Her probing tongue could find no wound in her mouth, no reason for there to be blood. There was no pain. So why was-

The smell of it was suddenly thick in her nostrils, and for an instant she was sure her hands were slick with the viscous stuff, the knife in her grasp held securely only because he knew what he was doing-

Oh, Christ. It's him.

Riley realized she was moving only when she passed the police cars blocking off the end of Bourbon Street as they did every night. She didn't stop, didn't even hesitate. As the smell and taste of blood grew stronger, her pace quickened, until finally she was running, away from the crowds and toward something she didn't want to find.

At some point she drew her weapon from her shoulder bag; she was hardly conscious of doing it. She was only aware of running, faster and faster, her lungs burning and her side aching when, finally, she found it.

Him. What was left of him.

She was standing at a construction site, partially cleared for a new building but holding nothing yet except huge earthmoving machines, looming still and silent all around her. Stoic inhuman witnesses to the atrocities committed here.

There was a streetlight just close enough for her to see what he had left this time. The remains of a man's body, naked and bloody. But only part of it.

There was nothing from the navel down except the grisly pulp of hacked-up internal organs.

Too late. Riley was too late. Again. And the taste of blood was still in her mouth.

Missed again, didn't you? But don't worry, little girl. You'll get another chance. I'll see you in Mobile.

She could have sworn she heard the echo of mocking laughter, but it wasn't on the faint breeze blowing around her.

It was inside her own mind.

And this time she knew it wasn't her imagination.

Present Day

"We don't know it's him. Not for certain," Bishop said.

Riley sat in her car at the sheriff's department, the cell phone to her ear, and struggled to keep her voice even and calm. "He's leaving coins, right? Mint-condition coins inside the victims."

"That shouldn't have leaked to the press."

"It didn't leak before, we both know that. Which means this killer isn't a copycat."

Bishop's voice held all the calm Riley's lacked, and then some. "What we both know is that hundreds of people worked on the previous investigations over time, so we can't be sure information wasn't leaked-even if it didn't make the newspapers."

"He's dead, Bishop. I killed him."

"I believe you did."

Riley realized that with her free hand she was gently rubbing the burns on her neck and made herself stop. "One of us needs to take a look at what they've got. Be sure. I can-"

He didn't let her finish. "We haven't been invited, Riley. And since our previous investigation was officially closed and our killer officially taken off the books, what's happening in Charleston right now is being viewed as an entirely new case, most likely a copycat."

"A full-blown serial killer just popping up out of nowhere? If his ritual is established, then he's killed before."

"Yes. Which is why I've reached out to a cop friend of mine in Charleston. He's getting duplicate reports to me for an unofficial profile. I'll know soon enough if this is someone we've seen before."

"You mean we'll know soon enough if I missed." There was a bitter taste in her mouth, not unlike the blood in New Orleans.

"You didn't miss. You never miss. You fired your weapon and hit John Henry Price at least three times full in the chest, and he went down."

"They never found the body."

"That river never gave up its dead."

She drew a breath and let it out slowly. "Very convenient thing, wasn't it? That he just happened to fall into the river after I shot him. That he ran out onto that dock but past the tied-up boats, all the way to the end. What if he planned the whole thing, Bishop? He could have. We both know he was smart enough. What if he just wanted to stop for a while, get us off his back and off his trail, and he knew the only way was if we believed he was dead?"

"Riley-"

"You didn't get there until later; none of the telepaths or mediums were there to tell us for sure if he was gone. Just me. And all I could feel, all I could sense then, was terror, because he'd gotten so damn close. Because I knew he'd been the one to crawl into my head instead of the other way around."

"It happens sometimes when the predator we're tracking has some active or even latent ability."

"And you warned me. I know."

"It's been nearly two and a half years," Bishop said quietly.

"If he was alive, he would have been killing."

"He could have been more careful. Picked victims who wouldn't be missed. Hidden or destroyed the bodies when he was done with them. You said yourself at the time that going public the way he did, when he did, leaving the bodies to be found, was because he wanted a challenge, because it had gotten too easy for him. He wanted the world to watch him, to see how clever he was. Maybe the challenge now is to convince everybody else he's not the same killer we tracked for so long. Maybe that's why he's hunting tourists rather than locals."

"Maybe," Bishop said at last. "But we have some time; this killer is apparently on a monthly schedule, and his most recent victim was discovered only a few days ago."

"He's killed one victim a month?"

"For the past six months. The police caught on early because of the coin signature but managed to keep that bit out of the press until the most recent victim last week. Political decision."

"Didn't want to hurt tourism."

"Exactly. But word's out now, and they're getting plenty of heat for not warning their visitors. Not the best example of Southern hospitality on record."

"Hardly." Riley frowned. "If they're taking heat-"

"-then chances are good they'll call for help sooner rather than later. Yes. I'm counting on it. As to whether this killer really is someone we've seen before, I won't know anything until I see those reports. In the meantime, you have trouble enough where you are now."

He was right and she knew it. Riley tried to focus, to put that other killer out of her mind, but it was almost impossible. She had never felt more vulnerable in her life, and even the faintest possibility that John Henry Price was still alive and on the hunt less than fifty miles away had turned the queasiness in the pit of her stomach to churning fear.

Even on the other end of a cell-phone connection, Bishop didn't miss that.

"Riley, what else is going on? Has the situation there worsened?"

She didn't want to but knew she had no choice, so Riley made her report matter-of-factly. She told him about the murder and about the evidence that she herself had been attacked with possibly lethal intent.

And before he could say a word, she finished with, "Don't recall me, Bishop."

"Why the hell not?" His tone was grim. "Riley, I have absolutely no idea what a direct jolt of electricity could do to a psychic's brain, not under those conditions. But I can pretty much promise you there's not much chance of a reversal of whatever damage was inflicted."

"You mean I might never recover my memories. Never get my senses back to normal-any of them."

"That's exactly what I mean. It's more than a chance, Riley. It's a probability. Electrical energy affects us. It can strengthen our abilities, change them-or destroy them."

She drew a breath, then said, "That's all the more reason I should stay here. Look, I know it sounds irrational. But every instinct I have is telling me that if I leave, what's happened to me will be permanent. That I'll never get back the lost time-or the lost senses."

"Riley-"

"Bishop, please. It's more than just a case now. Somebody attacked me, maybe tried to kill me. And the same person most probably killed a man on the same night. Tortured and decapitated him. It might be his blood that was all over me, and I don't even know his name, not yet. I have to stay here. I have to work this investigation. Whatever answers I can find will be here, not studying inkblots for some doctor at Quantico."