Angel Fire Read online

  Praise for

  angel fire

  “Gruesome, gory, baffling, shocking, awesome—and incredibly suspenseful describe this mystery.”

  —The Oklahoman

  “A captivating tale.”

  —Tampa Tribune

  “Remarkable and emotional debut … The touching love story that plays out in the background is refreshing in its sincerity and emotional depth.”

  —New Mystery Reader Magazine

  “Worthy of widespread acclaim. She has the ability to write with great beauty in describing the landscape of this character-rich debut … well recommended.”

  —Deadly Pleasures Magazine

  “An excellent debut novel … A smart, well-developed mystery that will leave you hanging on every page as you devour this book.… There’s a new author on the scene, Lisa Miscione. You don’t want to forget this name!”

  —Book Review Cafe

  “Taut prose, insidious suspense, psychological motivation, police procedural sidebars, and a would-be lover make this debut from a former member of the publishing world a real winner. Don’t miss it!”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “Miscione hits the ground running, quite literally … in her debut novel featuring crime writer Lydia Strong.… There’s a surreal and nightmarish quality to the story.… It remains gripping and terrifying right through the carnage of its final scene.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  also by Lisa Unger

  Darkness, My Old Friend

  Fragile

  Die for You

  Black Out

  Sliver of Truth

  Beautiful Lies

  writing as Lisa Miscione

  Smoke

  Twice

  The Darkness Gathers

  The setting of this book was inspired by the beauty and mood of the Santa Fe and the Angel Fire, New Mexico, areas. Readers intimate with these very real places will realize that I have taken significant geographical, topographical, and architectural liberties as per the demands of the narrative, my vision, and my imagination. Angel Fire, as well as its characters and setting, is entirely a work of fiction.

  Copyright © 2002 by Lisa Miscione

  Preface copyright © 2011 by Lisa Unger

  Excerpt from Darkness, My Old Friend copyright © 2011 by Lisa Unger

  Excerpt from The Darkness Gathers copyright © 2003 by Lisa Miscione

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Broadway Paperbacks, an imprint of the Crown

  Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  www.crownpublishing.com

  Broadway Paperbacks and its logo, a letter B bisected on the diagonal, are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Originally published in hardcover in slightly different form in the United States by St. Martin’s Press, New York, in 2002 and subsequently published in paperback in the United States by St. Martin’s Press, New York, in 2003.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Miscione, Lisa.

  Angel fire / Lisa Miscione.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Murder victims’ families—Fiction. 2. Women journalists—Fiction. 3. Mothers—Death—Fiction. 4. Santa Fe (N.M.)—Fiction. 5. Missing persons—Fiction. 6. Crime writing—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3613.I83 A54 2002

  813′.6—dc212001048665

  eISBN: 978-0-307-95310-0

  Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

  Cover photography by Dave Curtis/Trevillion Images

  v3.1_r1

  To my parents, Joseph & Virginia Miscione

  Who gave me the tools to build the craft on which I travel …

  To my husband, Jeffrey

  The North Star,

  The red sky at night,

  The wind inside my sails …

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Preface

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Excerpt from Darkness, My Old Friend

  About the Author

  Preface

  by Lisa Unger

  I was nineteen years old when I first met Lydia Strong. I was living in the East Village, dating a New York City police officer, and attending Eugene Lang College, the undergraduate school of the New School for Social Research. I was sitting in a car, under the elevated section of the “1” line in the Bronx, waiting—for what I can’t remember. But in my mind that day, I kept seeing this woman running past a church. She was in New Mexico. And all I knew about her was that she was a damaged person, someone in great pain. Running, for her, was salve, religion, and drug. That was Lydia.

  I pulled a napkin and a pen from the glove compartment and started writing the book that would become Angel Fire. It took me ten years to write that novel, mostly because the years between age nineteen and twenty-nine were, for me, years of hard work and tumultuous change. But also because during that time, I let my dreams of becoming a writer languish a bit. Lydia was faithful; she waited.

  In spite of a first-rate education, a career in publishing, and a strong desire to write fiction, I didn’t know much of anything when I was writing my first novel. I don’t think you can really know anything about writing a novel until you’ve actually written one. (And then you go to school again when you sit down to write your second, and your third, and so on.) All I knew during that time was that I was truly fascinated by this woman occupying a place in my imagination, and I was deeply intrigued by her very dark appetites. I was enthralled by her past, by the mysteries in her present, and why she wouldn’t let herself love the man who loved her. There were lots of questions about Lydia Strong, and I was never happier over those ten years than when I was trying to answer them.

  I was fortunate that the first novel I ever wrote was accepted by my (wonderful, brilliant) agent Elaine Markson, and that she fairly quickly brokered a deal for Angel Fire and my second, then unwritten, novel The Darkness Gathers. I spent the next few years with Lydia Strong and the very colorful cast of characters who populated her life. And I enjoyed every dark, harrowing, and complicated moment with them as I went on to write Twice, and then Smoke.

  I followed Lydia from New Mexico, to New York City, to Albania, to Miami, and back. We trekked through the abandoned subway tunnels under Manhattan, to a compound in the backwoods of Florida, to a mysterious church in the Bronx, to a fictional town called Haunted. It was a total thrill ride, and I wrote like my fingers were on fire.

  I am delighted that these early novels, which I published under my maiden name, Lisa Miscione, have found a new life on the shelves and a new home with the stellar team at Broadway Paperbacks. And, of course, I am thrilled that they’ve found their way into your hands. I know a lot of authors wish their early books would just disappear, because they’ve come so far as writers sin
ce they first began their careers. And I understand that, because we would all go back and rewrite everything if we could.

  But I have a special place in my heart for these flawed, sometimes funny, complicated characters and their wild, action-packed stories. I still think about them, and I feel tremendous tenderness for even the most twisted and deranged among them. The writing of each book was pure pleasure. I hope that you enjoy your time with them as much as I have. And, thanks, as always, for reading.

  chapter one

  Lydia Strong ran. She ran until her muscles cramped, until her lungs were on fire. She ran until she couldn’t run any farther. And then she kept running. She ran like she had something to prove, and would die trying to prove it, if necessary. Down the dirt drive from her home, nestled in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains north of Santa Fe, off onto the rocky path that led past the church in Angel Fire.

  When she ran, she was lost and she was found. She left behind the chaos of her thoughts and fears, left behind her life, her work. In running she found an animalistic kind of peace. She was a living organism motivated only by her physical self, the desire to rest and the drive to go on, go farther, and farther still. She was only her lungs and her legs. It was painful but it was quiet. This ritual served as Lydia’s only religion these days.

  She did not deny the possibility of a god or a godlike force, but organized religion … out of the question. Still, this August morning, like most mornings, she felt a tug at her heart as she ran past the small white church. The Church of the Holy Name sat proud and undeniable by the side of the dirt road. White and immovable like the moon, it rose from the dust and the weeds. It was just as it was one hundred years ago, solid and righteous as if it had grown from the earth like a mountain. It was so sure of itself, its walls painted orange, pink, purple by the rising sun.

  As a child, she had attended church with her mother every Sunday. It was always an event, because her mother was a devout woman. The joy Marion Strong took in the church service was contagious, for Lydia loved her mother fiercely and had wanted, then, to be just like her in every way. She was excited to wear one of her most precious dresses. She would walk with her mother proudly, imagining that people who saw them would think she was an adult, since her shoes made noise just like her mother’s as their heels clicked on the sidewalk.

  Once inside the church her mother would give her four quarters, two for lighting a candle for each of her dead grandparents and two for the collection plate. They would sit in the center pew. Lydia waited with restless anticipation for the time to sing. When the organ sounded and the hymns began, with all the might of her few years Lydia would sing her heart out, for she knew all the words. Her mother would look down at her, smile and sing in her high, melodic voice. Lydia felt such a sense of belonging. Everybody, it seemed, was there for the same reason. Everybody sang together and everybody smiled and shook hands. “Peace be with you.”

  Of course she hadn’t thought about it at the time, but she wondered now if her mother had missed her company when she turned into a rebellious teenager, shunning everything that smacked of institution and refusing to go to church with her “on principle.” Her mother never forced her to go; she never lectured or manipulated her with guilt. Her mother just looked away and shook her head. Lydia remembered that small break in the ground beneath their feet as the first in the chasm that would grow between them in her early adolescence.

  After her mother’s death, Lydia had tried to return to the church. The loss of her mother had left a hollow place in her heart where the wind blew through. But the service seemed empty, contrived, rather than rich with meaning and faith. Not beautiful, as she remembered. And when it occurred to her that she had never been to mass without her mother, had never entered a church without holding her mother’s hand, she felt deeply sad. Rather than filling the void where her mother’s love had been, her visit made her feel the loss even more profoundly. Now when people asked her about her religious beliefs she answered, “I’m a runner.”

  Always, as she ran past the white adobe church by the side of the dirt road, she saw her mother’s face and remembered the clicking of her shoes on the sidewalk. On this August morning, the desert air still cool, not yet fully heated by the blazing sun on the rise, she thought she heard her mother’s voice, almost audible, on the wind. She stopped and turned around, running in place. The sound of her own labored breathing was so loud in her head she had to quiet herself to hear anything else. But there was only the silence of sand and wind in the trees. Then, in the distance, its sound almost lost in the breeze and the Sangre de Cristos, a crow screamed. The sound was mournful and, Lydia thought, had a tinge of panic to it.

  chapter two

  Every year in the weeks preceding the anniversary of her mother’s death, an agitated restlessness overtook Lydia. It interrupted her sleep, her work. And instead of lessening over time, almost fifteen years now, it had worsened. This feeling often compelled her to wander in the night, or to drive aimlessly for miles, or to do other things that she would rather forget. A battalion of shrinks had never been able to cure her. She had long given up on psychiatrists and their cabinets filled with happy pills. It was the same feeling on a larger scale as when she’d misplaced her keys or wallet and couldn’t rest until she laid her hands on them again. Except that she wasn’t sure what she had lost and she had the desperate feeling that it would never be found. But that she would keep looking for the rest of her life. It was something about herself that she had stopped trying to explain, something she had grown to accept.

  On this night her restlessness caused her to leave home, and for the second time, run the route past the Church of the Holy Name. The clock read 11:58 P.M. when she left her house. She had been rolling sleepless in her bed when the feeling took her. She tried to ignore it, to clear her head and force herself to fall asleep. But her muscles ached for a run. And something deeper inside her ached for it, too, for the exertion and for the exhaustion that followed when her body had been pushed to its limit.

  It was as if an invisible string connected to her heart had pulled her from beneath the covers, and she’d rushed to pull on her running gear, knowing the sooner she was moving, the sooner she would be relieved of the restlessness. As soon as her battered Nikes hit the road and the rhythm of her breathing was the only sound in her head, she was free.

  When she reached the church she stopped running. Everything was the same as it had been that morning except, of course, the night sky. But tonight her imagination conjured a nightmarish vision of what might be behind the wooden doors. A rich offering to a strange god; murdered animals with their throats cut spilling dark blood on pristine white fur; tropical fruit, overripe and opened not with knifes but with greedy fingers, spilling seeds and sick-sweet juice onto the altar. A vast array of flora, roses so red they seemed black; orange, white, fuscia gladiolas opened like mouths. Everything piled together, a plenty of hideous beauty wet with new death. There would be the buzzing of flies, and perhaps the echo of chanting voices somewhere from a distant room. Something she would not want to investigate—but would have to.

  A noise brought her back to this moonlit night in front of the church. How many times a day did she drift away like that into her own fantasies? How many times were they so twisted? It seemed she had always been that way.

  The noise came again. A soft shuffling from behind the church. She was immediately drawn toward it, her curiosity piqued. Finish your run. Leave whatever it is alone. An animal, a priest, whatever—it’s nothing. But of course Lydia had to follow the noise—just to see what the darkness held.

  When she walked behind the church, she came upon a garden. She had never seen it during any of her daily runs. It was surprisingly fecund, rich with exotic flowers unfamiliar to her. Surrounded by a low white picket fence, the garden was bursting with itself. A path wound through it in the shape of a figure eight, illuminated by a lamp mounted above the back door to the church, which stood open. Orang
e like fire, purple like bruises, fuchsia, emerald, the exotic flowers stood tall and proud like well-shod socialites confident in their beauty. They swooned in the light breeze, bringing their perfume to her nose.

  Through the open door she saw a man. Tall and thin, with curly hair the black of India ink, there was something odd about the way he moved, reaching his hand out in front of him before he committed his body to any action. He moved slowly, patting the air for a stool that stood before the altar. And as she moved closer to the door, Lydia could discern his blank stare—how he didn’t use his eyes to see but rather his touch or his hearing. She realized he was blind.

  It dawned on Lydia then that she had seen him before but had not noticed he was blind. The truth was that she had been drawn to the church even before she had purchased her house. Staying at the Eldorado Hotel in Santa Fe, she had driven up to Angel Fire looking for property. Lost on the winding back roads of the resort town on an early Sunday morning, she had come upon the church as it was filling for mass. On a whim she pulled over, parked her car, and entered. She told herself that she had attended the mass to see what kind of people lived in the town more than anything. But she could remember nothing about the parishioners, only the unassuming, simple wood-and-stone interior of the small building. And the man who played guitar at mass, how his music had moved her that day. She had stood in the back for a while, listening, then she left. A man standing outside the church with a broom handed her a booklet about Jesus’ love; she thanked him. A few hours later, the broker who was showing Lydia property brought her to the house she would close on soon after. It was to be her second home, her hideaway, as she spent most of her time in New York.

  She had never returned to the church for mass even after she bought the house. In the year and a half she had owned it, she’d been there a total of three months, this last visit being the longest, almost five weeks now. As she stood in the night, watching the blind man, she wondered if he would sense her there but he seemed intent on what he was doing, polishing a guitar that sat on a wood table to the right of the stool. Soon he placed it on his lap, tuned it briefly, and began to play. It sounded lovely but suddenly she felt like an intruder. She turned and began running again, glad to be on her way. The sound of his guitar followed her longer than seemed possible, though the desert night is silent and sounds carry.