R iley said the only thing she could think of. "I'm…surprised you didn't send in the cavalry by now."

Grimly, Bishop said, "I wanted to, believe me. But aside from the fact that all the teams were out and hip-deep in investigations they absolutely couldn't leave, you had insisted you could handle the situation alone and that I shouldn't be concerned if you were out of touch for a while. Any of us going in blind didn't seem like the best of ideas. You're one of the most capable and self-sufficient people I know, Riley; I had to trust you knew what you were doing."

Almost absently, she said, "I wasn't criticizing you for not riding to the rescue, just sort of surprised you hadn't." Which told her that he himself was undoubtedly "hip-deep" in a case he was unable to leave; whatever she'd told him, Bishop tended to keep a close eye on his people and was rarely out of touch for more than a day or two during an ongoing investigation.

Then again, he also likely would have sensed it if she had been in actual, physical danger. Or at any rate had certainly done so more than once in the past. He was like that with some of his agents, though not by any means all of them.

"And, anyway, I'm all right," she said. "At least…"

"What? Riley, what the hell is going on down there?"

His question made her grimace half-consciously, because if Bishop didn't know what was going on here, she was most likely in very big trouble.

How on earth had she managed to end up in a situation deadly enough to cover her in blood and apparently trigger a short-term memory loss and yet still manage to conceal what was happening from the formidable telepathic awareness of the SCU chief?

Perhaps the memory loss had something to do with that? Or maybe the same thing that had triggered the memory loss had thrown up some kind of block or shield? She didn't know.

Dammit, she just didn't know.

"Riley? You didn't believe there was a risk of violence, at least according to what you said when you did check in. No suspicious deaths, no one reported missing. I got the impression you were half-convinced it was just a series of pranks. Has something happened to change that?"

Avoiding the direct question, she asked one of her own. "Listen, what else did I say?"

For a moment she didn't think he was going to answer, but finally he did.

"Since you arrived at Opal Island three weeks ago, you've filed only one formal report, and that one was seriously lacking in details. Just that you'd settled in, you had a reliable contact in the Hazard County Sheriff's Department, and that you were confident you could successfully resolve the situation."

Riley drew a breath and said casually, "The situation being?"

The silence this time was, to say the least, tense.

"Riley?"

"Yeah?"

"Why did you go to Opal Island?"

"I…don't exactly remember."

"Have you been injured?"

"No." She decided, somewhat guiltily, not to mention the blood. Not yet, at any rate. She thought she might need that later. "Not so much as a scratch, and no bump on the head."

"Then it's likely to be emotional or psychological trauma. Or psychic trauma."

"Yeah, that was my take."

Being Bishop, he didn't waste time exclaiming. "What do you remember?"

"Getting here—vaguely. Renting this house, settling in. After that, just flashes I haven't been able to sort through."

"What about before you left Quantico?"

"I remember everything. Or, at least, everything through the close of the investigation in San Diego. I got back to the office, started in on all the paperwork…and that's pretty much it, until I woke up here a couple of hours ago."

"What about your abilities?"

"Spider sense seems to be out of commission, but I woke up starving so that probably doesn't mean anything. I dunno about the clairvoyance yet, but if I had to guess…" She knew she had to be honest. "Not exactly firing on all cylinders."

Bishop didn't hesitate. "Go back to Quantico, Riley."

"Without knowing what's happened here? I can't do that."

"I don't want to make it an order."

"And I don't want to disobey one. But I can't just pack up and leave with this—this huge blank place in my life. Don't ask me to do that, Bishop."

"Riley, listen to me. You're down there alone, without backup. You can't remember the last three weeks. You don't even remember what you're there to investigate. And the abilities that could normally help you focus on and sort through undercurrents aren't available to you—either temporarily or permanently. Now, can you give me a single reason why I should ignore all that and allow you to stay there?"

She drew a breath, and gambled. "Yeah. One very big reason. Because when I woke up today, I was fully dressed and covered with dried blood. Whatever happened here, I was up to my elbows in it. One call to the local sheriff and I'd probably be sitting in his jail. So I have to stay here, Bishop. I have to stay until I remember—or figure out—what the hell's going on."

Sue McEntyre wasn't at all happy with the local ordinance that kept dogs off the beach from eight A.M. until eight P.M. It wasn't that she minded getting up early to allow her two Labs a good long run on the beach, it was just that big dogs—hers, at least—would have been happier if they'd been able to get out into the water a few times during the day as well. Especially during a hot summer.

Luckily, there was a big park skirting downtown Castle with an area complete with wading pond where dogs were allowed off-leash anytime during the day, so at least once every day she loaded Pip and Brandy into her Jeep and off they went, across the bridge and onto the mainland.

On this Monday afternoon, she didn't expect it to be crowded; summer visitors tended to be baking on the beach or shopping downtown, so it was mostly locals who used the park, and most of them for the same reason Sue did.

She found a space closer to the dog area than usual and within minutes was throwing a Frisbee for Brandy and a tennis ball for Pip, giving all three of them plenty of exercise as she threw and they happily fetched.

It wasn't until Pip abruptly dropped his ball and shot off into the woods that Sue realized a section of the fence was down and that the bolder and more curious of her two dogs had seized the opportunity presented.

"Damn." She wasn't too worried; he wasn't likely to head toward the streets and traffic. But neither was he at all likely to respond if she called him, especially since he loved exploring the woods even more than running on the beach and had perfected the art of going suddenly and temporarily deaf when his interest was engaged.

Sue called Brandy and clipped a leash to her collar, then set off in pursuit of her other dog.

One would think it would be easy to see a pale gold dog in the shaded woods, but Pip also had the knack of making himself virtually invisible, so Sue had to rely on Brandy's nose to find her brother. Luckily, it was a common enough occurrence that she didn't have to be told what to do and led her owner steadily through the woods.

This patch of woods was fairly uncommon in the area, consisting as it did of towering hardwood trees and fairly dense underbrush rather than the more usual spindly pines in sandy soil. But since it was also less than a mile from downtown Castle, it was hardly what anyone would have called a wilderness.

Sue and her dogs had probably explored every inch in the five years she'd lived on Opal Island.

Even so, she would have avoided the big clearing near the center of the woods had Brandy not been leading her straight for it. She'd heard the talk about what had been found there a week or so ago and didn't like the realization that what had seemed to her just an interesting jumble of boulders providing a seat to pause and enjoy the quiet of the forest now had a possibly more sinister purpose in her mind.

Satanism, that's what people were saying.

Sue had never believed in such things but, still, there was no smoke without fire, hunters weren't allowed in these woods, and why else would somebody kill an animal—

Pip began barking.

Conscious of a sudden chill, Sue picked up her pace, almost running beside Brandy along the twisting path to the clearing.

Anybody who would butcher an animal out in the woods for no good reason, she thought, probably wouldn't hesitate to kill someone's pet, especially if it was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"Pip!" Not that it would do any good to call him, but she was desperately afraid suddenly, afraid in a way she'd never been before, on a level so deep it was almost primal, and that terror had to be voiced in some kind of cry.

It wasn't until much later that she realized she had probably smelled the blood long before she reached the clearing.

She and Brandy burst into the clearing to find Pip only a couple of yards in, standing still and barking his head off. Not his happy I'm-having-fun bark, but an unfamiliar, nearly hysterical sound that spoke of the same primal fear Sue felt herself.

Holding the whimpering Brandy close to her side, Sue went to Pip and fastened his leash to his collar blindly, her gaze fixed on what was at the center of the clearing.

The seemingly innocent jumble of boulders was there, no longer innocent but splashed with blood, a lot of blood.

Sue paid little attention to the rocks, however, nor even noticed that there had been a fire built near them. Her gaze was only for what hung over them.

Suspended by ropes from a sturdy oak limb, the naked body of a man was only barely recognizable as such. Dozens of shallow cuts all over him had bled a great deal, turning his flesh reddish and, clearly, dripping down onto the boulders.

Dripping for a long time.

The ropes were tied around the wrists, both of them tied together and stretched above…above the…Except that the wrists weren't stretched above the head.

There was no head.

Sue turned with a choked cry and ran.

It took considerable persuasion, but in the end Riley prevailed.

In a manner of speaking.

Bishop agreed not to recall her, but he wasn't willing to leave that open-ended. It was Monday afternoon; she had until Friday to "stabilize" the situation—by which he meant recover her memories of the last three weeks and/or figure out what was going on here. If she couldn't do that to his satisfaction, she'd be recalled to Quantico.

And she was to report in every day; one missed report, and he'd send in another team member or members with orders to pull her out. That or come himself.

She was also to send the bloodstained clothing she'd awakened wearing to Quantico for testing immediately; Bishop would send a courier within a couple of hours to pick up the package. And if the results showed human blood, all bets were off.

"You think it could be animal blood?" she asked.

"Since you went down there to investigate reports of possible occult rituals, it may be more likely than not." Bishop paused, then went on. "We've had a number of these reports across the Southeast in the last year or so. You remember that much?"

She did. "But nine times out of ten, there's no real evidence of occult activity. Or at least nothing dangerous."

"Nothing satanic," he agreed. "Which is always the idea feeding local hysteria, that devil worshippers are conducting robed rituals out in the woods that involve orgies and sacrificing infants."

"Yeah, when in reality it's almost always either pranks or just somebody jumping to conclusions when they find something on the weird side while out taking their daily constitutional."

"Exactly. But once the gossip gets going, such incidents are blown out of all proportion, and fear can stir up real trouble. Sometimes deadly trouble."

"So I came down here to investigate possible occult activity?" Riley was still struggling to remember and still trying to reconcile the clothing and underwear she'd brought along with what sounded like a perfectly ordinary investigation—for her, at any rate.

She was the go-to girl of the SCU when it came to the occult.

"The possible beginnings of occult activity," Bishop said. "A friend and former colleague of yours got in touch. He didn't want us down there openly and, in fact, lacked the authority to ask us to get involved, but he had a very bad feeling that whatever's going on in Castle and on Opal Island is both serious and more than the local sheriff can handle."

"So I'm here unofficially."

"Very unofficially. And on the strength of Gordon Skinner's request and your confidence that his instincts were trustworthy."

"Yeah, Gordon has a rep for hunches that pay off. I always figured him for a latent precog. And he's not a man to jump at shadows." Riley frowned to herself. "I guess he got in his twenty and retired just like he planned. To Opal Island?"

"So you said."

"Okay. Well, Gordon's definitely somebody I can trust. If I'm here because of him, it's a cinch I've spent time with him over the last three weeks. He can fill me in."

"I hope so. Because you aren't there undercover, Riley. You haven't hidden the fact that you're an FBI agent. As far as the locals are concerned—including the sheriff, since you checked in with him when you arrived—you're on Opal Island on vacation. Taking some accumulated leave time after a particularly tough case."

"Oh," Riley said. "I wonder if that was smart of me. Being here openly, I mean."

"Unfortunately, I have no idea. But it's clearly too late to second-guess that decision."

"Yeah. So I picked the island for a vacation spot because my old army buddy Gordon retired here."

"It gave you a legitimate reason to be there."

Riley sighed. "And that's all you know?" His silence spoke volumes, and she hastily added, "Right, right, my fault. Should have reported in. And I'm sure when I remember why I didn't report in, there'll be a good reason."

"I hope so."

"Sorry, Bishop."

"Just be careful, will you, please? I know you can take care of yourself, but we both know investigations that turn up genuine black-occult practices or some other variation of evil go south more often than not. Usually in a hurry."

"Yeah. The last one involved a serial killer, didn't it?"

"Don't remind me."

She wasn't all that happy to have reminded herself, because that memory, at least, was quickly all too clear. She had come within a hair of being that particular killer's final victim.

"I don't like any of this, Riley, for the record," Bishop said.

"I know."

"Remember—you report some degree of success by Friday, or I pull the plug."

"Got it. Don't worry. I've got Gordon to watch my back, if necessary, while I figure out what's going on."

"Be careful," he repeated.

"I will." She cradled the receiver and stood there for a minute or so, frowning. Her headache was finally easing off, but although the pounding was somewhat muffled now, so were her senses.

She refilled her coffee cup, then rummaged in the pantry for the high-calorie PowerBars she tended to buy by the case. It was normal for her to carry at least two of them in her purse or back pockets at all times; if she didn't eat something about every hour or two, she simply couldn't function at peak efficiency.

Psychic efficiency.

Several of the other SCU members envied her the high metabolism that enabled her to eat anything she wanted—and rather astonishing quantities of it, at that—without gaining an ounce. But they also understood the downside. It was not always possible for Riley to eat enough or often enough during the course of a busy investigation to continually provide fuel for her abilities, and at least once it had nearly cost a life.

Hers.

She ate a PowerBar with her coffee and placed two more in the shoulder bag she had found. She checked the contents of the purse, just on the off chance that something unusual might trigger her memories, but everything looked normal.

She tended to travel light, so there wasn't much. Keys to her rental car and this house. A small pocket phone/address book. Tube of lip balm; she wasn't a lipstick kind of girl. Mirrored compact with pressed powder that was barely used, because she wasn't a makeup kind of girl either—unless the situation called for it. Billfold with cash, credit cards in their protective case, and her driver's license; her FBI I.D. folder and badge would be in her nightstand, or should be, since she was technically off duty.

She went and checked, and it was.

Returning to the main living area, Riley turned on the TV to CNN to check the date and find out if she'd missed anything crucial in the way of world news.

July 14. And the last clear, solid memory she could claim was somewhere around June 20, at Quantico. Paperwork at the desk, nothing unusual. Feeling a little drained, which was normal for her following the conclusion of a tough investigation.

And then…nothing but flashes. Whispers in her mind, snatches of conversation that made no sense. Faces and places she thought she knew but couldn't put names to. Feelings that were oddly unsettled and even chaotic for a woman who tended to take a reasonable, rational approach to life….

Riley shook that off and frowned at the TV. Okay, so she wasn't doing so hot. How went the world?

One earthquake, two political scandals, a celebrity divorce, and half a dozen violent crimes later, she muted the set and returned to the kitchen for more coffee.

Same old, same old.

"I can't just hide in this house until it all comes back to me," she muttered to herself. For one thing, there was no guarantee it would; short-term memory loss linked to some kind of trauma wasn't all that uncommon, but in a psychic it could also be a symptom of bigger problems.

Bishop hadn't needed to remind her of that.

For another thing, nothing here was sparking her memory. And she needed information, fast. Needed to have some idea of what was going on here. So the most imperative order of business was, clearly, contacting Gordon.

She took the time first to bag the clothing she'd been wearing and managed to find what she needed to construct a decent package for shipment back to Quantico. And she did another search through the house, this time looking intently for anything unusual.

Aside from the sexy underwear, there was nothing she considered unusual. Which meant that she found nothing to either answer any of her questions or raise more.

By the time she was finished with the more thorough search, she'd also eaten another PowerBar and her headache was all but gone. But when she attempted to tap into her extra senses, she got nothing. No deeper, more intense connection to her surroundings that was her spider sense.

As for her clairvoyance…

She was stronger with people than with objects, so it was difficult for her to be certain that extra sense was out to lunch when she was in the house all alone—

The doorbell rang, and Riley's first reaction was an intense suspicion that came from both training and a lifelong addiction to mystery novels and horror movies.

A visitor just when she needed one was not a good sign.

She took her gun with her, held down at her side until she reached the front door. A small clear-glass viewing panel in the solid wood door allowed her to see who was on her porch.

A woman in a sheriff's deputy uniform, no hat. She was a tall redhead, rather beautiful, and—

"I don't know, Riley. We just don't see this sort of thing around here. Peculiar symbols burned into wood or drawn in the sand. An abandoned building and a house under construction both burned to the ground. That stuff we found out in the woods that you say could indicate someone's been performing—or attempting—some kind of occult ritual—"

"Leah, so far it's just bits and pieces. And weird bits and pieces at that."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean something's not adding up."

The flash of memory vanished as quickly as it had come, but the knowledge it left her with was certain.

Deputy Leah Wells was her "reliable contact" inside the sheriff's department.

Riley stuck her automatic inside the waistband of her jeans at the small of her back, then unlocked and opened the door.

"Hey," she said. "What's up?"

"Nothing good," Leah replied grimly. "Sheriff sent me to get you. There's been a murder, Riley."

I t was one of the bloodier scenes she'd been called to.

With the deputies and technicians out of the way and only the sheriff and Leah watching from the path, Riley moved slowly around the clearing, concentrating on opening up all her senses.

It wasn't easy to focus with so many questions tumbling in her mind, but she gave it her best shot.

The smell of blood was strongest, and she needed no enhancement of that particular sense to tell her so. There was plenty of the stuff, after all, splashed about.

Directly beneath the hanging body were the boulders. Which, if one could feel playful at so gruesome a scene, could have best been described as a chair for a giant. Well, a fairly small giant, anyway. Because the "seat" of that chair, while about four feet wide and three deep, was only as tall as Riley's waist. But the "back" of the chair was close to seven feet tall, as wide as the "seat," and only about a foot thick.

It didn't really look like a natural part of its surroundings, Riley had thought the first time she'd seen it.

Ah—a memory.

She had been here with…Gordon. That was it. He'd brought her here not long after she'd arrived on the island, because—

"…and the boys thought I'd be the one to show it to, probably because of the stories I'd told 'em about my great-grandma being a voodoo priestess."

"That's bullshit, Gordon."

"Yeah, but they didn't know that. Big black man from Louisiana talking 'bout voodoo, who's gonna call him a liar?"

"I am."

He laughed, a deep, booming sound. "Yeah, but you'd call St. Peter a liar if he introduced himself at the pearly gates, babe."

"Let's not discuss my religious beliefs, Gordon. The boys told you they'd found the bones here? On this rock?"

"Yeah, right here. A circle of bones strung together on fishing line and layin' over an upside-down cross made out of—"

"Riley?"

She blinked and looked at the sheriff. "Hmm?"

"Are you okay?"

She wanted to swear at him for breaking the thread of memory, but all she said, calmly, was, "I'm fine." It was gone, dammit, the scene frozen in her mind as though she'd hit PAUSE on a DVD. And fading by the second.

"You looked sort of spaced-out there for a minute." He sounded concerned.

Standing slightly behind his shoulder, Leah rolled her eyes.

"I'm fine," Riley repeated. She turned her gaze back to the boulder chair. The seat was roughly the right size and height for an altar, she thought, considering it. The back would be an unusual feature for an altar—unless it could be used in some way.

She took another step toward the boulders, closing her mind to the bare and bloody feet dangling above them.

She was no geologist but recognized granite when she saw it. What she wasn't sure of, what was difficult to make out, was whether there were distinct patterns among the spatters of blood on the rocks, especially the relatively flat surface of the tall, upright boulder. Was it sheer carnage, or was there a message?

"Will you give me access to the crime-scene photos?" she asked the sheriff.

"Of course. You see something?"

"Hard to tell with so much blood. Using digital photos and pattern-recognition software might help."

"We have that," he said somewhat uncertainly.

Riley glanced at him. "If not, I have a friend at Quantico who'll take a look, quietly and quickly. No problem e-mailing him the relevant photos."

Jake frowned, but said, "I'd be okay with that."

She nodded and kept her attention on the boulders for another minute or two. It was a bit like one of those trick 3-D pictures, she thought; if you stared at it long enough, you saw—or thought you saw—something hidden within the confusion.

The question was, what was she really looking at?

She turned away from the boulders, still reluctant to concentrate on the body, and walked out about four feet. There was a faint white line on the ground. She followed it in a slow circle around the boulders. All the way around.

An unbroken circle, or had been before many police feet had trampled the area.

Riley knelt and touched two fingers to the white line, coming away with fine grains sticking to her skin.

"We're having that analyzed," Jake told her.

She glanced at him, then touched one finger to her tongue.

"Jesus, Riley—"

"Salt," she said calmly. "Ordinary, everyday table salt. Or possibly sea salt. It's supposed to be purer."

Leah said, "You knew what it was."

"I suspected." Riley stood up. "It's sometimes used in occult rituals. To consecrate the area inside the circle." An area which included the boulders, the hanging body, and the fire.

Jake was still frowning. "Consecrate? You mean make it holy? Because there's nothing holy about this."

"That depends on your point of view, really." Without giving him time to respond to that, Riley added, "A circle of salt is also used as protection."

"From what?" he demanded.

"A threat or perceived threat. And before you ask what kind of threat, the answer is, I don't know. Yet." She smiled faintly. "All this is only preliminary, you have to understand that. First thoughts, hunches, instincts."

"And no inside knowledge, huh?"

Riley felt everything inside her go still and chilled, but she held on to her slight smile and waited.

"I mean, if the paranormal is your thing, then you must know more than the rest of us about this sort of shit."

She didn't let her relief show, and acknowledged to herself that it was extraordinarily draining to keep up her guard and try to behave normally when she was constantly digging for memories, for knowledge, for answers.

And, more often than not, coming up empty.

Still coolly professional, on the outside at least, she said, "The paranormal as defined by the SCU has absolutely nothing to do with occult or satanic rites or practices. That is a totally different thing, not grounded in science but in belief, in faith. Just like any religion."

"Religion?"

"To most practitioners, that's what it is. If you want to understand the occult, that's the first rule: It's a belief system, and not inherently evil in and of itself. The second rule is, it's not a single belief system; there are as many sects within the occult as there are in most religions. Satanism alone has at least a dozen different churches that I know about."

"Churches? Riley—"

She interrupted his indignation to add firmly, "Practitioners of the occult may be nontraditional and their rites and habits blasphemous from the viewpoint of the major religions, but that doesn't make their beliefs any less valid from their own point of view. And believe it or not, Satan is rarely involved—even in Satanism. Nor is any sort of sacrifice, barring the symbolic kind. Most occult groups simply honor and worship—for want of a better term—nature. The earth, the elements. There's nothing paranormal about that."

Usually, at least.

"And the SCU?"

"The SCU is built around people with real human abilities, abilities that are, however rare and beyond the norm, scientifically definable." If only as possibilities.

He shrugged off the distinction, saying only, "Well, call it whatever you like, you obviously know more about this shit than the rest of us. So you think this is somebody's idea of religion?" He waved a hand back at the carnage behind him. "This?"

"I think it's too early to make assumptions."

Jake gestured again toward the hanging body. "That's not an assumption, it's a murder victim. And if he was killed in some kind of ritual, then, goddammit, Riley, I need to know that."

Still reluctant, she turned her attention at last to that victim.

Riley had seen corpses before. In war and in peace. She'd seen them in the textbooks, in the field, at the body farm. She had seen corpses so mangled they barely looked human anymore, destroyed by explosions or dismembered by an arguably human hand. And she'd seen them on the medical examiner's table, laid open with their organs glistening in the bright, harsh lights.

She had never gotten used to it.

So it demanded even more concentration and focus, even more energy, for her to study that dangling body.

Yet, at the same time, once she began studying it, she found herself moving closer, circling it warily. Absorbing the details.

He was naked and virtually covered in blood. There were numerous shallow cuts all over his torso, front and back, all of which had undoubtedly bled for some time before what looked to her to be the final cut and ultimate cause of death.

Decapitation.

Out loud, slowly, she said, "I'm no M.E., but I think the cuts on the body came first. That he was tortured, maybe over a period of hours. And that his head was hacked off while he was hanging here."

"What makes you sure of that?" Jake asked.

"The amount of blood on the boulders directly below him; it probably came mostly from the shallow cuts, and there's a lot of it. The spray pattern out in front of his body, on the rocks and on the ground, looks arterial to me. His heart was still beating when his throat was cut. I think somebody was behind him, probably standing on the tallest boulder, and grabbed him by the hair. Then—"

Leah made a choked sound and hurried back up the path away from the clearing.

Riley gazed after her, then looked at Jake and grimaced. "I forget some cops aren't used to this sort of thing."

He was looking a bit queasy himself but didn't budge. "Yeah. Okay, what else can you tell me?" He considered, then added, "If somebody was standing on that tallest rock and had to keep his balance while he—he sawed off a head—he must have held on to something. Or somebody else held on to him."

"It takes some strength to decapitate by sawing or hacking, even with a sharp knife or other tool," she agreed. "Especially with the vic's arms in the way so that he had to reach around them for at least the first part of the job. Keeping his balance would have been tricky." She circled behind the tallest upright boulder and studied the ground intently. "No sign of marks left by a ladder."

"Just don't tell me the guy levitated or something, okay?"

She ignored that. "Your forensics people have been all over this, right?"

"Like I said. Pictures from every angle and samples of everything."

At the side of the larger boulders, a cluster of three smaller ones made it quite easy to climb up onto the seat, and it was likely many a hiker in these woods had done just that over the years.

Riley hesitated only a moment, but since she had picked up absolutely nothing clairvoyantly, she had to conclude that all her psychic senses were AWOL. Touching the blood-spattered boulders was unlikely to change that.

Probably.

She drew a breath and climbed up onto the seat so that she could look at the slightly curved top edge of the back, unwilling to admit to herself that she was glad even the usual five senses seemed to be functioning at less than accustomed norms.

The smell of blood and death would have been overpowering.

It occurred to her only as she was standing there on the blood-spattered rock that she might well be wearing the same shoes—casual running shoes—that she'd likely been wearing the day before. Or the night before. She had awakened barefoot, but there had been no blood on her feet, she remembered that much.

What if there was blood on these shoes?

She hadn't thought to check.

Man, I'm losing my mind as well as my memory. Why the hell didn't I check my shoes?

"Riley?"

Pretending that her stillness and silence hadn't lasted too long, Riley rose on tiptoe in order to study the top of the tallest boulder. "If he stood up here, it doesn't look like he left any helpful traces."

"Yeah, that's what my people said. No marks from a shoe or any forensic traces at all. Including blood. All the blood went on the flat rock you're standing on or got splashed on the upright part of the taller rock, but not a drop hit the top."

"Odd."

"Is it? That rock's not really close to the body and, as you said, most of the blood on it is from drips that fell straight down."

"Yeah, but that's the thing. He should have struggled. If the body had been moving at all, I'd expect to see at least a few droplets of blood on that top edge."

"Maybe he was drugged."

"That's certainly possible." But why torture somebody who isn't conscious of what you're doing? Unless maybe the shedding of blood was the point…. "I assume you've requested a tox screen?"

"Definitely. The blood and tissues will be checked six ways from Sunday."

"Good enough."

Riley turned on the seat to study the body from this closer position, trying not to think about whether her shoes had had blood on them before she'd climbed up here. Because they certainly did now.

Since the body was hanging directly above the front edge of the seat, her position put her roughly at eye level with the small of his back. She studied the distance between the body and the tallest boulder, and said slowly, "Balance had to be a real problem, if the killer was standing up there. He also had to lean forward quite a bit in order to reach the vic."

"He could have pulled him closer," Jake offered. "At least long enough to get the job done."

"But then the vic's head would have been pulled behind the arms, and there's no arterial spray to indicate that happened. All the evidence says his head was forward when his throat was cut, or at least between his arms, not pulled back behind them."

Jake studied the body and boulder for a long moment, then cleared his own throat. "See what you mean. The doc says same as you, by the way—that the head was hacked off, front to back. Of course, by the time the killer was working on severing the spine…"

"He probably did have the head pulled back toward him," Riley finished. "But by then the heart had stopped, so the blood was no longer spraying."

She stood gazing at the body, trying to concentrate, to focus. But it was something other than deliberate thought that made her step forward and lift her arms, not touching the body but stretching upward to measure how high she could have reached.

As she did that, it occurred to her with cold realization that if she had been standing here, reaching up like this, possibly holding this man's body in a better position for his killer to cut his throat, blood would likely have spattered her clothing and hair and covered her hands and forearms.

All the way to her elbows.

The forensics people were back, carefully cutting down the body, by the time the search teams finally called it quits. If the severed head was in these woods, they reported, then it was buried or otherwise well hidden, and where there were signs of fresh digging the searchers had discovered only two beef bones and a rawhide chew toy.

"Oh, Christ," Jake muttered when that news was relayed to him. "You don't think somebody's dog carried off the head?"

Riley, who had just fished in her shoulder bag to produce a PowerBar, paused in unwrapping it to say, "I doubt it. A feral dog or a very hungry one, maybe, but somebody's pet would hesitate to consume human flesh. As a rule, anyway."

Jake stared at her.

"Cats will," Riley clarified after taking a bite. "Once we're dead, to them we're just meat, apparently. Dogs are different. Maybe because they're domesticated. Cats really aren't. They just want us to believe they are."

Leah laughed under her breath. "Cat person, are you?"

"Actually, I like both." She looked at Jake, who was still staring at her. "What?"

"Talk about jaded. How in the hell can you eat right now?"

"It's for energy." The new voice spoke matter-of-factly. "She has a high metabolism, Jake. No calories, no energy."

"I knew that," Jake said. "What're you doing here, Ash?"

"What do you think? I wanted to see the crime scene while it's still relatively…fresh."

Ash. Riley turned her head to watch him approach, again digging for memories and again finding none. Absolutely none.

He was about the same height as the sheriff, which made him around six feet. Dark like the sheriff. But that's where any similarity ended. In comparison to Jake Ballard's polished handsomeness, this man was almost ugly.

He had broad, powerful shoulders that seemed to strain the fabric of the very nice suit he wore, as though the covering were something not quite natural for him. His very dark hair was fairly short and not at all tidy, his chiseled face was deeply tanned, and his nose had been broken, Riley thought, at least twice.

He had high cheekbones, slanted brows that lent him a sardonic expression, and hooded, very, very pale green eyes that threw both danger and something enigmatic into the mix.

And where charm came off Jake Ballard in almost palpable waves, this man was radiating something else entirely. Something almost primal.

When he joined them, standing nearest Riley, he touched her lightly, his large hand sliding down her back to rest near her waist in a gesture that was curiously possessive.

"Hey," he said.

Riley, not a woman to be possessed, would have protested. Except that the instant he touched her, a hot shiver started somewhere near her toes and spread upward through her entire body in pulsing waves until she felt like she herself was radiating something primal.

Heat. Pure heat. And she recognized the sensation, even if the degree of it was rather astonishing.

Oh. Oh, shit.

She had taken a lover. Only it wasn't the sheriff.

"Hey, Ash," she said calmly, and bit into the PowerBar.

She needed energy. She needed all the energy she could get.

"I would have called you," Jake was saying to Ash. "But I knew you had court, so—"

"Postponed," Ash said, looking at the sheriff. "Besides which, murder ranks higher on the list of my priorities than breaking and entering. That case can wait."

He had a beautiful voice, Riley thought. Deep and rich and curiously fluid. Probably handy for a lawyer. Which, she assumed from the conversation, he was.

Jake grunted. "You usually work from reports and crime-scene photographs."

A prosecutor, I'm guessing.

"This is something special. Obviously." He had turned his gaze to the center of the clearing, watching as the headless corpse was zipped into a black body bag. "No idea who he is?"

"Not so far. We fingerprinted him first thing, but his prints aren't in the database."

"And no sign of his head," Riley said, feeling she would be expected to participate in the conversation.

"To delay identification, maybe?" Ash suggested.

Frowning, Jake said, "Take a look around you. If somebody just wanted somebody else dead and not identified, leaving a headless corpse in a ditch or thrown into the ocean makes sense. But left in a fairly public area, strung up and tortured over an altar and inside a circle of salt?"

"Salt?"

"It's used in some occult rituals," Riley said.

Ash looked at her. "Yesterday you seemed pretty sure that whatever's going on around here had nothing to do with the occult."

Oh, shit. Was that a professional opinion, or just pillow talk? And would I have told you the truth, whatever I believed?

Not that she could ask, of course.

Instead, calmly, she said, "Well, that was before this happened. And Jake's right—this is a very public way to leave a murder victim if all the killer wants is to delay identification. Whether or not it's some kind of occult ritual, I can't say. Yet, anyway."

One of his slanted brows rose. "So Jake asked you for help? Officially?"

"Not exactly. Not officially."

"She has resources I don't, Ash," Jake said.

"She's on vacation."

"I'll make sure she doesn't lose vacation days helping with this."

"She'll do just that if she's in this investigation unofficially, on her own time."

"At least you're admitting there's something to investigate."

"A murder, Jake. Whatever all the bells and whistles are, it's just a murder."

"You don't know that. I don't know that. Riley can help find out what it is or isn't."

"If you need help, ask for it officially—through the FBI. Let them send an agent down here."

"They have an agent down here."

Riley was suddenly aware that the hand still touching her back was exuding tension and…something else, something more she could feel but not quite get a handle on. Danger? Warning?

She stepped away from that hand abruptly and turned to face the two men, conjuring a pleasant smile. "Still here, boys."

Ash was expressionless, but Jake pulled on his sheepish face.

"Sorry, Riley, but—"

"Don't talk about me as if I weren't," she added gently.

Evenly, Ash said, "You're here on vacation. To rest and relax, remember? After a year of tough cases, you said, the most recent of which nearly got you killed."

"I didn't say it nearly got me killed," she objected, hoping to hell she hadn't. "I said it was rough and it was a close call. But obviously not too close, since I don't have a mark on me."

She offered that deliberately, watching him for the slightest reaction. And—dammit—saw a disquieting gleam in those green eyes.

A familiar gleam.

The shower stall was full of steam—the whole damn bathroom, in fact—by the time they turned the water off and made it to the bed.

"We're getting the sheets wet," she murmured.

"Do you care?" His mouth trailed down her throat and between her breasts. "Shall I stop?"

His hair was just long enough for her to get a handful and force his head up so she could gaze into those green, green eyes.

"Stop and I'll shoot you," she said huskily.

He laughed and covered her mouth with his, and that glorious heat began to burn….

"No," he said. "You don't have a mark on you. Still, you came here on vacation."

Damn memories, rearing their heads at the most inconvenient moments. Riley cleared her throat and forged ahead. "I've had almost three weeks, good food, lots of rest and walks on the beach. I'm fine, Ash."

"And I need her help," Jake said flatly. "I'm not too proud to ask, Ash, whether you are or not."

"It's got nothing to do with being too proud." He kept his gaze on Riley.

Half under his breath, but loud enough for them all to hear, Jake muttered, "I know what it's got to do with."

Riley jumped in before the tension she could feel in Ash made him say something he might later regret.

"Look, I've said I'll help if I can. And I will. So there's nothing more to be said about it. Right?"

"Right," Jake said immediately.

Ash took a moment longer, holding her gaze with those vivid eyes, then smiled. "Sure," he said. "I think the three of us can work together. Professionally."

Riley smiled back. "I'm sure we can."

G ordon rubbed a big hand across his bald head and stared at Riley. "Say what?"

"My memory of the last three weeks resembles Swiss cheese. Lots and lots of holes."

"The other part."

"Oh, that. I woke up this afternoon with dried blood all over me."

"Human blood?"

"Dunno yet. Probably hear from Quantico tomorrow."

"And you can't remember how you got blood all over you."

"One of the holes, yeah. And it's really bothering me, especially since we have this tortured and mangled body, which was apparently tortured and mangled in about the right time frame."

"I can see how that'd be a worry," he agreed.

They stared at each other, Gordon leaning back against the side of his boat and Riley sitting on the bench across from him. The boat was tied up at the dock behind the small house Gordon owned on the mainland side of Opal Island; he kept himself busy as well as made extra money taking fishing parties out onto the Atlantic.

"Not that I think for one minute that you're capable of doing that to somebody for no good reason," he said.

Wryly appreciative of the qualifier, she said, "But what if I had a good reason?"

"Out of the war zone?" He shook his head. "Nah. Not your style. You might get pissed and come out swingin', but nothing more, not back here in the world."

"I am an FBI agent," she reminded him.

"Yeah, so you'd shoot somebody. Maybe. If you didn't have another choice. We both know you're capable of that. But torture and decapitation?" Gordon pursed his lips, his broad brown face considering. "You know, I don't see you doing that even in wartime. It takes a certain cruelty, not to mention cold-blooded ruthlessness, and you never had either."

Riley was reassured, if only partly. Gordon knew her, probably, as well as anyone did, and if he said killing someone like that was not in her nature, then he was very likely right. She didn't think she was capable of it either.

But.

"Okay, so if I didn't do that to the guy, then why did I wake up covered in blood?"

"You don't know it was his blood."

"But what if?"

"Could be you tried to help him at some point. Went to try to cut him down before you realized it was too late."

"And then just went home and fell asleep, fully dressed and still covered with blood?"

"No, that doesn't sound likely, does it? Not for you. Not if you were in your right mind, anyway. Something must have happened in between. A shock of some kind, maybe. You sure you didn't get a bump on the head, something like that?"

"No lumps or bruises that I could find. Woke up with a hell of a headache, though. You know what that usually means."

He nodded. "Your version of a hangover, minus the booze. You'd been using the spooky senses."

"Apparently." He'd known about her clairvoyance for years, believed in it utterly because he'd seen again and again what she could do, and had kept her secret.

"But you don't remember what they told you?"

"Nope. If they told me anything."

"Must have been something bad. Bad enough to take away your memory, maybe?"

"I don't know, Gordon. I've seen some pretty lousy things. Horrible, sick things. It never affected my memory before. What could have been so bad, so totally shocking, that I couldn't bear to remember it?"

"Maybe you saw what happened out there in the woods. Hell, maybe you saw somebody conjure up the devil."

"I don't believe in the devil. Not like that, anyway."

"And maybe that's why you don't remember."

Riley considered that, but shook her head. "In addition to some lousy things, I've also seen some incredibly weird things, especially in the last few years. Off-the-chart scary things. I don't believe any occult ritual would actually conjure a flesh-and-blood devil complete with horns and a pitchfork—but I don't know that I'd be all that shocked if it happened right in front of me."

Gordon grinned. "Come to think of it, you'd probably just wonder how they managed to get the guy in the rubber suit so fast."

"Probably. It is mostly smoke and mirrors, you know, the seemingly supernatural occult stuff. Usually."

"So you've told me. Okay. So you saw the murder out there, and something about it caused the amnesia. That's the most likely explanation, right?"

She had to agree. "Yeah, I guess. Which makes it imperative for me to recover those memories ASAP."

"Think the killer might know you saw something?"

"I think I have to assume that until I have proof to the contrary. And finding that proof is not going to be a lot of fun, since I don't have a clue who the killer might be. Worse yet, the spooky senses seem to be out of commission, at least for the moment."

"No shit?"

Riley shook her head. "No shit. I should have been able to tap into something at the crime scene; that sort of situation, with everybody tense and upset, is always where I'm strongest. Or always have been. This time, nothing. Not a damn thing, even when I touched those rocks."

"So you're hunting a killer in the dark."

"Pretty much, yeah."

Gordon brooded. "A killer who might know, or at least believe, that you saw something out there. But if he does know you saw something, or even suspects you did, why let you run around loose? I mean, he's killed pretty brutally already. Why let you live?"

"I don't know. Unless he had damn good reason to be sure I wouldn't be a threat."

"Like, maybe, he knew you wouldn't remember whatever it was that you'd seen?"

"How could he know that? Amnesia isn't something you can deliberately cause, at least not as far as I know. And the SCU has studied this sort of thing, for years now. Traumatic injuries, especially head injuries, have all sorts of consequences, but amnesia other than very short-term isn't especially high on the list. Besides which—no bumps or bruises, let alone anything severe enough to be termed a head injury."

"Very short-term amnesia?"

"It's fairly common after a traumatic injury to not remember the events immediately before it occurred. But that almost always means a gap of hours, not days—and almost never weeks."

"Okay." Gordon brooded some more. "Long shot, maybe, but what about another psychic?"

Riley winced. "Christ, I hope not."

"But it's possible another psychic could be affecting you?"

"Just about anything is possible, you know that as well as I do. Another psychic might have picked up on the amnesia, or even known about it in advance. Hell, maybe caused it. Or at the very least be taking advantage of it." She drew a breath and let it out slowly. "I can tell you this much. If there is another psychic in this, he or she has the upper hand, at least until the fog in my head clears and I can use my own abilities."

If I can. If I can.

"Don't much like the sound of that, babe," Gordon offered.

"No. Me either." It was Riley's turn to brood. "Leah said you two thought I had been unusually secretive lately." The deputy had dropped Riley off and then returned to the sheriff's department, since she was on duty for another hour.

"Well, more than I liked. It was me brought you down here, after all. I been feeling responsible."

"Don't."

He rolled his eyes, a characteristic gesture Leah had probably picked up from him. "Yeah, yeah."

"I mean it. And, by the way, I haven't told Leah about the memory loss. I trust her, it's just…"

"I know what it's just," he responded. And he did know. Fellow soldiers understood the need to guard vulnerabilities in a way few civilians ever could. "I'll keep the secret if you want, but I think she can probably help. 'Specially if—"

Riley eyed him, seeing in that suddenly impassive face a lot more than most would have seen. "Especially if I don't remember my obviously hot social life these last weeks," she finished.

"So you don't, huh?"

"Not much of it, no. I gather I dated Jake Ballard, at least for a while. And that I'm currently involved with Ash. Ash what, by the way? I haven't heard his surname used." The very question struck her as almost comical.

Almost.

Gordon's brows climbed into his nonexistent hairline. "Prescott. Ash Prescott. District Attorney for Hazard County."

"Jesus. What was I thinking?"

"One of the things you didn't share," Gordon informed her politely. "Mind you, I wasn't surprised when Jake talked you into going out with him. He's got the knack. Far as I could tell, though, it was just a couple dates—and then you met Ash. You and him surprised me."

"Why? Because of me, or because of him?"

Gordon gave the question serious consideration. "Well, it's not what I'd call normal for you to bed down with a man you've known no more than a few days."

Riley winced. "That fast? Christ. We weren't subtle about it, I gather."

"Subtle?" He laughed. "In case you didn't see it today, the man usually drives a Hummer, Riley. A bright yellow one. Pretty damn obvious parked outside your place overnight. And people on this island do love to talk."

"Great." She sighed, debated briefly, and decided not to ask Gordon if he was privy to any more particulars of the intimate nature of her relationship with Ash Prescott; that was something she'd need to find out for herself. Instead, she said, "But he surprised you?"

"Gettin' involved with you so fast? Yep."

"Why?"

"Hard to say, exactly. He's not a man to let much show, but I wouldn't have said he was all that susceptible to a pretty woman, 'specially living in a beach community with plenty of flesh on parade most of the time. I mean, you're a fox, any man with eyes can see that, and hot as hell when you put your mind to it, but I doubt that was it."

Riley ignored the blunt assessment of her charms, which she had heard before from Gordon and other army buddies, to ask, "Did I do that? Put my mind to it?" She had to ask, in light of all the sexy underwear she'd discovered among her clothing.

"I saw you a few times dressed up a bit more than usual, but like I said, I don't think it was looks that got to him. And I'd say he was the one went after what he wanted. Didn't need any encouragement at all, far as I could tell. And he has the rep for gettin' what he wants. Still, I've only lived here a couple years, but I can't remember Ash ever gettin' involved with a summer visitor before. So visibly, anyway."

"Maybe he was in the mood for a fling."

Gordon shook his head. "If you was to ask me, I'd say he wasn't the type for a fling. Neither are you, if I have to remind you."

"Well, apparently that's what I'm doing," she muttered.

"Flinging. With a man whose last name I couldn't remember." Gordon pursed his lips in another characteristic gesture. "You didn't remember him or Jake, huh?"

"No. At least…I had a flash of memory after Ash joined us at the crime scene. But do I remember meeting him or Jake? Dating them? No. There are faces in my mind, but neither of theirs showed up until they did."

"And you don't remember anything you might have found out investigating the situation here?"

"I don't remember the situation. Or, at least, I'm having to piece together what I do—did—know."

"That is definitely not good."

"Tell me about it." She sighed, then straightened and added, "And I mean that, Gordon. Tell me about it all. Everything, starting with why you called me down here, what's been happening here, and what I've told you since I got here."

"Filling in the pieces. Hoping something will wake up your memory?"

"I'm counting on it. Because Bishop will expect a report every day—and if I can't convince him I've got a grip on things here, he'll pull me by Friday. Maybe sooner, considering there's been a murder now."

With another sigh, Riley added, "Besides all that, apparently I have another date with Ash in about two hours. Dinner. It would be nice if I could remember what we've talked about so far, so I don't repeat myself. Also nice if I could remember why I started sleeping with the man, since from the little I do remember, I doubt he'll be content with a good-night kiss at the door."

"I gather you don't want to either confide in him or raise his suspicions by suddenly goin' coy?"

"No to the first because…because I don't know where he fits in all this, not yet. As for the other part, playing coy wouldn't exactly be in character for me, now, would it? Unless—I wasn't being somebody else here, was I, Gordon?"

"No, you didn't see the need. Just being yourself and on vacation, picking this place to visit an old army buddy, seemed to be the best choice. You were here openly, an FBI agent, so why dress it up and make it look more fancy than it was?"

"Makes sense. Keep it simple whenever possible."

"Which is what you did. No, babe, you were just being you, and playing coy is definitely not your style."

She nodded. "So I get to feel my way—you should pardon the pun—through a relationship I don't remember starting."

Gordon eyed her. "And?"

He knew her too well. "And I can't rely on any of my senses. Any of them, not just the spooky ones. Everything's gone…distant and blurry. For the first time in my life, I don't have any kind of an edge. And it's scaring the hell out of me."

Given her druthers, it certainly wouldn't have been Riley's choice to keep a dinner date with Ash that evening. She had suggested that helping investigate a grisly murder should probably take precedence over her social life, but as Ash had calmly reminded her, there wasn't a lot she could do until the body was autopsied and forensic evidence tested—neither of which was a specialty of hers.

Jake had suggested they brainstorm at the sheriff's department, but Riley had been forced reluctantly to agree with Ash that endlessly speculating wouldn't be very productive without facts and evidence in hand.

Best to get a fresh start early tomorrow.

Which meant, of course, that she had to get through tonight, feeling her way semiblindly through the nuances of a relationship that had been one of lovers, apparently, for the better part of two weeks.

Passionate lovers, if her physical reaction to Ash and her single flash of memory were anything to go by.

As she got ready for Ash to pick her up just before eight, Riley wasn't all that worried about her ability to behave as he would expect her to during the date. That was the easy part, at least for her. She'd always been able to fit herself into any situation, to look and act as though she belonged no matter what was going on inside.

In this case, what was going on inside was more at odds than usual with her composed exterior.

Butterflies.

Big butterflies. With claws.

The entire situation made her profoundly uneasy, because it really wasn't in character for her to get personally involved with anyone in the course of an investigation, far less tumble into bed with a man when she hadn't had time, surely, to judge his character.

"Just tell me he isn't evil, Gordon."

"He's a prosecutor, Riley, in a small Southern beach community. How evil could he be?"

"Oh, man, don't ask that question. The worst serial killers I've ever known operated out of small towns."

"Maybe so, but I doubt Ash is a serial killer. Mind you, I'm not sayin' the man doesn't have a few rough edges. And talk is, he raised some hell as a kid. But he's respected around here, I know that much."

"The last serial killer I knew was respected. Before everybody found out what was in his basement."

"You been around way too many serial killers, babe."

Probably true, that.

In any case, what Riley had admitted to Gordon was also true. She was scared. Despite the cool and confident exterior she was adept at showing, there was a very large part of her that wanted to crawl into bed and pull the covers over her head, hoping to wake and find all this just a nightmare. Or to run back to Quantico, her safe haven.

Not that she could do either, of course.

Nope, not Riley Crane, sensible, rational, trustworthy professional that she was. She'd stay and see it through, finish the job she'd started, soldier on—and all the other clichés. Because it simply wasn't in her nature to crawl into bed and pull the covers over her head.

No matter how bad things got.

So when the doorbell rang just after seven-thirty, she drew a deep breath and went to greet Ash with a smile and total serenity.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey," he responded. And wrapped both arms around her, lifting her off her feet to kiss her. Right there in the open doorway, for God and all of Opal Island to see.

So much for privacy. So much for serenity.

Riley suspected that all her bones were melting. She also suspected that she didn't much care.

When he raised his head at last and lowered her back to her feet, Ash said a bit roughly, "I've been wanting to do that all day. Just for the record, you seem to have become a habit with me. I didn't sleep at all last night after you kicked me out."

I kicked you out? Why on earth would I do that?

"I didn't kick you out," she murmured, reasonably sure she wouldn't have.

"Maybe not literally, but the result was the same. Instead of spending the night in a warm bed with a warm woman, I ended up alone with whiskey and an old movie. I thought we'd gotten beyond that, Riley."

She took a chance. "Beyond what?"

"You know what I'm talking about. If all I wanted was a dinner companion and an hour of sex afterward, there are willing women in my life a lot less complicated than you are." The statement was utterly matter-of-fact and without conceit.

Hmmm. Wonder which complications he's referring to? Wonder who those other women are? And maybe I'm not a fling?

She didn't know how she felt about that. Hell, she didn't know how she felt about any of this.

Ash went on, "Look, I respect this need of yours for space and time to yourself. I get that, I really do. We both know I'm a prickly bastard and pretty much a loner myself. All I'm saying is the next time you decide you want to sleep alone, a little more warning would be appreciated."

I must have had someplace else I needed to be later last night. Note to self: obviously something last-minute, or else I would have headed Ash off long before bedtime. Wonder what it was? Did I know there was someone in danger? That something bad was going to happen? And if I did…

Why didn't I confide in you about it, lover?

"Sorry. And noted, for future reference," Riley said, wondering when her own arms had wound themselves around his neck. Since they were already there, she didn't bother to remove them. "I missed you too, by the way."

"I'm glad to hear it." He kissed her again, briefly but with just as much intensity. "We could skip dinner."

"Not unless you prefer your women nearly comatose," she said, feeling on safe ground here. "I'm starving."

He laughed. "Then we definitely need to get you fed, and I'm not in the mood to cook tonight. Ready to go?"

Guess that explains my well-stocked kitchen. He's been cooking here.

She didn't know how she felt about that either.

"I'm ready," she said.

R iley fought not to react in any way he'd notice, fought not to reveal the sudden questions and fears tumbling through her mind.

"I'm all thumbs with a curling iron," she said casually. "It happens so often I forget about it, usually."

"Have you considered maybe not using a curling iron?" Ash inquired dryly.

She turned her head back and met his gaze, smiling. "From time to time. But it's a girl thing, you see, and I clung to those when I was in the army."

"What, you were afraid of ending up butch?"

"That is not a politically correct term. And—yes."

Ash grinned at her. "Not a chance in hell. You are utterly and completely female, my love, from the top of your head down to the tips of your toes. It practically oozes from your pores."

Riley ignored the lurch inside her at the unexpected endearment and pulled on a considering frown. "I'm not at all sure that's a compliment."

"It's disarming, that's what it is. Dandy camouflage for the razor-sharp mind behind those big eyes."

"Mmm. But you weren't disarmed, huh?"

"I wasn't fooled," Ash said. "Not like Jake was."

A little surprised and very curious, she said, "You think he was fooled?"

"I think he's badly underestimating you. And I think if he hadn't done that from the moment he met you, he might be here with you instead of me."

Wry now, she said, "I really stepped in something between you two, didn't I?"

"Maybe." He shifted position to lie more fully on his side, his head propped up on one hand and the other resting warmly on her stomach. "But it had to happen eventually."

"Why?"

Ash's shoulders moved in a faint shrug. "Because letting Jake have what he wanted most of our lives was easy for me. Until what he wanted was something I wanted more."

Riley thought about that. "Me?" she half-guessed.

"If you have to ask," he said, "you haven't been paying attention."

She managed a laugh. "Oh, I was paying attention. Just trying not to feel like a trophy between two jocks."

"You know better than that." He leaned over to kiss her, the caress a lingering one. "At least as far as I'm concerned. This is not about Jake. This is about you and me."

Riley was trying her best to think straight despite the lips playing with hers. "Mmm. But if all Jake sees…is that trophy…he might still want it."

"Then he'll have to learn a lesson I probably should have taught him when we were kids." Ash pushed the sheet back down so his seeking hand could find bare flesh. "He doesn't always get what he wants."

Riley had thought she was completely exhausted, but her body was coming to life, and as her arms lifted to wrap themselves around his neck, she decided that she just might have the strength for this….

As it turned out, she also had the strength left for a shower with Ash afterward, but by then her energy reserves were seriously low and they both knew it.

"I'll go get started on those omelets," he said, knotting a towel around his lean waist.

"I'll get my hair dry and meet you in the kitchen. Sorry to be so high-maintenance," she said.

He tipped her chin up with a finger to kiss her. "You aren't," he said, and left her alone in the steamy bathroom.

Riley finished wrapping herself in a towel, then held her hands out and watched them shake for a moment. Damn. Between the mental and emotional demands of a Swiss cheese memory and the physical demands of a relationship with Ash, she was using up energy at a rate far faster than normal even for her.

Something was badly wrong, and she knew it.

Shaking off yet another worry, she rummaged in the vanity drawers for a hand mirror and wiped off the steamy mirror over the sink so she could check out the back of her neck. It took a bit of maneuvering, and she ended up sitting on the vanity with her back to the big mirror while she held the hand mirror with one hand and pushed her hair completely off her neck with the other hand.

It looked like a burn, as Ash had said. Like two burns, actually, very close together, just below the hairline at the base of her skull.

Even in the warm, steamy room, the chill that swept her body left gooseflesh in its wake. She had to concentrate fiercely in order to hold the hand mirror steady long enough to study the marks until she was certain of what she already knew.

They were the marks of a stun gun, a Taser.

And what they very clearly showed was that someone had held the gun to the back of her neck and discharged an electrical current directly into her body.

Into the base of her brain.

It took less than ten minutes to blow-dry her short hair, and that didn't allow Riley enough time to think much past the numb realization that in all likelihood a killer had stood over her twitching body and emptied into it from a weapon meant to incapacitate a target a potentially deadly amount of electricity.

Riley had used a Taser. She had also been Tasered herself. She knew what the weapon was capable of, and what its normal aftereffects were. There was nothing normal about this.

The marks on her neck indicated sustained contact, with both voltage and amperage considerably higher than the manufacturer had ever intended for the device.

The question was, had her attacker deliberately used an amped-up stun gun knowing it could be a lethal weapon? And, if so, was she alive by design or only by accident?

Either way, the attack could explain her headaches and the memory loss, and the dulled—or absent—senses. It could even explain her unusually frequent need for more fuel.

An electrical jolt to the brain could scramble a lot of things in the human body.

It could also cause a hell of a lot of problems, some worse than those she was coping with now. And the fact that those problems hadn't yet manifested themselves didn't mean they wouldn't.

Great. That's just great. Somebody tried to fry my brain, probably tried to kill me, and he's still out there running around loose—with a big advantage.

He knew who she was.

And she didn't have a clue who he was.

With her hair dry and no more excuses to linger in the bathroom, Riley went into the bedroom to put on one of her customary sleep-shirts. She took a moment to sort through their scattered clothing and lay Ash's more neatly over a chair, and despite everything felt a flicker of amusement when she picked up the sexy underwear she had, at the last minute while dressing for their date, chosen to wear.

She doubted he'd even noticed it.

With that wry thought in mind, she chose a football jersey sleep-shirt, exchanged her towel for it, and headed for the kitchen.

You can think about all this later. Figure out what's going on later. Right now you just have to get through tonight. You have to act normal and be Ash Prescott's summer lover.

If that's what she was. Or maybe she was, despite his denial, the trophy he had taken away from his boyhood rival.

There was a cheerful thought. Not.

"Perfect timing," Ash said as she joined him. He was transferring the two halves of a large omelet onto two plates on the work island. He had already set out silverware and napkins, as well as poured two glasses of wine.

Riley took her place on one of the stools at the breakfast bar and looked at him with lifted brows. "Wine? You know that makes me sleepy." She hoped he knew.

"Yeah, well, I think maybe you need to sleep." Ash put the pan in the sink and brought the plates to the bar.

Riley left her brows raised and waited.

He was frowning just a little, and before she realized what he was going to do, he grasped her wrist and lifted it slightly so they could both see her fingers trembling. "Your tank's not just empty, you're running on fumes. After finishing a sizable meal about three hours ago."

"A gentleman wouldn't talk about how much I eat," she said, keeping her tone light as she reclaimed her hand and took a sip of her wine.

"That's not what this is about, and you know it. Was it the scene in the woods? Is that what took so much out of you?"

"Well…scenes like that do, usually." She started eating, hoping the calories would kick-start her sluggish mind.

Oh, I'm in fine shape, I am. If I was half as responsible as I'm supposed to be, I'd have Bishop recall me to Quantico. Tonight.

"Because of the clairvoyance?"

Riley was only a little surprised he knew about that. It wasn't something she often confided on short acquaintance—or even long acquaintance, in most cases—but the man was in her bed, after all. And at least his knowledge answered one of the questions she'd been asking herself.

One down, at least a dozen more to go.

She nodded. "It takes more energy, yeah. Especially a murder so…horrific. Everybody around me is tense, frightened, sickened—and usually worried about their nearest and dearest. Sorting through all that…"

"Takes a lot of energy." He was still frowning, still intent. "So this happens whenever you work on a case?"

"To varying degrees. I tried harder than usual today, probably because I wasn't getting anything. That happens sometimes too." Information she hoped would head off at least some of his questions.

Ash picked up his fork and began to eat, but after several bites said, "I had the impression you used your abilities as just another investigative tool."

"Generally. They often give me an edge in an investigation—but not always. This is very good, by the way." She indicated her plate and the omelet, already half-finished. Sure, keep wolfing down food—that'll solve everything.

"High-calorie," he said in a tone of sudden amusement. "I put in extra cheese."

Riley had to laugh, albeit without much amusement of her own. "Sorry—I didn't expect to get involved with anyone this summer, much less during a full-blown investigation."

"Stop saying you're sorry. Feeding you is not a problem, believe me." He smiled, then added casually, "So business and pleasure don't mix too well in your world?"

"They both take energy." Riley lifted her glass in a small salute. "One more than the other, sometimes."

"You didn't answer the question."

It was a potential out for her. Maybe. One less pretense she'd have to keep up. If she told him the investigation would demand all her energy, all her attention, then maybe he'd step back out of her personal life for the duration.

Except that she didn't think he would.

Or maybe you just don't want to believe he would.

Finally, she said, "It's never come up for me, so I don't know. We'll find out, I guess."

He gazed at her steadily for a long moment, then smiled again. "I'll order a couple more cases of those PowerBars."

"Good idea," she said.

The wine had its usual effect on her, and she was yawning hugely by the time she crawled into bed a few minutes later. "Probably should have checked the doors," she murmured.

"I did. All locked." Ash got into bed beside her but before turning out the lamp on the nightstand paused to reach into the top drawer. "Here—I know you won't rest easy until this is under the pillow."

Riley blinked at the gun he was holding casually by its barrel, then took it from him. She checked it automatically to make sure the safety was still on, then slid it underneath her pillow.

She always went to sleep on her right side, a habit that made her turn her back to him as she lay down. It was clearly a routine he was accustomed to, since he turned out the lamp and settled down behind her without comment.

Close behind her.

He kissed the nape of her neck just below the burn and said, "Try to sleep past dawn, okay? I think you need to."

"Mmmm. 'Night," she murmured in response.

"'Night, Riley."

Her body relaxed because she told it to. Her breathing was slow and even. Her eyes were closed.

She had never been more wide-awake in her life.

The realization had been slow in coming, but now it took root in her admittedly sluggish mind and began to grow into at least one horrible possibility.

She always slept with her weapon under her pillow. Always. Ever since a very nasty experience with a predawn burglar nearly ten years ago. But very few people knew that.

She had awakened the previous afternoon fully dressed except for her shoes, with her gun under the pillow as always.

There were only two possible routes to that destination, as far as Riley could see. Both of them started with her leaving the house—after telling Ash she wanted time alone—undoubtedly armed, because she certainly would have been. Going to do whatever it was she'd gone to do, and in the process getting surprised or otherwise blindsided by someone with a stun gun. After that…

Either she had, after being stunned for God only knew how long, managed to get herself back home and to her bed, too addled to remove her bloodstained clothing but able to kick off her shoes and remember where her gun should go, or…

Or her attacker had brought her home. Removed her shoes. And put her gun under her pillow, because he'd known she would expect to find it there whenever she woke up.

Shit.

The field of suspects if that turned out to be the case had suddenly gotten very, very small.

Ash knew where she kept her gun at night. So did Gordon. If anyone else here knew, Riley would be very surprised. But maybe someone else did know. Hell, maybe everyone knew.

Oh, God, what else don't I remember?

Her car had been here, the keys in her bag. Had she driven wherever it was she'd gone last night? Could she have driven back here, suffering the aftereffects of near-electrocution? No evidence of blood in her car, but…Three miles to the bridge, assuming she'd gone over to the mainland; surely she hadn't walked?

I'm assuming whatever happened didn't happen here on the island. Why am I assuming that?

Because the altar—if that's what it had been used for—was on the mainland. Because a tortured and murdered man's body had been discovered there. And because she found it almost impossible to believe that a second, totally separate violent event had taken place in this small community on the same night.

Rational. Reasonable. Probably right.

Probably.

"Riley?"

Oh, shit. I can't even fake it anymore?

"Hmmm?" she murmured.

"Why are you still awake?" He nuzzled the back of her neck. "I thought you'd go out like a light."

"Just thinking, I guess."

"About what? The murder?"

"Yeah." It wasn't a lie. Exactly. "Occupational hazard."

Without turning her to face him, Ash gathered her into his arms. "Can I talk you into letting it go until tomorrow, or is this something else I should get used to?"

What could she tell him? How much could she tell him?

How far could she trust him?

Riley was conscious of an unfamiliar desperation, and it was a feeling she did not like. Especially when it caused her to blurt, "I'm different. When there's a case."

"So it's not just about using more energy," he said after a moment.

"No. There's that too, but…I pretty much live the job. I get obsessed." She tried to put a shrug into her voice. "My boss says it's part of what makes me a good investigator. Other people have…indicated that I can be distant or difficult to connect with whenever I'm working on a case."

"Forewarned is forearmed?"

"You have a right to know."

His arms tightened around her. "Riley, I understand how our work can drive us. You know how far mine drove me. All the way back to my childhood home, where being the district attorney is barely a full-time job. You can't allow your job to consume you."

She wished she remembered his story, she really did. She had a feeling it was a vitally important piece of this puzzle she was in. But all she could say was, "A man's dead, Ash. Shouldn't I be bothered by that? Shouldn't you?"

"I'm just saying you won't be any good to the investigation or yourself if you don't get some rest."

"You're right, of course."

His arms tightened around her again, and there was something inexpressibly soothing in his voice when he murmured, "Tomorrow is soon enough to begin to obsess. Go to sleep, Riley."

He hadn't answered her questions, and that bothered her more than she wanted to admit even to herself. At the same time, her body was relaxing against his, for real this time, and she was growing sleepy once again.

Exhaustion, almost certainly. Catching up with her. But it was more than that, and even as her fragmented thoughts began to settle, a last nagging realization followed her into sleep.

Despite everything, even her own doubts, here in this man's arms she felt…safe.

And for a woman who had learned a long, long time ago that safety was, at best, an illusion, that was terrifying.

In an unusually grim tone, Gordon said, "Yeah, I'd say this was from a Taser. And a juiced-up one, at that."

Riley smoothed her short hair over the burns and turned to face him. "I was pretty sure. Just wanted a second opinion."

"Have you reported this to Bishop?"

"Not yet."

"Jesus Christ on a crutch, Riley."

"I know, I know. But I also know what Bishop will say, and I don't want to be recalled. I can't just cut and run, Gordon. Not yet. Look, if whoever attacked me had wanted to kill me, I'd be dead."

"You don't know that. It's more likely he left you for dead and that crazy, messed-up brain of yours kept you alive against the odds."

It was a good point, and more than possible. Like all the psychics on the team, her brain had a higher-than-normal amount of electrical activity going on at any given time, so it very well might not have responded as the attacker had expected to an added jolt.

"Maybe." She hesitated, then confessed, "I had a nightmarish scenario running last night where the guy stunned me and then brought me home and put me to bed thinking I'd wake up and not know anything had happened."

"You mean when you woke up covered with blood you wouldn't think anything had happened?"

"I didn't think about that part until this morning." After about three cups of coffee and a wonderful breakfast courtesy of Ash.

Gordon eyed her consideringly. "You really aren't firing on all cylinders, babe, 'case you didn't know that."

"Why do you men always use car metaphors?" she demanded, even though she'd used the very same one herself in describing her condition to Bishop.

"Don't change the subject."

Riley sighed. "I'll tell Bishop everything when I report in this afternoon. I can't justify keeping any of it to myself, not with a man dead. I'll just have to hope I can convince him to leave me here. But, in the meantime, I'm headed out to the sheriff's department, where I hope there will be statements, photos, and a postmortem report I can take a look at."

"What do you expect to see?"

"I don't know. Probably nothing I couldn't figure out from the crime scene. But maybe I missed something."

Gordon was frowning. "I gather the spooky senses are still AWOL?"

She nodded. "Which makes more sense today than it did yesterday. Now that I at least know what happened to me. Even so, I have a pretty good hunch that Bishop will tell me nobody else on the team has experienced a jolt of electricity straight into the base of the brain. I don't recall reading that in any of the unit's case histories, and I think it would have been there. Highlighted. Underlined. With an asterisk."

"Yeah, I get it. Which means—"

"Which means I'm in unexplored territory here and pretty much on my own. God knows what was scrambled or short-circuited inside my head. And what the aftereffects might be."

"Want to tell me again why you aren't going to see a doctor?"

"Because there's nothing a doctor would do except probably run tests. Because I'm functional. I don't even have a headache today, or at least not much of one. Whatever that jolt did to my brain…well, let's just say I doubt they have a magic little pill to fix me."

"It could be permanent? The memory loss and the damage to your senses?"

"Could be." Riley drew a deep breath and released it slowly.

"Hell, that may be more likely than not. If an electrical jolt can trigger latent psychic abilities—and we know it can—then it's reasonable to suppose one could just as easily short-circuit or even destroy them."

"How you feel about that?"

"All my life, I've counted on those extra senses to give me an edge when I needed it. When somebody else was bigger or stronger or smarter or faster—or just meaner. Without them, I don't know if I'm good enough to do my job."

L eah Wells had wanted to be a cop since she was eight years old. Maybe even longer, but she remembered back to eight. She had turned her dollhouse into a jail, imprisoning three dolls, two teddy bears, and a ninja action figure borrowed from her brother when he hadn't been looking.

The ninja had committed the most heinous act; he had kidnapped Malibu Barbie and held her for ransom. The battle to capture him and free the hostage had been intense.

Leah's mother was somewhat bemused by all this, rightly fearing the childhood games heralded a less traditional life than the one that she, at least, hoped for. But Leah, instead of spending her college years joining a sorority and pursuing a degree in child psychology or some such, had studied criminal psychology and criminal investigation, interning with the state bureau of investigation.

But if her mother had been disappointed in her daughter's choice of careers, Leah herself was somewhat disillusioned by four years spent on the police force in Columbia; she discovered she did not like being a big-city cop. Too much violence. Too many depressing situations with unhappy, tragic outcomes.

Gordon said she'd picked the wrong career for a woman who believed happily-ever-after was the way stories were supposed to end, but the truth was that Leah enjoyed the work—mostly. She enjoyed helping people. So, when Columbia turned out to be too depressing for her, she decided a beach community would undoubtedly be more cheerful, less violent, and provide great fringe benefits.

Especially since she was that rare redhead who tanned instead of freckled.

She had landed in the Hazard County Sheriff's Department by virtue of a pin. With a list before her of law-enforcement agencies along the southeastern coast looking for experienced officers, she had closed her eyes and stabbed the paper with an open safety pin.

Hazard County it was.

Maybe a dumb way to plan a career, let alone a life, but it had worked out well for Leah. Because she liked her work now and loved the beach-community lifestyle. And she had a man she was fairly crazy about as well. Icing on the cake.

"And now," she said to Riley, bringing her story to the present and sounding aggrieved, "some murderous fiend has to come along and ruin paradise."

"Yeah, murderous fiends can really screw up your day," Riley said gravely. She was sitting on a corner of the conference table, idly swinging one foot, waiting for Sheriff Ballard to meet them there with the postmortem report. In the meantime, she had gotten Leah talking with a simple question or two about herself.

Leah sighed. "Oh, you know what I mean. It's not like I'm taking this murder lightly. Every time I close my eyes, I see that poor guy hanging out there in the woods. I feel queasy. And scared. Because if the maniac who killed him isn't a summer visitor, then chances are he's somebody I know."

Riley took another bite of the PowerBar she'd been eating, then said, "For what it's worth, I'd be surprised if this killer was a summer visitor."

"Shit. Why?"

"Because if he—or they—practice actual satanic rites, it's not something you usually just take on the road when you go on vacation. Not the extreme rituals, at any rate. Plus, secrecy is a really big factor, and that site was awfully public."

"So it could have been—what? A fake ritual?"

"Maybe a smoke screen. To hide the real motive behind the murder. And if that's the case, if somebody is using the trappings of the occult to throw us off the scent, then the reason is, most likely, to deflect attention away from someone who would otherwise be a logical suspect in the straightforward murder of this man."

Leah thought about that. "But we can't know if he had any enemies locally until we know who he is. Was."

"Yeah. So identifying him has to be a priority."

"It is. But so far, nada. The doc serving as our medical examiner gave us a preliminary report last night; he didn't find any identifying marks on the body. No old scars, no tattoos, no birthmarks. We ran his prints a second time just to be sure, but still no luck."

"I wouldn't expect his prints to be on file," Riley said.

"Any particular reason why?"

Neatly folding her empty PowerBar wrapper into a narrower and narrower strip, Riley said, "Because the head was removed."

Leah couldn't help grimacing, but said, "And so?"

"And so I've never heard of an occult ritual where the head of a victim was removed and taken away. And I can't see why that would be done other than to delay identification. That being the case, if the killer had any reason to suppose the guy's prints were on file, and obviously not being the squeamish kind, he would have destroyed the fingertips. Hacked them off, or maybe used a blowtorch."

Leah cleared her throat. "It's not a nice world where you live, is it?"

Riley looked slightly surprised, then smiled a bit ruefully. "I guess not. I don't think about it that way, most of the time."

"It's just a job?"

"Well…more or less. I meet some great people through my work. Have some interesting experiences, not all of them negative. I travel a lot. I do work I feel is important."

"Oh, no question about that." Leah lowered her voice slightly, even though they were alone in the conference room. "And you have a way to use the psychic stuff where it really means something, instead of working in a carnival sideshow or on one of those call-the-psychic hotlines."

"One of the most amazing psychics I know spent years in a carnival, telling fortunes."

"I didn't mean—"

Riley waved that away. "Oh, I know. But you're right—for some psychics, maybe most psychics, there aren't many ways to carve out a decent living using those abilities. That's assuming you even can use the abilities, and lots can't."

"Can't control them, you mean?"

"Most of us can't control them, or at least not reliably. My boss says that if ever a psychic is born who can control his or her abilities, the whole world will change. He's probably right about that."

"But that psychic won't be you, huh?"

"No. I've been using my abilities as long as I can remember, and it's still hit-or-miss. Even if my concentration is perfect and my energy level optimal, I may not get a damn thing. Other times I'm not even trying and get blindsided by a dump of information or emotions."

"You get emotions? Other people's emotions?" Leah hadn't intended to sound wary but heard it in her voice.

Riley frowned at the empty wrapper that was now a thin, folded strip; she tied it neatly into a knot. "Sometimes. Not the way an empath would, feeling what somebody else feels. It's just knowing somebody is angry or sad—or whatever. Even if it's all locked inside and they aren't showing any of it."

Leah studied the other woman, wondering what that must be like, to have that window into other people. Not that she wanted to know firsthand; she had trouble enough sorting through her own thoughts and emotions without adding in someone else's.

It wasn't something that appeared to disturb Riley. She was a curiously serene woman, Leah thought. Even out in the woods yesterday, in the midst of that horrific scene, her manner had been calm and matter-of-fact. And today the gun on her hip was worn casually with jeans and a light summer top.

She did not look like an FBI agent. Then again, Leah could imagine her in an army uniform only because Gordon had a couple of pictures of them together.

"Don't let those big eyes and that sweet voice fool you," he had warned Leah with a grin. "Riley hasn't got an innocent bone in her body. She's seen battle and she's seen the world, and she can take care of herself on any patch of it fate might see fit to send her to. Hell, I wouldn't want to tangle with her, armed or unarmed."

Something to bear in mind, Leah thought.

"Does being psychic really help?" she asked. "I mean, in an investigation."

Riley tied the plastic wrapper into a second knot, frowned at it as if wondering why she'd done that, and dropped it into an ashtray on the table behind her. "Sometimes." She hesitated, then met the other woman's gaze and said, "But maybe not this time. Just so you know, I'm more than a little off my game right now."

"Ash?" Leah guessed.

Riley was clearly surprised. "Why would you think that?"

"Just relating, I suppose." Leah laughed. "When I was falling for Gordon, I once came to work wearing two different shoes. I thought the guys would never let me live it down."

Riley smiled, but her eyes remained intent, questioning.

Interesting how clearly that came across, Leah thought. That silent question. Without actually intending to, she found herself offering an answer.

"Ash is a very intense guy, everybody knows that. I just figured he was probably even more intense behind closed doors—so to speak."

"He's a little…overwhelming," Riley said rather cautiously.

"I bet. Rumor has it he left the Atlanta DA's office because he couldn't control his temper."

"Really?"

Leah shrugged. "Oh, you know rumors. I've never seen any sign of that sort of thing, personally. But it's hard to miss the guy's…intensity. I keep coming back to that word, but it does seem to fit, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it does."

Shaking her head, Leah said, "Rotten timing, all this. It looked like things were going really well for you two, that we'd find out all the supposed occult stuff was just nonsense and Gordon was fretting for nothing. Now, with this murder, everybody's tense and jumpy, and none of us can think much about anything else. Occult or not, something's sure as hell going on."

"Yeah."

"It was pretty obvious yesterday that Ash wasn't happy about you working the case. You two get that straightened out?"

"Yes. I told him I'd be working the case."

Leah laughed. "Atta girl. It's probably good for the man to find out you won't be at his beck and call."

"I think he already knew that."

The sheriff came into the room just then, which effectively put an end to any further confidences. At least for the moment.

"Well, we've got paperwork," he said. "And the crime-scene photos are printing out now. Riley, turns out we do have some sort of pattern-recognition software—and a technician who knows how to use it."

"Melissa?" Leah guessed.

"Yeah. Figures, right?" He handed the manila folder he was carrying to Riley, adding, "She's our resident computer geek, and thank God we have her. One of those people with an inborn knack. Anyway, she's going to be concentrating on those blood spatters on the rocks, see if we maybe have something more deliberate there."

"Good enough." Riley opened the folder and began going over the postmortem report.

Jake moved restlessly around the room for a minute or so, then took a seat at the table near Riley. "Still no luck identifying the guy," he offered.

Leah wanted to tell him to give Riley a chance to absorb the report she was reading but kept her mouth shut.

Without looking up, and apparently still reading, Riley said, "With no head, and fingerprints not in the system, I'm not surprised. Still no missing-persons report that matches, I gather?"

"No. No missing-persons reports at all."

"Is that unusual for this area?"

"To have no reports? Nah, it's normal. We don't get too many missing, barring the occasional teenager staying out too late or drunken fishermen falling out of their boats."

Deciding to speak up, Leah pointed out, "If he went missing on Sunday afternoon or early evening, it's less than forty-eight hours. Unless he had somebody waiting for him at home—wherever that was—it's at least even money that nobody's noticed him missing. Especially if he was here on vacation."

Riley nodded. "The needs of vacationers vary; not everybody walks on the beach or visits the restaurants or shops. Some people come with a bag of books or briefcase full of work, park themselves in front of the view, order takeout delivered, and never leave their own little rented piece of sand until it's time for the drive home. If this guy came here alone, his absence may have stirred no more notice than his presence did."

"How are you doing that?" Jake demanded.

She looked at him over the top of the open folder. "Doing what?"

"Reading and talking. Or are you just pretending to read?"

Leah kept her mouth shut again and just listened.

"No," Riley said. "I'm reading. It's a knack I have. Another agent in the unit taught me."

He grunted. "Must come in handy."

"Sometimes."

"That's considered a masculine trait, isn't it? Being able to compartmentalize mentally? Or emotionally."

"I've heard it said."

"You don't agree?"

"Never really thought about it." Riley's voice remained mild, and her slight smile was merely polite, but Leah was certain the other woman was perfectly well aware of what was going on.

Jake was showing off one of his least attractive traits, one Leah had seen often enough to recognize. Quite simply, he was accustomed to women paying attention to him no matter what else happened to be going on. Virtually all women. And that part of him disliked taking second place, to another man or to a murder.

Coming in third where Riley was concerned was obviously bugging the hell out of him.

Leah made a silent bet with herself as to the direction Jake would steer the conversation.

"You're probably good with numbers too," he said.

"I am," Riley confirmed, still mild. "I can also change a tire or the oil, use power tools skillfully, read any sort of map accurately, hit what I'm aiming at on the firing range or in the field, and I play a mean game of pool. Not bragging or anything. Just saying."

"Poker?"

"That too."

"A paragon," Jake said. "Can you cook?"

"Afraid not."

"I guess it's a good thing Ash can then, huh?"

Leah won her bet.

"Guess so." Riley shrugged.

"Doesn't really matter to you?"

"Well, I usually live on takeout, so it's something new. I could get used to it."

Jake was so transparently not pleased by that statement that Leah nearly laughed. But not quite. He was, after all, her boss.

Riley closed the folder and tapped the edge against her free hand. "Getting back to the murder, with no good way to I.D. the body, I say our best bet is to look for a man who isn't where he's supposed to be. Starting from the easier end. Summer visitors."

"That will be the quickest," the sheriff agreed. "We can check with all the motels and realtors for a single guy renting a room, a condo, or a house; in this area, we tend to get more families and groups than singles, so it ought to narrow the field. I'll get my people on it."

"It's a start, anyway." Riley offered the folder to Leah. "Want to take a look?"

"Pass. Wouldn't know what I was reading anyway."

Riley smiled and returned the folder to Jake. "Not much we didn't already know. White male approximately forty to forty-five years old, tortured and then decapitated. No tox-screen results yet. Estimated time of death was between two and six A.M. Sunday night. Or Monday morning, rather."

"Does that help?" Leah wondered.

"Not really. Not without more to go on. Jake, may I see all the paperwork you've got on any of the other possibly related crimes this summer? The arson, vandalism, whatever else you have."

"Of course." He was all business now, the foray into her personal life seemingly forgotten. "Looking for a common thread?"

Matter-of-factly, she said, "If there was one, your people probably would have seen it. Unless it's occult-related. Those can be very subtle, and I wouldn't expect most cops to pick up on them."

"But you would?"

"Maybe, maybe not." She shook her head. "Sorry to sound vague, but I haven't had a chance to do any research yet; until I work up a list of possibly related occurrences and try to figure out what they have in common, research is tough and fairly useless. The occult is a broad topic."

With a sigh, Jake said, "Yeah, I did an Internet keyword search using human sacrifice. You wouldn't believe some of the shit that came up."

"Oh, I'd believe just about anything." Riley's voice was dry. "But I'd rather start at the beginning, not with the end result."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that the preparations for an occult ceremony are every bit as important as the eventual outcome, possibly more so."

Leah got it first. "So if you find something out of place in the prep work, you'll be more inclined to believe the occult…elements…were used as a smoke screen."

"Exactly."

Jake was frowning. "That's what you think? Seriously?"

"I think it's possible."

"You've been listening to Ash."

"Actually, I think he's convinced this murder has nothing to do with the occult. I'm not quite ready to rule it out just yet."

"I'm glad to hear that," Jake said. "Thought I'd have to waste a lot of time arguing the possibility."

"I'm always open to possibilities," Riley said. "There are usually plenty of them, and this case is no exception. Maybe it's a garden-variety murder dressed up to look like something else. Or maybe it really is something else."

It was Leah's turn to frown. "Wait a minute. You said there wasn't much in the autopsy report we didn't already know."

"That's what I said."

"So there was something. Something you didn't expect?"

"One small thing," Riley agreed. "The stomach contents."

Jake looked at the closed folder he'd placed on the table, then back at Riley, his brows lifting. "What about them? We don't have the tox screen yet, so—"

"So we don't know if he was drugged or poisoned. Yeah. But what we do know is that his stomach was full of blood. And it wasn't his."

R iley finished the PowerBar and juice, hoping the calories would help clear the fog in her brain but not very surprised when it didn't happen. She couldn't seem to think except to ask herself questions for which there were no answers.

Yet, at least.

I've been functioning. Normally—or surely Ash would have commented. But I don't remember what I've said or done. And lost hours and a restless night culminating in a dream—or memory—of some kind of Black Mass can't possibly mean anything good.

The panic was crawling inside her now, cold and sharp and no longer something she could deny to herself. This was out of control, she was out of control, and she had no business whatsoever being part of a murder investigation. The right thing to do, the safe and sane thing to do, would be to return to Quantico.

Today. Now.

Something on the TV broke through the panic to catch her attention just then, and she lunged for the remote to turn on the sound.

Bishop. He hardly ever made the news, went out of his way to avoid being photographed or videoed, and always kept a low profile during investigations. So what the hell was he involved in that was making the national news?

"…the agent in charge refuses to comment on the ongoing investigation, but sources within the Boston police confirmed only minutes ago that the latest victim of the serial killer terrorizing the city these last weeks was indeed twenty-one-year-old Annie LeMott, daughter of Senator Abe LeMott. The senator and his wife are in seclusion with family, as police and FBI agents continue to work around the clock to catch their daughter's killer."

The CNN anchor went on to the next subject, her voice turning perky as she reported on something less tragic.

Riley hit the MUTE button on the remote and returned to her laptop. It didn't require either memory of recent events or senses to tell her what to do next; within two minutes, she was reading a more detailed FBI report of the Boston serial killer. And the report explained a lot.

Bishop was hip-deep in his own investigation, all right. In fact, he was tracking a particularly vicious killer with, so far, at least a dozen notches on his belt. Twelve known victims in just under twenty-one days, all young women, all murdered with bloody abandon.

No wonder Boston was going nuts. No wonder this particular series of murders was making national news.

And no wonder Bishop had accepted Riley's assurances that she could handle the situation here, even when she had failed to report in. She doubted he'd had much time to sleep or eat in the past few weeks, let alone worry too much about any of his primaries—people he had handpicked as team leaders because they were highly intelligent, capable agents with all the skills and initiative required to operate independently of both him and the FBI if necessary and for as long as necessary.

It just…usually wasn't necessary.

With that thought in mind, Riley remained online and connected to a special database at Quantico reserved for the SCU, wended her way through the layers of security, and checked on the whereabouts of the rest of the unit.

Jesus.

Chicago, Kansas City, Denver, Phoenix, L.A., and Seattle, plus two small towns she'd never heard of in the Gulf Coast region. The unit was literally scattered across the map, manpower and resources spread thinner than she'd ever known them to be. And every team was involved in high-risk operations ranging from murder to possible terrorist threats—the latter being investigations the unit had only recently begun to be called into as consultants.

As far as Riley could tell, she was the only agent operating without a team, partner, or any kind of backup. But then, she was also the only one who had set off on a very unofficial investigation of a few oddities—not murder or any other major crime.

Then. Now the situation was definitely high-risk. And being on her own here now was both a very bad idea, and seemingly unavoidable.

Unless she bailed. Returned to Quantico. Nobody would blame her for that, not under the circumstances. Hell, when—if—she told Bishop about this latest wrinkle, he'd undoubtedly recall her without even allowing her time to pack.

Riley realized she was fingering the burn at the base of her skull. She forced herself to stop, swore under her breath, and disconnected from the SCU's database.

She couldn't bail. Couldn't leave.

She had to know. Had to figure out what was going on.

"Let's pretend," she whispered. She could do that. It's what she did best, after all. Pretend.

Pretend everything was normal. Pretend there was nothing wrong with her.

Pretend she wasn't terrified.

The sheriff said to Ash, "You realize, of course, that you have no business being involved in this investigation. This part of it, at least. Your part begins when we catch the son of a bitch."

Ash leaned back in his chair at the conference table and shrugged. "I've gotten involved in the past long before the trial stage, we both know that."

"Not in a murder, Ash."

"We haven't had a murder until now, not since I've been DA. And not since you've been sheriff. I'm betting if we'd had one, we'd have worked together. I may not be a cop, but I have experience in investigations—murder investigations included. And you're too good a cop to ignore that."

Leah glanced at Riley, interested to know how the other woman was reacting to all this, and wasn't very surprised to see that Riley was apparently engrossed in reading reports concerning what little information had come in since the previous afternoon.

There wasn't much. Teams had been canvassing Opal Island as well as Castle, literally going door-to-door in search of an identity for their murder victim. So far, the search had turned up three temporarily misplaced teenagers and one temporarily misplaced husband (the former all found sleeping off a late party and the latter discovered on a nearby golf course), but no man missing since sometime Sunday night.

Leah had read and reread the reports Riley was now studying, and wondered what the federal cop found so interesting. Then again, she decided, maybe it wasn't interest so much as a refusal to get involved in the "discussion" going on between the two men.

"I'll take any resource I can get," the sheriff was saying. "But don't you have to be in court?"

Ash shook his head. "Not at all this week, and hardly next week. Unless something unexpected happens, at least. Even my paperwork is all caught up."

"Just bored and have time on your hands, huh?"

"Jake, it's your investigation. Want me to keep my nose out of it, just say the word."

It wasn't really a challenge, Leah thought. And yet it was. If Jake refused Ash's offer of help, it wouldn't be a smart move; Ash had worked as an assistant DA in Atlanta for several years, and whatever rumor had to say about why he left, nobody doubted he had gained considerable experience with murder investigations while he was there. More than Jake had, when it came right down to it.

Refusing the offer of that sort of experienced help might well be something the voters would remember come the next election, particularly if the situation worsened. Plus, it made Jake appear either insecure or jealous of his authority.

Or just plain jealous, period.

So Leah wasn't very surprised to see her boss accept the offered help, albeit with little grace or gratitude.

"As long as we're clear about who's in charge, I got no problem with you helping out, Ash."

"We're clear."

"Okay, then." Jake looked at Riley. "See anything there the rest of us missed?"

"I doubt you missed it," she said calmly. "The blood in the vic's stomach contained glycerol."

"An anticoagulant, yeah. I got that. And an ingredient in all kinds of things, from antifreeze to cosmetics, so not exactly difficult for someone to get their hands on. Which means virtually impossible to trace."

Leah asked, "So what does that mean? That there was glycerol in the blood?" She hated to admit to ignorance, especially when the sheriff had—rather surprisingly, to her—chosen her to assist him on this case, but she didn't feel less of a cop for not having specialized knowledge, and she needed to understand.

It was Jake who said, "Somebody didn't want the blood to clot too quickly."

"I'm still in the dark," Leah complained.

Riley said, "What it probably means is that the blood the victim drank—whether willingly or because he was forced to—wasn't fresh. Someone had kept it for that purpose. Maybe for quite a while."

Leah grimaced. "Bucket of blood. Oh, yuck."

"Was it so much?" Ash asked.

"At least a quart," Riley answered. "That's way more than is used in any ritual I know of."

Ash said, "And more than anybody could have swallowed without vomiting some of it back up, I would have thought."

Riley looked at the M.E.'s report again. "Some minor abrasions inside the esophagus. I'm betting they used a tube. Probably while he was unconscious. Poured the stuff straight into his stomach. And I doubt he lived long enough after that to get rid of it."

"Then what was the point?" Jake demanded. "Fill his stomach with blood and then decapitate him—why?"

"I don't know," Riley said. "But there had to be a reason. Blood in a ritual represents life, power. Human blood much more so than animal blood."

Leah's thoughts were running along a different track. "You mean the stuff I've heard about that is true? Human blood really is used in occult rituals?"

"Some very rare black-occult or satanic rituals, yeah. But the donor—or donors—offer up only a small amount of their blood, willingly, as part of the ceremony. By pricking a finger, usually, or a cut across the palm. It's pretty much a symbolic thing. Nobody gets bled to death."

"But somebody did this time? I mean, other than the guy we found in the woods?"

Riley frowned slightly as she gazed at the now-closed folder on the table before her. "Like I said—there was at least a quart in his stomach. All of it the same blood type, so likely from the same donor, though we can't be sure without DNA testing. But if it all did come from one person, that's a lot of blood to lose at one time."

"Too much?" Leah asked.

"Could someone have lost that much blood and lived? Sure. Five or six quarts in the human body, depending on size and weight. Losing a quart would be serious but not necessarily fatal, especially if it was a ritual blooding and not some traumatic injury."

"Thing is, at least some more got splashed all over the scene." Jake nodded when Ash looked at him. "We've got two blood types in all that, most from the vic but some apparently from the same…donor…who provided what was in his stomach. No real way to measure how much, especially since the ground soaked up a lot. I'm betting it was more than a couple of quarts, all told."

"Then there's likely to be another murder victim we have yet to find."

"Maybe." Riley was still frowning. "Or maybe not. Maybe the anticoagulant was necessary because it took a while to get enough blood without killing the donor. Or donors. You could probably take a little bit every day for several days without too much danger, if you were careful, knew what you were doing."

Ash said, "So, we're looking for somebody with anemia?"

"Failing a second victim. Or a first victim, rather." She looked at the sheriff. "Any luck finding some kind of pattern in the blood spatter at the scene?"

"So far nada. Melissa says the software hasn't run its course yet, but her gut feeling is that there's nothing to find."

"It was a long shot." Riley shrugged.

"What would you have expected, if there had been a pattern?" Ash asked.

"Well, whoever this is seems to be big on signs. So I would have expected another sign or symbol."

"Here there be devil worshippers?" Jake suggested dryly.

"Something like that. Subtle they aren't."

"They?" Leah asked. Then she shook her head. "Of course—it would be a group, wouldn't it?"

"Probably. There are solitary practitioners in most religions, but for any major ritual there would have to be more than one. Anything up to a dozen or so participants is most likely."

"Conspiracy in murder," Ash noted neutrally, "is very rare."

"They wouldn't have viewed it as murder," Riley said.

"Still, for a group of people to keep this sort of secret…How likely is that?"

"If they practice Satanism, very likely. Or at least very possible. Ash, these groups can only survive if they keep their…less conventional activities to themselves. And they learn that early. They're just too far out of the mainstream for community tolerance, much less acceptance."

Leah was faintly surprised. "Do they need community acceptance?"

"If they live in the community, sure. Their religion is only a part of their lives; they shop, go out to eat, go to the movies and the theater, usually send their kids to school. It's not all that uncommon for some of them to hold public office, especially at the local level. So, generally speaking, they keep quiet about occult practices."

Ash was frowning. "But you said whoever we're looking for in this case isn't being very subtle. Deliberately?"

"Maybe. Or desperate. That was a very public place for a ritual," Riley said. "Especially a major ritual involving sacrifice. Add that to the obvious arson sites, all the signs and symbols…It's either deliberately blatant or very careless. Either way, somebody is moving fast. Maybe too fast to avoid mistakes."

"Any idea what that major ritual would have been?" Jake asked her. "You said these things had a purpose, right? So what purpose was there in torturing a man and then beheading him?"

Riley shook her head to the repeated question, and repeated her earlier answer. "I don't know. Yet."

He nodded as though expecting it. "Well, while you're working on that, I've got some people checking out that group in the Pearson house. Because as far as I can tell, they're the only ones in the area who worship Satan."

"Openly, at least," Riley murmured.

He ignored that. "Soon as the background checks are done, probably in the next couple of hours, I mean to have a talk with that bunch. You game?"

"I wouldn't miss it."

"Okay," Ash said as soon as they were left alone in the conference room, "I did what you asked. Got myself included in the investigation. Want to tell me now why that matters?"

Riley felt a little shock, and her mind raced. She didn't remember asking him to do any such thing and, since awakening to the missing twelve hours or so, had been too preoccupied to ask or even wonder why he had accompanied her to the sheriff's department.

She didn't doubt he was telling the truth, but she also had no idea why she would have asked this of him. Unless…

"Riley? Look, I'm not running away with some fatuous idea that you need me to hold your hand, but—"

"Actually," she said slowly, "I think maybe I do. In a manner of speaking."

He waited, brows lifting in a silent question.

Riley hesitated only a moment. "Jake said the background checks he's waiting for would take a couple of hours. There's something I want to check out myself in the meantime. And I don't think I should do it alone."

"Let's go," he said.

It wasn't until they were in his Hummer in the parking lot that he asked the obvious question.

"Where to?"

Riley drew a breath. "The clearing where the body was found."

He frowned. "I know Jake's kept the area roped off and guarded, but you've already seen whatever there was to see. Haven't you?"

"With my eyes, yeah."

He didn't need that explained. "But you said you weren't able to pick up anything clairvoyantly."

"I wasn't. But there were a lot of people around. It might be different now."

"Might?"

"I need to try, Ash." Because I lost more time, and maybe that changed things. Maybe.

He looked at her steadily for a moment, then started the engine. "Mine not to reason why."

"Long as you don't do and die," she murmured. "Or even ride into the mouth of hell."

Ash smiled. "Have I mentioned how much I appreciate having a well-read lover? I would have had to explain that reference to just about anyone else I know."

"Books and imagination see you through a lot as an army brat." Riley dug into her shoulder bag for a PowerBar. "I have a mind filled with facts, poetry, and way too much useless trivia."

"It's only useless until you need it."

She paused in unwrapping the bar to eye him. "You get that out of a fortune cookie?"

"Probably." He glanced at her. "I do have one question. Why me rather than your pal Gordon? He knows all about the clairvoyance, right?"

"Yeah."

"So why not pick a former army buddy as backup if you're expecting trouble of some kind? Not that I'm complaining, you understand. Just wondering."

Riley was wondering about that herself. She had no way of knowing for certain that she had asked Ash to join the investigation for this reason; it was merely logical to assume. Because she'd known from the beginning that she couldn't just accept the status quo, accept her MIA psychic abilities, that she'd have to push herself at some point, have to try with all her strength to tap into what that Taser's electrical surge had damaged.

She had no idea what would happen then. But logic also told her she shouldn't be alone when she tried. As for why she'd picked Ash over Gordon, logic provided a possible answer for that as well.

"Gordon's a civilian now," she said finally. "He can't be officially involved in a murder investigation. You can."

"Ah. Makes sense."

Yes, it made sense. It was logical.

She wasn't sure she believed it, however.

The problem, of course, was that Riley had no memory of what had prompted her request that Ash involve himself in the case officially. Maybe it was because of this, because she'd intended to try her damnedest to tap into her seemingly absent abilities and wanted someone she trusted standing by in case it knocked her on her ass.

Maybe.

Or maybe it was something else. Something that had occurred to Riley as her mind raced when Ash told her about a decision made, apparently, in those missing hours.

What if it happened again? What if she decided things, did things, made choices today that she wouldn't remember tomorrow? It had happened a second time now; had she somehow guessed or known that her spotty memory and damaged senses had only been the beginning of her problems? What if her mind, her brain, had sustained even more damage from the attack on Sunday night than she had any way of estimating?

What then?

Again, logic demanded that if she intended to remain on the case under these circumstances—and she did—then she needed someone trustworthy who not only knew the truth but was also in a position to stick close and observe her virtually around the clock. At any other time, another SCU member would have been the automatic choice. But that simply wasn't possible now.

Her lover, the DA of Hazard County, was the best choice she was left with.

But to say that Riley felt either confident in or comfortable with that decision would have been to overstate the matter. For one thing, it was a very unofficial way to conduct herself during an investigation, and not at all in character for her. For another and far more vital thing…

Can I trust him? I feel I can. Sometimes. Most of the time. But not always.

Doubts she couldn't even put into words nagged at her. It was like catching a glimpse of some movement from the corner of her eye, only to see nothing when she looked directly at it. She felt that way about Ash, that there was more going on than she could see, could know, and it made her wary.

But can I trust my feelings? Any of them?

And even if I can trust him, will he understand?

Can he?

A nd you have absolutely no memory of anything you said or did during the two blackouts?" From Bishop's calm tone, no one would have guessed either that he found anything unusual in the situation or that he was in the middle of an incredibly intense investigation of his own. For the moment, at least, he appeared to be perfectly capable of juggling multiple tasks.

"No," Riley answered. "It's like I passed out and then woke up hours later."

"Which," he pointed out, "is different from the first memory loss, immediately after the Taser attack."

It took a moment, but then Riley realized. "When I woke up Monday afternoon, there were bits and pieces of memory. Uncertain, even wispy, but they were there."

"Yes. A reasonable physical result of a temporary disruption of the brain's own electrical activity. Like an explosion of energy that caused a scattering, a…fragmentation of memories. You lacked the ability to stitch them together, but all the pieces, all the experiences, were still there."

"Just memories?"

"You tell me."

Riley stood there with the beach house's phone to her ear and gazed absently through the ocean-side windows. Ash was out there on the deck, waiting patiently, his own brooding gaze fixed on the water. She wondered what he was thinking, feeling.

She didn't have a clue.

Drawing a breath, she answered Bishop. "No, not just memories. More. Senses. Emotions. Even the normal ability to read other people, to have some idea of what they're thinking and feeling. It's all scattered, distant."

"But not knowledge. Not training. That you can still access."

"I think so," she said cautiously.

"Then I'm betting it's all still there, Riley."

"In pieces."

"You can reconnect the pieces."

"Yeah? How?" She was afraid her voice sounded as shaky as she felt.

"You made a start. You were able to use your clairvoyance at the murder scene."

"Not like I've ever used it before."

"There's at least a chance the electrical jolt may have changed that for good."

She realized her short nails were biting into her palm and forced herself to unclench her right fist. Staring down at the reddened crescents as they faded, she said slowly, "There's a precedent?"

"Of sorts. Electrical fields affect us, Riley. Virtually all of us. But how depends on the individual. It can have unpredictable side effects ranging from very mild disorientation to a radical change in our abilities. But a direct jolt to the brain…The only similar case I know of involved a second-degree medium who was accidentally electrocuted. His heart stopped, but they brought him back."

"And? He still sees dead people?"

"He couldn't see them before, just barely hear them. Now he sees them in Technicolor and hears them as clearly as you're hearing me. All the time, if he drops the shield it took us more than a year to teach him how to build."

"Like living in the middle of a noisy crowd only you can see and hear."

"Yes. Not pleasant."

"He's not with the team."

"No. Maybe someday, but not yet. Right now it's all he can do to have some semblance of a normal life."

Riley would have preferred to go on talking about someone else's troubles but reluctantly focused on her own. "So…the shock of that Taser might have strengthened or altered my clairvoyance to the point that I can actually experience visions."

"It's possible."

"You didn't mention that possibility before. Did you? Jesus, I don't even remember if I reported in yesterday."

"You did, briefly. And I noticed absolutely nothing unusual in the conversation, so you obviously were functional during those missing hours. As for whether we discussed the possibility that your abilities may have been altered, no, not specifically."

"Did you think this might happen?"

"Honestly?" For the first time a hint of weariness crept into his voice. "There's been so much going on here that I haven't had a great deal of time to consider possibilities elsewhere."

"Yeah, I saw you on the news. Looks like a tough one."

"It is. But all the teams are currently involved in tough cases. Including you. Riley—"

"I know. I should return to Quantico. But the answers are here, Bishop. Besides, at least one man has died and there's a strong possibility of another victim. And I'm involved. Somehow, I'm involved. I can't just walk away from that."

"An unknown assailant managed to blindside a trained agent and put you down hard on Sunday night."

"Don't rub it in," she murmured.

Bishop ignored that. "You don't know if it was meant to be a lethal attack, though all signs point that way. Your memories and instincts are, to say the very least, unreliable, and you've been burning energy at a rate far greater than normal for you. You've had two blackouts in the last forty-eight hours, losing well over half that time. You're experiencing dreams and visions of what appear to be extreme black-occult rites, which we both know are as rare as hen's teeth. And you have no backup."

"What's your point?" she asked, deliberately flip and not at all sure he'd let her get away with it. He usually didn't.

"Riley."

"Okay, it's insane. I'm insane. Probably. I'm also scared, in case you're not picking up on that."

"I'm picking up on it," he said. "Even without telepathy. The worse a situation gets, the more flippant you get."

Riley frowned. "I'm that predictable?"

"It's a defense mechanism. In your case, a survival tool."

"As in ‘Don't bother to kill the poor little lunatic blonde, she's obviously out of her mind and, so, harmless'?"

"That's part of it. And a different sort of…protective coloration. If you're laughing about a situation or taking it lightly, then it can't be all that serious, now, can it? Puts other people at ease and tends to stop them crowding you."

Riley returned her gaze to the man waiting outside on the deck, and said, "I don't think it's going to work this time."

"Not with everyone, at any rate. If Ash Prescott is your lifeline, you need to be totally honest with him."

It didn't surprise Riley that Bishop had picked up on her specific uncertainties; she wasn't at all sure he wasn't actually reading her thoughts, long distance. "I told him he was my lifeline. But…do you really think it'll come to that?"

"I think it might. You've experienced two blackouts in two days, Riley, the second one longer than the first. That alone suggests your condition is deteriorating rather than improving."

"Yeah, I was afraid of that. But the brain's designed to repair itself, right? To build new pathways when old ones are destroyed?"

"Yes, more or less. Which is why I would expect your condition to stabilize. The fact that it hasn't indicates some kind of continuing damage."

Riley considered that for a moment, trying to think clearly. There was an idea on the edge of her mind, something she couldn't quite reach, and it was maddening because she thought it represented at least part of the answer.

There was something…something I realized? Something that made sense?

Bishop said, "It's also distinctly unsettling that you were functional during the blackouts."

"You're telling me. Ash has been filling in most of the missing time for me, and as far as I can tell, I was behaving normally."

"So the most likely scenario we're left with is that you experienced the time, lived through it with perfect normality, and afterward, for some unknown reason, lost the memory of it. Or at least can't access it."

"That's what it sounds like."

"And we don't know what triggered either of the blackouts."

"If something did."

"Blackouts are always triggered by something, at least in our experience. You were using your abilities the second time, but not the first; do you recall any commonalities in the moments just before the blackouts?"

She was about to say no, but then Riley paused and thought about it more carefully. "Just before the first blackout, I was talking to two people from that group of satanists I told you about here on the island, Steve and Jenny; when I woke up after that blackout, it was from a dream in which I was watching the celebration of some version of a Black Mass—with Jenny serving as the altar."

"And the second blackout?"

"Happened just minutes after I experienced that vision at the crime scene. In the vision, the celebrants were masked, but the woman could have been Jenny again. The priest might have been Steve. I can't say for sure, but…"

"A possible connection."

"The only one I can think of." Riley was conscious of a chill as she realized it was becoming more difficult to concentrate, to focus. She was losing energy again. Already, she was losing energy.

Damn, damn, damn…

She forced herself to go on. "Ash…suggested the possibility of another psychic. So did Gordon. Someone able to influence my mind. My memories." And maybe sap my energy?

"It is possible. Your deteriorating condition argues there's something more at work than the single Taser blast. And if there is a combination of black-occult practices and genuine psychic ability manipulating the situation down there, clearly with some success, you can't handle it alone."

"Bishop—"

"Nobody handles that sort of thing alone. A psychic with the drive to create dark energy and the ability to tap into it? With the ability to use it? We know evil exists, Riley, that it's a real, tangible force."

"Yeah, but—"

"A force you're vulnerable to, especially now. Your natural defenses have been weakened, all but destroyed; how could you protect yourself from an attack on that level?"

Riley didn't have an answer.

Bishop didn't wait for a response. "If nothing else, black-occult practices would provide the perfect opportunity to channel negative energy. Whether in an attack meant to disable or destroy, or to achieve some other specific purpose. You're the expert on the occult; you know better than most that such rituals are incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands. Whether intentional or not, controlled or not, they create an enormous amount of negative energy—which could well be one of the things affecting you now."

She hadn't thought of that; it had never happened to her before. Then again, she could count the genuine black-occult rituals she had been witness to on the fingers of one hand. With fingers left over.

"Damn."

"Assume the worst, Riley. Assume you have a very powerful enemy out there. The Taser attack may only have been the beginning."

"I don't know who I could have threatened in such a short time, at least not to that extent."

"Which is the answer you need to look for. Whatever's happened to your abilities, your memories, the one thing you know for certain is that you were attacked."

It was, perhaps oddly, something Riley needed to hear, to be reminded of, and by someone who could view the situation with cool logic.

She felt a bit steadier, a bit more centered. She could do this. She was a pro, after all, experienced in investigation. Trained in self-defense and more than able to take care of herself. Knowledgeable about the occult.

She could do this.

She was almost positive she could.

"So you'll let me stay on the case?"

"There are conditions, Riley."

"Okay, but—"

"Listen to me. You chose Ash Prescott as your lifeline, and we both have to trust that you knew what you were doing. Keep him close. Follow what leads you can, look for what connections you can—and report back tomorrow. By the end of the day on Friday. Just as we originally agreed. If there's been no progress in the investigation, or you black out again, even for ten minutes, then you'll be recalled to Quantico. Period."

This time, Riley knew better than to argue. "Understood." She was still fighting to hold on to her concentration and hoped he wasn't picking up on it. "Bishop, one last thing. The serial killer in Charleston. You were going to look at the files?"

"Yes, I have. You don't have to worry about John Henry Price, Riley."

She leaned against the counter, too relieved to even attempt to hide it. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Bad enough it's a copycat, but—"

"Investigate your case, Riley. Report in tomorrow, sooner if anything changes. And be careful."

"I will." She cradled the receiver and continued to lean against the counter for a moment, then pushed herself away and went to grab another PowerBar before heading back out to the deck to talk to Ash, trying to convince herself that she couldn't actually feel the energy draining out of her as though someone had pulled the plug.

Bishop closed his cell phone and stared down at the folder open on the table before him.

"You lied to her," Tony noted, his tone neutral.

"I withheld part of the truth."

"A lie by omission is still a lie, boss."

"That," Bishop said, "depends on whether the end justifies the means. In this case, it does."

"And is the end going to be a happy one?"

Without directly replying to that, Bishop said, "Riley needs to feel certain of her trust in her lifeline."

"And one truth too many cuts that line?"

"In this situation, probably. With her abilities, instincts, and memories unreliable, the smallest doubt could cause her to pull away from him. Isolate herself even more. Put her in greater danger."

"This wouldn't exactly be a small doubt."

"No. Not from her point of view."

"It's a little shaky from mine," Tony admitted. "I love a good coincidence, but if working with you has taught me anything it's that we're usually not that lucky. A connection between two seemingly unrelated things—or people—usually means something nasty. For somebody. And for there to be any connection at all between John Henry Price and Ash Prescott at this stage is more than a little creepy. To say the least."

"Price is dead," Bishop said, and reached out to close the file in front of him.

"Mmmm. Except that, in our business, dead doesn't necessarily mean gone. And it sure as hell doesn't mean harmless. Somebody is, after all, killing those people in Charleston."

Bishop got to his feet. "We aren't in Charleston, we're in Boston. Where people are also being killed."

"You'd think there was something in the water," Tony offered.

"You'd think. I'll be in the interview room, going another round with that so-called witness."

"Pity you haven't been able to read him."

"That won't stop me from trying again."

Tony waited until he reached the door of the conference room before saying, "Boss? You don't like hanging one of us out on our own, do you?"

"Is that what you think I've done to Riley?"

"It's what you think you've done. What you feel you've done."

"Tony," Bishop said, "sometimes working with an empath—"

"—is a real pain in the ass. Yeah, I know. But I'm not really an empath. The emotions have to be pretty strong for me to pick up on them."

"You're not helping."

Tony grinned faintly. "Sure I am. It's my job to point out that Riley's a big girl—so to speak. She can take care of herself. I was there that day in the gym, remember? She took on you and Miranda. At the same time. And damn near beat you both. I'd call that tough enough."

"Physically, no argument."

"But this isn't about physical toughness, is it? It's about knowledge. Whoever put her down with that Taser knew they couldn't do it any other way."

"It's a dangerous enemy who knows you that well."

"An enemy you should keep close?"

Bishop didn't answer.

"You didn't warn her."

"I warned her."

"Not specifically."

"She knows she has an enemy there. Nothing I could say would make her more guarded or wary, just…"

"Paranoid?"

"No. Dangerously uncertain of the one person who can help her survive the next few days."

"Let's hope she figures out who that is," Tony said. "Because he looks suspicious as hell even from where I'm standing, boss. All of them do. Who does she really trust when the crucial moment arrives? A new lover with a bloody connection to the serial killer who almost killed her? An old army buddy who's been less than honest with her? Or the small-town sheriff with his own agenda? Who does she pick to hang her survival on? How does she make that choice?"

"She listens to her instincts."

"And?"

"And pays attention to what they've been telling her all along."

Riley had finished one PowerBar and was eating another when she rejoined Ash on the deck and reclaimed her sun-warmed chair.

"What did Bishop say?" he asked.

Condensing the conversation, Riley replied, "He thinks it's unlikely—but possible—that another psychic is having an effect on me. Far more likely it's the Taser attack. He mentioned a case where a jolt of electricity changed a psychic's abilities. If that is what's happening to me, there's no way to really know what was damaged or changed in my brain until we see the effects of it."

She decided not to go into the possibility that negative energy created by black-satanic rites could also be having an effect on her, though she wasn't quite sure why.

Who am I doubting? Myself? Or Ash?

"It's a miracle it didn't kill you," he said.

Riley began tying the empty PowerBar wrapper into knots. "I'm still trying to figure out how somebody could sneak up and blindside me. That's not supposed to happen, you know, not to us ex-army types with FBI training to boot."

Slowly, Ash said, "Maybe they didn't have to sneak. Maybe whoever it was…"

"Was already with me? Yeah, the thought had occurred."

"Which, I suppose, explains your reluctance to trust anyone."

"Wouldn't you be reluctant?"

"I'm not arguing. Just saying."

She eyed him, hesitated, then said, "You might as well know. I told Gordon about the attack on Sunday and the amnesia. At least, I'm pretty sure I did, unless that's another memory I can't trust."

Ash didn't appear to be upset by that. "You two served together and have known each other for years; it makes sense that you'd trust him before anyone else. Does he know about the blackouts?"

"No, I haven't talked to him since those started. At least…" She frowned. "I don't remember talking to him. Unless I did on Tuesday afternoon during that missing time. After we had lunch, I walked along the beach to the Pearson house and talked to Steve and Jenny—and the next thing I remember, it was yesterday morning."

He was also frowning. "I picked you up around six-thirty Tuesday; we had drinks and dinner, then came back here. You wanted to do some research online, and I had paperwork to deal with."

"Um…is that usual for us? Both working here?"

"I wouldn't call it usual, but we've done so a few times. Here or at my place."

"I've been to your place?"

A little laugh escaped him. "Of course you have, Riley. But we're usually here at night because my condo is on the small side. I'm keeping an eye out for a bigger place, by the way."

She decided to ignore that last comment. "So…between the time I was talking to Steve and Jenny and when you picked me up here, there are three or four hours unaccounted for. I may or may not have been alone. May or may not have gone to talk to Gordon or someone else."

"Easy enough to check with Gordon, at least."

"Yeah, I'll call him." Riley looked at her half-empty coffee cup and tried once again to gather her thoughts; she seemed able to do so for brief periods, but then they scattered again and she could almost literally feel herself beginning to drift, even despite the calories she had consumed since talking to Bishop.

Minutes ago. Just minutes this time.

"Riley?"

"Yesterday," she said finally, struggling to keep her focus. "After that…vision or whatever it was in the clearing. What did we do?"

"Immediately after? Came back here."

"We did? But wasn't Jake planning to talk to the group at the Pearson house?"

"Yeah. But the background checks turned up nothing, which meant he had no cause to question any of them, no legal leg to stand on. When he called anyway and asked if he could pay them a visit, he was politely referred to their lawyer." Ash shrugged. "Not so surprising a reaction, from a group probably accustomed to…nosy cops."

"And they would be."

"I imagine so. Anyway, Jake was frustrated but hamstrung. There was nothing we could do at the station, and you wanted to do more research in some occult database you knew of, so we spent the afternoon and evening here. We went out for a walk just before sunset, and I tried to teach you the finer points of making spaghetti sauce a bit earlier, but other than those breaks, up until nearly midnight I was channel surfing and you were on the Net. You didn't say, but I got the impression you were looking for something specific."

"I guess you don't know whether I found it?"

"You didn't say."

"Sounds like a boring evening for you," Riley said, bothered by that and not entirely sure why.

"It had its compensations."

Riley was tempted to follow the intriguing tangent but forced herself to focus. "There was nothing new in the investigation in all those hours?"

"Riley, we talked about—" Ash shook his head. "You're right, this is a very confusing minefield. Our memories don't match."

Half to herself, Riley said, "There's probably something profound in that, but never mind. What don't I remember?"

"By late afternoon, Jake called with a positive I.D. on the victim. The house-to-house finally turned up an empty rental where someone was supposed to be, and they were able to match prints found there to those of our former John Doe. Not that it's been much help so far to know who the poor bastard was, since we haven't been able to connect him to anyone on the island or in Castle. As of last night, Jake's people hadn't even been able to contact his family. You don't remember any of this?"

This time, Riley didn't even pause to think about what she didn't remember; she was too busy trying to concentrate. "No. Who was he? What's his name?"

"Tate. Wesley Tate. A businessman from Charleston."

A jumble of thoughts crowded into her mind, and Riley did her best to sort through them. What was real? What memories could she actually claim as her own? "He lived in Charleston?"

"Yeah. Jake's people were still working on the background check when we talked last night, so that's all I know for sure."

"He lived in Charleston, but chose to vacation here?"

"Struck me too. If you live in a beautiful coastal city, why rent a house on an island fifty miles away?"

"Maybe he didn't have an ocean view at home."

"He didn't have much of one here. The rental isn't oceanfront, it's three rows back."

"So he didn't come for the view."

"It's a good bet. Neighbors saw him arrive on Saturday, but nobody seems to have seen him after that. Another weird thing is that it's a big house, not really the sort for a single man to rent. Especially with plenty of smaller houses and condos available on the island. The realtor was under the impression that his family or a group of friends was set to join him later."

"And nobody's shown up."

"Not so far."

Riley drained her cold coffee, then got to her feet, relieved to find her legs relatively steady under her. "I want to take a look at Tate's rental. After that, I think Jake and Leah should meet us at the Pearson house."

Ash was also on his feet. "There's a connection between that group and Tate?"

"If I can trust this part of my memory—yes. A big one."

"You didn't seem to recall a connection last night. What if your memory about this is faulty?"

"I'll jump off that bridge when I come to it," Riley said.

J ake maintained his silence until they reached their vehicles, and then demanded, "Jesus, Ash, can't you keep your hands off her for five minutes?"

Holding Riley's hand, Ash smiled and said, "I really can't."

Leah coughed to cover the beginning of a laugh, and then said hastily to Riley, "You don't think they're involved, do you?"

"I think we were meant to believe so, but…no." Riley shook her head. "I think whoever killed him is the person who advised Wesley Tate to invite his ex-wife and her group here."

Jake said, "Wait a minute. Are you telling me I've got another group of satanists around here?"

"Not a group, no. That would be stretching the odds past breaking, I think. Maybe two people, a team, more probably just one."

"Using this group as a diversion," Ash suggested.

"A diversion from what? Some other reason Tate was killed?"

"Well," Riley pointed out, "it has worked. I mean, first we were running around trying to find out who he was, and now the obvious suspects don't look like such a good fit. We all know the longer it takes to solve a murder the colder the trail gets."

She wasn't about to confide in the sheriff her suspicions that she herself was the linchpin of the entire situation, the target of someone's rage. What evidence she had of such a conclusion was something he was not at all likely to understand, much less accept.

"Stalling tactics?" Jake shook his head. "Then why leave him hanging over that altar? Why not just dump his body in the ocean or bury it somewhere? Since he was never reported missing, we probably wouldn't even have known to start looking for him until new tenants showed up at that house. And why torture and decapitate him?"

"It was meant to look like an occult-related death," Riley said. "That doesn't mean it actually was one."

"So far, we haven't looked past the occult as a motive," Ash said neutrally.

With a definite growl in his voice, Jake said, "I've got a motive for you. It might have been dressed up in black robes and salt circles, but I've got a dead man and his ex-wife both on this island, and that can't be a coincidence. Look, spouses kill each other all the time. And, yes, even years after they divorce. Maybe he just inherited family money and she's still named in his will. Maybe there's a kid involved somewhere and it's a custody issue. Maybe Smiling Steve in there is a hell of a lot more jealous than he let on."

Riley frowned, then shrugged. "It's your investigation, Jake. I just don't believe anybody in that house killed Wesley Tate."

"Then who?" Jake practically roared.

"I don't know. Yet."

He settled his shoulders with the air of a man about to do things. Possibly intensely physical things. "Fine. I'm sure you won't mind if I dig a little deeper with those background checks."

"I think that's an excellent idea. Because there is another connection between that group, Wesley Tate, and either Castle or Opal Island."

"What sort of connection?" Leah asked.

"Find that," Riley said, "and we'll have a very big piece of the puzzle."

Jake motioned for Leah to get into their Jeep, then said to the other two, "So what're you going to be doing in the meantime?"

Riley knew Ash was tempted to reply that it involved nakedness and the Kama Sutra, and replied hastily, "Oh, nosing around. Trying to find out if there really are other occult practitioners in the area."

"Good luck with that. Let me know if you find anything."

"Will do." She watched the sheriff's department Jeep pull away, then looked at Ash with lifted brows. "You were a lot of help."

"I've discovered I enjoy pissing Jake off. It's like having a new toy."

She had to laugh, but added, "Well, stop it, okay? At least until we figure out what's going on. It's distracting."

Sobering, he said, "Yeah, you're right. I did notice that you haven't been in any hurry to tell Jake what you really suspect is going on here."

"It's not like I have any proof. And it all sounds so incredibly Byzantine, for someone to go to all this trouble to lure me here just to mess with my head. The more I think about it, the more unlikely it seems."

Ash glanced back toward the house, then led Riley around to the passenger side of the Hummer. "Maybe we should talk about this on the way," he said.

Riley waited until he joined her in the vehicle and had the engine going before saying, "On the way where?"

"You tell me. How is the head, by the way? You seemed to be picking up on undercurrents back there, if not actual thoughts."

"Actual thoughts," she confirmed. "Jenny's, anyway. Faint and fuzzy, but perceptible. So the head is definitely improving. On every count except memory; the blackouts are still blanks, and my time here before the Taser attack is still weirdly distant and definitely spotty."

Ash guided her hand to rest on his thigh. "So energy isn't a problem now?"

"Not so much. But I am hungry." She thought about it. "I guess food is still the fuel for the physical furnace, but your energy is helping with the psychic end of things."

"As long as it's helping." He glanced at his watch and put the Hummer in gear. "Lunch first, I think. I know you wanted to talk to Gordon this afternoon. What else?"

"I want to look at those arson sites again. Something's been nagging at me." She looked at him and, very conscious of his hard thigh beneath her hand, added dryly, "We'll get to the Kama Sutra later."

Ash smiled. "You really are getting back to normal."

"Because I knew what you were thinking?"

"From the first time we touched," he confirmed. "You said it wasn't complete thoughts, like conversation, just the general impression of what was on my mind at any given moment."

"And you're okay with that?"

"Actually," he said, "it's been a bit of a revelation. And a relief. I never have to explain myself or what I mean when we're talking."

"There's always a downside," she warned.

"Yeah, been there."

Riley lifted a curious brow.

"I had one of those random sexist-pig thoughts all men occasionally have. According to you."

"Must have been a doozy if I called you on it. I'm mostly used to them. The military life, you know. And growing up with brothers."

"Um. Let's just say it led to a…spirited…debate. And great sex afterward."

"Well, at least we didn't go to bed mad. My mother insists that's the secret to happy relationships. Never go to bed mad."

Ash smiled, but said, "I know this psychic deal with us is one-sided, but I don't have to be clairvoyant or telepathic to know that all this casual humor is more of that dandy camouflage you pull on the way other people pull on their socks. So what's really bothering you?"

Riley looked at her hand on his thigh, to any outward observer the casually intimate touch of a lover but to her a connection that might well be vital to her very survival, and spoke slowly.

"When I woke up after that Taser attack, it was like there was a kind of veil between me and the world. Everything was…muffled. Muted. Faded. Once I was able to tap into your energy, that veil began to disappear."

"But?" he prompted.

"Back there, in the Pearson house, a couple of times I…felt myself starting to drift. Even with you touching me, even with plenty of energy, it was difficult to focus."

"Any idea why?"

"That's what worries me. It felt like something outside myself."

"But you were picking up information outside yourself while we were there. How was this different?"

"Because it wasn't just there in my mind, like the clairvoyant bits or Jenny's thoughts. It was…pulling at me."

"Sounds like a confirmation of your theory."

"Yeah. Which is all fine and dandy, except that if I felt the attempt, whoever was on the other end felt the failure of it."

"You mean, if there really is somebody out there trying to mess with your mind—"

"Then whoever it is not only is still trying, but may now be aware that the attacks are less successful. That I somehow have the means to fight back. And I'm guessing the next attempt will be the sort with teeth and claws."

"You know," Gordon said after having been brought up-to-date, "I really wish now I hadn't called you down here, babe."

Riley shrugged. "I have an enemy, that's clear. If it hadn't been here, this way, it would have been somewhere else and maybe another way. I'm glad it was here, Gordon." She nodded toward Ash.

"Well, I'm glad for you, on that account. You been needing somebody to run in harness with as long as I've known you." He looked at Ash, adding, "A lightning rod for trouble. Can't say you haven't been warned."

"Trouble she can mostly handle," Ash pointed out dispassionately.

"Yeah. But, see, the thing is, it never occurs to her that maybe she shouldn't handle everything that comes along all by her lonesome. That it's not just about what she can do, but also about what she should do. And sometimes that means acceptin' a helping hand."

"Stop talking about me as if I weren't here, Gordon. Besides, I have help now—you two."

"And you managed to keep both of us out of the loop for the better part of three weeks," he countered.

"Okay, okay. But you're in the loop now, so some brainstorming would be helpful. I hope."

They were seated around a patio table and under the shade of an umbrella behind Gordon's house and near his dock, a place which provided both privacy and a refuge from the hot afternoon sun.

Gordon pursed his lips. "I guess you've already made your enemies list?"

"More or less." She and Ash had discussed that over lunch. "You know as well as I do that I made a few in the army when I worked intelligence and investigation. And since I joined the SCU I've helped put away some genuinely evil scum. But that's the thing—they were put away. Or killed."

"None of them on the loose?"

"Not that I can find out. We went back to my place after lunch long enough for me to get online and check the databases."

"Which she had apparently done before, during one of the blackouts," Ash added.

Gordon frowned. "So you been thinking about enemies for a while now."

Riley nodded. "Looks that way. My computer log shows I not only checked but also double-checked the whereabouts of every perp I helped put away during the last five years. They're all dead or safely locked up still."

"Maybe you need to go back further."

With a slight grimace, Riley said, "That takes me back to active service overseas, when enemies were all over the place. But I doubt any of them would target me specifically, at least to this extent; they saw the uniform, not Riley Crane."

"Then maybe this isn't personal."

"It feels personal. Very personal. Very specific in terms of an attack. Like somebody figured out what makes me tick and deliberately aimed to take away all my defenses. Not just the spooky senses, but even my memories, my sense of self. Gordon, somebody has been getting inside my head."

"You sure about that, babe? I mean, no disrespect, but, fact is, your memory is shaky and the spooky senses are AWOL, so—"

"They aren't AWOL anymore, thanks to Ash. Not a hundred percent yet, but getting there." She sent Ash a quick smile when he reached over and took her hand.

"So what're they telling you?" Gordon asked.

"That I'm part of the puzzle. Maybe even the reason all this is happening. That somebody has been getting inside my head."

"And using black-occult energy to do it?"

"At least partly." Riley frowned. "I've been trying to think of a possible enemy with that sort of knowledge, because it really is specialized and not something you read about in a textbook. But I've only encountered two black-occult practitioners during investigations, and both of them are dead."

Ash said, "You only mentioned one when we talked at lunch. The last time you investigated supposed occult activity, a few months back, and found a serial killer operating."

She nodded. "He wasn't psychic but had learned how to channel dark energy pretty damn effectively nevertheless. At least to the extent of being able to…oh, cloud my senses, for want of a better phrase."

"Which is what this enemy seems able to do," Ash pointed out.

"Yeah, but aside from the fact that I was present when the guy was autopsied, his effect on my senses was very different from what I'm going through now."

"Maybe because he didn't Taser you first," Gordon suggested.

That possibility gave Riley pause. "Well…could be. If you start out with an artificial disruption of the electrical activity of the brain, any additional sort of attack is bound to have a more extreme result. On the other hand…"

"What?" Ash was watching her intently.

"I'm just wondering if the Taser was the initial attack. If whoever this is has the ability to channel dark energy, then maybe he was having an effect on me from the very beginning. Blocking me somehow, distracting me. Slowing my reaction time, even clouding my judgment. Maybe that was why I had the sense there was something wrong here, despite the lack of any real evidence of occult activity—before we found Tate's body, at least."

Gordon shook his head slightly, and said, "I've seen your spooky senses at work long enough not to easily doubt them, babe, but I got to wonder this time. If you've got an enemy deadly enough to set all this up as a lure to get you here and then spend weeks messing with your head and your life, how can you not know who he is?"

"I thought I did know," Riley admitted. "Especially when I found out about the serial the police are after in Charleston. But it can't be him, that's why I didn't mention him. He's dead." Bishop said so, and I can trust that.

"Who did you suspect?" Ash asked.

"The only other serial I've ever encountered who had an interest in the occult," Riley said. "John Henry Price."

She thought for an instant it was only her hand that had gone cold suddenly, but then she realized it was Ash, his hand, and when she looked at his face, the coldness went all the way to her bones.

"You knew him," she said.

"Still no luck?"

Leah looked up from her desk, surprised that the sheriff had come to her rather than summon her to his office. "The background checks? No, nothing new. We do have confirmation of Jenny Cole's marriage to Wesley Tate—and their divorce. Just as she said."

"Shit." Jake scowled. "There's gotta be something more."

"Sorry, but so far nada. None of the group was anywhere in the area when the arson took place, so we can't connect any of them to those crimes. So far, all the background checks are coming up clean, just like the preliminary ones did. A couple of watch groups that keep an eye on occult activities have these people on their lists, but nothing violent has ever been reported, much less proved."

Still scowling, Jake said, "What about the background check on Tate? Any reason somebody'd want to kill him?"

"Nothing's come up so far."

"Nothing nothing, or just nothing you consider motive enough?"

Leah blinked. "Sheriff, as far as we've been able to determine, Wesley Tate was respected in the business community of Charleston and well-liked. He didn't date much, there was no special woman in his life, and the women he had seen in the last year or so were available and without obvious jealous boyfriends, past or present. Everybody liked the guy. Everybody we've talked to seems genuinely shocked he's been killed—especially like that."

"No interest in the occult—despite his ex-wife's lifestyle?"

"He was a Baptist. A deacon of his church, and in the family pew every Sunday."

"Including the years they were married?"

"Yes. According to friends and family, he just said she ‘wasn't religious' whenever anyone asked. Didn't seem to be a big deal to him, as far as anybody could tell."

"And his will?"

"Bequests to friends and family, most to charity."

"You're kidding."

"No. A half-dozen charities he gave to while he was alive pretty much split his estate now. And, before you ask, his ex-wife was not mentioned. At all. So it looks like Jenny Cole was wrong in believing he was still hoping for a reconciliation."

"Then why'd he invite them here? Come to think of it, why here? He didn't live in Castle, on Opal Island. Not a single realtor has him on the books as a previous tenant, right?"

"Right."

"So why here? Why invite them to a place he'd never been to himself?"

"He may have come here before as part of a group," Leah pointed out. "Just never had a previous rental in his name, is all."

Jake grunted. "Or maybe he used his version of your famous pin-in-a-map way of deciding his future."

Leah cleared her throat. "You weren't supposed to hear about that."

"I hear everything. What about Tate's phone records?"

"They back up what Steve Blanton told us. Tate called the house where the group was living outside Columbia."

"Did he call anybody here in Castle? On the island?"

"Not as far as we've been able to determine."

Jake swore, not exactly under his breath.

"Sorry, Sheriff, but it's a dead end. Pardon the pun."

He turned without another word and stalked back toward his office.

Not exactly beneath her own breath, Leah muttered, "Thanks so much, Deputy Wells, nice job. I'm sure talking to all those shocked people wasn't much fun but, hey, them's the breaks."

"I heard that!"

She winced and reached hastily for her phone, rolling her eyes when one of the other deputies in the bullpen grinned at her.

Riley drew her hand away from Ash's, repeating slowly, "You knew him."

"No. And yes."

She waited.

Ash glanced at Gordon, then returned his intent gaze to Riley's face. "I told you I left the Atlanta DA's office because I got tired of the politics."

A memory, wispy and incomplete, flitted through her mind, but Riley made no effort to catch it. She simply waited.

"That was only part of the truth. I also left because I lost a case I should have won. Before he started his multistate crime spree, John Henry Price was indicted for one count of murder in Atlanta. He was guilty. I couldn't convince a jury."

This time, the memory surfaced clearly in Riley's mind. "I never saw your name. In the case file. Just the notation that Price was only caught once, in Atlanta, more than five years ago. That he stood trial and was acquitted."

His mouth twisting, Ash said, "Circumstantial evidence, not so unusual in a murder trial. But it was enough, I thought. It needed to be. Because I looked that man in the eye…and it was like looking into hell itself."

"I know," Riley said. "I tracked him for months. I stood over the hacked-up bodies of his victims. I even got inside his head. Or—he got inside mine. Whichever. By the time I caught up to him, I'm not sure I would have taken him alive even if I'd had the chance."

Ash drew a breath and let it out slowly. "I never saw your name either. Just the newspaper reports that he'd been shot and killed by a federal agent. After killing all those men. Men he never would have killed if I'd done my job."

"It wasn't your fault. He was smart. And he was careful."

"And a good prosecutor wouldn't have let him get away." Ash shrugged. "That's knowledge I live with every day."

After a long moment, Riley reached out and twined her fingers with his once again.

Gordon, who had watched and listened without a word, spoke up then to say slowly, "Am I the only one at this table who doesn't really believe in coincidence?"

Riley shook her head.

"Me either," Ash said. "But I don't see the point. I mean, if we're saying this has something to do with Price."

"He's dead," Riley said. "They never recovered the body, but he's dead." But hunting him is one of the strongest memories in my mind. I keep reliving that time, like flashbacks. There must be a reason for that. There must be.

Gordon rubbed his jaw briefly, then said, "You said he got in your head or you got in his. That couldn't still be, right?"

"No. I'd know if that were the case. The unit's had to deal with cases where disembodied energy—a soul, if you like—was able to inhabit and even control another individual."

"Possession?" Ash shook his head. "I didn't think that was possible."

"Stick with me and I'll take you to all the impossible places." Riley sighed. "Possession may be real enough, but I don't see it in this case. Tracking him like I did, whether he was in my head or I was in his, I got to know him very, very well. Price had a soul so black I don't see how it could…hide…inside another person. Not without giving himself away."

"The murders in Charleston?" Gordon wondered.

"A copycat, according to Bishop."

"And he'd know?"

"He'd know."

"Okay. So maybe you and Ash both having a connection to Price doesn't mean a thing."

"Yeah. And you also believe in the Easter bunny."

"Stranger things have happened," Gordon reminded her. "We've both seen 'em. You say Price is dead and isn't walking around wearing somebody else's body, and that's good enough for me."

"I wish," Riley said, "it was good enough for me."

R iley could command a literal arsenal of hand-to-hand combat techniques, everything from exotic martial arts to down-and-dirty street fighting, and it was the latter instincts that guided her in this particular instance.

With lightning speed, she reached back and grabbed him, her hand squeezing with full strength and short nails digging into his testicles.

He howled in agony and let go of her, and as he fell she twisted expertly and ended up facing him—with his gun in her hands.

Curled on the ground clutching his bruised flesh, gagging and moaning, he was so wrapped up in his own suffering that Riley was reasonably sure he was blind and deaf to everything else around him for at least a couple of long minutes.

She waited him out, his own gun trained on him, and, when he showed signs of beginning to recover, spoke calmly.

"Nature gave you greater size, more muscle, more aggression. Your edge. She also gave you balls." Riley cocked the revolver she had taken from him. "My edge."

Jake didn't even try to get up, and wheezed a few times before he was able to say, "Jesus…you fight dirty."

"I fight to win," she told him. "Always."

He wheezed some more, finally getting out, "I figured…you'd use some…of that…martial…arts shit."

"Yeah, I could have. But this way was more fun." Even as the flippant words left her, Riley had a realization, and there was no humor in her voice when she added, "You shouldn't be here. Goddammit, Jake, what're you doing here?"

He made a halfhearted attempt to rise, then fell back with a groan. "Shit, Riley, you told me to meet you here. Said you had it all figured out, and—"

She lowered the gun but continued to hold it in a practiced two-handed grip. "Then why did you grab me?"

"For the hell of it," he replied with another groan, this one more theatrical than real. "I thought you might try to throw me over your shoulder or something, but—Jesus Christ, Riley—"

Typical macho bullshit, she thought, not sparing the energy to even be indignant or disgusted by it. He'd been curious about her self-defense skills, and he'd wanted to get his hands on her.

Figured.

Some of her energy was focused on maintaining the deceptively foggy surface of her mind, but she spared a few tendrils to reach out and probe the clearing.

Absently, she said to Jake, "Stay down, understand? Don't even try to get up. I didn't call you myself, did I? Somebody passed on a message?"

"What're you talking about?"

"Who told you I wanted to meet you, Jake? Or can I guess?" She raised her voice. "You can come out, Leah."

There was a moment of silence, and then the tall redhead stepped into the clearing on the other side. And into the circle. She was definitely out of uniform, wearing a long black robe. The hood was down, allowing her long red hair to gleam in the bright moonlight.

"When did you know?" she asked calmly.

"Slow on the uptake, I'm afraid," Riley answered, matching the other woman's calm. "Today—or yesterday, rather—just before you started yanking my mind around. I figured out there was a connection I had missed. Gordon said it. That he didn't believe in coincidence. Ash and me both here, each with a past connection to John Henry Price, that was what he was thinking. Couldn't be coincidence. And wasn't. You wanted Ash in this. That's why it had to be here. In Castle. Because this is where you found Ash. Right?"

Leah smiled faintly. "I may have underestimated you."

Riley kept going. "Ash was here, and he wasn't going anywhere. He was the only one who had come close to putting Price behind bars where he belonged. And it didn't matter to you that he'd failed. It mattered to you that he had dared."

"He shouldn't have done that," Leah said. "It was…upsetting. The trial. All the watching eyes. We don't like watching eyes."

Riley resisted the temptation to follow that tangent. "So it had to be here. Where you'd make your stand and even all the scores. You'd already met Gordon. Probably in Charleston, when he was looking for his retirement spot. That was the question I forgot to ask him, you know, who it was suggested Opal Island as a nice place to retire. I had it backwards, thanks to that sweet little story you spun for me about picking Castle by sticking a pin in a map. I thought he was already here when you came. But it was the other way around, wasn't it, Leah?"

"I'm going to regret Gordon, I think," she replied. "He's been fun. And amazingly easy to handle. Most men are, I've found."

It was taking everything Riley had to split her focus, to keep her eyes on Leah, her voice even and calm as she talked, while another part of her consciousness was reaching out in another direction entirely.

Everything she had was—she hoped—just enough.

"You had already picked your group of satanists," she went on. "Thanks to Price and his interests, you knew the right people. Knew how to find what you were looking for. A tame group ready to relocate, a member with an ex-husband hoping to reconcile. It was, as you say, easy enough to manipulate Wesley Tate. Maybe you went out with him once or twice and found out about Jenny that way."

Leah shrugged, still smiling.

"You had almost all the players ready. Gordon was here. Ash was here. Tate was primed to get his ex-wife and her group here. I was next. To get me here, you needed to worry Gordon. So you did. By planting all those little signs of occult activity. I don't know, maybe you planted a bit more than signs. Maybe you planted the worry in Gordon, or strengthened it. So he'd contact me."

Riley took a half step to one side, coming around just a bit to face the other woman more squarely.

She didn't raise Jake's gun.

"And I came. All according to your plan. Or was it his plan? Does your father control you even from his grave, Leah?"

That surprised Leah, her smile fading and tension visible as she stiffened.

Riley nodded. "He really didn't like women, but he had tried to be what he believed was normal. No marriage on the books, no girlfriend we could ever find, so I'm betting your mother was a one-night stand. What was she, Leah, some hooker he paid to help him get it up?"

Leah's head moved slightly in an odd, twisted way—and in the circle all the candles flared suddenly brighter.

The extra light allowed Riley to see what she had been afraid of seeing. In the center of the circle, lying limply across the flat altar stone, was Jenny.

Not dead yet: The long, curved blade of the knife Leah held was not yet bloodied. But the dark woman was clearly unconscious.

Riley was still trying to hide the part of her mind and senses that was reaching desperately for a connection, so she made her voice a bit slow and uncertain.

"I guess the darkest energy would come from the sacrifice of a priestess, wouldn't it? And you need the darkest energy tonight. A full moon, a satanic priestess. What else, Leah? Does Jenny have some of your blood in her stomach like Tate did?"

"So you figured that out, did you?"

"That it was your blood? Had to be, really. Whoever planned that sacrifice had saved and stored the blood. And you really couldn't afford to have another body turn up before your plan was under way. So it had to be your blood."

"My father's blood."

Riley didn't allow herself to be distracted. "I'm betting you were a teenager when he found you. Or you found him. Evil calling out to evil, I imagine. It does that, we've found. Anyway, he had his apprentice. His blood princess. And you were good, I'll give you that. The whole time I was tracking him, you were on me, weren't you? I was focused on him, so obsessed I was blind to you being right there. Watching me. Reporting back to him."

"He would have beaten you," Leah said suddenly, her voice changing, dropping and taking on a guttural edge. "That was the plan. To seem to be shot. To fall into the river. So we could stop running. So we could settle somewhere."

"What went wrong?"

"So stupid and senseless. The body armor he wore saved him from your bullets. But it was heavy. The current was stronger than we'd anticipated. And he was winded from the chase. He drowned."

"Pity," Riley said without remorse. "I was hoping he really suffered."

Again, Leah's head moved in that stiff, twisted way, and again the candles flared, this time as though the flames were fed by gas jets. The clearing was nearly as bright as day, the woods around them dark and shadowed.

From the corner of her eye, Riley made sure Jake was still. And he was. In shock, probably, she thought. Shock of the emotional kind. Or total bewilderment.

She said, "I guess you've been having a lot of fun messing with my head, huh?"

"You have no idea," Leah said. "You were a challenge at first. I was only able to cloak my mind without affecting yours very much. That's why I resorted to the Taser."

"Yeah, that plus all the dark energy you were channeling, especially from the sacrifice, was enough to get the job done. And I'll bet you really enjoyed butchering Wesley Tate. Chip off the old block, aren't you?"

"I am my father's daughter."

Riley thought she had never heard anything so chilling as that proud statement. She drew a breath and fought to keep her own voice even and steady.

"So it was all about payback. You took your time, set up the situation just as you wanted it. Used the satanists as window dressing, something to keep us distracted while you were performing all the black rites alone. Using fire. Using blood. Using death. Whatever it took to get the power you wanted, you needed. To destroy me. Not just kill me. Destroy me."

"You took away my father. You have to pay for that," Leah said reasonably.

"Your father was a sadistic bag of evil," Riley said in a matching tone. "The world needed to be rid of him. The sane world, at least."

Leah stiffened again but laughed, the sound like brittle sticks rattling together. "You don't seem to get it, little girl. I've already beaten you. I've stolen time from you. I've wrecked your memories. I've fixed it so you don't even remember falling in love. How sad is that?"

"Now, see, that's the one step too far. That's the one that's going to cost you, Leah. Because I understand the need for vengeance. Makes perfect sense to me. Even to avenge a sadistic bag of evil like Price. I get that. But the memory of finding my soul mate? I want that back. And you're going to give it to me."

This time Leah's laugh was a bit—just a bit—uncertain. "What you don't get is that you've lost. Your mind is so weak there's no way it can even fight me, much less take back what I stole from it."

"You're right. I'm not strong enough to beat you. Not alone. But that's what you don't get, Leah. I'm not alone." Riley reached back with one hand and felt Ash's fingers close around hers.

There was a frozen moment when Leah realized, understood. She lifted her knife and lunged toward Jenny's prone body.

Needing the sacrifice. The power.

Riley fired one shot, hitting Leah in the hand so that the knife fell from her suddenly useless fingers.

"No," she said hoarsely. "I won't let you—"

Riley had never tried to do anything even remotely like this before, yet somehow she knew exactly what to do. When Leah gathered her fury, all her emotions, and screamed, sending a visible, jagged spear of dark energy from the circle aimed at Riley, it didn't find its target as a weapon, but as a tool.

It was almost like the Taser attack that had really started everything, only this time Riley wasn't caught, wasn't trapped, and was a long, long way from defenseless. And this time she didn't discharge her strength into the earth but channeled the sheer energy flung at her, took from it what she was determined to have, and then sent what was left streaming back to its source.

But when it returned to Leah, it was white-hot and burning, and her second scream shattered the night even as the energy shattered her circle of power. There was an almost blinding burst of light, the scream was cut off as though by a knife, and then it was over.

The candles were gone. The salt scattered to the winds. And clean moonlight shone down on the two women closest to the altar, one of them just beginning to stir and the other a crumpled form on the ground.

"Is she dead?" Ash asked.

"No," Riley answered. "But powerless now. Jenny was drugged, but she's coming out of it. She should be fine."

"With a stomach full of blood, she's going to be sick."

"Well, after that, she'll be fine. I don't know if she'll go back to being a satanist, but she'll live."

"Thanks to you."

She turned and looked at him, smiling. "Thanks to us. Hello. I remember you."

Ash was smiling as well. "Good."

Jake struggled to rise from the ground, his "What the bloody hell is all this?" several octaves higher than he, perhaps, would have preferred.

Riley glanced at him, and then said to her soul mate, "I have a feeling the debriefing is going to take some time."

"That's okay," Ash said, pulling her into his arms. "We have time."

EPILOGUE

G ordon admitted he'd been feeling uneasy about Leah for weeks before he called me," Riley said. "It was nothing he could put his finger on, just a feeling something wasn't right. When all the supposed evidence of occult activities began turning up, he thought maybe that was it, that somebody'd put a hex on her or something like that."

Ash raised his eyebrows. "A hex?"

"Hey, we've all seen weirder things, believe me. And Gordon's Louisiana roots run deep. Thing is, stories his grandmother told him clash with his Duke education, so he has a tendency to doubt his own instincts when it comes to the paranormal."

"Duke, huh? I guess that also explains why he's drawling one minute and talking like a college professor the next."

"Yeah, that explains it." Riley leaned against the deck railing and gazed down the beach, where a bonfire burned brightly—surrounded by a rather sober group of satanists. It was Friday night, and they were having their scheduled "marshmallow roast."

"I don't think they're having much fun," Ash noted.

"No. Too much to take in, probably. Even though they weren't involved, they got too close to the dark side for a while. The very dark side. That tends to give people pause."

"I can see how it would."

Riley smiled slightly, without looking at him. "But not you, right?"

"Any pausing I did was early on," he said. "Back when we were both cranky about falling in love. Once we fell, there really wasn't anything to be done about it. Except enjoy."

"Glad you added that last part."

"Probably a good thing I can. I mean, I'm hitching my fate to a clairvoyant ex-military FBI agent who specializes in the occult and has the power to yank me out of a sound sleep in the middle of the night and draw me miles to her side in order to help her defeat the evil spawn of a serial killer."

Riley chewed on her lower lip for a moment, and said, "Well, when you put it like that…"

"I'm a very brave man."

"Yes. You are." Riley turned and smiled at him in the bright moonlight. "Bishop's going to try to recruit you, you know." It wasn't quite a question.

"I had a feeling."

"Well, we'd make a hell of a team."

Ash pulled her into his arms. "We already do, love."

It was all the answer Riley needed.