by Casey Hill
‘It’s perfectly understandable.’
She looked out the window at the quiet streets below. A woman hurried across the road, her coat pulled tight around her as two young guys walked the other way. Everyday scenes from everyday lives, a million miles removed from what Reilly was facing – from what she was about to face.
She dabbed at her face again with the tissue, then wadded it up and crammed it in her pocket. Now the tears were gone, now she had released all the emotions that had built up inside her for so many months – or was it years?
Chris spoke tentatively, suspecting he was moving onto thin ice. ‘Why the hatred of you, Reilly? Why is she targeting you?’
‘Because she blames me. I was supposed to take care of her, I promised her I’d take of her. And, like Mom, I let her down.’
‘How? Because you refused to help cover up what she did? Why would you do that?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t really understand any of this. But – and of course I didn’t understand this as a child, but my mom … she had some mental health issues. And then Jess … well, her mind never really worked like anyone else’s. Daniel and I went over it so many times … him and Dr Kyle, my shrink back home, reckoned that she had all the hallmarks of a classic sociopath. I guess until now I never wanted to admit that. I made myself believe that what happened with my mom was just an accident, a rush of blood to the head but now, thinking about what she could have done to all these innocent people …’
‘What was she like afterward – when they put her away? Did she show any remorse or explain why she’d done it?’
Reilly stiffened. ‘I don’t know. She never let me see her. I was enemy number one after that.’ She thought back to all the times she’d tried to visit, tried to talk to Jess and let her know that no matter what, she was still there for her. But every time, Jess refused to come out and meet her.
‘I thought I could outlast her,’ she admitted to Chris. ‘But there was never really any chance of that with Jess. She was – is – the most stubborn person I’ve ever met.’ She sighed. ‘I went to CCWF almost every week at first, determined to be there when she changed her mind, but she never did. Then a couple of years later, I went away to college, and after that I guess I just gave up.’
‘This whole taboo fixation,’ Chris ventured. ‘That would be tied in with Jess killing her own mother?’
‘Yes, remember Daniel told us that patricide, or in this case matricide was the ultimate taboo – the highest form of depravity.’ Her expression tightened. ‘Looking back, all her life Jess was a little like Mom – always prone to sudden emotion, often liked to test limits and break rules.’ Still, to think she could be responsible for such violent acts, and so many gruesome deaths …
Chris stood up. ‘Reilly, you and I both know the top brass are going to want you off this now. With your sister a suspect, and your father a potential victim, there’s a massive conflict of interest—’
She bit her lip. ‘I know, but how can I just sit back especially when my dad is in danger? Not to mention that I need to find Jess, to try to get her to stop all this.’ She looked at him. ‘I know her better than anyone, Chris and, more to the point, it looks like she’s doing this because of me.’
‘I understand that, I do. But you have to think about the consequences, think about the families of the victims. You can’t work this anymore.’
‘But—’
‘Reilly, if Jess is doing this, when we catch her – and we will – we can’t risk compromising the prosecution. Every piece of evidence has a lawyer’s name on it, you know that, and if you continue with this, knowing what we know now, everything we’ve already worked for will be shot to hell. Christ, you’d never be able to work for the department again.’
‘I know.’ Reilly wanted to put a fist through the wall. Of course he was right but it was so damned frustrating. This was her family they were talking about! To think that she’d no choice but to sit on her hands and let someone else try and sort out the mess …
‘I’ll talk to O’Brien,’ she conceded, grudgingly and Chris seemed relieved, as if he’d been expecting more of a fight. But Reilly wasn’t an idiot and, maddening as it was, she knew the score. ‘But first, I need to go check out my dad’s place – there might be something, some clue as to where they’ve gone, or where she’s taken—’
‘I’m sorry, but I can’t allow that either.’
‘What? But it’s my father’s house—’
‘Which is also now part of a criminal investigation,’ Chris finished, solemnly.
‘You cannot be serious …’ But again, she knew he was right and his hands were tied. She wanted to scream.
‘I’ve already ordered a team over there to sweep the place – see if there’s anything usable, or more to the point, anything our friendly neighbor left untouched. Useless as evidence but maybe we can unearth something that’ll help point us in the right direction.’
Or establish whether or not Jess coerced Mike into leaving, Reilly finished, silently.
She looked at Chris. ‘Please don’t tell me Gorman is handling this,’ she asked as the realization struck her.
‘There was little other choice,’ he conceded, then put a reassuring hand on her arm again. ‘Reilly, no matter what you might think of the guy personally, he’s a good investigator, and anyway, he won’t be doing this alone,’ he added, referring to the team she herself had spent so much precious time training.
She looked away, feeling more helpless than she’d ever been. Possibly the biggest, most important crime scene of her life and she couldn’t run it. Instead she had to sit on her hands and rely on people for whom there was nothing at all at stake.
‘They’re a good group, Reilly, you should know that better than anyone.’
She gave a grudging nod.
‘Now you need to trust them and, more to the point, trust us to get the rest of the job done.’
‘I know,’ she conceded, hoarsely. But it was so hard to have to just stand back and do nothing. ‘As I said, I’ll talk to O’Brien – but on one condition,’ she added, firmly. He looked at her. ‘Just give me a little more time to go through the files, see what I can find—’
‘Reilly—’
‘Chris, please, just give me this much, not as a cop, but as a friend. All I’m asking is a couple more hours at the most. I know I’m off this; we don’t have any other choice. But I’m only off it once Jess is officially a suspect and right now we’re only working on conjecture. Just give me the rest of the afternoon, tops.’
‘Reilly, you know I can’t—’
‘You and I both know that occasionally things need to stay off the radar,’ she said, staring purposely at his left arm and leaving him under no illusions that she was referring to his illness. It was a cheap shot and they both knew it but Reilly was desperate.
For a long moment he stared at her, then he sighed and she knew she had him. ‘For what it’s worth, I think this a really bad idea.’
‘It isn’t and you know it. Let me look over the evidence one last time, see if I can give us anything that’ll help you find her. What you guys uncover yourselves after today has nothing to do with me.’
There was a long silence as she watched him mentally weigh things up.
‘Please, Chris, you owe me this much.’
‘We could both get fired over this.’
‘Not if we keep things quiet. Daniel won’t talk until you do and nobody other than the three of us know what’s going on – right?’
‘Well, I was just about to call Kennedy—’
‘A couple of hours, Chris, that’s all I’m asking, then I’m off it, I swear.’
He nodded almost imperceptibly and she breathed an internal sigh of relief.
‘You have until the team briefing at eight- tomorrow morning; we can all talk to O’Brien then.’ He reached for the door. ‘In the meantime, this conversation never happened.’
‘Of course. But you’ll keep me in the loop
, won’t you? I can still help – unofficially of course and—’
‘Reilly, as far as this thing goes, I think I’ve given you more than enough,’ Chris said, his tone steely. ‘Right now, I need you to let me do my job, so I can get out there and stop anyone else from getting hurt.’
35
‘You’re right, I should have told you,’ Daniel admitted.
It was much later that evening and he and Reilly were at her apartment sifting through what they had so far on the killings, searching for anything that might help them locate Jess and, by extension, Mike.
‘But I didn’t want to upset you, or indeed prejudice your handling of the case – not until I knew more. As far as I was concerned I needed to treat this as just another profile and leave my personal suspicions out of it.’
‘Which was why you so readily offered to help on the ground.’
‘Yes.’
While she could perhaps understand Daniel’s professional reluctance to say anything, personally she still felt hurt and somewhat betrayed by his actions. At the very least, he should have told her that Jess was out of CCWF.
As her tutor, he had been aware of her personal history, and having gradually drawn Reilly out and earned her trust, they’d discussed the situation throughout her time at Quantico. For her part, she’d been desperate to try and understand how her little sister could have committed such a killing, and the profiler in return had been fascinated by his protégé’s history and how it had shaped and perhaps even driven her professional life.
Not only that but, given her mother’s mental health issues, Reilly always worried if she might too might be genetically predisposed to some kind of psychological fragility in the way that Jess was. It was something that had haunted her every day since that horrific incident at Cassie’s house, despite Dr Kyle and Daniel’s assurances that this wasn’t a given.
What if some day, like Jess, some deep-seated malaise was triggered in her?
Reilly had always clung to the notion that her sister was not at heart an evil person, that her personality had instead been shaped by her experience, and the trauma of losing her mother at such a young age. But as Daniel had repeatedly told her, sociopathic or psychopathic personalities are innate and almost always rise to the fore, irrespective of family circumstances or outside influences. Still, it was a disturbing and unsettling thought.
She stood up and stretched her limbs, unwilling to dwell on that aspect just now. ‘I don’t know what Jess is trying to achieve with all this.’
He looked at her, his expression dubious. ‘Come on, Reilly, stop deluding yourself; you really have no idea what this is all about? The power play, the personal challenge, the family connection …’
‘I guess the obvious is answer is that she blames me. She blames me, on some crazy level, for what happened with Mom, and what she did. And she wants me to be punished.’
Your fault…
She slumped back down on the sofa. Despite the disconcerting thought that Jess was somewhere out there, watching her, stalking her even, it seemed unlikely that she would actually attack or kill her – if she had wanted to do that, she could have easily done it before now. Instead, the murders, the throwing down of a challenge to Reilly’s professional abilities … Jess was clearly trying to punish her in a very different way.
‘You yourself were the one who admitted Jess always had a simple sense of right and wrong. An eye for an eye …’
Reilly nodded. ‘And now she has Dad and she wants me to find them.’
He was silent for a moment before asking the next question. ‘And when you do?’
‘I really have no idea.’
‘The taboo fixation …’ Daniel ventured. ‘Professionally speaking, my belief is that this aspect of the killings is especially significant, given her history,’ he added.
‘I know. Even as a kid, she was always pushing limits, daring others to break the rules. It was like she got a kick out of it. Of course, there was no way I could have anticipated …’ Reilly’s eyes shone.
‘Of course you couldn’t. Who could? But tell me more about her relationship with your parents, as much as you can remember.’
Reilly sat forward. ‘As a young child, she always observed people, saw things and picked up on things that others didn’t see.’ She looked away into the distance, thinking back to their childhood. ‘She adored my dad though, that’s why I find it hard to believe she would hurt him now. They had a special relationship, different to the one he had with me after Mom left I guess, because she was the baby, the one we both needed to look after. It was why I was so sure it was only because of him that she hurt my mother – and her boyfriend – in the first place. She was trying to protect him.’
That had always been the thread of hope Reilly had clung to when trying to make sense of it all. Jess had only committed that horrible act out of love and loyalty to her father, who she knew had been devastated and betrayed by his wife’s desertion. But, deep down, she and Mike both knew this wasn’t the case; there was much more to it.
‘So why has she taken him now?’ Daniel asked. ‘Why bring him into this?’
She looked at him, noticing the change in his tone. He was trying to lead her somewhere. ‘You think she’s using him as part of this game, as a pawn of some kind?’
‘Think about everything she’s done so far. The killings were all about forcing people to do what is most abhorrent to them. Think about it, Reilly. What would be most abhorrent to Mike, or to you even?’
She couldn’t reply, couldn’t even comprehend an answer to that question. It was utterly beyond her realm of thinking – as was everything Jess had done.
She took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know, but either way it’s a disconcerting thought.’
‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘But she thrives on your discomfort. That’s a big part of what she’s doing.’
‘Challenging me? Being noticed?’
‘Yes. Chances are she knows that you’ve made the connection by now and that you’re trying to figure out what’s coming next. She loves that.’
The events of the past few days raced through Reilly’s mind like a DVD on fast-forward, images piling one on top of the other. ‘My apartment, the lab, my dad’s place – she’s been watching me for weeks, hasn’t she?’
‘I would think so, yes.’
Despite Daniel’s belief that Mike wasn’t in immediate danger, everything pointed toward another violent death – but whose? Jess had already shown that she could get to Reilly whenever she wanted to – at home, at work, seemingly anywhere. So if she had simply wanted to kill her she’d had ample opportunity.
No, there was more to it than that. The theatrical nature of the killings, the way she’d left the victims, all suggested that in her own sick way Jess saw herself as an artist, painting a grim tableau that told her own very particular story, in her own unique way. But what would it be? Even with this new information, coupled with the mass of evidence they’d accumulated, they were still no nearer to knowing what Jess might do next. She was still fully, totally, in control.
Reilly stood up and headed for the coffee maker. ‘I need a break.’ She suddenly felt exhausted. After all that had happened over the past few hours – days even – finding the right way to channel these powerful emotions and relive things that had happened so long ago was almost impossible.
But for her father’s sake, and the sake of anyone else Jess might have her sights on as a target, Reilly tried to tell herself that this was just another case, and she needed to treat it as such.
‘What are you thinking?’ Daniel asked, accepting the mug of coffee that Reilly had just made.
She sat across from him, and looked away into the distance. ‘If this really is Jess and she’s doing all this to challenge me, to punish me, why bring so many innocent victims into this? All those people, some of them just kids …’
‘Because that’s what you do, Reilly, that’s your strength. Your job as an investigator is to fi
nd as many pieces of a puzzle as you can, and help the authorities make the rest of them fit. For someone like Jess, it’s purely that – a game, and the morality of it doesn’t come into it. As to why she chose those particular people, well, I have a theory about that.’
‘You do?’
He nodded. ‘Detective Delaney told me earlier about the witness they’d spoken to, that homeless man who recognized the young college girl and the camper.’
‘Yes, Kennedy did mention they were looking at a possible charity angle – something that might help tie the victims together.’
‘Well, if you think about it, upon entering the country someone like Jess would have had to live under the radar, at least for a while, until she found somewhere to base herself. It’s very common for criminals entering new territory to align themselves with the homeless population. They have access to food, shelter and, for the most part, afford complete invisibility.’
Reilly nodded; it made sense. She’d been wondering where Jess had been basing herself, particularly when planning all of this.
‘Now if it’s established that those victims routinely went out of their way to help such people, then there’s a very good chance Jess may have come into contact with them, even briefly,’ Daniel continued. ‘Think about it, an attractive blond in her twenties begging on the streets? Certainly the type to attract more attention or pity than the usual junkie and alcoholic types.’
‘So you’re thinking Jess picked these people because they tried to help her?’ The suggestion was more cruel and even more horrendous than believing they were chosen at random.
‘Well, for a lot of people, helping others, particularly those in dire straits, is a form of taboo in itself. The majority of people don’t like to cross that particular social divide, mostly because they’re afraid to. Deep down they don’t want to be confronted with the reality that such a break from society can happen to any one of us. People like the young college student or perhaps that well-to-do businessman – who not only acknowledge down-and-outs but go one step further by engaging and actually trying to help them – are actually breaking a social taboo, albeit a very positive one.’
