Kay Hooper - Sleeping With Fear

"So that's why me," she said to herself. A challenge? Oh, yes, definitely. The challenge of a lifetime. A deadly test of her skills. All of them.

She reached out slowly and picked up the single object from the envelope that was not a copy. It was a coin, a half-dollar. Nothing, apparently, unusual about it at all. Except that when she touched it, Riley knew one thing more.

She knew what would happen if she refused Bishop's invitation.

In the end, there wasn't a great deal to think about. Riley found the card with his cell number on it and placed the call. She didn't bother with pleasantries when he answered.

"You don't play fair," she said.

"I don't play," he replied.

"Something I should remember, for future reference?"

"You tell me."

Riley closed her fingers over the coin in her hand, and sighed. "Where do I sign up?"

Present Day

It didn't take Riley long to get dressed. She avoided the lacy underwear and pulled on the plainer and more practical-and more comfortable-stuff she usually wore, then found jeans and a cotton tank top. She didn't bother to dry her short hair, just finger-combed it and left it to dry on its own.

Barefoot, she went to the kitchen and set up the coffeemaker, then rummaged around until she found some aspirin. She swallowed them dry with a grimace, belatedly discovering orange juice in the fridge to wash down the bitter aftertaste.

The fridge was well-stocked, which again raised Riley's brows. Generally speaking, she was a take-out girl, not much given to cooking more than eggs and toast or the occasional steak.

Her stomach rumbled, telling her she hadn't eaten in a while. That was something of a relief, actually, because it also offered a possible reason why her senses were so muffled: There was no fuel in her physical furnace, an absolute necessity for her to function at peak efficiency.

It was her own individual quirk; most of the SCU agents could claim at least one such oddity.

Riley fixed herself a large bowl of cereal and ate it leaning against the work island in the kitchen.

Her weapon was never out of reach.

By the time she'd finished her meal, the coffee was ready. She carried her first cup with her as she went over to the ocean-side windows and the glass doors leading out to the deck. She didn't go out but opened the blinds and stood drinking the coffee as she scanned the grayish Atlantic, the dunes and beach.

Not a lot of activity to be seen, and what was there was scattered. A few people stretched out on towels or beach loungers, soaking up the sun. A couple of kids near one sunning couple building a peculiar-looking structure out of sand. One couple strolling along the waterline as small waves broke around their ankles.

The beach between Riley's small house and the water was empty; people here tended to respect the boundaries of public/private beach access, especially at this less-populated end of this particular small island, and if you paid the higher bucks for oceanfront you generally had your little piece of the sand to yourself.

Riley returned to the kitchen for her second cup of coffee, frowning because her head was still pounding despite aspirin, food, and caffeine. And because she still couldn't remember what had happened to leave her covered in dried blood.

"Dammit," she muttered, reluctant to do what she knew she had to. As with most agents in the SCU, control was a big issue with Riley, and she hated having to admit to anyone that a situation was out of her control. But this one, inarguably, was.

At least for the moment.

Leaving her coffee cup in the kitchen but still carrying her weapon, she searched for her cell phone, finding it eventually in a casual shoulder bag. One glance told her the cell was dead as a doornail, something she accepted with a resigned sigh. She found the charger plugged in and waiting near one end of the kitchen counter and set the cell into it.

There was a land-line phone on the same end of the counter, and Riley stared at it, biting her lip in brief indecision.

Shit. Nothing else she could do, really.

She finished her second cup of coffee, perfectly aware that she was stalling, then finally placed the call.

When he answered with a brief "Bishop," she worked hard to make her own voice calm and matter-of-fact.

"Hey, it's Riley. I seem to have a bit of a situation here."

There was a long silence, and then Bishop, his voice now curiously rough, said, "We gathered that much. What the hell is going on, Riley? You missed your last two check-ins."

A chill shivered down her spine. "What do you mean?" She never missed check-ins. Never.

"I mean we haven't heard a word from you in over two weeks."

Riley 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."