"What about your abilities?"
"Spider sense seems to be out of commission, but I woke up starving so that probably doesn't mean anything. I dunno about the clairvoyance yet, but if I had to guess…" She knew she had to be honest. "Not exactly firing on all cylinders."
Bishop didn't hesitate. "Go back to Quantico, Riley."
"Without knowing what's happened here? I can't do that."
"I don't want to make it an order."
"And I don't want to disobey one. But I can't just pack up and leave with this-this huge blank place in my life. Don't ask me to do that, Bishop."
"Riley, listen to me. You're down there alone, without backup. You can't remember the last three weeks. You don't even remember what you're there to investigate. And the abilities that could normally help you focus on and sort through undercurrents aren't available to you-either temporarily or permanently. Now, can you give me a single reason why I should ignore all that and allow you to stay there?"
She drew a breath, and gambled. "Yeah. One very big reason. Because when I woke up today, I was fully dressed and covered with dried blood. Whatever happened here, I was up to my elbows in it. One call to the local sheriff and I'd probably be sitting in his jail. So I have to stay here, Bishop. I have to stay until I remember-or figure out-what the hell's going on."
Sue McEntyre wasn't at all happy with the local ordinance that kept dogs off the beach from eight A.M. until eight P.M. It wasn't that she minded getting up early to allow her two Labs a good long run on the beach, it was just that big dogs-hers, at least-would have been happier if they'd been able to get out into the water a few times during the day as well. Especially during a hot summer.
Luckily, there was a big park skirting downtown Castle with an area complete with wading pond where dogs were allowed off-leash anytime during the day, so at least once every day she loaded Pip and Brandy into her Jeep and off they went, across the bridge and onto the mainland.
On this Monday afternoon, she didn't expect it to be crowded; summer visitors tended to be baking on the beach or shopping downtown, so it was mostly locals who used the park, and most of them for the same reason Sue did.
She found a space closer to the dog area than usual and within minutes was throwing a Frisbee for Brandy and a tennis ball for Pip, giving all three of them plenty of exercise as she threw and they happily fetched.
It wasn't until Pip abruptly dropped his ball and shot off into the woods that Sue realized a section of the fence was down and that the bolder and more curious of her two dogs had seized the opportunity presented.
"Damn." She wasn't too worried; he wasn't likely to head toward the streets and traffic. But neither was he at all likely to respond if she called him, especially since he loved exploring the woods even more than running on the beach and had perfected the art of going suddenly and temporarily deaf when his interest was engaged.
Sue called Brandy and clipped a leash to her collar, then set off in pursuit of her other dog.
One would think it would be easy to see a pale gold dog in the shaded woods, but Pip also had the knack of making himself virtually invisible, so Sue had to rely on Brandy's nose to find her brother. Luckily, it was a common enough occurrence that she didn't have to be told what to do and led her owner steadily through the woods.
This patch of woods was fairly uncommon in the area, consisting as it did of towering hardwood trees and fairly dense underbrush rather than the more usual spindly pines in sandy soil. But since it was also less than a mile from downtown Castle, it was hardly what anyone would have called a wilderness.
Sue and her dogs had probably explored every inch in the five years she'd lived on Opal Island.
Even so, she would have avoided the big clearing near the center of the woods had Brandy not been leading her straight for it. She'd heard the talk about what had been found there a week or so ago and didn't like the realization that what had seemed to her just an interesting jumble of boulders providing a seat to pause and enjoy the quiet of the forest now had a possibly more sinister purpose in her mind.
Satanism, that's what people were saying.
Sue had never believed in such things but, still, there was no smoke without fire, hunters weren't allowed in these woods, and why else would somebody kill an animal-
Pip began barking.
Conscious of a sudden chill, Sue picked up her pace, almost running beside Brandy along the twisting path to the clearing.
Anybody who would butcher an animal out in the woods for no good reason, she thought, probably wouldn't hesitate to kill someone's pet, especially if it was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Pip!" Not that it would do any good to call him, but she was desperately afraid suddenly, afraid in a way she'd never been before, on a level so deep it was almost primal, and that terror had to be voiced in some kind of cry.
It wasn't until much later that she realized she had probably smelled the blood long before she reached the clearing.
She and Brandy burst into the clearing to find Pip only a couple of yards in, standing still and barking his head off. Not his happy I'm-having-fun bark, but an unfamiliar, nearly hysterical sound that spoke of the same primal fear Sue felt herself.
Holding the whimpering Brandy close to her side, Sue went to Pip and fastened his leash to his collar blindly, her gaze fixed on what was at the center of the clearing.
The seemingly innocent jumble of boulders was there, no longer innocent but splashed with blood, a lot of blood.
Sue paid little attention to the rocks, however, nor even noticed that there had been a fire built near them. Her gaze was only for what hung over them.
Suspended by ropes from a sturdy oak limb, the naked body of a man was only barely recognizable as such. Dozens of shallow cuts all over him had bled a great deal, turning his flesh reddish and, clearly, dripping down onto the boulders.
Dripping for a long time.
The ropes were tied around the wrists, both of them tied together and stretched above…above the…Except that the wrists weren't stretched above the head.
There was no head.
Sue turned with a choked cry and ran.
It took considerable persuasion, but in the end Riley prevailed.
In a manner of speaking.
Bishop agreed not to recall her, but he wasn't willing to leave that open-ended. It was Monday afternoon; she had until Friday to "stabilize" the situation-by which he meant recover her memories of the last three weeks and/or figure out what was going on here. If she couldn't do that to his satisfaction, she'd be recalled to Quantico.
And she was to report in every day; one missed report, and he'd send in another team member or members with orders to pull her out. That or come himself.
She was also to send the bloodstained clothing she'd awakened wearing to Quantico for testing immediately; Bishop would send a courier within a couple of hours to pick up the package. And if the results showed human blood, all bets were off.
"You think it could be animal blood?" she asked.
"Since you went down there to investigate reports of possible occult rituals, it may be more likely than not." Bishop paused, then went on. "We've had a number of these reports across the Southeast in the last year or so. You remember that much?"
She did. "But nine times out of ten, there's no real evidence of occult activity. Or at least nothing dangerous."
"Nothing satanic," he agreed. "Which is always the idea feeding local hysteria, that devil worshippers are conducting robed rituals out in the woods that involve orgies and sacrificing infants."
"Yeah, when in reality it's almost always either pranks or just somebody jumping to conclusions when they find something on the weird side while out taking their daily constitutional."