Sleeping With Fear (13 page)

"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?

S
he hadn't yet made up her mind how to explain the situation to Ash. How much to tell him.

Do I tell him how out of control I feel? Do I tell him I'm scared? Do I tell him I don't remember us?

She didn't know.

"Riley?"

She realized she had tied the empty PowerBar wrapper into a knot, twice, and forced herself to stop. "Yeah?"

"You haven't told me a whole lot about the work you do, at least in specifics. But what you have said, and what I know of you, tells me that you've used your abilities most of your life. Yes?"

"Since I was a kid, yeah."

"And we've already discussed the fact that both your army and FBI training and experience have prepared you to face just about any eventuality."

Riley didn't reply since it wasn't a question, and as he pulled the Hummer into a space near the dog park she turned slightly in her seat to look at him.

Ash turned the engine off, then met her gaze and nodded slightly. "All that being the case, I have to ask what makes this situation different for you."

"I told you I'd never gotten involved with anyone during an investigation."

"Yeah, but I'm not talking about us. I'm talking about you."

"Ash-"

"You're scared. And I want to know why."

After a moment, she said, "Does it show so plainly?"

He shook his head. "As a matter of fact, if I didn't know you so well I never would have seen any sign of it. There was nothing you said or did that gave you away, not really. You've just been…a bit off the last few days. Quieter. Slower to react, to answer a question. And you've been tossing and turning a lot every night. So not quite yourself."

"And you read that as fear?"

"Not at first. I'd venture to guess very little scares you, and I'm pretty sure you've seen things that would make my hair stand on end. So fear wasn't the first possibility I thought of when I realized something was wrong."

Riley waited.

"But then it dawned on me that despite what you were telling me, the way you've been burning energy so quickly during the last few days
was
unusual. Even for a case. And that either you didn't know why it was happening, or you were shaken because it wasn't something you could control. Control is a big issue for you, we both know that. It's a trait we share."

"Which is why you realized I was probably afraid."

"If there's something you can't control in your life, fear is possible; it's a natural response no matter what kind of training you've had. If there's something you can't control in
yourself,
fear is fairly inescapable, at least for people like us."

"Makes sense," she said, echoing his earlier comment. "And it's a good read."

"Accurate?"

Riley nodded reluctantly. "Accurate enough. This is-I haven't encountered a situation like this one before."

"In what way?"

She hesitated again, her mind still racing, still torn with uncertainty and wariness, then finally took that leap of faith. She had to trust him. She had no choice. "The burns on the back of my neck?"

His eyes narrowed. "Yeah?"

"Not from a curling iron. Apparently, I was…immobilized by a stun gun sometime Sunday night."

"You were attacked?"

"Apparently."

Ash drew a breath and let it out slowly. "That's twice you've used that word. Apparently. You don't know?"

"I don't remember."

He got it quickly. "The electrical charge. It affected your mind?"

Riley nodded. "My memory. My senses. All my senses, even the extra ones. I've been scrambling ever since. To catch up, to remember. To figure things out."

"Christ, Riley. Do you remember what you were doing, who you were with?"

"Not so much. And it's been a bit difficult to piece things together without admitting I don't have a clue what happened."

"And I'm hearing this only now?"

She kept her tone even. "Imagine waking up with your memory full of holes. Imagine that when you woke up, you had dried blood on you. And then imagine that before you could get your feet under you and try to figure out what had happened, you were called to the scene of a grisly murder." Riley managed a shrug. "It took me a while just to get all the characters straight, never mind the plot. I'm still working on that."

"Dried blood on you?"

"That was the part of the report from Quantico that I didn't want to explain to Jake.
First test: human.
The blood on my clothes was human; my boss ordered it tested."

Slowly, Ash said, "And the second test said the blood was the same type as the donor. So the blood on you matched what was in the victim's stomach?"

Riley nodded. "I don't have a clue how it got all over me, but the obvious possibility is that I was there. At some point before, during, or after that murder, I was there. Involved somehow."

"You didn't kill anybody," he said immediately.

"I certainly hope not. But I can't explain that blood. And until I can, admitting all this to Jake doesn't seem like a good idea. Especially since he's not all that happy with me right now."

Ash frowned. "Wait a minute. On Sunday night, you told me-unexpectedly-that you needed some time alone and sent me away. Which means you knew something was going to happen."

"Or at least knew I wanted to do some investigating on my own, yeah, we can assume that."

"But you don't remember where you were planning to go or why?"

"Afraid not."

He turned his gaze forward, staring through the windshield as his long fingers drummed on the steering wheel for a moment. Then he looked at her again, this time with a certain amount of anger. "This was never just a vacation for you, was it, Riley?"

So I hadn't confided in him about that. Why not?

Dammit
, why not?

"Riley-"

"It's never just a vacation for me. Never."

Mobile
, Alabama

2½ Years Previously

By now, Riley could have been blindfolded and taken anywhere in the Southeast or along the Gulf and would have been able to recognize a coastal or river city from the smell alone.

She was also beginning to really dislike it. Musty, muddy, faintly sour, it made her think of damp and decay and blood.

Not so surprising, really, considering how many butchered bodies she'd stood over in otherwise lovely coastal cities.

This time, Riley didn't wait for the killer to strike. She didn't just drift into Mobile and blend in, vanish into anonymity while allowing her senses time to adjust, which had been the game plan up to that point.

After New Orleans, waiting patiently was somewhat beyond Riley. Whether because this particular killer had thrown a gauntlet at her feet professionally or because she felt personally violated, the fact remained that she was certain he had somehow managed to touch her mind more surely than she had touched his.

And that, to Riley, was a hell of a strong motivation to get this case resolved and this killer behind bars ASAP.

So, despite Bishop's warnings, despite her own uneasy misgivings, she used every trick of concentration and focus she had learned in her life to begin trying to connect the moment she hit town.

It wasn't the way her abilities were supposed to work, really. She had connected with other minds before; Bishop said her secondary or ancillary ability was telepathy, and being a telepath himself, he'd know. But generally speaking, telepathy was barely a blip on her personal radar, and her clairvoyance took the form of picking up bits of information from her surroundings or from other people. Touching objects or people tended to make it easier, but not always. Sometimes she got absolutely nothing. And on a few memorable occasions she had been slammed by a "dump" of information that had left her mentally disoriented and physically exhausted-a truly disconcerting experience she was wary of repeating but had no way of controlling or predicting.

Cosmic irony, that. A not-so-gentle reminder from the universe that the gifts given never came without strings.

In any case, her own "gifts" tended to be far more benign than those many psychics experienced. No pain, no disorientation, no visions yanking her from the here and now. Mostly, she just became aware of something rising in her mind, bobbing about to attract her notice, like flotsam on a wave. A fact, a feeling, a certainty.

Reaching beyond that, opening herself deliberately to contact from a dark and twisted killer, was a move as risky as it was unprecedented, at least where she was concerned.

She wasn't even sure how to do it other than to focus, concentrate, think about this butcher and how badly she wanted to stop him-

Welcome to Mobile, little girl.

Riley stopped in her tracks. She stood on a side street in downtown Mobile, near a well-lighted corner where people passed on foot and in cars on a typical weeknight like this.

They went about their business, oblivious, as Riley put out a hand to the building beside her, steadying herself not so much physically as emotionally.

There weren't words to describe how cold and slimy his thoughts were in her mind. Everything in her recoiled, yet she made herself stand still and silent, ignoring her surroundings until she saw nothing, felt nothing, heard nothing except that voice in her mind.

That presence.

I knew you'd come. Knew you'd follow me.

"Where are you?" she whispered, not even aware that she'd shut her eyes, the better to concentrate.

I'm close, little girl. Closer than I've ever been.

"Where?"

Can't you feel my breath on the back of your neck?

She forced herself not to turn, not to betray the icy shiver chilling her all the way to her bones on the warm, humid night.

"Where are you, you bastard?"

Fast as you were, I got here before you. I've been waiting, little girl.

"God damn you-"

I've left you a present.

Riley's eyes flew open and she jerked as though physically struck. "No," she murmured. "Oh, no…"

He had left her another victim to find. Another butchered body. Another family destroyed.

She had failed. Again.

Poor little girl. In such pain. But don't worry. You'll get another chance. We'll meet again, Riley.

Present Day

"Riley?"

Dragging her mind back from the past, fighting to focus on the here and now, Riley had to wonder why, if she was sleeping with this man, she hadn't told him the real reason she'd come to Opal Island.

Had she trusted him before the Taser attack? Or was there, among her lost memories, a reason why she had allowed him to share her bed without sharing her truths?

But she had already taken the leap of faith, so she pushed the doubts aside, drew a breath, and answered him honestly.

"Gordon got in touch just before I came down here. The fires, the signs and symbols pointing to the occult, worried him. He's seen enough of the world, walked through enough jungles, to know when something bad is walking there too. He believed something was going on and that it was going to get worse. He asked me to check it out. Unofficially, of course. When he called, I'd just come off a case, I had vacation time piling up, and the unit wasn't busy. So my boss okayed it. Not a formal investigation, just a favor for a friend."

"Why didn't you tell me, Riley? We talked about the arson, the way people were getting edgy-even about the possibility of occult activities. You told me the occult was one of your specialties in the SCU. You never said it was why you'd come here."

Because I didn't trust you enough? Because I was afraid-or knew-that you were involved? Or only because for the first time my personal life meant more to me than my professional one and I didn't want them to get tangled?

Why couldn't she think straight? Why couldn't she make up her damn mind about him?

"Riley?"

"I don't know. I don't know why. I don't remember, Ash."

Once again, his eyes narrowed. "You don't remember? Do you mean it isn't just whatever happened on Sunday night that you can't recall?"

She nodded reluctantly. "When I woke up on Monday, most of the last three weeks was pretty much a blank."

"Pretty much?" A lawyer's determination to get things straight.

"Almost entirely," she admitted. "There were flashes. Faces. Threads of memory that vanished like smoke when I tried to catch hold of them. I had to be told, by Gordon and by my boss, what I was doing here."

"Then you didn't remember us."

"No," Riley said. "I didn't remember us."

"You sure as hell fooled me," Ash said.

Riley looked at him for a moment, then unfastened her seat belt and got out of the Hummer. She headed for the entrance to the dog park, not surprised that the area was deserted but for the bored deputy standing guard at the break in the fence near the woods.

Murders made people nervous. Particularly gruesome murders with possible satanic elements made them downright panicky. Riley figured most dog owners were taking their pets to the beach for exercise these days.

"Riley-"

When he grabbed her arm and swung her around to face him, she almost reacted in self-defense. Almost. Those instincts, at least, were very much alive in her, and that training went so deep it was an ingrained part of her character; her father had begun teaching her how to throw a larger opponent over her shoulder-and disable said opponent-before she started kindergarten.

She was more than a little surprised she hadn't taken Ash's head off. Interesting, that. Important? She didn't know.

She looked at the hand gripping her arm, not moving or speaking until he swore under his breath and released her. Then she merely folded her arms and waited.

"Look, if anybody has a right to be pissed about this, I think it's me," he said, keeping his voice low so that the deputy some yards away wouldn't hear.

"Oh, really?" She stared up at him, matching his quiet steel with her own. "Somebody
attacked
me. He or she put a stun gun to the back of my head and emptied electrical current into my
brain.
And not just the electrical current standard in a Taser, meant to temporarily incapacitate. This was an amped-up weapon, Ash, a weapon quite probably intended to kill. It didn't kill me, but it put me down and it damn sure screwed up more than my memory. So forgive me if I chose to pretend nothing had happened for a few days while I tried to figure out who the hell I could trust."