"Too much?" Leah asked.

"Could someone have lost that much blood and lived? Sure. Five or six quarts in the human body, depending on size and weight. Losing a quart would be serious but not necessarily fatal, especially if it was a ritual blooding and not some traumatic injury."

"Thing is, at least some more got splashed all over the scene." Jake nodded when Ash looked at him. "We've got two blood types in all that, most from the vic but some apparently from the same…donor…who provided what was in his stomach. No real way to measure how much, especially since the ground soaked up a lot. I'm betting it was more than a couple of quarts, all told."

"Then there's likely to be another murder victim we have yet to find."

"Maybe." Riley was still frowning. "Or maybe not. Maybe the anticoagulant was necessary because it took a while to get enough blood without killing the donor. Or donors. You could probably take a little bit every day for several days without too much danger, if you were careful, knew what you were doing."

Ash said, "So, we're looking for somebody with anemia?"

"Failing a second victim. Or a first victim, rather." She looked at the sheriff. "Any luck finding some kind of pattern in the blood spatter at the scene?"

"So far nada. Melissa says the software hasn't run its course yet, but her gut feeling is that there's nothing to find."

"It was a long shot." Riley shrugged.

"What would you have expected, if there had been a pattern?" Ash asked.

"Well, whoever this is seems to be big on signs. So I would have expected another sign or symbol."

"Here there be devil worshippers?" Jake suggested dryly.

"Something like that. Subtle they aren't."

"They?" Leah asked. Then she shook her head. "Of course-it would be a group, wouldn't it?"

"Probably. There are solitary practitioners in most religions, but for any major ritual there would have to be more than one. Anything up to a dozen or so participants is most likely."

"Conspiracy in murder," Ash noted neutrally, "is very rare."

"They wouldn't have viewed it as murder," Riley said.

"Still, for a group of people to keep this sort of secret…How likely is that?"

"If they practice Satanism, very likely. Or at least very possible. Ash, these groups can only survive if they keep their…less conventional activities to themselves. And they learn that early. They're just too far out of the mainstream for community tolerance, much less acceptance."

Leah was faintly surprised. "Do they need community acceptance?"

"If they live in the community, sure. Their religion is only a part of their lives; they shop, go out to eat, go to the movies and the theater, usually send their kids to school. It's not all that uncommon for some of them to hold public office, especially at the local level. So, generally speaking, they keep quiet about occult practices."

Ash was frowning. "But you said whoever we're looking for in this case isn't being very subtle. Deliberately?"

"Maybe. Or desperate. That was a very public place for a ritual," Riley said. "Especially a major ritual involving sacrifice. Add that to the obvious arson sites, all the signs and symbols…It's either deliberately blatant or very careless. Either way, somebody is moving fast. Maybe too fast to avoid mistakes."

"Any idea what that major ritual would have been?" Jake asked her. "You said these things had a purpose, right? So what purpose was there in torturing a man and then beheading him?"

Riley shook her head to the repeated question, and repeated her earlier answer. "I don't know. Yet."

He nodded as though expecting it. "Well, while you're working on that, I've got some people checking out that group in the Pearson house. Because as far as I can tell, they're the only ones in the area who worship Satan."

"Openly, at least," Riley murmured.

He ignored that. "Soon as the background checks are done, probably in the next couple of hours, I mean to have a talk with that bunch. You game?"

"I wouldn't miss it."

"Okay," Ash said as soon as they were left alone in the conference room, "I did what you asked. Got myself included in the investigation. Want to tell me now why that matters?"

Riley felt a little shock, and her mind raced. She didn't remember asking him to do any such thing and, since awakening to the missing twelve hours or so, had been too preoccupied to ask or even wonder why he had accompanied her to the sheriff's department.

She didn't doubt he was telling the truth, but she also had no idea why she would have asked this of him. Unless…

"Riley? Look, I'm not running away with some fatuous idea that you need me to hold your hand, but-"

"Actually," she said slowly, "I think maybe I do. In a manner of speaking."

He waited, brows lifting in a silent question.

Riley hesitated only a moment. "Jake said the background checks he's waiting for would take a couple of hours. There's something I want to check out myself in the meantime. And I don't think I should do it alone."

"Let's go," he said.

It wasn't until they were in his Hummer in the parking lot that he asked the obvious question.

"Where to?"

Riley drew a breath. "The clearing where the body was found."

He frowned. "I know Jake's kept the area roped off and guarded, but you've already seen whatever there was to see. Haven't you?"

"With my eyes, yeah."

He didn't need that explained. "But you said you weren't able to pick up anything clairvoyantly."

"I wasn't. But there were a lot of people around. It might be different now."

"Might?"

"I need to try, Ash." Because I lost more time, and maybe that changed things. Maybe.

He looked at her steadily for a moment, then started the engine. "Mine not to reason why."

"Long as you don't do and die," she murmured. "Or even ride into the mouth of hell."

Ash smiled. "Have I mentioned how much I appreciate having a well-read lover? I would have had to explain that reference to just about anyone else I know."

"Books and imagination see you through a lot as an army brat." Riley dug into her shoulder bag for a PowerBar. "I have a mind filled with facts, poetry, and way too much useless trivia."

"It's only useless until you need it."

She paused in unwrapping the bar to eye him. "You get that out of a fortune cookie?"

"Probably." He glanced at her. "I do have one question. Why me rather than your pal Gordon? He knows all about the clairvoyance, right?"

"Yeah."

"So why not pick a former army buddy as backup if you're expecting trouble of some kind? Not that I'm complaining, you understand. Just wondering."

Riley was wondering about that herself. She had no way of knowing for certain that she had asked Ash to join the investigation for this reason; it was merely logical to assume. Because she'd known from the beginning that she couldn't just accept the status quo, accept her MIA psychic abilities, that she'd have to push herself at some point, have to try with all her strength to tap into what that Taser's electrical surge had damaged.

She had no idea what would happen then. But logic also told her she shouldn't be alone when she tried. As for why she'd picked Ash over Gordon, logic provided a possible answer for that as well.

"Gordon's a civilian now," she said finally. "He can't be officially involved in a murder investigation. You can."

"Ah. Makes sense."

Yes, it made sense. It was logical.

She wasn't sure she believed it, however.

The problem, of course, was that Riley had no memory of what had prompted her request that Ash involve himself in the case officially. Maybe it was because of this, because she'd intended to try her damnedest to tap into her seemingly absent abilities and wanted someone she trusted standing by in case it knocked her on her ass.