other officer. ‘Apparently so.’
The truth was, Chris hadn’t been a hundred percent sure she would come back to work so soon — the last time they’d spoken she’d been pretty adamant about it, but still …
‘Well, that car out front’s going to cause an ongoing access issue. We’ll have to move it somehow,’ he pointed out, shuddering a little as he thought again about those keys encrusted with melted human flesh.
‘Has anybody been inside the house yet?’ Kennedy asked.
‘We checked it out — all clear and nothing live - power-wise, I mean. Also flipped the mains switch; everything on the board was sealed down with duct tape to prevent any tripping out. Obviously, someone wanted to make sure he was hit with a full-on mains jolt.’
‘Get someone back there to look for a spare car key — the usual places, drawers hooks, or what-have-you. But don’t go too mad rooting around either — we don’t want to mess up forensics.’
‘And if we can’t find one?’
‘Make a call to Traffic, get them to send a transporter to lift it out or something,’ Chris suggested.
Multiple people tramping through a crime scene was an obvious GFU bugbear that everyone was keen to avoid.
But Chris couldn't help but wonder if Reilly would be as energised about this stuff as normal — since lately, that famous ‘Steel’ edge had been blunted.
4
You can do this. Nothing’s different. Just get your head back in game.
Reilly kept repeating the mantra, as inside the Garda Forensic Unit van, she went through the motions of putting coveralls over her clothing and readying herself for the first day back on the job.
She tried to click her brain in gear to initiate a broad-stroke sweep of her first crime scene in weeks.
Nothing was different. But everything had changed.
Outside the house, heavy gusts of wind swept the rain in sideways, but despite the air movement, the unmistakeable stench of burning skin assaulted her senses and the odour of charred flesh and excrement penetrated her face mask.
‘Better get the tent up first?’ her forensic tech colleague Lucy suggested from beside her, startling her out of her reverie. ‘With the weather and all …’
She struggled to shake out the brain fog. ‘Sure. Of course.’
As Gary, the other member of the team duly brought up the rear with the forensics tent, Reilly took a moment to look around, before resolutely ignoring the victim for the moment and heading for a side gate leading to the back of the house.
First things first.
‘Good to have you back, pet,’ Kennedy called out; his voice gentle as he came up behind her and she noted that for once, the older detective hadn’t greeted her as Goldilocks.
And so it begins …
‘Oh hey,’ she replied her voice bright. ‘I’d love to say it’s great to be back, but you know…’ she smiled tightly, indicating the ghoulish scene at the front door and then upwards at the rain and wind, which seemed to be getting worse.
Chris followed his partner and briskly greeted the GFU crew before approaching her, his face expressionless.
‘Straight back in at the deep end, eh?’ he joked lightly, as the wind funnelled sheets of rain down the side passage. ‘It’s more sheltered back here,’ he added leading her round to the rear of the property where a sodden uniform stood on sentry duty.
‘So, what have we got?’ Eager to avoid any small talk, Reilly looked inside the damaged back door; her gaze automatically scanning the area beneath the broken glass pane.
Chris, poised to take her lead, also launched straight into professional mode.
‘Apparent point of entry through the glass panel, as per footprints through the kitchen to the hallway. First responder went in to check if anybody else was inside, and to ascertain the power supply situation,’ he explained, indicating the electricity wires attached to the door handle.
‘Trip switches were jammed with duct tape, so it was the main fuse that blew in the end. Poor divil took a right jolt.’ Kennedy added, trying to shelter as much of his large frame as possible from the elements under the roofline. ‘Ironic really.’
