Leslie Glass - Burning Time

ALSO BY THE SAME AUTHOR

FROM BANTAM BOOKS

Hanging Time

Loving Time

A Bantam Book / published in association with Doubleday

Doubleday hardcover edition / October 1993

Bantam paperback edition / August 1995

Copyright © 1993, 1995 by Leslie Glass.

For Rick

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

For technical assistance and inspiration, very special thanks to Dr. Richard C. Friedman, my psychology professor and consultant of many years. Thanks also to all the good people at the NYPD, particularly Lieutenant Bob Davis and Detective-Sergeant John Ranieri, who head the Missing Persons Squad; Sergeant Nancy Mclaughlin; and Detective Margie Y. Yee. In the area of forensic science, thanks to Dr. Mark Taff, forensic pathologist, President and Founder of the New York Society of Forensic Sciences at Lehman College, and Dr. Lawrence Kobilinsky, Professor of Forensic Science, Director DNA Fingerprinting Laboratory at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. For help with motorcycles, and the Navy, thanks to Dr. Jay David Glass; Kent Brown; and Dorothy Fier.

Gratitude and blessings are much deserved by my editor Kate Miciak, whose passion for books in general, and mysteries in particular, should be deemed a National Treasure; Jamie Warren Youll for a whole lot more than her beautiful book covers; my agent, Sarah Jane Freymann, friend and weatherperson for all seasons; and Alex, Lindsey, and Edmund Glass, for absolutely everything else.

Contents

Cover

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgment

Epigraph

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Epilogue

About the Author

Preview of Loving Time

“But profound as psychology is,

it’s a knife that cuts both ways.”

—DOSTOYEVSKI,

The Brothers Karamazov

Prologue

On her last day in San Diego Ellen Roane lay on the beach and reached out her arms to the dazzling sun as if it were a lover she could catch and hold tight forever. Out here you could see the sun setting and the moon rising at the same time. The moon was impressive in its cold, far-off brilliance, but the sun was right there complete in the way passion was, providing everything needed for a lifetime in a single moment.

Ellen soaked it in, trying to make all her anxieties about college and her parents’ separation melt into the sand around her. Even this far away it wasn’t easy to do. There was so much aggravation all the time, so much yelling. Just hearing either one of them say her name these days was enough to give her a headache.

The sea was calm, too calm for surfers, but they paddled their boards out there anyway, waiting for a wave. Ellen watched them and wondered how many times her mother had tried to call her. By now she would have her father in a state, too.

Ellen smiled to herself at how clever she was. She had crossed the country by herself to have an adventure and think things through. It amazed her how easy it had been. All she had to do was flash the credit cards her father had given her when she moved out in the fall. And suddenly she knew what it was like to be a grown-up. She could go anywhere, do anything she wanted, buy anything. It was extraordinary. All she had to do was fly away, and for the first time in her life her parents couldn’t pick up the phone and reach into her brain.

The relief was extreme. She turned over to toast on the other side, thinking the thing over. She was getting ready to pick someone up. After two days of eating meals on her own, sleeping in The Coral Reef Bed & Breakfast, and going to the beach, that was all that was left to do.

At noon she had lunch at a tiny health food place across the street from the beach. She took a long walk, then settled back down on the sand and closed her eyes. She couldn’t help thinking the deep warmth of the California sun was almost mystical in its healing power. New York was soul-destroying in every way. Mean and gray and cold. Now that she knew that, she knew she should have come to college here, escaped all the way instead of just moving a few blocks uptown. She checked her watch, wondering when the guy would come back.

She didn’t mind that he didn’t make his move the first time he saw her two days ago. She was tired of people crowding her. This guy hung back. She knew she was gorgeous. Maybe he was shy. She kind of liked that. He watched her from the parking lot, leaning against his motorcycle. He always wore shades, but she could feel his eyes on her, feel him centered on her absolutely. It was a pleasant feeling, like something out of the movies.

Her mother liked to say a beautiful girl like Ellen could pick and choose among men. Why look down when it was just as easy to look up. If she were here she’d tell Ellen to look for intellectual ability, maybe head for the mountain where the Palomar Observatory was and make some celestial discovery in the way of a balding astronomer from the California Institute of Technology. Ellen snorted at the thought of her mother turned on by intellectuals whose only hair sprouted from their ears and noses. It was a proven fact that brilliant men were arrogant, self-involved, and ugly. And none of them could see well enough to admire her.

Ellen liked the one who took her in whole, the one who didn’t come down on the beach with a lot of little-boy toys and pass her by with sliding glances. This guy was blond and older than a kid, definitely a movie-star type. He wore a black shirt and black jeans and had the most amazing motorcycle she had ever seen, a huge, glistening chrome-and-maroon thing. She began to worry that he wouldn’t come back.

But at four-thirty, just as she was getting tired of lying around, he was there, up by the parking area staring at her. She waited for a few more minutes before getting up to leave. Slowly she pulled on her jeans and shirt. Then she walked up to the retaining wall where she sat for a minute to brush off the sand and put on her shoes. He approached her there.

“Want to go for a ride?” He indicated the machine parked behind him with a wave of his hand.

She tossed her blond hair and looked him over as if she might really be considering it. Finally she said, “Sure, why not?” and followed him to the motorcycle.