Burn: An Anna Pigeon Novel

307 Pages·2010·1.24 MB·English

by  Barr Nevada

BURN
ALSO BY NEVADA BARR
FICTION
Anna Pigeon
Borderline
Winter Study
Hard Truth
High Country
Flashback
Hunting Season
Blood Lure
Deep South
Liberty Falling
Blind Descent
Endangered Species
Firestorm
Ill Wind (a.k.a. Mountain of Bones)
A Superior Death
Track of the Cat
Nevada Barr Collection
NOVEL
Bittersweet
13½
NONFICTION
Seeking Enlightenment—Hat by Hat
NEVADA BARR
BURN

Minotaur Books
New York
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
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
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either
products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

BURN. Copyright © 2010 by Nevada Barr. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For
information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.>
www.minotaurbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barr, Nevada.
Burn : an Anna Pigeon novel / Nevada Barr.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-312-61456-0
1. Pigeon, Anna (Fictitious character)—Fiction.
2. Women park rangers—Fiction. 3. New Orleans (La.)—Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3552.A73184B87 2010
813'.54—dc22

2010021411

First Edition: August 2010

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For my dearest
Deb and Ed, whom I have loved
since we were all young and
magnificently foolish
ONE
“Shit, Blackie, this one’s dead, too. What’re we gonna do?” The speaker,
scarcely more than a boy—the lines cruelty would carve deep into his face not
yet showing more than petulance—looked with disgust into an aluminum cargo
box half the size of a semitrailer. His nose, high bridged and straight, the only
feature of his face that suggested an ancestry not devoted to the baser things,
wrinkled at the stink, a stink not from the bodies, or from the way they had died,
but from the way they had lived for nineteen days.
“A jewel?”
“Maybe more’n one.”
“We get rid of ’em.”
Drops of water on the younger man’s thick black hair glittered in the harbor
lights like a cheap sequined hairnet. As his head pushed into the shadow of the
shipping box, Blackie, fifty last birthday and made of hard muscles and hard
times, turned away. For a second it had looked as if the head vanished and left
the body standing stooped over by itself.
Blackie didn’t like magic. Didn’t like things that vanished or shifted or
weren’t what they seemed to be; things that couldn’t be relied upon.
“Dougie, get your goddam head out of the box,” he snapped. “What’re you
doing? Sniffing’em? Jesus.”
Unoffended, Dougie did as he was told. “What’re we going to do?” he asked
again, sounding plaintive.
Absurd burbling notes of “Baa Baa Black Sheep” swam through the moisture-
laden air. Blackie tensed, his eyes seeking and sharp with the keenness of the
hunter—or the hunted. He wished the night were darker. Seattle’s interminable
drizzle caught the light from the quay and the street above the docks, giving
everything a shadowless glow, robbing the place of depth, reality.
“It’s your cell phone,” Dougie said helpfully.