Kay Hooper - Sleeping With Fear

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."

Do you think it was a good idea to leave your door unlocked?" Leah asked a few minutes later as she drove the sheriff's department Jeep toward the middle of the island and the bridge that would take them to the mainland.

"Like I told you, a courier should arrive in the next hour to pick up that package I left just inside the door." She had made a quick call to Bishop to alert him to the location of the package.

"You could have left the package in your rental car."

"Yeah. But doing that was a bit too…visible for my taste."

Leah sent her a glance. "I probably shouldn't ask, but-"

"Did it have anything to do with what's going on here?" Riley shrugged. "Maybe. I'll know more when Quantico reports back. At least, I hope so."

She had debated, but in the end Riley decided against confiding her memory loss to Leah. Not yet, at any rate. She was independent enough that even Bishop had never been able to match her with a permanent partner, and that independence demanded that she keep her current vulnerability to herself as long as possible.

Plus, it was quite simply a reasonable precaution until she could wrap her mind around whatever was going on here.

Leah sent her another look. "You know, you've been awfully secretive the last week or so."

"Have I?" It was more an honest question than a mere response, something Riley hoped the other woman wouldn't pick up on.

"I'd say so. Gordon thinks so too. He thinks you've either found something or figured out something that's making you very uneasy."

"He told you that?"

"Last night in the shower and again this morning at the breakfast table. He's worried about you, Riley."

Of course. Gordon always did love redheads; that's why I can trust Leah. They're involved, and he vouched for her.

Aloud and somewhat offhandedly, she said, "Gordon's worried about me for years."

Leah grinned faintly. "Yeah, he's mentioned that a few times. Says you keep digging when any rational person would throw away the shovel. That's why he wanted you here-even knowing he'd worry the whole time. And now we've got this murder. I'd say the stakes just went up, and maybe we've all got something to worry about."

"Is the sheriff sure it's a murder?"

" I'm sure-and I've never seen a murdered body before, not outside the textbooks. Believe me, Riley, it's a murder. The guy's hanging from a tree over that possible altar in the woods. And he didn't hang himself."

"Who's the vic?"

"Well, we don't exactly know yet. And it may take a while to find out. There isn't-he doesn't-his head is gone."

Riley looked at the deputy, conscious of a cold finger gliding up her spine. There was something eerily familiar about this. "And it wasn't found nearby?"

Leah grimaced. "Not so far, when I left. We've been searching, but it's just a little patch of trees, you know that, and I'm guessing that if we haven't found it by now, we won't. Not in those woods anyway."

Nodding, Riley turned her gaze forward again. There was something nagging at the back of her mind, but she had no idea if it was a memory or some bit of pertinent knowledge.

Or something utterly irrelevant and useless, of course, which was what lots of nagging things tended to be.

"Leah, the sheriff still thinks I'm here on vacation, right?"

"Far as I know."

"Then why call me to a crime scene?"

"Apparently he knows you're with the SCU. And he considers this a special crime, being as how we haven't had a murder in these parts for, oh, a decade or more. Deaths, sure. Even a killing or three, but not like this, not anything like this."

Riley wasn't very happy about the sheriff's knowledge, although she also wasn't surprised. Of course he had likely checked on her, and any law-enforcement officer at his level could easily learn that she was assigned to the Special Crimes Unit.

That should, however, be all he could learn.

Before she could ask, Leah said, "From the way he talked, I gather he doesn't know what your specialty is. The occult stuff, I mean. Because this one has to be occult-related, and he didn't say that was why he wanted you at the scene. Just for your general expertise in investigating crimes. All he knows is that you're an FBI agent working with a unit that uses unorthodox methods to investigate unusual crimes-and this one is definitely unusual."

"He knows I'm psychic?"

"He doesn't believe in psychics. But there's an election coming up in the fall, and Jake Ballard wants to be reelected. What he doesn't want is to be accused by the voters of not taking advantage of any possibly helpful source in investigating a brutal murder. An FBI agent staying in the area has to be counted as an excellent source, no matter which unit she belongs to or what extra senses she claims to have." Leah shook her head. "I assumed you two had talked about stuff like that."

"Why?"

"Well, it is the normal sort of chitchat for two cops on a date."

Oh, shit.

"Then again," Leah continued, clearly oblivious of having delivered a shock, "it seems you ex-army types tend to talk less than the rest of us, at least about your work. I've been sleeping with Gordon for nearly a year now, damn near living with him, and he still won't tell me what wakes him up in a cold sweat some nights."

"He doesn't want you to know the ugly stuff," Riley murmured. "Things he's seen. Done."

"Yeah, I get that. Still feels like he's shutting me out of a very big part of his life."

"Past life. Over and done with. Let it go." Riley forced a smile when the other woman looked at her. "Advice. I know you didn't ask, but I'm offering anyway. The monsters under the bed and in the closet? Leave them be. If he wants to show them to you, he will. But that may not be for a long time. If ever."

"And it isn't about trust?"

Riley shook her head. "It's about scars. And about giving them time to fade. Twenty years of scars aren't going to fade in a hurry."

"If at all."

"Well, good men tend to hold on to their bad memories. I'd be a lot more worried about him if he didn't wake up sometimes in a cold sweat."