by Kay Hooper
“Yes. Which is why I’ve reached out to a cop friend of mine in Charleston. He’s getting duplicate reports to me for an unofficial profile. I’ll know soon enough if this is someone we’ve seen before.”
“You mean we’ll know soon enough if I missed.” There was a bitter taste in her mouth, not unlike the blood in New Orleans.
“You didn’t miss. You never miss. You fired your weapon and hit John Henry Price at least three times full in the chest, and he went down.”
“They never found the body.”
“That river never gave up its dead.”
She drew a breath and let it out slowly. “Very convenient thing, wasn’t it? That he just happened to fall into the river after I shot him. That he ran out onto that dock but past the tied-up boats, all the way to the end. What if he planned the whole thing, Bishop? He could have. We both know he was smart enough. What if he just wanted to stop for a while, get us off his back and off his trail, and he knew the only way was if we believed he was dead?”
“Riley—”
“You didn’t get there until later; none of the telepaths or mediums were there to tell us for sure if he was gone. Just me. And all I could feel, all I could sense then, was terror, because he’d gotten so damn close. Because I knew he’d been the one to crawl into my head instead of the other way around.”
“It happens sometimes when the predator we’re tracking has some active or even latent ability.”
“And you warned me. I know.”
“It’s been nearly two and a half years,” Bishop said quietly.
“If he was alive, he would have been killing.”
“He could have been more careful. Picked victims who wouldn’t be missed. Hidden or destroyed the bodies when he was done with them. You said yourself at the time that going public the way he did, when he did, leaving the bodies to be found, was because he wanted a challenge, because it had gotten too easy for him. He wanted the world to watch him, to see how clever he was. Maybe the challenge now is to convince everybody else he’s not the same killer we tracked for so long. Maybe that’s why he’s hunting tourists rather than locals.”
“Maybe,” Bishop said at last. “But we have some time; this killer is apparently on a monthly schedule, and his most recent victim was discovered only a few days ago.”
“He’s killed one victim a month?”
“For the past six months. The police caught on early because of the coin signature but managed to keep that bit out of the press until the most recent victim last week. Political decision.”
“Didn’t want to hurt tourism.”
“Exactly. But word’s out now, and they’re getting plenty of heat for not warning their visitors. Not the best example of Southern hospitality on record.”
“Hardly.” Riley frowned. “If they’re taking heat—”
“—then chances are good they’ll call for help sooner rather than later. Yes. I’m counting on it. As to whether this killer really is someone we’ve seen before, I won’t know anything until I see those reports. In the meantime, you have trouble enough where you are now.”
He was right and she knew it. Riley tried to focus, to put that other killer out of her mind, but it was almost impossible. She had never felt more vulnerable in her life, and even the faintest possibility that John Henry Price was still alive and on the hunt less than fifty miles away had turned the queasiness in the pit of her stomach to churning fear.
Even on the other end of a cell-phone connection, Bishop didn’t miss that.
“Riley, what else is going on? Has the situation there worsened?”
She didn’t want to but knew she had no choice, so Riley made her report matter-of-factly. She told him about the murder and about the evidence that she herself had been attacked with possibly lethal intent.
And before he could say a word, she finished with, “Don’t recall me, Bishop.”
“Why the hell not?” His tone was grim. “Riley, I have absolutely no idea what a direct jolt of electricity could do to a psychic’s brain, not under those conditions. But I can pretty much promise you there’s not much chance of a reversal of whatever damage was inflicted.”
“You mean I might never recover my memories. Never get my senses back to normal—any of them.”
“That’s exactly what I mean. It’s more than a chance, Riley. It’s a probability. Electrical energy affects us. It can strengthen our abilities, change them—or destroy them.”
She drew a breath, then said, “That’s all the more reason I should stay here. Look, I know it sounds irrational. But every instinct I have is telling me that if I leave, what’s happened to me will be permanent. That I’ll never get back the lost time—or the lost senses.”
“Riley—”
“Bishop, please. It’s more than just a case now. Somebody attacked me, maybe tried to kill me. And the same person most probably killed a man on the same night. Tortured and decapitated him. It might be his blood that was all over me, and I don’t even know his name, not yet. I have to stay here. I have to work this investigation. Whatever answers I can find will be here, not studying inkblots for some doctor at Quantico.”
He was silent for a moment, then said, “Tell me you aren’t asking to stay just to be close to Charleston. In case.”
“I can’t,” she admitted. “That’s part of it. Because if it is Price, I’m the only one who got close once before. I’m the one you’d have to send if—when—they ask for our help.”
“The last time nearly destroyed you, Riley. With all your senses and memories intact.”
“I know. And I’m not looking for a repeat performance, believe me. I don’t need a profiler to tell me he would be really pissed at anyone who’d taken him out of the game even temporarily. Pissed as in out for revenge and in a major way. That was his nature, right? Vengeful?”
“Among other things.”
Riley didn’t want to think about those other things. “So we both hope there’s a copycat in Charleston. But whether I have to face a worse possibility or not, I’ll be no good to myself or to the SCU if I can’t fix whatever that bastard with the stun gun broke.”
“Which is all the more reason to return to Quantico.”
Riley hadn’t wanted to but ended the argument with a simple fact neither of them could dispute, because both were cops.
“Memories or not, I did something on Sunday night that left me covered with blood. Maybe the blood of a murdered man. Until we know for sure, I can’t leave.”
Leah Wells had wanted to be a cop since she was eight years old. Maybe even longer, but she remembered back to eight. She had turned her dollhouse into a jail, imprisoning three dolls, two teddy bears, and a ninja action figure borrowed from her brother when he hadn’t been looking.
The ninja had committed the most heinous act; he had kidnapped Malibu Barbie and held her for ransom. The battle to capture him and free the hostage had been intense.
Leah’s mother was somewhat bemused by all this, rightly fearing the childhood games heralded a less traditional life than the one that she, at least, hoped for. But Leah, instead of spending her college years joining a sorority and pursuing a degree in child psychology or some such, had studied criminal psychology and criminal investigation, interning with the state bureau of investigation.
But if her mother had been disappointed in her daughter’s choice of careers, Leah herself was somewhat disillusioned by four years spent on the police force in Columbia; she discovered she did not like being a big-city cop. Too much violence. Too many depressing situations with unhappy, tragic outcomes.
Gordon said she’d picked the wrong career for a woman who believed happily-ever-after was the way stories were supposed to end, but the truth was that Leah enjoyed the work—mostly. She enjoyed helping people. So, when Columbia turned out to be too depressing for her, she decided a beach community would undoubtedly be more cheerful, less violent, and provide great fringe benefits.
Especially since she was that
rare redhead who tanned instead of freckled.
She had landed in the Hazard County Sheriff’s Department by virtue of a pin. With a list before her of law-enforcement agencies along the southeastern coast looking for experienced officers, she had closed her eyes and stabbed the paper with an open safety pin.
Hazard County it was.
Maybe a dumb way to plan a career, let alone a life, but it had worked out well for Leah. Because she liked her work now and loved the beach-community lifestyle. And she had a man she was fairly crazy about as well. Icing on the cake.
“And now,” she said to Riley, bringing her story to the present and sounding aggrieved, “some murderous fiend has to come along and ruin paradise.”
“Yeah, murderous fiends can really screw up your day,” Riley said gravely. She was sitting on a corner of the conference table, idly swinging one foot, waiting for Sheriff Ballard to meet them there with the postmortem report. In the meantime, she had gotten Leah talking with a simple question or two about herself.
Leah sighed. “Oh, you know what I mean. It’s not like I’m taking this murder lightly. Every time I close my eyes, I see that poor guy hanging out there in the woods. I feel queasy. And scared. Because if the maniac who killed him isn’t a summer visitor, then chances are he’s somebody I know.”
Riley took another bite of the PowerBar she’d been eating, then said, “For what it’s worth, I’d be surprised if this killer was a summer visitor.”
“Shit. Why?”
“Because if he—or they—practice actual satanic rites, it’s not something you usually just take on the road when you go on vacation. Not the extreme rituals, at any rate. Plus, secrecy is a really big factor, and that site was awfully public.”
“So it could have been—what? A fake ritual?”
“Maybe a smoke screen. To hide the real motive behind the murder. And if that’s the case, if somebody is using the trappings of the occult to throw us off the scent, then the reason is, most likely, to deflect attention away from someone who would otherwise be a logical suspect in the straightforward murder of this man.”
Leah thought about that. “But we can’t know if he had any enemies locally until we know who he is. Was.”
“Yeah. So identifying him has to be a priority.”
“It is. But so far, nada. The doc serving as our medical examiner gave us a preliminary report last night; he didn’t find any identifying marks on the body. No old scars, no tattoos, no birthmarks. We ran his prints a second time just to be sure, but still no luck.”
“I wouldn’t expect his prints to be on file,” Riley said.
“Any particular reason why?”
Neatly folding her empty PowerBar wrapper into a narrower and narrower strip, Riley said, “Because the head was removed.”
Leah couldn’t help grimacing, but said, “And so?”
“And so I’ve never heard of an occult ritual where the head of a victim was removed and taken away. And I can’t see why that would be done other than to delay identification. That being the case, if the killer had any reason to suppose the guy’s prints were on file, and obviously not being the squeamish kind, he would have destroyed the fingertips. Hacked them off, or maybe used a blowtorch.”
Leah cleared her throat. “It’s not a nice world where you live, is it?”
Riley looked slightly surprised, then smiled a bit ruefully. “I guess not. I don’t think about it that way, most of the time.”
“It’s just a job?”
“Well…more or less. I meet some great people through my work. Have some interesting experiences, not all of them negative. I travel a lot. I do work I feel is important.”
“Oh, no question about that.” Leah lowered her voice slightly, even though they were alone in the conference room. “And you have a way to use the psychic stuff where it really means something, instead of working in a carnival sideshow or on one of those call-the-psychic hotlines.”
“One of the most amazing psychics I know spent years in a carnival, telling fortunes.”
“I didn’t mean—”
Riley waved that away. “Oh, I know. But you’re right—for some psychics, maybe most psychics, there aren’t many ways to carve out a decent living using those abilities. That’s assuming you even can use the abilities, and lots can’t.”
“Can’t control them, you mean?”
“Most of us can’t control them, or at least not reliably. My boss says that if ever a psychic is born who can control his or her abilities, the whole world will change. He’s probably right about that.”
“But that psychic won’t be you, huh?”
“No. I’ve been using my abilities as long as I can remember, and it’s still hit-or-miss. Even if my concentration is perfect and my energy level optimal, I may not get a damn thing. Other times I’m not even trying and get blindsided by a dump of information or emotions.”
“You get emotions? Other people’s emotions?” Leah hadn’t intended to sound wary but heard it in her voice.
Riley frowned at the empty wrapper that was now a thin, folded strip; she tied it neatly into a knot. “Sometimes. Not the way an empath would, feeling what somebody else feels. It’s just knowing somebody is angry or sad—or whatever. Even if it’s all locked inside and they aren’t showing any of it.”
Leah studied the other woman, wondering what that must be like, to have that window into other people. Not that she wanted to know firsthand; she had trouble enough sorting through her own thoughts and emotions without adding in someone else’s.
It wasn’t something that appeared to disturb Riley. She was a curiously serene woman, Leah thought. Even out in the woods yesterday, in the midst of that horrific scene, her manner had been calm and matter-of-fact. And today the gun on her hip was worn casually with jeans and a light summer top.
She did not look like an FBI agent. Then again, Leah could imagine her in an army uniform only because Gordon had a couple of pictures of them together.
“Don’t let those big eyes and that sweet voice fool you,” he had warned Leah with a grin. “Riley hasn’t got an innocent bone in her body. She’s seen battle and she’s seen the world, and she can take care of herself on any patch of it fate might see fit to send her to. Hell, I wouldn’t want to tangle with her, armed or unarmed.”
Something to bear in mind, Leah thought.
“Does being psychic really help?” she asked. “I mean, in an investigation.”
Riley tied the plastic wrapper into a second knot, frowned at it as if wondering why she’d done that, and dropped it into an ashtray on the table behind her. “Sometimes.” She hesitated, then met the other woman’s gaze and said, “But maybe not this time. Just so you know, I’m more than a little off my game right now.”
“Ash?” Leah guessed.
Riley was clearly surprised. “Why would you think that?”
“Just relating, I suppose.” Leah laughed. “When I was falling for Gordon, I once came to work wearing two different shoes. I thought the guys would never let me live it down.”
Riley smiled, but her eyes remained intent, questioning.
Interesting how clearly that came across, Leah thought. That silent question. Without actually intending to, she found herself offering an answer.
“Ash is a very intense guy, everybody knows that. I just figured he was probably even more intense behind closed doors—so to speak.”
“He’s a little…overwhelming,” Riley said rather cautiously.
“I bet. Rumor has it he left the Atlanta DA’s office because he couldn’t control his temper.”
“Really?”
Leah shrugged. “Oh, you know rumors. I’ve never seen any sign of that sort of thing, personally. But it’s hard to miss the guy’s…intensity. I keep coming back to that word, but it does seem to fit, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it does.”
Shaking her head, Leah said, “Rotten timing, all this. It looked like things were going really well for you tw
o, that we’d find out all the supposed occult stuff was just nonsense and Gordon was fretting for nothing. Now, with this murder, everybody’s tense and jumpy, and none of us can think much about anything else. Occult or not, something’s sure as hell going on.”
“Yeah.”
“It was pretty obvious yesterday that Ash wasn’t happy about you working the case. You two get that straightened out?”
“Yes. I told him I’d be working the case.”
Leah laughed. “Atta girl. It’s probably good for the man to find out you won’t be at his beck and call.”
“I think he already knew that.”
The sheriff came into the room just then, which effectively put an end to any further confidences. At least for the moment.
“Well, we’ve got paperwork,” he said. “And the crime-scene photos are printing out now. Riley, turns out we do have some sort of pattern-recognition software—and a technician who knows how to use it.”
“Melissa?” Leah guessed.
“Yeah. Figures, right?” He handed the manila folder he was carrying to Riley, adding, “She’s our resident computer geek, and thank God we have her. One of those people with an inborn knack. Anyway, she’s going to be concentrating on those blood spatters on the rocks, see if we maybe have something more deliberate there.”
“Good enough.” Riley opened the folder and began going over the postmortem report.
Jake moved restlessly around the room for a minute or so, then took a seat at the table near Riley. “Still no luck identifying the guy,” he offered.
Leah wanted to tell him to give Riley a chance to absorb the report she was reading but kept her mouth shut.
Without looking up, and apparently still reading, Riley said, “With no head, and fingerprints not in the system, I’m not surprised. Still no missing-persons report that matches, I gather?”
“No. No missing-persons reports at all.”
“Is that unusual for this area?”
“To have no reports? Nah, it’s normal. We don’t get too many missing, barring the occasional teenager staying out too late or drunken fishermen falling out of their boats.”