Taboo Read Online Free Page B

girl’s happy grin and lively eyes were a sad and stark contrast to the pale, lifeless cadaver in the bedroom.
    ‘Any photos of the guy?’ He looked up from his reverie and saw Kennedy watching him.
    His gaze scanned the photographs for any sign of her companion. ‘Who can tell?’
    It was difficult to match any of the males in the photos to the dead guy, given that most of his head had been obliterated.
    Kennedy studied the photos with him. ‘Once her ID is confirmed, it should make it easier to identify the boyfriend – he was probably a student too.’ He wandered over to the window, gazed out across the bay. ‘Who’d buy a college kid a swanky place like this?’
    ‘Good investment for the parents and they know their kid is living somewhere safe – or at least that’s what they would have hoped.’
    He and Kennedy would need to talk to Clare Ryan’s college friends and fellow students. Hopefully they’d be able to shed some light on who the guy was and maybe why he had done what he did. The obvious theory was that he was the jealous type. Clare had been a good-looking girl, that much was evident from the photographs. Slim, with big brown eyes and an engaging smile, chances were the pretty brunette had turned more than a few heads on campus and that might have pissed off Prince Charming.
    Or perhaps he’d been a previous Prince Charming and the guy had taken the break-up very badly. There were a few scenarios but no point in surmising at this stage, Chris thought, at least not until they found out more about Clare Ryan and her dead companion.
    The detectives headed back toward the bedroom, but found their passage blocked by one of the uniforms.
    ‘Sorry, I can’t let you in,’ the officer said, his tone apologetic. ‘No one’s allowed in for the moment.’
    ‘What?’ Kennedy frowned. ‘What are you talking about? Of course we’re going in.’
    The officer looked uncomfortable. ‘There’s nothing I can do for the minute,’ he said, giving a quick glance over his shoulder. ‘She’ll murder me.’
    ‘Who will?’ Chris asked. ‘Dr Thompson? She should be finished by now – she was almost done when I saw her a few minutes ago.’
    ‘No, not her,’ the uniform answered, ‘that new one from the crime lab – the American. She ordered everyone out and warned me not to let anyone into the room until she’s finished.’
    ‘Finished doing what?’ Kennedy asked, straining to see past him. Then his eyes widened as he caught sight of something through the doorway. ‘What the hell?’ he spat, turning to Chris in astonishment.
    They peered inside. Reilly Steel was standing in the middle of the bedroom with her eyes closed and her arms wide open.
    ‘Looks like she’s doing some kind of yoga chant or something,’ Kennedy snorted in derision.
    ‘That’s not it,’ said a young female crime tech standing nearby. Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘She does this all the time, draws on her instincts, uses her senses to see if she can recreate the scene in her mind.’ As she spoke, there was admiration in her voice.
    ‘Touchy-feely crap,’ Kennedy rolled his eyes.
    ‘I don’t think it is actually, Detective,’ the woman replied. ‘In the States her solve-assist rate was over 80 per cent.’
    Chris had read this somewhere too. While Reilly Steel evidently had some unorthodox methods, her investigative record spoke for itself. Still, he thought with a grin, there was no getting away from the fact that this ‘touchy-feely crap’ would raise a few eyebrows in this neck in the woods, and it clearly wasn’t going down too well with Kennedy.
    ‘Yeah, well,’ his partner muttered, ‘if she thinks the rest of us are going to sniff our way through this investigation, she’s got another bloody think coming.’
    ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ a female voice replied from behind him. ‘Besides, I doubt that whiskey nose of yours can detect much these days.’
    Realizing that Steel had left the bedroom