Slow Burn

by Heather Graham

  “Yeah, and we’re glad about that, Spencer. It’s just that you gotta believe we’re going to go after Danny’s killer with both barrels blazing. Tell her, Delgado, please!”

  David, arms crossed over his chest as he watched the exchange between them, shrugged. “Spencer, it’s true and you know it. Cops look out for their own. Hell, they all know they could be next!”

  She lifted her hands in surrender. “Jerry, I won’t snoop around in any more cemeteries. I promise.”

  He turned, ready to leave. Then he turned back to her. “Spencer, if you know something you’re not sharing with us, you need to come clean. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

  “I—I don’t know anything,” she said stiffly.

  David was staring at her again.

  “See you, then, Spencer. You take care. And I swear, I’ll keep you up-to-date on anything I learn,” Jerry said.

  “Thanks,” Spencer said.

  David gave her a hard look, then followed Jerry Fried to his unmarked car.

  “What was that all about?” David asked.

  Jerry slid into the driver’s seat, shaking his head. “I don’t know. It just seems like she must know something she’s not saying. She’s got to have a connection we don’t. Something.” He stared at David. “Christ, we’ve got to get a break here somewhere! We’ve got nothing, David. No prints, no murder weapon. No witnesses. Nothing. And he dies—a cop, for God’s sake—without giving us a clue, just whispering his wife’s name.” He shook his head. “Hell, I’d pull out my own teeth to solve this thing. Just to get the lieutenant—and Ms. Spencer Montgomery Huntington—off my ass! Sorry, Delgado. I know he was your friend. And he was a good guy. A good partner. But damn it, I think even Danny knew stuff he wasn’t sharing with me, and that sure pisses me the hell off now!”

  David shrugged noncommittally. “Danny was a good cop.”

  “Yeah,” Jerry muttered. “You working for her now?”

  David shook his head.

  “For old man Montgomery?”

  “I’m working on this one for Danny, and for myself. See you around, Fried.”

  “Yeah, see you around.”

  As Fried started to drive away, Spencer was already getting into her little Mazda. David strode to his Mustang, settling in just as she whirred the Mazda to life.

  “Bitch!” he said softly, burning rubber to get out of her driveway quickly enough to fall in line right behind her. She wasn’t going to shake him. Not unless he decided to let her.

  He followed right on her bumper, almost as close as if the two cars were attached, watching for any sneaky moves. But it seemed that she really was going to work.

  He picked up his car phone and punched in Sly’s private office number. Sly picked up right away.

  “Spencer’s pulling into the parking lot now. I’ll be at my office for a while.”

  “Fine. Thanks,” Sly said.

  “Call me when she’s going to be on her own.”

  “I’ll do that,” Sly agreed. “You think you’re going to be able to keep a tail on her all the time?”

  David opened his mouth to reply. Spencer sure as hell wasn’t going to be happy having him around. It didn’t matter. He would be out on the street. She couldn’t stop him.

  “Yeah, Sly. I’ll keep on her. She’s yours during the day, and I’ll handle her coming and going. Be careful. I think that things may be starting to break now. If you can watch her during the day, I can use the time to see a few old friends—and enemies.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on her,” Sly promised, then hung up.

  Sly was as good as his word, though the weekend promised to be rough. But Sly had told David that he and a dozen stonemasons would be with her most of the time—neither Saturday nor Sunday had been planned as a day of rest.

  David followed her to church and home again on Sunday, keeping a fair distance from her. She wasn’t aware that she was still being followed, or if she was, she gave no indication of it.

  Late Sunday afternoon, she sat out by her pool. Then she swam, and he felt both the hunger and the pain she had reawakened in him stirring again as he watched her. He swore at himself, mocked himself, but he kept watching her. As the sky darkened, she sat on the edge of a lounge chair and pressed her temples between her fingers. She was crying again, he thought. Well, Danny was dead, and maybe he was a poor substitute. Or maybe she wasn’t ready to forgive herself for wanting a substitute. He didn’t know which. But he couldn’t say he didn’t care. Because he did.

  The weekdays went a little better, but his nerves were definitely on edge by the time Friday arrived. Nothing had happened. Juan, another of David’s employees, had kept him up on Ricky Garcia’s movements. Ricky had kept a very low profile recently, probably because the police were breathing so closely down his neck.

  David had used his police connections to make sure that the alarm company went out to Spencer’s house, supposedly on a routine check, to do a thorough evaluation of the system. Each night he checked the doors himself, then called the company and made sure that Spencer’s system was being monitored.

  He’d been sure that something would happen quickly. As a result, he’d been so tense that the week had gone excruciatingly slowly.

  If he’d only kept his damned distance from Spencer…

  But he hadn’t.

  On Friday he followed her in to work at a discreet distance. He still didn’t know whether she was aware that he was following her constantly or not. It didn’t matter.

  David stayed on Main while she turned into the parking lot for Montgomery Enterprises. His office wasn’t far down the street. He pulled in. Reva was at the front desk. She gave him a curious look when he walked in.

  “How are things going?”

  She shrugged. “Marty is working on that insurance fraud thing. He called in to say we’re right on track with it. Juan has been down in Little Havana, seeing what he can find out about everything Ricky Garcia is into. Someone called with a divorce case.”

  “You turned it down.”

  “Yes, big brother, I turned it down. God forbid, we don’t want to do anything that actually makes us a whole bunch of money here!”

  He shrugged and walked into his office, pulling out his files on Danny’s case. Reva followed him.

  “Coffee?”

  “I’ve had some.”

  “Lunch? I can microwave some of Tia Anna’s black beans and rice.”

  He shook his head again. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Spencer Montgomery has quite an effect on your appetite, big brother. Has anything happened since you took her to see that guy in jail?”

  He folded his fingers together, looked at his sister and he shook his head. “I did pay him a second visit.”

  “And?”

  He shook his head unhappily. “I just can’t believe Delia killed Danny. I do believe he’s completely out of his head, and I’m certain he’s murdered some of his followers. But I don’t think he killed Danny.”

  “You’re putting all your time into this one case.”

  “Hey! I’m the boss.”

  “You refused to accept a salary from Sly Montgomery, didn’t you?” Reva asked.

  David stared at her. “Yeah. Yeah, I refused to accept his money. Reva…”

  “I know, David. He put us both through school. I didn’t think you’d accept anything from him.”

  “I’ve been on this thing forever anyway.”

  Reva stood, ready to leave his office. “David?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Just watch out around Spencer, huh? She’s caused enough heartache in your life already.”

  “Reva, I’ve hardly been stumbling through life doing nothing.”

  “No, you haven’t. You’ve done well, done just about everything you wanted to do. But you’ve been doing it alone.”

  “Reva, my Friday nights tend to be just fine.”

  “Yeah, I know. An Anglo one week, a Hispanic the next. A model, a woman judge
, a bartender, an attorney. No one could ever accuse you of having any prejudices. But where’s your home, David? Where are those Saturday afternoons you should be spending with your son at Little League? It’s as if you gave up all those things when you gave up Spencer Montgomery. I just don’t want to see you tangled up like that again, David. Time has passed, but we haven’t changed what we are, and the Montgomerys sure as hell haven’t changed what they are!”

  He found himself bolting to his feet. “Sly is the second most decent human being I know, Reva. Second only to Michael MacCloud. And how you can forget that—”

  “I haven’t!” Reva told him earnestly. “Honestly, you know I love Sly! I just love you more, David.”

  He sat, staring at her. “I get to go to Little League with my nephew, Reva.”

  “I want you to be happy.”

  “I’m as happy as a damned lark,” he told her.

  Reva stared at him. “Have it your way,” she said, turning to leave. “But bear in mind, when you wind up ready to beat your head against the wall again, I won’t hesitate to say I told you so! And if her folks get in on it, don’t expect me to bail you out of jail again!”

  She left. What an exit line.

  It wasn’t that Spencer had really done anything so horrible. Except that…

  Cuban males were known for being jealous. Possessive. And he had been in love with Spencer.

  All the kids knew they were an item. A hot item. He felt as if he were living just for the moments when he could see her. Not that he didn’t keep up with the other things that were important. He owed it to Sly and the memory of Michael MacCloud, to get good grades. Michael had passed away the year before, after having spent the last fifteen years of his life trying to make America the land of promise for his grandchildren. David had to watch after his little sister. He was all Reva had left, and he was determined that the courts weren’t going to put her in a home somewhere. Plus he was a Big Brother to an orphaned kid who had made it over from Cuba on a raft.

  He’d started junior college, too, while he waited for Spencer to graduate. Their relationship had grown from that day at Sly’s. Movies every Friday. The beach on weekends. Picnics with the others. He’d almost begun to believe that all men had been created equal in America. He’d been to Spencer’s house for dinner, and her parents had been cordial enough, though once he’d heard her mother refer to him as “that refugee Spencer brought home.” He hadn’t let that bother him. He knew that Sly liked him, believed in him. And anyway, only Spencer really mattered; she was the one he was in love with.

  And for over a year the love between them was deep and passionate.

  They had some tempestuous times, of course, Spencer taunting him about looking at Terry-Sue, him ready to chew her out over a boy she might have teased in the hallway. But the fights just made their time alone more important, all of it stolen time, illicit time. Time they had to create. Once it was a tourist hotel on North Miami Beach. Once it was the beach itself, when the sun was setting and the tide was ebbing and the world looked glorious in shades of russet and crimson and gold.

  When Michael died, David had only survived because he had Spencer at his side. He’d thought he needed to get away from her, from everyone, to be alone. But it turned out that he’d needed Spencer more than ever that night, and he’d made love to her more passionately than ever before, almost furiously. She’d understood his love for Michael, though she hadn’t really understood what it meant to be alone in the world. He’d been an infant when his mother died, a child when he’d left the only home he’d ever known, waving a gun and escaping with his sister. He’d been only eight when Michael MacCloud had gently broken the news that his father had died in the Cuban prison where he’d spent his last months writing pamphlets on liberty. And now Michael was gone, as well. David was alone. Alone with a sister to protect. True, he had cousins and aunts and uncles who meant well, but they weren’t close. They didn’t count. He had to make a living. He had to keep Reva with him; he couldn’t let the two of them be separated.

  He knew about hard work. He’d been working as long as he could remember. And he loved Spencer, needed Spencer, but she had never once known what it was like to be adrift and afraid in the world. Spencer was cherished by her parents, adored by Sly, protected by all of them. Money and security wrapped her from head to toe.

  Perhaps he had built his first wall against her when Michael had been laid to rest. Maybe he had even begun building the wall that night when he had held her so heatedly.

  But the breakup came when her parents brought down a houseguest from Rhode Island. Bradford Damon.

  He was Spencer’s age. Anglo. Rich as Croesus. He’d spent his life learning to sail—with golf as an extra on the side. His grades weren’t stupendous, but he’d won entry into an Ivy League school following his father’s large donation to the university.

  At first he and Spencer had joked about Bradford. She’d moaned about having to entertain him, and she’d apologized profusely each time she had to break a date with David to see that Bradford made his way around all right.

  He’d had a job at the school then, pulling scenery for the theater department. After work one Friday, he’d gone to her house at nine to pick her up. In no uncertain terms, Spencer’s mother had turned him away from the door. “She will not be home tonight. She’s gone to the dance at the club with Brad, and they will not be back until well past midnight. It’s a private affair this evening, David. I’ll thank you not to go there and cause trouble.”

  He hadn’t caused any trouble yet that he knew about. But he did go over to the club, staying on the fringes of the party, watching from the park that flanked the club. Spencer was indeed there with Bradford Damon. And Bradford wasn’t really such a sorry specimen. He was tall, lean, blond, lanky. He wore an expensive suit very well.

  It seemed as if he was dancing right on top of Spencer, and he laughed a hell of a lot. Worse, Spencer laughed, too.

  He kissed Spencer, and it sure as hell looked as if Spencer kissed him back.

  That was enough. David left the party, but he walked the streets half the night.

  After midnight, he went to Spencer’s house. He stood beneath her window, gathering a few pebbles to throw at it to get her attention. He froze when he heard laughter. Spencer’s. A man’s.

  He threw a pebble at her window. Hard. A second later she looked down. She was pale, her hair a golden cloud around her face. She was wearing a robe, but one that seemed to emphasize the roundness of her breasts and the curve of her hips. She stared at him with shock. “David!”

  Then he heard the sirens. He was still staring at her when the police came to arrest him.

  If she protested, he never knew anything about it. The next thing he did know, he was behind bars. Being taunted by nasty-looking men of all colors, men with no front teeth and needle marks down their arms.

  Sly got him out.

  And the next day Spencer appeared at his house, pushing his door open to rush in. “David! David, I’m so sorry!”

  “Go to hell, Spencer.”

  She stood dead still, staring at him. “David, I didn’t have anything to do with what happened. I didn’t even know until this morning!”

  “Yeah. Right.” He was ready to kill her. He wanted to wind his hands around her perfect throat and throttle her. “You were kind of busy last night, weren’t you? Just how is Bradford Damon, Spencer? Are blond boys different?”

  She inhaled in a rush and started to slap him. But caught her hand and sighed, suddenly very, very tired. “Go home, Spencer.”

  Her blue eyes sparkled feverishly, her perfect white teeth clenched. “Damn you. You have no right—”

  “I haven’t got many rights, Spencer, but one of them is to have a girl who won’t cheat on me.”

  “I didn’t cheat on you.”

  “I saw you with him, Spencer.”

  Her cheeks colored, and she didn’t deny anything. Maybe that was what hurt the most.


  “¡Puta!” he said softly. Whore. Rich whore, but whore nevertheless.

  “Cubano! Refugee!” she lashed out.

  He reached for her suddenly and drew her into his arms. Then he kissed her. Deeply, hungrily. Jealously.

  Maybe she thought then that things were going to be all right, that she could play with her parents’ choice and have him, too. But he was incensed. He was never quite sure he could call what he did to her that day making love, but he’d never known a greater anguish. The whole time he touched her, he wondered just what Bradford Damon had done with her. She cried out at one point, but she clung to him and never protested. Yet at the end, he was not appeased. The anguish, the restlessness, grew. He stood up and walked away, looking out the window in the small room in the very small house that Michael MacCloud had managed to buy for them.

  “I’m sure my parents never meant what happened, David.”

  “What about you, Spencer? Did you mean it?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I’m not sure I do, either.” He walked around her like a caged cat. “All I know is that you’re a little lackey to your folks, and they’re just a pair of rich bigots.”

  She gasped, quickly rising, and grabbing her strewn clothing. She dressed quickly, angrily, lashing out at him. “How dare you? How dare you say such things about my parents? It’s not a crime to be born with money.”

  “Well, even if it isn’t illegal, it is immoral to lie and cheat and hurt others just because you were born with more than they have.”

  “I told you, they didn’t mean—”

  “And what about you, Spencer? Did you mean to sleep with their little houseguest?”

  Again she didn’t deny the charge. She stood up and walked over to him and slapped him hard.

  He stared at her, afraid to move. He wanted to hold her, because he was afraid that if he didn’t, he would never see her again, but he was shaking with rage and misery and humiliation. “I guess we’ve both been screwed real good, honey, haven’t we?” he asked her softly.

  She gasped. “You bastard!” she hissed.

  Finally he simply lifted her out of his way and left the house. His own house. He left her standing there.