Sleeping With Fear

Chapter 10

Riley bent to pick up a charred bit of wood and straightened, turning it in her hands. "The house was under construction when it burned?"

"Not much more than a shell," Jake confirmed. "The roof was on, and it was mostly closed in, but that was it."

"And it was being built by a construction company, not an individual."

"Yeah, a big company bought up a shitload of land on the island a few years ago, when one of the original owners finally sold out. They've been building on lots ever since. Usually have two or three houses going at the same time. Big crew."

"Insurance?"

"What you'd expect. Nothing excessive." Jake shrugged.

"And nothing crooked that I could find. They build a house and then sell it, to either an individual, a co-op, or one of the properties groups that own rentals. Business as usual around here."

Riley dropped the charred wood and absently brushed her hands together. "And your fire marshal is sure it was arson?" She was behaving as though this was her first visit here, although she had to assume that she'd been here to this site at least once before, and unbeknownst to the sheriff. This fire had, after all, been one of the unusual occurrences to rouse Gordon's suspicions this summer.

So it only made sense that she had come here at some point. She might even have found something here to deepen-or erase-her own suspicions, for all she knew.

She didn't remember.

"An accelerant was used," Jake replied. "And not something common, like gasoline or lighter fluid. I don't have lab results on just what kind, but we're sure of that much."

"Anything else we're sure of?" The question was straightforward and not at all sarcastic.

"Not a whole hell of a lot. Happened in the middle of the night, closer to dawn, really. Report called in by a neighbor who was up early to take his dog out. The fire was well under way, and nobody was seen here or running-or driving-away from here."

Riley frowned at the blackened pilings intended to support the house well above the sandy ground as required by code and the only parts of it still upright and recognizable. Around the base of the massive timbers were mounds of charred wood, some of them waist high, where the building had caved in on itself while burning.

"What're you thinking?" Jake asked.

She wished she knew. There was something very familiar about this, but she didn't know what it was. Or even why it was. Maybe it just looked familiar because she'd stood here before, studied the debris of this fire before.

Or maybe it was something else.

"Riley?"

Why do I get the feeling it's something else?

"I guess the fire marshal sifted through all this stuff," she said, more to be saying something than because she had any real doubts.

"Twice. And then I had a closer look myself-early yesterday, as a matter of fact. Except for signs of that accelerant I mentioned, neither of us saw anything that didn't belong here."

Riley looked at him with a frown. "Then why do you have this fire lumped in with the other unusual occurrences? Fires happen. Arson happens." Thinking of the earlier conversation with Leah, she added, "Even in paradise. And burning a building doesn't play a part in any ritual I know of. So why do you believe this might have had something to do with occult practices?"

He sighed. "Well, there was one unusual thing here. The fire marshal didn't notice, or at least didn't put it in his report. And I only found it yesterday. Haven't even had the chance to tell Ash, if you want the truth."

"Found what, Jake?"

He led the way through the mounds of rubble toward the beach side of the property, saying over his shoulder, "The company wants to clear all this and start rebuilding, but their insurer's investigator apparently wants to take a look and won't cut them a check until he does. Supposed to be here by the end of the week. Otherwise, all this'd be cleared out by now."

An awful lot of things appeared to be happening-or were supposed to happen-by the end of the week, Riley thought, conscious of a new prickle of unease. As if a clock were ticking off the moments until…something. She didn't know what. Or whose clock it was.

Or even if it mattered, dammit.

But all she said, calmly, was, "I'm not surprised the insurer wants to take a look, if an accelerant was used. I gather it was one of those rare policies that actually covers arson, but only if no evidence points to the company?"

"Yeah. Buildings under construction are tempting targets for arsonists, and having a special rider on the policy is usually less expensive than hiring security to watch the place twenty-four-seven all during construction. But the insurers take a harder look when something like this happens, of course. Personally, I don't see how the builder would profit from a fire, not at this stage. The policy is one designed just for a building in progress, so at any given time it only covers what the company can prove it's cost them up to that point."

"Sensible."

"Yeah, and pretty much stops some unscrupulous builder from throwing up shoddy workmanship and then burning it and claiming the loss as market value. Apparently, you've gotta have the paperwork to back up your claims of cost-actual cost of materials and manpower, not appraised value when finished. That sort of policy keeps the cost down for the builder but still makes it so they don't lose their shirts if something happens during construction."

"I bet it's saved the insurance company some major bucks too. Jake, where are we going?"

"Here." He stopped near the edge of the dunes, which presently hid their view of the ocean and over which a wooden walkway had already been partially constructed, with more thick pilings sunk deeply into the sand.

Ignoring the STAY OFF THE DUNES! signs posted liberally up and down the beach and near every walkway, Jake stepped behind a piling and crouched down.

"Almost missed it," he said.

Riley joined him, going down on one knee in the soft sand, and stared at the rough surface of the massive post. "I don't suppose it could be natural," she said.

"No. Found the same thing at the abandoned building that burned in Castle last week. I'd say this was a brand-or at the very least made with something hot enough to burn the wood."

After a moment, Riley reached out and traced the very clear shape that did indeed look as though it had been deliberately charred into the surface of the post.

An inverted cross.

It was nearly lunchtime when Riley and the sheriff finished what little they could do at the second arson site, an abandoned building on the outskirts of downtown Castle. What little they could do having consisted of looking at a burned-out hulk of a building that had once been a small store and studying the inverted cross that had been burned into an otherwise untouched plank jammed upright into the ground and left conspicuously behind the building.

"Not very subtle," Riley murmured as they headed back toward the street.

"Was it supposed to be?" Jake asked. "I mean, isn't a sign supposed to be…well, a sign?"

"A sign of what? Here there be devil worshippers? Most practitioners keep pretty quiet about it, Jake."

"That group down the beach from you has been vocal."

Which led Riley to believe they were likely to be harmless, more apt to be on the candles-and-chanting "conventional" end of Satanism rather than out on the extreme fringes, where blood rituals and attempts to harness the elements or some supernatural force were practiced.

But all she said was, "Leaving signs of occult activity for outsiders to find isn't smart. Unless you have a very good reason."

He frowned. "Okay. Then, maybe…a warning of some kind?"

"I guess it's possible." She couldn't seem to think clearly, and Riley was aware of another chill of unease. How many PowerBars had she eaten since breakfast? Two? Three? That should have been enough. More than enough. For Christ's sake, it wasn't as though she'd been running an obstacle course-

"Are you okay?" Jake demanded. "You've been acting sort of weird all morning."

"Have I?"

"Yes, you have. And that wasn't an answer. What the hell's going on with you?"

She wouldn't have pegged the handsome sheriff as being particularly sensitive to undercurrents, which told her that it was only too screamingly obvious something unusual was going on with her.

Great. That was just great. She really couldn't fake it anymore, apparently.

Falling back on the tried and true, she said, "I'm different when I'm working, that's all."

"No offense, Riley, but if this is you working, I don't know how much help you're going to be to this investigation."

Despite the beginning of that sentence, his tone was aggressive and his entire attitude impatient, and it didn't take any extra senses to tell Riley he was in the mood to pick a fight. Probably, she thought, because needling her at the station hadn't achieved whatever results he'd been after.

She wondered now if she had stopped dating Jake less because she'd met and been attracted to Ash and more because she really didn't have much time for men who believed they were God's gift.

Under different circumstances, she probably would have given him the argument he so clearly wanted to start, but today she simply didn't have the energy for it.

In any case, he was distracted before Riley had to come up with some kind of response. And she didn't know whether to be relieved or irritated when the distraction proved to be Ash. His Hummer was parked beside Jake's Jeep out on the street.

"How'd he even know where we were?" Jake muttered.

"He didn't have to know," Riley pointed out mildly. "All he had to do was drive the few blocks between here and the courthouse and look for your Jeep."

Jake grimaced. "Yeah. Sometimes I forget how small this place really is."

"I wouldn't think you could hide much here," she agreed.

"You ever lived in a small town?"

Riley nodded.

"Then you know that there are secrets everybody in the entire town knows-and then there are secrets that stay that way, sometimes for generations."

"True enough." Something was nagging at her mind, had been for at least the last hour, but Riley couldn't make it come clear. Something about one of the arson sites? Something Jake had said? A memory trying to surface?

She didn't know. Whatever it was, it remained maddeningly elusive.

It's like an echo of something I only half-heard in the first place. How the hell am I supposed to figure out what it was?

Especially with her Swiss-cheese memory and still-dulled senses.

Ash had gotten out when he saw them approaching and, when they joined him on the sidewalk, asked Riley, "Any ideas about our mysterious arsonist?"

"Nothing helpful, I'm afraid," she replied, pushing the useless worries out of her mind for the moment.

"Still thinking it could be part of some kind of occult activity?"

"I still can't rule it out." Riley shrugged. "I've got to do some research, see if any of this fits any known pattern."

"Would you expect it to?"

"Well, yeah, at least to some extent. There are basic tenets to every religion, every belief system. The bells and whistles may change over the years, and some strong leaders may invent their own rituals or their own methods of conducting them, but the broad outlines tend to stay the same."

It was Jake who said, "And in occult practices, the broad outlines would be?"

"All black-occult rituals center around the theme of summoning supernatural power to effect a change."

"Supernatural power? Like magic?"

His scornful questions didn't surprise Riley. Neither the paranormal nor any supernatural force or forces were a part of most people's lives, so ignorance abounded. She had, in fact, grown accustomed to explaining to perfectly intelligent people that paranormal had nothing to do with vampires or werewolves and that magic could mean something other than illusion or the twitch of a TV witch's nose.

So, patiently, she said, "In this context, supernatural power would be the energy forces of nature, of the elements. Wind, water, earth…fire. In occult rituals-magic-that elemental energy is created or summoned and then channeled, directed, toward a specific end."

Ash said, "So somebody burned down two buildings to-what?-harness the energy of the fire for their own purposes?"

"It's possible, Ash."

"You don't sound too sure of that."

Riley was perfectly aware of Jake frowning at her and wondered if he was once again thinking that she was being little help to his investigation. But she kept her gaze on Ash.

"A fire used in occult practices is common. Even a bonfire. But a burning building? I'd call that excessive. And I haven't a clue why someone would need that much energy or would believe they could harness it if they had it. There's always a purpose in any ritual, and so far I see no purpose for all this. So, no, I'm not sure how or even if these fires are connected to any occult practices that may or may not be taking place in Hazard County."

He grunted. "You sound like you're on the witness stand."

"I've been there a few times."

"Yeah, I figured."

Riley looked at the sheriff. "I'll have to do some research before I can even speculate much more, maybe get in touch with a couple of experts back at the office."

"There are experts on the occult in the FBI?"

"A few, yeah." She was one of those but was still reasonably sure she hadn't shared that knowledge with the sheriff.

She was less sure about Ash, but since he didn't say anything, she didn't worry about it, at least for the moment.

"My tax dollars at work," Jake muttered.

"You may be glad of their expertise before this is over," Riley told him. "Because if somebody is killing people and burning down buildings as part of occult rituals, you have a serious, serious problem on your hands."

With a sigh, Jake said, "I have that even if none of this is occult-related."

Trust me-if it's occult-related, it's worse.

But Riley didn't say it out loud. And wasn't sure why.

Ash said to her, "I gather you copied a friend at Quantico on the postmortem results?"

She nodded. "With Jake's permission, of course. Couple of hours ago."

"Your friend works fast. I stopped by the station after I left the courthouse, and Leah gave me a message to pass on; apparently, your cell phone is off or dead."

"Damn." She didn't bother to check her bag, knowing she had turned the phone on before leaving the house. It was dead-and losing its charge even faster than what was normal for her. Yet another sign of things out of whack in her world.

To Jake, Ash added, "Your phone seems to be off as well."

"I left it in the Jeep."

"Good thing there was no emergency requiring the sheriff."

"We're a block and a half from the station, Ash; somebody could have stuck their head out one of the doors and yelled for me."

Riley wasn't in the mood for a pissing contest, so she stopped this one before it could really get going by saying to Ash, "The message?"

He looked at her. "Short and fairly enigmatic. Quote: First test, human. Second test, same type as donor. End quote. Hope it means more to you than it does to me."

Riley laced her fingers together around the strap of her shoulder bag, hoping neither man would notice them shaking. Or would simply believe she was just in need of calories if they did notice. But that wasn't why.

The message was all too clear to her. The blood on the clothing she'd awakened wearing the previous afternoon was human. And the blood type was the same as that found in their victim's stomach.

Which meant it was pretty damn likely there was another murder victim out there somewhere.

Someone whose blood Riley had been covered in.

"Is it something Jake should know about?" Ash asked as he drove Riley to the café where they'd planned to have lunch. They had left behind a frustrated sheriff who wasn't at all happy that she wasn't willing to completely decipher the message from Quantico.

"He already knows what's important; his own M.E. told him. That the blood in the victim's stomach is human but doesn't belong to the victim. Which means there's probably another victim we haven't found yet."

"So why did your pal at Quantico have to verify that?"

I can't think. Why can't I think?

She needed fuel, of course, yet again, which was one reason she hadn't protested Ash's arrival at the arson scene. She needed fuel, and once she had that, once her energy level was optimal, then she could begin to make sense of the bits and pieces of information scattered in her mind.

Occult activity: possibly. Arson: definitely. Murder: definitely-probably two of them, dammit. Connection? God knows.

Replying finally to Ash's question, she said, "Just…making sure, that's all."

"Riley, what aren't you telling me?"

She took a chance. "A lot."

Ash didn't seem surprised by that. Or else he had a great poker face. "I see. Professional reasons, or personal ones?"

Taking another chance, she answered honestly. Sort of.

"Six of one, half a dozen of the other. I'm sorry, Ash. It's just…I'm used to working alone. And I'm not used to being personally involved with someone while I'm working, I told you that." And I can't read you at all, can't tell what you're thinking or feeling, but I look at you and feel…uneasy. Uneasy and I don't know why.

"And I'm the DA of Hazard County."

"That too. I can't-I can't just tell you everything I know, or think I know or suspect, not without evidence to back it up. Without evidence, it's just speculation, useless speculation. And most of it's probably dead ends anyway, because most investigations are full of them. That's one reason I haven't told Jake much of what I'm thinking either."

"Because he'd grab what might look like a lead and run with it. Focus all his suspicions on one person or one area to the exclusion of all else. Rush to judgment."

Riley was glad Ash seemed to understand that. She nodded. "He's the type, or at least I think he is. Wants to do something ASAP, frustrated because he can't. He's more than ready for concrete answers. And that would be fine-if I was right. But I'm not sure of anything yet. Until I am sure, or at least reasonably sure, I'd rather keep most of the speculation to myself."

After a moment, Ash said in a deliberate tone, "The danger in that is your isolation, Riley. Keep everything to yourself, and if the murderer even suspects you might know something, he could also believe that taking you out would eliminate or at least lessen the threat."

"I know," she said.

"You're willing to risk that?"

"I usually do." Usually-but not always. Because Bishop tended to know, even if she hadn't told him, what was going on in her investigations. In her life. Hell, in her mind. Other team members often knew as well because, hey, hard to keep most things secret among a group of psychics.

But not this time. With Bishop and the other members of the unit obviously preoccupied with their own demanding cases and scattered across the country to boot, the sense of unity she had felt since joining the SCU was missing.

Or maybe that was just her, just the disconnect of her own dulled or missing senses. Either way, this time the inherently risky nature of her job felt more dangerous than ever.

This time she felt alone.

Really alone.

"I don't know that I'm willing to risk it," Ash said in a thoughtful tone. Then, almost immediately, added, "As a matter of fact, I'm sure. I'm not willing to risk you, Riley."

"Ash-"

"Yes, I know your job is dangerous no matter what the circumstances. Situation normal, for you. I also know you're highly trained by the army and by the FBI, which means you can more than take care of yourself in just about any situation I could name. Including, undoubtedly, this one. And I know you've done just fine without me for thirty-odd years."

He pulled the Hummer into a parking space outside a busy café, turned off the engine, and looked at her steadily. "But I am asking you, in this investigation, in this place and time, just this once, to break a few of your rules and talk to me about what's going on."

"It's never just once," she murmured. "Break a rule, and before you know it life is chaos. You're running with scissors, coloring outside the lines, putting your elbows on the table. Anarchy."

"Quit stalling. Look, I can separate personal confidences from my professional responsibilities."

"I'm not sure I can," she admitted.

"I'm sure. Trust me, Riley."

Hating the gambit, Riley nevertheless fell back on a handy excuse and tried to keep it light. "It's not fair to ask anything of me when I'm starving and can't think straight. You don't want to win that way, do you?"

"I," Ash said, "am willing to win any way I can. Haven't you figured that out yet?"

He didn't press her for a response just then, which was good since Riley didn't really have one. Instead, he got out of the vehicle, and as she followed suit Riley was aware of the unsettling realization that she was going to have to decide whether to trust Ash completely-and decide without the aid of the extra senses she had counted on her entire life.

Blind trust.

Something she wasn't at all sure she was capable of.