Marcia Muller - Burn Out

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright 2008 by Pronzini-Muller Family Trust
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Grand Central Publishing
Hachette Book Group, USA
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New York, NY 10017

Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com.

First eBook Edition: October 2008

ISBN: 978-0-446-54301-9

SHARON MCCONE MYSTERIES
BY MARCIA MULLER

THE EVER-RUNNING MAN

VANISHING POINT

THE DANGEROUS HOUR

DEAD MIDNIGHT

LISTEN TO THE SILENCE

A WALK THROUGH THE FIRE

WHILE OTHER PEOPLE SLEEP

BOTH ENDS OF THE NIGHT

THE BROKEN PROMISE LAND

A WILD AND LONELY PLACE

TILL THE BUTCHERS CUT HIM DOWN

WOLF IN THE SHADOWS

PENNIES ON A DEAD WOMANS EYES

WHERE ECHOES LIVE

TROPHIES AND DEAD THINGS

THE SHAPE OF DREAD

THERES SOMETHING IN A SUNDAY

EYE OF THE STORM

THERES NOTHING TO BE AFRAID OF

DOUBLE (With Bill Pronzini)

LEAVE A MESSAGE FOR WILLIE

GAMES TO KEEP THE DARK AWAY

THE CHESHIRE CATS EYE

ASK THE CARDS A QUESTION

EDWIN OF THE IRON SHOES

NONSERIES

CAPE PERDIDO

CYANIDE WELLS

POINT DECEPTION

For Melissa Meith and Mike White:
Friends through both the good times and the bad.

Thanks to:
Marcie Galick, good friend to horsesand to me.
Bill, my first editor and best friend.
Les Pockellyour suggestions were right on.
Celia Johnsonyours, too.

Tuesday
OCTOBER 23

I sat on the bluffs edge, facing southeast, where a newly risen full moon cast a shimmery path over the waters of Tufa Lake. To my right, the towering peaks of Yosemite had disappeared into purple darkness. Here in the high desert the evening cooled quickly this time of year, but Id prepared for it, appropriating a shearling jacket several sizes too big for me from the closet at the ranch house. As Id appropriated it every night since Id come up here from the city ten days ago.

Behind me, my husband Hys twenty-year-old horse, Lear Jetan ironic name for the red dun gelding, which had never willingly picked up the pace in its lifewhickered. I hadnt ridden a horse in more than a decade. Pretty much disliked the creatures, in fact. Lear Jet was bigabout fifteen hands and twelve hundred poundswith a white star on his forehead and a white snip on his nose. He didnt like me any more than I liked him. Every chance he got hed lean hard on me, try to stomp my feet, bare his yellow teeth and snort.

I wasnt riding the creature for pleasure but in response to a challenge from Hys ranch manager, Ramon Perez, who lived on the property and tended Lear Jet and the small herd of sheep Hy kept.

I sat watching the water as the moon rose higher. No longer visible by night or day were the brownish-white towers of calcified vegetationtufathat gave the lake its name. Years ago, the siphoning off of feeder streams for drought-stricken southern California had caused the lakes level gradually to sink and reveal the underwater towers; the brine shrimp that inhabited it and the waterfowl that fed on them had seemed doomed. But they were saved by the efforts of a coalition of conservationists, headed by Hy, and now the streams flowed freely, the lake teemed with life.

I wished I were so alive, but all I felt was burned out and hollow inside.

Last February Id escaped death by mere seconds when a building where Hy and I had been temporarily living blew upone of a series of bombings directed at the security company in which he was a partner. Id solved the case of the Ever-Running Man, as the bomber had been called, but the fear and nightmares lingered; the grinding day-to-day effort of managing a growing investigative agency had sucked my spirit dry. Throughout spring and summer depression dragged me down. Id tried coping with it myself, eventually resorted to antidepressants, and, when the pills hadnt worked, consulted a therapist. Therapy didnt work, either; Im a private person, and I found myself lying to the doctor whenever she probed too close to the root causes of my condition.

Severe depression is like being at the bottom of a deep, dark pit: you want to put your feet and your hands against the walls and, squirming like an overturned spider, crawl up into the sunlight. Only when you try you find you cant move your limbs. I dreamed of being in that pit night after night. Finally, at Hys urging, Id come to the ranch for a change of pacerather than the more familiar environs at Touchstone, our place on the Mendocino Coast. Id planned to rest, regain my perspective, and rethink my future.

Well, everything but the rest part had so far eluded me. That I managed just fine, sometimes sleeping twelve to fourteen hours at a stretch. It wasnt good, and I knew it.

I also knew the choice of this spot on the bluff that I returned to night after night wasnt good, but here I sat again. It was the place Hy had come the night his first wife, Julie Spaulding, died of a long, debilitating illness. Hed told me how the sunset had flared above the Sierras, then died on the water....

Youre not coming here tomorrow, McCone. It just depresses you more. Get on with figuring out your life.

Behind me, Lear Jet snorted impatiently. He wanted his alfalfa.

Okay, you smelly old thing, I called and got to my feet. Im coming.

The horse, of course, was obstinate. He turned his back on me and tried to pull the reins loose from where Id tied them to a tree root. I took the reins myself, but when I tried to mount him he sidestepped. I hung on, got my left foot in the stirrup, and threw my right leg over his back. Before I could locate the other stirrup, he began walking; I clung to the pommel until my foot was secure. Then he stopped.

I clicked my heels authoritatively against his sides.

He snorted and put his head down.

Look, you miserable bag of bones, Im not in the mood for your antics! I clicked my heels harder.

Lear Jet took off at a sudden wild run across the mesa.

I lost both stirrups, yanking hard on the reins. Slow down, dammit!

And he didjerking to a dead stop. I flew from the saddle over his lowered head and landed on my butt in an area of soft dried grass.

As the horse turned away and trotted toward the stables, I could have sworn I heard him snicker.

I wasnt hurt, although Id probably be sore in the morning, but I stayed where I was for a while, lying on my back, my knees bent upward, cursing Lear Jet and watching the emerging stars.

What else could go wrong today? That morning Id nicked myself with a kitchen knife; been snappish for no reason with my office manager, Ted Smalley, who was holding down the fort back in the city; been even more snappish when my sister Charlene, who lived in the LA area, called to see how I was doing.

That afternoon Citibanks fraud division called to tell me someone was using my MasterCard to make Internet purchases; theyd frozen the account and a new card would have to be issued. I should have been grateful to them for spotting the problem within hours, but instead I grumbled at the representative about the inconvenience of having to change the number on all my automatic payments. Then I called my nephew and agency computer expert, Mick Savage, and asked him to find out whod made the charges; he could work faster than Citibank, who were bound to have more important cases on their hands than mine. When he said he was swamped, and why not let the bank handle it, I yelled at him and hung up. Then I slept the rest of the afternoon.