By now, Riley could have been blindfolded and taken anywhere in the Southeast or along the Gulf and would have been able to recognize a coastal or river city from the smell alone.

She was also beginning to really dislike it. Musty, muddy, faintly sour, it made her think of damp and decay and blood.

Not so surprising, really, considering how many butchered bodies she'd stood over in otherwise lovely coastal cities.

This time, Riley didn't wait for the killer to strike. She didn't just drift into Mobile and blend in, vanish into anonymity while allowing her senses time to adjust, which had been the game plan up to that point.

After New Orleans, waiting patiently was somewhat beyond Riley. Whether because this particular killer had thrown a gauntlet at her feet professionally or because she felt personally violated, the fact remained that she was certain he had somehow managed to touch her mind more surely than she had touched his.

And that, to Riley, was a hell of a strong motivation to get this case resolved and this killer behind bars ASAP.

So, despite Bishop's warnings, despite her own uneasy misgivings, she used every trick of concentration and focus she had learned in her life to begin trying to connect the moment she hit town.

It wasn't the way her abilities were supposed to work, really. She had connected with other minds before; Bishop said her secondary or ancillary ability was telepathy, and being a telepath himself, he'd know. But generally speaking, telepathy was barely a blip on her personal radar, and her clairvoyance took the form of picking up bits of information from her surroundings or from other people. Touching objects or people tended to make it easier, but not always. Sometimes she got absolutely nothing. And on a few memorable occasions she had been slammed by a "dump" of information that had left her mentally disoriented and physically exhausted-a truly disconcerting experience she was wary of repeating but had no way of controlling or predicting.

Cosmic irony, that. A not-so-gentle reminder from the universe that the gifts given never came without strings.

In any case, her own "gifts" tended to be far more benign than those many psychics experienced. No pain, no disorientation, no visions yanking her from the here and now. Mostly, she just became aware of something rising in her mind, bobbing about to attract her notice, like flotsam on a wave. A fact, a feeling, a certainty.

Reaching beyond that, opening herself deliberately to contact from a dark and twisted killer, was a move as risky as it was unprecedented, at least where she was concerned.

She wasn't even sure how to do it other than to focus, concentrate, think about this butcher and how badly she wanted to stop him-

Welcome to Mobile, little girl.

Riley stopped in her tracks. She stood on a side street in downtown Mobile, near a well-lighted corner where people passed on foot and in cars on a typical weeknight like this.

They went about their business, oblivious, as Riley put out a hand to the building beside her, steadying herself not so much physically as emotionally.

There weren't words to describe how cold and slimy his thoughts were in her mind. Everything in her recoiled, yet she made herself stand still and silent, ignoring her surroundings until she saw nothing, felt nothing, heard nothing except that voice in her mind.

That presence.

I knew you'd come. Knew you'd follow me.

"Where are you?" she whispered, not even aware that she'd shut her eyes, the better to concentrate.

I'm close, little girl. Closer than I've ever been.

"Where?"

Can't you feel my breath on the back of your neck?

She forced herself not to turn, not to betray the icy shiver chilling her all the way to her bones on the warm, humid night.

"Where are you, you bastard?"

Fast as you were, I got here before you. I've been waiting, little girl.

"God damn you-"

I've left you a present.

Riley's eyes flew open and she jerked as though physically struck. "No," she murmured. "Oh, no…"

He had left her another victim to find. Another butchered body. Another family destroyed.

She had failed. Again.

Poor little girl. In such pain. But don't worry. You'll get another chance. We'll meet again, Riley.

Present Day

"Riley?"

Dragging her mind back from the past, fighting to focus on the here and now, Riley had to wonder why, if she was sleeping with this man, she hadn't told him the real reason she'd come to Opal Island.

Had she trusted him before the Taser attack? Or was there, among her lost memories, a reason why she had allowed him to share her bed without sharing her truths?

But she had already taken the leap of faith, so she pushed the doubts aside, drew a breath, and answered him honestly.

"Gordon got in touch just before I came down here. The fires, the signs and symbols pointing to the occult, worried him. He's seen enough of the world, walked through enough jungles, to know when something bad is walking there too. He believed something was going on and that it was going to get worse. He asked me to check it out. Unofficially, of course. When he called, I'd just come off a case, I had vacation time piling up, and the unit wasn't busy. So my boss okayed it. Not a formal investigation, just a favor for a friend."

"Why didn't you tell me, Riley? We talked about the arson, the way people were getting edgy-even about the possibility of occult activities. You told me the occult was one of your specialties in the SCU. You never said it was why you'd come here."

Because I didn't trust you enough? Because I was afraid-or knew-that you were involved? Or only because for the first time my personal life meant more to me than my professional one and I didn't want them to get tangled?

Why couldn't she think straight? Why couldn't she make up her damn mind about him?

"Riley?"

"I don't know. I don't know why. I don't remember, Ash."

Once again, his eyes narrowed. "You don't remember? Do you mean it isn't just whatever happened on Sunday night that you can't recall?"

She nodded reluctantly. "When I woke up on Monday, most of the last three weeks was pretty much a blank."

"Pretty much?" A lawyer's determination to get things straight.

"Almost entirely," she admitted. "There were flashes. Faces. Threads of memory that vanished like smoke when I tried to catch hold of them. I had to be told, by Gordon and by my boss, what I was doing here."

"Then you didn't remember us."

"No," Riley said. "I didn't remember us."

"You sure as hell fooled me," Ash said.

Riley looked at him for a moment, then unfastened her seat belt and got out of the Hummer. She headed for the entrance to the dog park, not surprised that the area was deserted but for the bored deputy standing guard at the break in the fence near the woods.

Murders made people nervous. Particularly gruesome murders with possible satanic elements made them downright panicky. Riley figured most dog owners were taking their pets to the beach for exercise these days.

"Riley-"

When he grabbed her arm and swung her around to face him, she almost reacted in self-defense. Almost. Those instincts, at least, were very much alive in her, and that training went so deep it was an ingrained part of her character; her father had begun teaching her how to throw a larger opponent over her shoulder-and disable said opponent-before she started kindergarten.

She was more than a little surprised she hadn't taken Ash's head off. Interesting, that. Important? She didn't know.

She looked at the hand gripping her arm, not moving or speaking until he swore under his breath and released her. Then she merely folded her arms and waited.