An off-campus party turns deadly for FBI recruits

I didn’t have much free time this week, so I selected a prequel. It was Casey Hill’s “Crime Scene – A CSI Reilly Steel Thriller.” As a prequel, it was a short story introducing FBI agent Reilly Steel.

We don’t get much information on her other than she is a tall, blonde, blue-eyed, under-30 California girl. Beneath the good looks, Reilly is strong, resourceful and extremely focused on a career with the FBI. She does mention that her mother was murdered, though it isn’t clear if the case was solved. Later, we find out that her father is a bitter drunk.

The story opens with Reilly arriving at the FBI training center in Quantico, Virginia. She and her roommate, Faye Williamson, are very different, but they instantly hit it off. They are assigned to Special Supervisory Agent Rob Crichton’s team.

One of the first activities is a five-mile run. Both women notice a good-looking man, and he notices them, too. Faye is impressed, but Reilly considers him a jerk. Later, the jerk, Jack Callahan, leads the class in VirtSim, then ruins it with rash behavior.

While studying a mock crime scene, Reilly discovers that her heightened sense of smell can give her insights into what happened. Crichton is impressed and tells her so. On the weekend, most of the recruits attend a party at an off-campus place where a classmate is “housesitting.”

Faye and Reilly arrive a couple hours late and just in time. It appears that one of the party-goers died when he fell or was pushed from a second-floor balcony. Being the only sober people there, the two women take control. One of the partiers is Jake Callahan, and he says he happened to glimpse two men arguing in the master bedroom. No one else knows who the dead man is or saw any other stranger.

To her surprise and pleasure, Reilly is asked to examine the crime scene. She and Crichton note several things the CSI team didn’t find, including a hidden “panic room.” Reilly’s keen nose tells her that the vodka bottle was actually filled with water, meaning that he probably wasn’t as drunk as he said.

Jake finally comes clean and tells them that he got a look at the taller man in the room. Now he’s afraid that he’ll be next. Crichton and the police chief agree that his team could be valuable to the case, so he asks Reilly, Faye and Jake to work as a team.

With Faye’s computer savvy and Reilly’s intuition, they begin to make progress. They learn a great deal about the owner of the house, the “host,” the stranger in black and the dead man. Each bit of information is another piece of the puzzle.

The homeowner, Barbara Smith, once worked for a wealthy businessman but left suddenly, bought a nice home and owned lots of expensive stock. Months later the businessman and his wife “adopted” a baby boy. He was the party host.

The dead man, Bill Williamson, turned out to be the homeowner’s former boyfriend. They decide that the stranger has to be a cop but have no way of finding him until Reilly’s amazing nose alerts on the odd cologne she smelled at the crime scene as belonging to Officer Ted Travers, Barbara Smith’s latest lover.

Once Chief Mayridge hears what they’ve found, Travers is arrested and quickly confesses to planning to rob Smith as an insurance scam. He fought with Bill but didn’t mean to kill him. Smith will be arrested when she returns from a cruise. Case closed.

As the class graduates, Reilly and Faye are ready for whatever the FBI brings their way. Now I’m ready to read one of Ms. Hill’s many Reilly Steel books.

AT A GLANCE
BOOK:
“Crime Scene – A CSI Reilly Steel Thriller”
AUTHOR: Casey Hill
PUBLISHER: CreateSpace
PUBLISHED: March 12, 2015
PAGES: 188

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