Sleeping With Fear

Chapter 20

2½ Years Previously

Got you," Riley whispered, her eyes fixed on her quarry as he walked briskly along the buckled sidewalk. To call the area shabby would have been a considerable understatement; these dark streets close to the river had pretty much been abandoned long before, when a spring flood had turned this port into no more than an inlet far from the flow of traffic.

It was nearly dawn, the full moon low and bright in the sky, and Riley had been shadowing Price all night. She had expected him to make a move long before now, but although he had been in and out of several different bars, he had left each one alone. And currently he was headed for what used to be a major dock but was now mostly a rickety wreck with a few small boats tied alongside it.

Riley was conscious of a prickle of unease, but she didn't allow it to cause her to hesitate. She had her weapon in hand and was dressed for tracking tonight in jeans and track shoes, and most importantly, she had John Henry Price in sight.

No way was she backing off just because of some nameless anxiety.

Except…after more than a week of glimpses, why had he been so visible tonight? Hell, why had he let himself be seen at all?

Let himself?

You're falling behind, little girl. Can't keep up?

Riley picked up her pace instinctively, pushing the doubts aside. She was not going to miss this opportunity.

But…why was he moving along the dock now, past the boats, toward the end where there was nothing except murky, slow-moving water?

Because it ends here, little girl.

She hadn't realized they were so close, less than ten yards apart, when he whirled suddenly to face her, his hand lifting, arm extending.

Fast as she was, Riley had barely begun to react when the gun bucked in his hand and she felt the bullet slam into her.

You don't get to win, you bastard. You don't get to win!

I've already won, little girl.

But even as she was falling, Riley was taking aim, driven by a determination stronger than anything she'd ever felt before to stop Price here and now. She shot twice as she was falling and three more times after she was on the ground.

And hit Price square in the chest.

His gun fell from his hand and he staggered back a step or two, teetered for a few eternal seconds at the end of the dock, and then went over backward into the sluggishly moving river.

Vaguely aware of the throbbing agony in her left shoulder, Riley lay on the ground and stared at the end of the dock, where Price had stood. Instinctively, she tried to open her mind, her senses, and even as she heard the distant sirens begin wailing, she could have sworn there was a final whisper in her mind.

Don't celebrate…just yet…little girl.

Present Day

"You didn't tell me the bastard shot you," Ash said.

"I'm telling you now." Riley shrugged. "Left shoulder, and missed anything that really mattered."

"You don't have a scar."

"I don't scar. Otherwise, I'd look like a freakin' road map."

Ash sent her a look. "Gordon wasn't kidding about you being a lightning rod for trouble."

"Not really, no. Consider yourself warned again."

"I consider myself warned." It was nearly four that afternoon when Ash pulled the Hummer into a parking place near the burned remains of the beachfront house apparently torched by an arsonist.

"What do you expect to find?" he asked Riley as they got out of the vehicle.

"I don't know. Probably nothing." She waited until they were ducking under the yellow CAUTION tape encircling what was left of the house to add, "Something's been nagging at me since I came here with Jake. I just can't figure out what it is."

Ash took her hand. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Price. About the truth of why I left Atlanta."

"You didn't know it would matter."

"That isn't the point."

"Okay. So why didn't you tell me?" She kept her gaze on the charred pilings and mounds of debris before them.

"It wasn't my finest hour, Riley."

"Hey, if you want to swap tales of frustration and failure, I've got a few of my own. We all have them, Ash."

"I doubt yours went on to butcher a score of innocent men."

"Don't be so sure. I was in the army, remember? An officer. Some of my choices and decisions were bound to cost lives." She shook her head. "We can only do the best we can do. And some things have to happen just the way they happen."

He looked at her curiously. "You really believe that."

"I really do."

"And you still believe you were lured here, that someone has been pulling strings and influencing events?"

Riley nodded.

"Why? Why would someone go to all that trouble?"

"I don't know. Revenge. Payback. Grandstanding." As soon as she said the last word, she was conscious of its incongruity.

"Grandstanding? As in a competition? A contest of skills?"

She tried to focus on something in her own mind, some wispy fragment of knowledge or information she could…almost…see. There was a question she should have asked someone. A lead she should have followed-

"Riley?"

She blinked and looked up at Ash. "I've missed something. A connection."

"What sort of connection?"

"I'm not sure. Things? Places? People? Damn, why can't I make it come clear in my head?"

He frowned as he studied her. "Are things fuzzy again? Distant, the way they were before?"

"No. Yes. Dammit, I'm not sure. Fuzzy around the edges. I keep coming back to Price. Remembering the hunt for him. That's why I told you, because he's been on my mind the last few days. I can't help wondering…"

"Wondering what?"

"Wondering if I missed something. All those months I tracked him. Having his thoughts in my head by the end of it." She turned her gaze back to the burned building. "It became almost surreal. And unbelievably creepy. There was something almost…gleeful about him. As if he knew a secret, and knew it was something-"

…gleeful about him. As if he knew a secret, and knew it was something-

Riley blinked at the laptop's screen, conscious of a moment of sheer vertigo. Everything in her seemed to be whirling dizzily, time and space and reality tumbling.

She put her hands up to her face, rubbing hard until the whirling stopped, the dizziness faded, then opened her eyes cautiously to peer at the screen again.

Her report.

Report?

More reluctant than she wanted to admit to herself, she shifted her gaze to the lower right-hand corner of the screen, to the date and time.

Two A.M.

Friday morning.

"Oh, Christ," she whispered.

Riley pushed herself up from the table in her beach house, surprised to find that she was fully dressed but not so surprised that she felt shaky and disoriented.

It had been Thursday afternoon, and she'd been at one of the arson sites with Ash, she was sure of that. Looking for answers. They'd been talking, and-

A wave of dizziness swept over her, and she closed her eyes, holding on to the edge of the table, her fingers digging into-

Charred wood.

She stumbled back a step and stared at the debris visible in the glare of a security light. The acrid stench of burned wood stung her nostrils, and she could hear the surf on the other side of the dunes, rolling in close because it was high tide.

She held up her hands and stared at the blackened tips of her fingers for a moment, then looked at the piece of burned wood she had apparently been holding on to.

"Enough," she whispered. "Goddammit, enough."

She didn't dare close her eyes, was almost afraid to blink for fear there'd be another insane shift through space and time.

Only that wasn't it, of course. That wasn't what was happening. It was all in her head.

She reached out slowly and touched the rough surface of the burned wood, testing its reality. It felt like solid wood, charred though it was. Real wood. Burned wood.

She kept her fingers on that hard, rough surface and looked slowly around her. The security light was painfully bright, so that it was difficult to see anything but darkness beyond it. But she thought she could make out the hulking shape of Ash's Hummer parked in what would have been the house's driveway.

Parked. Engine running.

Someone behind the wheel?

Riley didn't want to let go of the wood. Didn't want to move out of the glare of the light and into the darkness. She stood there listening to the surf pound the beach and asked herself with something she recognized as terror whether she would be able to bear it if the connection she had missed had been right in front of her the whole time.

With her.

In her bed.

She didn't think she would be able to bear it.

"No," she whispered. "It's not him. I trust him."

Then who is it, little girl?

The jolt of coldness went so deep Riley thought her very bones had turned to ice.

You can't face the truth. You could never face the truth.

"Stop." She forced herself to let go of the wood and walked steadily toward the vehicle. "You're dead."

Did you think you had killed me? Silly girl. Some things never die. Haven't you learned that by now?

"Everything dies. You died. I killed you."

Are you sure, little girl?

The Hummer loomed in darkness, its engine idling quietly as she approached it. She steeled herself, but when she opened the driver's-side door, it was to find the vehicle empty.

Oh, did you think he was here? No, little girl. It's just us. Just you and me.

Riley hesitated, then climbed up into the driver's seat.

Are you going to run back to him and hide from the truth? Or come to me and find it?

This time, she didn't hesitate. She put the truck in gear and backed out of the driveway.

Stupid. Of course it was stupid. She was unarmed. And listening to voices in her head. What kind of sense did that make? No sense, no sense at all.

Because her thinking was fuzzy and she felt cold, and the only thing she was certain of was that this was a bad idea and she would surely regret it.

But you've always wondered, haven't you? Since that day at the river. You've always wondered whether you missed, after all.

"I never miss."

Always a first time, right? And you weren't thinking clearly, after all. He was in your head-

Ah.

"He. So you're someone else, after all."

Silence.

Riley heard a little laugh escape her and realized she knew where she was going, where she needed to be. "Don't tell me there was someone who actually cared about him? Someone who actually missed the miserable son of a bitch once he was gone?"

It's not going to work, little girl.

"You mean I can't make you mad? I'm betting I can. Sooner or later."

Want to bet your life on it?

She drove across the bridge to the mainland and into Castle, heading for the park. The veil was back in her mind, distancing her from her senses, even herself. But this time, she made no attempt to fight her way through it.

This time, she knew a better way.

Conversationally, as though to someone in the passenger seat, Riley said, "What were you, the apprentice monster? Someone he was grooming to pick up wherever he happened to leave off?"

Don't try to work it all out, Riley. You'll just waste precious energy. Don't you realize you're going to need everything you can summon to fight me?

"Done toying with me, are you? After all these weeks of playing with me like a cat with a mouse. This-today-was all very sudden. Jarring. Almost as if you felt…rushed. I wonder why."

Silence.

"You saw the truth today, and it scared you, didn't it? You hadn't bargained on Ash. Oh, you delighted in taking away my memories of falling in love with him, but you didn't truly understand the connection between us. You had no idea it wasn't dependent on memories, that knowing I had trusted him would give me the anchor I needed. And you had no idea he could replenish the energy you were taking away."

He's not here, little girl. Just you. Just us.

Riley didn't let herself think about that, beyond the fleeting understanding that Gordon had been right, that she would always charge into things alone, convinced not so much of her own invincibility as of the responsibility she owed to others.

Those one loved were not put carelessly in harm's way.

Simple, that. A rule to live by.

Or maybe die by.

She parked the Hummer near the break in the fence that was no longer guarded. The path was lit only by what moonlight could filter through the trees, but it was a full moon, and very bright, so Riley could see well enough.

Not that it mattered, really. She was being drawn here, and this time she wasn't fighting it. Beneath the clouded surface of her mind, like a fogged mirror, she waited patiently to emerge. The fog protected her; now that she understood it, she could use it, wear it as she wore so many surfaces.

She allowed confused fragments of thought, seemingly random, to skitter across that misty barrier, while underneath, her mind was working with a clarity as bright and sharp as a knife.

Assembling the pieces of the puzzle.

Riley emerged into the clearing, her gaze going to the peculiarly ancient shape of the stone altar. Nothing hanging above it this time, but the circle had been re-created. She knew that, even though she couldn't see the salt, because there were candles placed at specific points.

Black candles.

Burning.

She took no more than two steps into the clearing and, preoccupied, failed to heed the prickle of warning on the back of her neck that came just seconds before he grabbed her from behind.