Jake studied the body and boulder for a long moment, then cleared his own throat. "See what you mean. The doc says same as you, by the way-that the head was hacked off, front to back. Of course, by the time the killer was working on severing the spine…"

"He probably did have the head pulled back toward him," Riley finished. "But by then the heart had stopped, so the blood was no longer spraying."

She stood gazing at the body, trying to concentrate, to focus. But it was something other than deliberate thought that made her step forward and lift her arms, not touching the body but stretching upward to measure how high she could have reached.

As she did that, it occurred to her with cold realization that if she had been standing here, reaching up like this, possibly holding this man's body in a better position for his killer to cut his throat, blood would likely have spattered her clothing and hair and covered her hands and forearms.

All the way to her elbows.

The forensics people were back, carefully cutting down the body, by the time the search teams finally called it quits. If the severed head was in these woods, they reported, then it was buried or otherwise well hidden, and where there were signs of fresh digging the searchers had discovered only two beef bones and a rawhide chew toy.

"Oh, Christ," Jake muttered when that news was relayed to him. "You don't think somebody's dog carried off the head?"

Riley, who had just fished in her shoulder bag to produce a PowerBar, paused in unwrapping it to say, "I doubt it. A feral dog or a very hungry one, maybe, but somebody's pet would hesitate to consume human flesh. As a rule, anyway."

Jake stared at her.

"Cats will," Riley clarified after taking a bite. "Once we're dead, to them we're just meat, apparently. Dogs are different. Maybe because they're domesticated. Cats really aren't. They just want us to believe they are."

Leah laughed under her breath. "Cat person, are you?"

"Actually, I like both." She looked at Jake, who was still staring at her. "What?"

"Talk about jaded. How in the hell can you eat right now?"

"It's for energy." The new voice spoke matter-of-factly. "She has a high metabolism, Jake. No calories, no energy."

"I knew that," Jake said. "What're you doing here, Ash?"

"What do you think? I wanted to see the crime scene while it's still relatively…fresh."

Ash. Riley turned her head to watch him approach, again digging for memories and again finding none. Absolutely none.

He was about the same height as the sheriff, which made him around six feet. Dark like the sheriff. But that's where any similarity ended. In comparison to Jake Ballard's polished handsomeness, this man was almost ugly.

He had broad, powerful shoulders that seemed to strain the fabric of the very nice suit he wore, as though the covering were something not quite natural for him. His very dark hair was fairly short and not at all tidy, his chiseled face was deeply tanned, and his nose had been broken, Riley thought, at least twice.

He had high cheekbones, slanted brows that lent him a sardonic expression, and hooded, very, very pale green eyes that threw both danger and something enigmatic into the mix.

And where charm came off Jake Ballard in almost palpable waves, this man was radiating something else entirely. Something almost primal.

When he joined them, standing nearest Riley, he touched her lightly, his large hand sliding down her back to rest near her waist in a gesture that was curiously possessive.

"Hey," he said.

Riley, not a woman to be possessed, would have protested. Except that the instant he touched her, a hot shiver started somewhere near her toes and spread upward through her entire body in pulsing waves until she felt like she herself was radiating something primal.

Heat. Pure heat. And she recognized the sensation, even if the degree of it was rather astonishing.

Oh. Oh, shit.

She had taken a lover. Only it wasn't the sheriff.

"Hey, Ash," she said calmly, and bit into the PowerBar.

She needed energy. She needed all the energy she could get.

"I would have called you," Jake was saying to Ash. "But I knew you had court, so-"

"Postponed," Ash said, looking at the sheriff. "Besides which, murder ranks higher on the list of my priorities than breaking and entering. That case can wait."

He had a beautiful voice, Riley thought. Deep and rich and curiously fluid. Probably handy for a lawyer. Which, she assumed from the conversation, he was.

Jake grunted. "You usually work from reports and crime-scene photographs."

A prosecutor, I'm guessing.

"This is something special. Obviously." He had turned his gaze to the center of the clearing, watching as the headless corpse was zipped into a black body bag. "No idea who he is?"

"Not so far. We fingerprinted him first thing, but his prints aren't in the database."

"And no sign of his head," Riley said, feeling she would be expected to participate in the conversation.

"To delay identification, maybe?" Ash suggested.

Frowning, Jake said, "Take a look around you. If somebody just wanted somebody else dead and not identified, leaving a headless corpse in a ditch or thrown into the ocean makes sense. But left in a fairly public area, strung up and tortured over an altar and inside a circle of salt?"

"Salt?"

"It's used in some occult rituals," Riley said.

Ash looked at her. "Yesterday you seemed pretty sure that whatever's going on around here had nothing to do with the occult."

Oh, shit. Was that a professional opinion, or just pillow talk? And would I have told you the truth, whatever I believed?

Not that she could ask, of course.

Instead, calmly, she said, "Well, that was before this happened. And Jake's right-this is a very public way to leave a murder victim if all the killer wants is to delay identification. Whether or not it's some kind of occult ritual, I can't say. Yet, anyway."

One of his slanted brows rose. "So Jake asked you for help? Officially?"

"Not exactly. Not officially."

"She has resources I don't, Ash," Jake said.

"She's on vacation."

"I'll make sure she doesn't lose vacation days helping with this."

"She'll do just that if she's in this investigation unofficially, on her own time."

"At least you're admitting there's something to investigate."

"A murder, Jake. Whatever all the bells and whistles are, it's just a murder."

"You don't know that. I don't know that. Riley can help find out what it is or isn't."

"If you need help, ask for it officially-through the FBI. Let them send an agent down here."

"They have an agent down here."

Riley was suddenly aware that the hand still touching her back was exuding tension and…something else, something more she could feel but not quite get a handle on. Danger? Warning?

She stepped away from that hand abruptly and turned to face the two men, conjuring a pleasant smile. "Still here, boys."

Ash was expressionless, but Jake pulled on his sheepish face.

"Sorry, Riley, but-"

"Don't talk about me as if I weren't," she added gently.

Evenly, Ash said, "You're here on vacation. To rest and relax, remember? After a year of tough cases, you said, the most recent of which nearly got you killed."

"I didn't say it nearly got me killed," she objected, hoping to hell she hadn't. "I said it was rough and it was a close call. But obviously not too close, since I don't have a mark on me."

She offered that deliberately, watching him for the slightest reaction. And-dammit-saw a disquieting gleam in those green eyes.

A familiar gleam.

The shower stall was full of steam-the whole damn bathroom, in fact-by the time they turned the water off and made it to the bed.