"Yeah. Buildings under construction are tempting targets for arsonists, and having a special rider on the policy is usually less expensive than hiring security to watch the place twenty-four-seven all during construction. But the insurers take a harder look when something like this happens, of course. Personally, I don't see how the builder would profit from a fire, not at this stage. The policy is one designed just for a building in progress, so at any given time it only covers what the company can prove it's cost them up to that point."

"Sensible."

"Yeah, and pretty much stops some unscrupulous builder from throwing up shoddy workmanship and then burning it and claiming the loss as market value. Apparently, you've gotta have the paperwork to back up your claims of cost-actual cost of materials and manpower, not appraised value when finished. That sort of policy keeps the cost down for the builder but still makes it so they don't lose their shirts if something happens during construction."

"I bet it's saved the insurance company some major bucks too. Jake, where are we going?"

"Here." He stopped near the edge of the dunes, which presently hid their view of the ocean and over which a wooden walkway had already been partially constructed, with more thick pilings sunk deeply into the sand.

Ignoring the STAY OFF THE DUNES! signs posted liberally up and down the beach and near every walkway, Jake stepped behind a piling and crouched down.

"Almost missed it," he said.

Riley joined him, going down on one knee in the soft sand, and stared at the rough surface of the massive post. "I don't suppose it could be natural," she said.

"No. Found the same thing at the abandoned building that burned in Castle last week. I'd say this was a brand-or at the very least made with something hot enough to burn the wood."

After a moment, Riley reached out and traced the very clear shape that did indeed look as though it had been deliberately charred into the surface of the post.

An inverted cross.

It was nearly lunchtime when Riley and the sheriff finished what little they could do at the second arson site, an abandoned building on the outskirts of downtown Castle. What little they could do having consisted of looking at a burned-out hulk of a building that had once been a small store and studying the inverted cross that had been burned into an otherwise untouched plank jammed upright into the ground and left conspicuously behind the building.

"Not very subtle," Riley murmured as they headed back toward the street.

"Was it supposed to be?" Jake asked. "I mean, isn't a sign supposed to be…well, a sign?"

"A sign of what? Here there be devil worshippers? Most practitioners keep pretty quiet about it, Jake."

"That group down the beach from you has been vocal."

Which led Riley to believe they were likely to be harmless, more apt to be on the candles-and-chanting "conventional" end of Satanism rather than out on the extreme fringes, where blood rituals and attempts to harness the elements or some supernatural force were practiced.

But all she said was, "Leaving signs of occult activity for outsiders to find isn't smart. Unless you have a very good reason."

He frowned. "Okay. Then, maybe…a warning of some kind?"

"I guess it's possible." She couldn't seem to think clearly, and Riley was aware of another chill of unease. How many PowerBars had she eaten since breakfast? Two? Three? That should have been enough. More than enough. For Christ's sake, it wasn't as though she'd been running an obstacle course-

"Are you okay?" Jake demanded. "You've been acting sort of weird all morning."

"Have I?"

"Yes, you have. And that wasn't an answer. What the hell's going on with you?"

She wouldn't have pegged the handsome sheriff as being particularly sensitive to undercurrents, which told her that it was only too screamingly obvious something unusual was going on with her.

Great. That was just great. She really couldn't fake it anymore, apparently.

Falling back on the tried and true, she said, "I'm different when I'm working, that's all."

"No offense, Riley, but if this is you working, I don't know how much help you're going to be to this investigation."

Despite the beginning of that sentence, his tone was aggressive and his entire attitude impatient, and it didn't take any extra senses to tell Riley he was in the mood to pick a fight. Probably, she thought, because needling her at the station hadn't achieved whatever results he'd been after.

She wondered now if she had stopped dating Jake less because she'd met and been attracted to Ash and more because she really didn't have much time for men who believed they were God's gift.

Under different circumstances, she probably would have given him the argument he so clearly wanted to start, but today she simply didn't have the energy for it.

In any case, he was distracted before Riley had to come up with some kind of response. And she didn't know whether to be relieved or irritated when the distraction proved to be Ash. His Hummer was parked beside Jake's Jeep out on the street.

"How'd he even know where we were?" Jake muttered.

"He didn't have to know," Riley pointed out mildly. "All he had to do was drive the few blocks between here and the courthouse and look for your Jeep."

Jake grimaced. "Yeah. Sometimes I forget how small this place really is."

"I wouldn't think you could hide much here," she agreed.

"You ever lived in a small town?"

Riley nodded.

"Then you know that there are secrets everybody in the entire town knows-and then there are secrets that stay that way, sometimes for generations."

"True enough." Something was nagging at her mind, had been for at least the last hour, but Riley couldn't make it come clear. Something about one of the arson sites? Something Jake had said? A memory trying to surface?

She didn't know. Whatever it was, it remained maddeningly elusive.

It's like an echo of something I only half-heard in the first place. How the hell am I supposed to figure out what it was?

Especially with her Swiss-cheese memory and still-dulled senses.

Ash had gotten out when he saw them approaching and, when they joined him on the sidewalk, asked Riley, "Any ideas about our mysterious arsonist?"

"Nothing helpful, I'm afraid," she replied, pushing the useless worries out of her mind for the moment.

"Still thinking it could be part of some kind of occult activity?"

"I still can't rule it out." Riley shrugged. "I've got to do some research, see if any of this fits any known pattern."

"Would you expect it to?"

"Well, yeah, at least to some extent. There are basic tenets to every religion, every belief system. The bells and whistles may change over the years, and some strong leaders may invent their own rituals or their own methods of conducting them, but the broad outlines tend to stay the same."

It was Jake who said, "And in occult practices, the broad outlines would be?"

"All black-occult rituals center around the theme of summoning supernatural power to effect a change."

"Supernatural power? Like magic?"

His scornful questions didn't surprise Riley. Neither the paranormal nor any supernatural force or forces were a part of most people's lives, so ignorance abounded. She had, in fact, grown accustomed to explaining to perfectly intelligent people that paranormal had nothing to do with vampires or werewolves and that magic could mean something other than illusion or the twitch of a TV witch's nose.

So, patiently, she said, "In this context, supernatural power would be the energy forces of nature, of the elements. Wind, water, earth…fire. In occult rituals-magic-that elemental energy is created or summoned and then channeled, directed, toward a specific end."