Jake had been so pissed at her when she'd left the arson scene with Ash that she hadn't wanted to ask him. As for Ash, she'd been preoccupied wondering when he was going to repeat his request that she confide in him about everything and had forgotten to ask him.
Oh, yeah, some cop I am.
Rather than repeat that request, he had instead talked casually of casual things, and Riley had reached the uncomfortable conclusion that he was simply going to wait until she brought up the subject.
Either he knew her well enough to know that she despised both ultimatums and feeling cornered, or else he was utterly confident that she would, sooner or later, confide in him.
She found either possibility disconcerting.
"Hey, Riley!"
She stopped but remained where she was on the beach, just above the high-water mark. A man, waving an arm to get her attention, was walking rapidly toward her across the wooden walkway that provided beach access from one of the houses.
The Pearson house? Riley didn't know. Had she visited the house at all? She didn't remember. The house at which she was looking was no more familiar to her than any other one in the neat row of attractively individualized yet basically similar houses along the beach: lots of deck space, lots of windows, colorful beach towels fluttering in the breeze as they hung over deck railings to dry. Nothing made this particular house memorable.
But the man…
I know you. Your face is in my mind.
One of the faces in her mind, at least. Not a bad face, on the thin side with the bones a bit too prominent. It matched his thin body, which was currently dressed in an old T-shirt featuring the logo of a seventies rock band and a pair of slightly baggy, too-long shorts.
At least he's not wearing a Speedo…
Riley did her best to shake off the irrelevant thought and concentrate on the man trudging awkwardly toward her through the deep sand piled up at the bottom of the walkway stairs.
Early to mid-forties, at a guess. Fairly tall, thatch of dark hair in no particular style, and very pale skin already showing the first pink signs of sunburn.
Already? Do I know he's only been here a short while or just assume it from what Ash said?
"Sunblock," she said casually as he reached her. "You can get burned before you know it on the beach. It's that nice breeze coming off the water." She was still groping in her mind but so far had found no name for this vaguely familiar face.
He grimaced. "Yeah, that's what Jenny keeps telling me. She also says the punch lines are too easy when you're a sunburned satanist."
"That is a point," Riley said. Satanist? Oh, shit. But if he's this open about it…
"Anyway, I'm wearing sunblock today. Plenty of punch lines for that, now that I think about it. But never mind. Riley, what's this we're hearing about the body found yesterday? He was a sacrifice?"
"You must know I'm not free to discuss any of the details with civilians. It's an ongoing investigation"-Your name, dammit. What's your name? It's- "Steve." So ordinary? Damn, bet I've got it wrong.
But apparently not.
"Riley, if he was killed and hung above the altar inside a circle of salt, we both know that's ritual."
She pulled her sunglasses down her nose and peered at him over the tops.
"Not my ritual," he added hastily. "Or ours, rather. Come on, Riley, you know we don't do that kind of shit. I don't know anybody who does. And a human victim is sure as hell not what we expected when we were invited out here."
Invited?
"Yeah, about that," she said, testing the waters cautiously. "About that invitation."
"What about it?" Steve frowned. "I told you when we talked about it Saturday afternoon."
"A lot's happened since then." She kept it vague.
Steve didn't appear to find that strange. "No kidding. I guess the sheriff has you on the murder officially, huh?"
Riley pushed her sunglasses back up her nose so she could hide behind them. "Like I said, Steve, it's an ongoing investigation."
"Right, right. Well, just so you know, I'd a lot rather talk to you than the sheriff. He thinks we're a bunch of nuts-probably dangerous nuts, at that. You know better."
Do I?
Mildly, she said, "Well, you can't really blame the sheriff. You've been talking to people. About your beliefs."
"We have nothing to hide," Steve insisted.
"Mmm. Having nothing to hide is one thing. Going around telling people you practice Satanism when weird things have been happening in the area is asking for trouble."
"Yeah, so you said when we talked on Saturday."
Riley waited, hoping that silence on her part would keep him talking. It was a technique that had worked for her often in the past, and it worked now.
"I know you warned me, Riley, but, Jesus, I didn't know some poor bastard was going to get killed. If I'd had any idea that was in the wind, I never would have brought my people here. We concentrate on compassion rituals, I told you that. We don't do any destruction rituals; the energy required and expended is just too negative. We don't want that coming back to us."
"Even if you had an enemy you'd prefer to get…out of your way?"
"Even if. And we don't make those kinds of enemies. I told you. We're harmless."
"Okay. So who invited you out here?"
Steve frowned at her. "I told you that too. He said his name was Wesley Tate."
Desperately trying to read his expression and pick up on verbal clues, Riley said, "I'm still having a hard time believing you'd bring your people here on the word of a stranger, Steve. I would have thought you'd know better than that. You've been practicing-what? Twenty years?"
"Nearly that." He sighed. "Yeah, I know it could have been a setup of some kind. At best somebody trying to take our money, and at worst a hate group out to make an example of us. But he just sounded so damn charming and welcoming, Riley. We've been taking heat back home, getting pressure to go elsewhere, so the invitation to visit Opal Island came at a perfect time."
A suspiciously perfect time.
Riley mentally crossed her fingers and guessed. "But to accept the invitation of a man you hadn't even set eyes on…"
"I know, I know. Not something I'd normally have considered, except that he knew all the right things to say. I mean, we're not some secret brotherhood with code words and bullshit like that, but you know as well as I do that there are…"
"Code words?" she supplied dryly.
"Well…yeah. The right words, anyway. The right names. He knew people. He checked out. And it wasn't like he was inviting us to his own place or asking for anything. Just suggesting we might want to check out Opal Island and Castle because people were laid-back here and because there were some even like-minded."
"And have you found them?"
"No. But it's just been a few days, after all. We've sort of put out the word." He grimaced. "As you said, rotten timing, obviously. And I've gotta tell you-if those like-minded people are into human sacrifice, we're not gonna have much in common with them."
"If anything at all," a new voice added pleasantly.
Riley looked past Steve, unsettled yet again that she hadn't noticed the approach of the tall, dark woman now joining them on the beach. Especially since the woman was strikingly beautiful and had a strong, definite presence. Probably in her mid-thirties, she was both exotic and sensual, her centerfold body ripe to bursting and her dark eyes practically smoldering.
"Hey, Riley," she said as she joined them. Her voice was as sultry as the rest of her, low and rather throaty. And her night-black hair fell straight and gleaming down her back all the way to her hips.