Burning Time

ALSO BY THE SAME AUTHOR
FROM BANTAM BOOKS

Hanging Time
Loving Time

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.

“But profound as psychology is,
it’s a knife that cuts both ways.”

—
DOSTOYEVSKI,
   
The Brothers Karamazov

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.