Ablaze Author:Nancy Tesler From the relatively safe streets of suburbia to the remote country house of a malevolent cult, Samantha Barron, victim advocate for the Bergen County prosecutor's office, finds herself caught up in a world where power and greed rule, where "love" is given and withdrawn as a brainwashing technique, and life is cheap if you're a trouble-making out... more »sider...
A terrified young girl calling herself Miriam, comes to Samantha's office and blurts out a story about having witnessed a friend being "horribly punished--cast into the abyss" at the Greenwich Village Halloween parade; then suddenly bolts crying that she is a Judas, she should never have come. When Samantha realizes that Miriam has actually witnessed a murder, she determines to find her before the leaders of a shadowy religious sect with whom the girl has become involved, discover that she had recognized the masked killer. Samantha and attorney Douglas Ruark, a man who previously had thrown her off his crisis response team for defying his orders, are forced to work together in their mutual quest to save the girl.
It's been over a year since that disastrous night when Samantha had dashed into a burning building to save a dog. But the words Ruark shouted at her as he dragged her to safety are seared into her soul. "You're gone, Lady! There's no room on this team for headline grabbers! Samantha has almost succeeded in getting him out of her mind and her fantasies and here he is on her turf, dogging her every move and dredging up feelings of anger and resentment and something else she doesn't want to feel. When another eyewitness is killed and a prostitute kidnapped , Samantha, unbeknownst to Ruark, agrees to go inside the cult house--as bait. « less