by Kay Hooper
She decided to ignore that last comment. “So…between the time I was talking to Steve and Jenny and when you picked me up here, there are three or four hours unaccounted for. I may or may not have been alone. May or may not have gone to talk to Gordon or someone else.”
“Easy enough to check with Gordon, at least.”
“Yeah, I’ll call him.” Riley looked at her half-empty coffee cup and tried once again to gather her thoughts; she seemed able to do so for brief periods, but then they scattered again and she could almost literally feel herself beginning to drift, even despite the calories she had consumed since talking to Bishop.
Minutes ago. Just minutes this time.
“Riley?”
“Yesterday,” she said finally, struggling to keep her focus. “After that…vision or whatever it was in the clearing. What did we do?”
“Immediately after? Came back here.”
“We did? But wasn’t Jake planning to talk to the group at the Pearson house?”
“Yeah. But the background checks turned up nothing, which meant he had no cause to question any of them, no legal leg to stand on. When he called anyway and asked if he could pay them a visit, he was politely referred to their lawyer.” Ash shrugged. “Not so surprising a reaction, from a group probably accustomed to…nosy cops.”
“And they would be.”
“I imagine so. Anyway, Jake was frustrated but hamstrung. There was nothing we could do at the station, and you wanted to do more research in some occult database you knew of, so we spent the afternoon and evening here. We went out for a walk just before sunset, and I tried to teach you the finer points of making spaghetti sauce a bit earlier, but other than those breaks, up until nearly midnight I was channel surfing and you were on the Net. You didn’t say, but I got the impression you were looking for something specific.”
“I guess you don’t know whether I found it?”
“You didn’t say.”
“Sounds like a boring evening for you,” Riley said, bothered by that and not entirely sure why.
“It had its compensations.”
Riley was tempted to follow the intriguing tangent but forced herself to focus. “There was nothing new in the investigation in all those hours?”
“Riley, we talked about—” Ash shook his head. “You’re right, this is a very confusing minefield. Our memories don’t match.”
Half to herself, Riley said, “There’s probably something profound in that, but never mind. What don’t I remember?”
“By late afternoon, Jake called with a positive I.D. on the victim. The house-to-house finally turned up an empty rental where someone was supposed to be, and they were able to match prints found there to those of our former John Doe. Not that it’s been much help so far to know who the poor bastard was, since we haven’t been able to connect him to anyone on the island or in Castle. As of last night, Jake’s people hadn’t even been able to contact his family. You don’t remember any of this?”
This time, Riley didn’t even pause to think about what she didn’t remember; she was too busy trying to concentrate. “No. Who was he? What’s his name?”
“Tate. Wesley Tate. A businessman from Charleston.”
A jumble of thoughts crowded into her mind, and Riley did her best to sort through them. What was real? What memories could she actually claim as her own? “He lived in Charleston?”
“Yeah. Jake’s people were still working on the background check when we talked last night, so that’s all I know for sure.”
“He lived in Charleston, but chose to vacation here?”
“Struck me too. If you live in a beautiful coastal city, why rent a house on an island fifty miles away?”
“Maybe he didn’t have an ocean view at home.”
“He didn’t have much of one here. The rental isn’t oceanfront, it’s three rows back.”
“So he didn’t come for the view.”
“It’s a good bet. Neighbors saw him arrive on Saturday, but nobody seems to have seen him after that. Another weird thing is that it’s a big house, not really the sort for a single man to rent. Especially with plenty of smaller houses and condos available on the island. The realtor was under the impression that his family or a group of friends was set to join him later.”
“And nobody’s shown up.”
“Not so far.”
Riley drained her cold coffee, then got to her feet, relieved to find her legs relatively steady under her. “I want to take a look at Tate’s rental. After that, I think Jake and Leah should meet us at the Pearson house.”
Ash was also on his feet. “There’s a connection between that group and Tate?”
“If I can trust this part of my memory—yes. A big one.”
“You didn’t seem to recall a connection last night. What if your memory about this is faulty?”
“I’ll jump off that bridge when I come to it,” Riley said.
She called Gordon from Ash’s Hummer, using his cell and plugging it into the car charger even before she began to place the call.
“Saves time,” she explained to Ash. “It’s why I didn’t even bother to bring mine; I seem to be pulling energy out of them.”
“I gather that’s new,” he said, not really a question.
“They never last long as a rule but, yeah, the speed they’re dying on me is new. At this rate, I’ll count myself lucky if the Hummer doesn’t die on us.”
Ash eyed the vehicle’s power outlet and shrugged. “I’ll keep the engine running.”
Riley placed her call, and as soon as Gordon answered, asked without preliminaries, “Did I talk to you yesterday?”
Gordon, unflappable under even extreme conditions, replied simply, “No. Haven’t seen or heard from you since Tuesday morning.”
“Damn.”
“Why? What’s changed?”
“I’ll fill you in later.”
“Yes,” Gordon said. “You will.”
“It’s okay, I’m with Ash. Will you be home this afternoon?”
“Yeah.”
“All right. I’ll be in touch.”
Riley closed the phone and placed it, still plugged into the vehicle’s power socket, on the console between the two front seats. Then she automatically leaned back away from it.
Ash said, “Have another PowerBar.”
Riley dug into her shoulder bag for one of the half dozen she’d brought with her, saying only, “It’s getting obvious, isn’t it?”
“Your hands are shaking,” Ash replied. “There are a few bottles of orange juice in the cooler behind your seat. After what happened yesterday at the crime scene, I figured I’d better stock up.”
She managed to get a bottle without having to climb back there, and washed down the PowerBar with the juice. “This,” she said, “is getting ridiculous.”
“It’s getting scary,” Ash said, his tone remaining calm, almost offhand. “I know you said things could get worse, but…”
“This isn’t what you bargained for. Sorry.”
Ash sent her a glance. “I can handle whatever I have to, Riley. You’re the one I’m worried about.”
She drew a deep breath and released it slowly, trying to focus, to steady herself. “I have to figure out what’s going on. If there really are black-occult rites being practiced here, and why. Why Wesley Tate died and whether I was somehow involved in his murder. Why I was attacked. Even why I’m getting worse instead of better when the attack against me was days ago. It all fits somehow. It’s all part of the puzzle. I just have to find all the pieces.”
“And then put them together so they make sense.”
“Yeah.” Riley reached for another PowerBar. “And I’ve got around thirty hours in which to do it. Otherwise, by the end of the day tomorrow, Bishop will recall me. And I’ll spend the next month being tested from my DNA outward and looking at inkblots for SCU doctors.”
“For a number of reasons,” Ash said conversationally, “I’d rather that not happen.”
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“Me either.”
“So how can I help?”
“Just try to keep me focused.”
“Do my best.” He turned the Hummer into the short driveway of Wesley Tate’s rental and parked.
It wasn’t a crime scene, so the big third-row house hadn’t been taped off or left under guard. But Riley had nevertheless called Jake before they left her rental to ask his permission to go through the place, and also requested that he and Leah meet them at the Pearson rental in an hour or so.
He had agreed to both requests and cleared their visit to Wesley Tate’s rental with the realtor, so someone from that office met them at the house with the key.
She was a gorgeous brunette dressed to kill—or seduce—and Riley knew the instant she set eyes on Colleen Bradshaw that here was one of those “available” women in Ash’s life.
It wasn’t just the outfit, far more dressy than was the norm on the island; realtors showed houses to prospective renters and buyers, and Riley had seen enough of them to know that most dressed well during office hours for just that reason. It wasn’t even the warm smile or the way Colleen touched Ash’s arm three times during the brief introduction to Riley.
It was the way that smile never reached her chilly gray eyes.
This woman hates me.
Riley was mildly surprised but not disturbed; she had too many things on her mind to worry about Ash’s former lovers.
Much.
“Jake said I was to give you the key,” Colleen said to Ash, handing it over as if it were a precious jewel that needed to be placed reverently into his palm. And caressed for a beat or two.
Riley shifted her stance slightly, just to make the gun she wore on her hip more obvious. “Thanks, Ms. Bradshaw,” she said in the indifferently polite tone reserved for bank tellers and waitresses. “We’ll see that it gets safely back to your office when we’re done here.”
“Of course. It was nice to meet you, Agent Crane.”
“Likewise. Oh—Ms. Bradshaw? Did you meet Wesley Tate? Speak to him?”
“Sorry, no. Another agent handles this account.”
“I see. Thank you.”
“My pleasure. Ash, I’m sure we’ll be talking.”
“See you later, Colleen.”
They both watched the tall brunette fold herself—with quite unnecessary ceremony, Riley thought—into her little sports car and drive away, and it wasn’t until then that Riley said, “How long did that last? You two?”
Ash didn’t seem surprised. “A few months over last winter.”
“Obviously she wasn’t the one who broke it off.”
“No.” Ash held up the key she’d given him. “Shall we?”
“Ah. You don’t kiss and tell. Good to know.”
“There isn’t anything to tell.” He led the way to the front steps of Wesley Tate’s rental. “An attraction, but not a lot in common.”
“A spark but no fire.”
“Exactly.”
“So how come she hates me?”
Ash was smiling faintly. “Does she hate you?”
“Innocent isn’t a good face for you, Ash. There’s something completely unnatural about it.”
“Why would you think she hates you?”
“Let’s just say I’m glad I was the one with the gun.”
He paused at the top of the steps to look at her, still smiling. “Jealousy. This is a new side of you. I think I like it.”
“I am not a jealous person. And I have nothing to be jealous about. Do I?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, then.” So what if that Amazon is six feet tall and dresses like she should be standing on a street corner somewhere? So what? Why is this bugging me so much?
Why am I even thinking about this?
“Okay, you’re not a jealous person.” Ash unlocked the door and opened it. “Shall we?”
“I’m really not a jealous person. And, anyway, you’re supposed to be helping me stay focused.”
“Right. Sorry.”
I am a cop, and this is where a murder victim lived the last days of his life. At least—
“How long was Tate here before he was killed?” she asked, putting leggy brunettes out of her mind as they went into the house.
“Not long. He got here on Saturday.” Ash was all business now.
“Jesus. Did he even have time to unpack?”
“According to Jake, there’s clothing from an overnight bag in the master bedroom and a shaving kit in the master bath. Either he wasn’t planning to stay long or expected to buy whatever else he needed.”
They walked from the foyer into the great room, a living and dining area that lived up to its name; it was not only a huge, open space but had been decorated with high-end products and furnishings and the very latest thing in amenities, including a large-screen plasma TV and a fireplace.
Momentarily distracted yet again, Riley indicated the fireplace. “Does anybody around here even use those?”
“We have a few chilly nights in winter. Not many, as a rule, but a few. Rentals with fireplaces do better in winter, obviously.”
“Oh. Makes sense, I guess.” Focus, dammit. Focus. Riley looked around at what was a very large house, clearly designed to hold a dozen or more people. “How many bedrooms?”
“Six. And seven baths. There’s a level below this floor and one above.”
Frowning, Riley went over to one of two refrigerators and opened it. “Curiouser and curiouser,” she said. “It’s stocked.” She checked the other one. “Both of them are stocked. Bet the pantry is too.”
“Yeah, Jake said the local grocery store made a big delivery on Saturday, before Tate arrived. Prearranged. People go online and make out their shopping lists ahead of time; the store delivers as soon as the cleaning crew is out behind the previous tenants. The delivery people put away perishables and leave the rest on the counter for the renter.”
“I had no idea you could do that,” Riley said, closing the fridge door. “I just stopped on the way in and bought what I needed.”
“Frozen pizza and PowerBars mostly. Yeah, I remember.”
“If you don’t cook, that’s what you buy.” She frowned again. “Question is, why did Tate have so much food delivered? What’s in there would feed a dozen people or more for a couple of weeks.”
“I would say he was expecting company. And for more than just a meal or two.” Ash studied her. “Are you getting anything clairvoyantly?”
“I haven’t tried. Yet.” As difficult as it was for her to concentrate, Riley was more than a little bit wary of dropping her guard.
Assuming she still had a guard, which was probably arguable.
“So what’s the plan?” Ash was still watching her. “I don’t know much about this kind of thing, but I’m guessing the guy didn’t leave a lot of his own…energy…here anyway, not considering how little time he spent here. A cleaning crew was here the day he checked in, and Jake’s forensics team is neater than most and clean up after themselves, so this place has pretty much been spit-shined.”
Riley wondered if he was offering her an out because he was afraid she’d fail—or afraid she’d succeed.
She wasn’t sure which one she was afraid of.
“Where’s the master?” she asked.
“Usually has some of the best views, so I’m guessing upstairs,” Ash replied. He led the way, adding over his shoulder, “It’s not that I mean to hover, but I’d rather stick close just in case.”
“I appreciate that,” Riley said. Because she did.
The master bedroom was spacious for a rental, and boasted both a large adjoining bathroom and a private deck with a—distant—view of the ocean.
Riley ate a PowerBar and prowled the space, looking, touching, cautiously trying to open senses she wasn’t sure were doing anything except barely functioning. She was getting nothing. No scents, no sounds, no appreciable texture; even the brightly decorated room looked oddly washed-out to her.
The strange veil was back, a layer of something indefinable separating her from the world. And it was getting thicker.
Riley was cold. So cold. But she tried not to shiver, tried to keep doing her job.
“He was neat,” she said, peering into a closet where a suit jacket and two shirts hung evenly spaced.
“He didn’t have time to get messy,” Ash pointed out.
Riley opened a dresser drawer and pointed to several pairs of socks and Jockeys, folded precisely. “He was neat.”
“Okay, he was neat.” Ash paused, then said, “You know, if there’s a possible connection between Tate and the people in the Pearson house, why not just follow that lead to get information? Why put yourself through this if you don’t have to?”
She looked at him, frowning. “Put myself through this. Does it seem to you this is an effort for me?”
Ash returned her stare for a long moment, then came to her and turned her to face the mirror above the dresser.
“Look,” he said.
For just an instant, no more than a split second, Riley thought she saw another woman standing there with Ash behind her, a weird sort of double image, the way slight movement shows as a blur in a photograph.
And then it was gone, and Riley saw herself. With Ash standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders.
At first, she couldn’t see whatever it was that caused him concern; the weird veil that had faded colors and muted her other senses lay between her and the mirror, just as it lay between her and the world.
But then, slowly, the veil grew thinner, more wispy. And Riley felt curiously stronger, steadier on her feet. In the reflection she watched, fascinated, as the room behind them became brighter, the colors more vivid. Her pale blue short-sleeved blouse and jeans, Ash’s khaki slacks and dark shirt, even his vivid green eyes, all became clearer, sharper.
No longer distant.
No longer out of her reach.
She looked at his hands on her shoulders, and her scattered thoughts began to focus.
Damn, Bishop was right. Again.
“Look at your face,” Ash began. “It—”