"No." She softened that with a smile. "It would really help if you could clear most of your people out for a bit. Not long, just a few minutes. I'd like to wander around, take a closer look at the scene before anything more is changed."
"For the psychic vibes?" His voice wasn't-quite-mocking.
"For whatever I can pick up," she returned pleasantly.
He eyed her for a moment, then shrugged. "Okay, sure. My forensics team has done all they can do, and God knows we've got plenty of shots of the scene. But the people I've got combing the woods aren't done yet."
"No reason to call them in. I just need the immediate area around the body clear."
He nodded and stepped away to begin issuing orders to send his people temporarily back to their vehicles.
Leah, who had stood silently nearby, murmured, "What I can't figure out is if he really wants your help or just wants a reason that Ash can't argue with to keep you close."
"Mmmm," Riley said.
Who the hell is Ash? she wondered.
Chapter 4
It was one of the bloodier scenes she'd been called to.
With the deputies and technicians out of the way and only the sheriff and Leah watching from the path, Riley moved slowly around the clearing, concentrating on opening up all her senses.
It wasn't easy to focus with so many questions tumbling in her mind, but she gave it her best shot.
The smell of blood was strongest, and she needed no enhancement of that particular sense to tell her so. There was plenty of the stuff, after all, splashed about.
Directly beneath the hanging body were the boulders. Which, if one could feel playful at so gruesome a scene, could have best been described as a chair for a giant. Well, a fairly small giant, anyway. Because the "seat" of that chair, while about four feet wide and three deep, was only as tall as Riley's waist. But the "back" of the chair was close to seven feet tall, as wide as the "seat," and only about a foot thick.
It didn't really look like a natural part of its surroundings, Riley had thought the first time she'd seen it.
Ah-a memory.
She had been here with…Gordon. That was it. He'd brought her here not long after she'd arrived on the island, because-
"…and the boys thought I'd be the one to show it to, probably because of the stories I'd told 'em about my great-grandma being a voodoo priestess."
"That's bullshit, Gordon."
"Yeah, but they didn't know that. Big black man from Louisiana talking 'bout voodoo, who's gonna call him a liar?"
"I am."
He laughed, a deep, booming sound. "Yeah, but you'd call St. Peter a liar if he introduced himself at the pearly gates, babe."
"Let's not discuss my religious beliefs, Gordon. The boys told you they'd found the bones here? On this rock?"
"Yeah, right here. A circle of bones strung together on fishing line and layin' over an upside-down cross made out of-"
"Riley?"
She blinked and looked at the sheriff. "Hmm?"
"Are you okay?"
She wanted to swear at him for breaking the thread of memory, but all she said, calmly, was, "I'm fine." It was gone, dammit, the scene frozen in her mind as though she'd hit PAUSE on a DVD. And fading by the second.
"You looked sort of spaced-out there for a minute." He sounded concerned.
Standing slightly behind his shoulder, Leah rolled her eyes.
"I'm fine," Riley repeated. She turned her gaze back to the boulder chair. The seat was roughly the right size and height for an altar, she thought, considering it. The back would be an unusual feature for an altar-unless it could be used in some way.
She took another step toward the boulders, closing her mind to the bare and bloody feet dangling above them.
She was no geologist but recognized granite when she saw it. What she wasn't sure of, what was difficult to make out, was whether there were distinct patterns among the spatters of blood on the rocks, especially the relatively flat surface of the tall, upright boulder. Was it sheer carnage, or was there a message?
"Will you give me access to the crime-scene photos?" she asked the sheriff.
"Of course. You see something?"
"Hard to tell with so much blood. Using digital photos and pattern-recognition software might help."
"We have that," he said somewhat uncertainly.
Riley glanced at him. "If not, I have a friend at Quantico who'll take a look, quietly and quickly. No problem e-mailing him the relevant photos."
Jake frowned, but said, "I'd be okay with that."
She nodded and kept her attention on the boulders for another minute or two. It was a bit like one of those trick 3-D pictures, she thought; if you stared at it long enough, you saw-or thought you saw-something hidden within the confusion.
The question was, what was she really looking at?
She turned away from the boulders, still reluctant to concentrate on the body, and walked out about four feet. There was a faint white line on the ground. She followed it in a slow circle around the boulders. All the way around.
An unbroken circle, or had been before many police feet had trampled the area.
Riley knelt and touched two fingers to the white line, coming away with fine grains sticking to her skin.
"We're having that analyzed," Jake told her.
She glanced at him, then touched one finger to her tongue.
"Jesus, Riley-"
"Salt," she said calmly. "Ordinary, everyday table salt. Or possibly sea salt. It's supposed to be purer."
Leah said, "You knew what it was."
"I suspected." Riley stood up. "It's sometimes used in occult rituals. To consecrate the area inside the circle." An area which included the boulders, the hanging body, and the fire.
Jake was still frowning. "Consecrate? You mean make it holy? Because there's nothing holy about this."
"That depends on your point of view, really." Without giving him time to respond to that, Riley added, "A circle of salt is also used as protection."
"From what?" he demanded.
"A threat or perceived threat. And before you ask what kind of threat, the answer is, I don't know. Yet." She smiled faintly. "All this is only preliminary, you have to understand that. First thoughts, hunches, instincts."
"And no inside knowledge, huh?"
Riley felt everything inside her go still and chilled, but she held on to her slight smile and waited.
"I mean, if the paranormal is your thing, then you must know more than the rest of us about this sort of shit."
She didn't let her relief show, and acknowledged to herself that it was extraordinarily draining to keep up her guard and try to behave normally when she was constantly digging for memories, for knowledge, for answers.
And, more often than not, coming up empty.
Still coolly professional, on the outside at least, she said, "The paranormal as defined by the SCU has absolutely nothing to do with occult or satanic rites or practices. That is a totally different thing, not grounded in science but in belief, in faith. Just like any religion."
"Religion?"
"To most practitioners, that's what it is. If you want to understand the occult, that's the first rule: It's a belief system, and not inherently evil in and of itself. The second rule is, it's not a single belief system; there are as many sects within the occult as there are in most religions. Satanism alone has at least a dozen different churches that I know about."
"Churches? Riley-"
She interrupted his indignation to add firmly, "Practitioners of the occult may be nontraditional and their rites and habits blasphemous from the viewpoint of the major religions, but that doesn't make their beliefs any less valid from their own point of view. And believe it or not, Satan is rarely involved-even in Satanism. Nor is any sort of sacrifice, barring the symbolic kind. Most occult groups simply honor and worship-for want of a better term-nature. The earth, the elements. There's nothing paranormal about that."