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of the bloodier scenes she'd been called to.
    With the deputies and technicians out of the way and only the sheriff and Leah watching from the path, Riley moved slowly around the clearing, concentrating on opening up all her senses.
    It wasn't easy to focus with so many questions tumbling in her mind, but she gave it her best shot.
    The smell of blood was strongest, and she needed no enhancement of that particular sense to tell her so. There was plenty of the stuff, after all, splashed about.
    Directly beneath the hanging body were the boulders. Which, if one could feel playful at so gruesome a scene, could have best been described as a chair for a giant. Well, a fairly small giant, anyway. Because the "seat" of that chair, while about four feet wide and three deep, was only as tall as Riley's waist. But the "back" of the chair was close to seven feet tall, as wide as the "seat," and only about a foot thick.
    It didn't really look like a natural part of its surroundings, Riley had thought the first time she'd seen it.
    Ah-a memory.
    She had been here with…Gordon. That was it. He'd brought her here not long after she'd arrived on the island, because-
    "…and the boys thought I'd be the one to show it to, probably because of the stories I'd told 'em about my great-grandma being a voodoo priestess."
    "That's bullshit, Gordon."
    "Yeah, but they didn't know that. Big black man from Louisiana talking 'bout voodoo, who's gonna call him a liar?"
    "I am."
    He laughed, a deep, booming sound. "Yeah, but you'd call St. Peter a liar if he introduced himself at the pearly gates, babe."
    "Let's not discuss my religious beliefs, Gordon. The boys told you they'd found the bones here? On this rock?"
    "Yeah, right here. A circle of bones strung together on fishing line and layin' over an upside-down cross made out of-"
    "Riley?"
    She blinked and looked at the sheriff. "Hmm?"
    "Are you okay?"
    She wanted to swear at him for breaking the thread of memory, but all she said, calmly, was, "I'm fine." It was gone, dammit, the scene frozen in her mind as though she'd hit PAUSE on a DVD. And fading by the second.
    "You looked sort of spaced-out there for a minute." He sounded concerned.
    Standing slightly behind his shoulder, Leah rolled her eyes.
    "I'm fine," Riley repeated. She turned her gaze back to the boulder chair. The seat was roughly the right size and height for an altar, she thought, considering it. The back would be an unusual feature for an altar-unless it could be used in some way.
    She took another step toward the boulders, closing her mind to the bare and bloody feet dangling above them.
    She was no geologist but recognized granite when she saw it. What she wasn't sure of, what was difficult to make out, was whether there were distinct patterns among the spatters of blood on the rocks, especially the relatively flat surface of the tall, upright boulder. Was it sheer carnage, or was there a message?
    "Will you give me access to the crime-scene photos?" she asked the sheriff.
    "Of course. You see something?"
    "Hard to tell with so much blood. Using digital photos and pattern-recognition software might help."
    "We have that," he said somewhat uncertainly.
    Riley glanced at him. "If not, I have a friend at Quantico who'll take a look, quietly and quickly. No problem e-mailing him the relevant photos."
    Jake frowned, but said, "I'd be okay with that."
    She nodded and kept her attention on the boulders for another minute or two. It was a bit like one of those trick 3-D pictures, she thought; if you stared at it long enough, you saw-or thought you saw-something hidden within the confusion.
    The question was, what was she really looking at?
    She turned away from the boulders, still reluctant to concentrate on the body, and walked out about four feet. There was a faint white line on the ground. She followed it in a slow circle around the boulders. All the way around.
    An unbroken circle, or had been before many police feet had trampled the