Slow Burn

by Heather Graham

  That afternoon he learned she’d left the state.

  Numbed, he went about doing the same thing himself. He methodically saw to his sister’s college arrangements and made sure that his aunt would help Reva move into a dorm. And when he was assured that his sister would be all right, he made his final move to make certain he couldn’t possibly spend his time trying to find Spencer, beating his head against a wall, trying to make things right.

  He signed up for the United States Army.

  His intercom was buzzing. He started, then pushed the button.

  Reva spoke to him. “Pick up line one, David. It’s Sly, and he sounds upset.

  He picked up the receiver. “Yeah, Sly?”

  “She’s gone, David. She’s out of here.”

  “All right, I’ll—”

  “No, no, you don’t understand! She isn’t just headed out to lunch or to get her hair cut, or even to take the afternoon off!”

  “Sly, you’ve got to tell me what you’re talking about.”

  “She’s gone to the airport! Her flight leaves in less than an hour.”

  “What?”

  “She bought a ticket for home. Newport via Boston.”

  David’s fingers tightened around the receiver. “Then she’ll be with her folks,” he said lightly. “She’ll be fine.”

  “You can’t be sure! You know Spencer. She didn’t run home to see them. She ran out to avoid being here for the weekend!”

  “Sly, I’ll follow her to the airport, but she’ll be okay in Rhode Island,” he said. But his argument was weak, and he knew it. He already knew he was on his way to follow her.

  “I don’t know!” Sly exclaimed. “Damn, boy, I just don’t want her alone. I don’t like to ask this of you, but David…please, follow her.”

  David winced, his fingers gripping the receiver so tightly that they went white.

  Sly spoke again. “For the love of God, David, I’m begging you. I’ve just got this feeling…. Follow her, please?”

  He couldn’t talk for at least thirty seconds. Then he let out a pent-up breath. “Yeah, Sly. Yeah. I’ll follow her.”

  He hung up the phone and stared at it for a moment.

  Damn her! She’d gone and done it again.

  8

  The Huntington house was quiet. The nondescript man in the blue sedan had been watching it since nine this morning, parked down the street in front of a neighboring house. The man knew he wouldn’t be disturbing the occupants of the home; he had been watching the neighborhood on and off for a long time. These people were like clockwork. He kissed her goodbye at eight and left in a maroon Volvo. She left with the kid at eight-thirty.

  She didn’t come home on Fridays until eight-thirty, and she did so in tight, shiny workout clothes. Fridays were gym days. He didn’t get home until almost nine—he took the kid to Grandma’s each Friday without fail.

  The man in the blue suit knew almost as much about them as he knew about the comings and goings of Spencer Anne Montgomery Huntington.

  Spencer Huntington was neither punctual nor predictable. Sometimes she worked at the office; sometimes she worked on-site. But she usually came home somewhere around five o’clock. She knew the traffic started to get really bad after that, and she liked to come in, then go out after seven if she had shopping or the like. She hadn’t had much of a social life in the past few months. She liked to swim at night or in the early evening. She had at least a dozen swimsuits, and he liked every one of them. Especially the blue bikini. She wore it a lot on Fridays. She dove; she swam. She lay on a big float and spent time just staring at the sky. He could just see her between the slats of the wooden fence that surrounded the pool behind her house. He made a point of leaving the car to watch her when he knew she was swimming. There was dense foliage all around—one of the things he really loved about the Grove. It was easy to keep an eye on her without being seen.

  She was a lot to look at. So beautiful, so sad. Lonely? Missing Mr. Huntington? Officer Huntington?

  The man in the blue suit would have dearly loved to make up that loss to her!

  Of course, a monkey wrench had recently been thrown into things. David Delgado, honor-cop-commando-turned-P.I., was in on it now. And eventually he would notice the strange cars that were regularly parked in the area. He would hear the snap of twigs in the bushes surrounding the huge lots. Twice now he’d had to leave because of Delgado.

  Eventually Delgado would discover him, no matter how careful he was. If Delgado continued to keep his eye on the woman. Things had been still. Dead still. Delgado might decide that someone was being paranoid about Mrs. Huntington and give up the assignment. Or he might not. That remained to be seen. If Delgado did come any closer, then something would have to be done.

  When Spencer didn’t show up at five, the man wasn’t too worried. He was supposed to be keeping an eye on her all night, but even Spencer Huntington could get caught in traffic now and then.

  Five-thirty rolled around, then five forty-five.

  He picked up his car phone and dialed in. “Someone tell the boss that our blond bombshell hasn’t come home yet.”

  “All right. Sit tight. We’ll get back to you.”

  He sat tight. And waited.

  The phone rang once. He was still holding it. “Yeah.”

  “Bring it on in. She’s leaving town for the weekend.”

  “Coming in.”

  He hung up and revved his engine. Pity. He liked to watch the wife come home in her workout clothes. She wore them exceptionally well.

  And Fridays were blue-bikini day for Spencer. He was going to miss that, too.

  What a bum way to start the weekend.

  It didn’t occur to Spencer until she was settled in the first-class section of an Airbus 300 on her way to Newport via Boston that this was very much like something she had done once before. Newport was a place to run away to. She’d grown up in Miami, but her folks had always kept the Newport house as a getaway. And she’d used it for exactly that, so long ago.

  So long ago—and yet when she closed her eyes, she could remember the occasion all too clearly. She could remember the awful things she had said. The awful things David had said. She would never forget the look on his face. She would never stop wondering how anyone could be so passionately angry and coldly determined all at once.

  So she had run away. From his anger, and from her anger against him and against her parents. Leaving had seemed the only thing to do.

  She hadn’t consciously made a decision to run away this time. It was just that the office had suddenly seemed so dreary. There were no new projects, and all the old ones were running smoothly. She’d barely closed her door before Audrey was knocking cheerfully on it, entering with a sheaf of files.

  “Spencer, Mr. Matson just went over and saw his fireplace all cleaned up and restored, and roses are on the way. The architect is spending the afternoon at the Hillborn house with a carpenter and an electrician, and they’ll both get back to you by next Wednesday. Your realtor called, and she’s very excited. She wants you to see a house that just went up for sale in Coral Gables, part of the Colonial Village, on the golf course—but no one can see it until a week from today, because the owner wants to get his mother settled elsewhere first. She says you mustn’t miss it! Now, that’s it for business.” She plopped on the corner of Spencer’s desk, wriggling her backside and getting comfortable. “This is the first chance I’ve had alone with you since that cemetery thing. What really happened out there? Tell me. After all, I am the one who got you thinking!”

  Spencer sat in her comfortable swivel chair behind her beautiful golden oak desk and tried not to smile at Audrey, but her lips were pursed and for the first time in a long time, she felt like laughing. Audrey was the epitome of the word “cute.” She was about five foot three, just a little bit round, with a short pixieish haircut. She smiled quickly and often; she could handle the most irate client with a wave of her hand and one of those smiles. “Cute,” howev
er didn’t hide her intelligence, and Spencer was well aware that the wheels in her mind were constantly turning. She’d talked more about Danny’s death with Audrey than she had with anyone else, including her family.

  “Cut and dried, pretty much just what you saw in the papers,” Spencer told her, riffling through the files. She frowned. She needed to be busy today, and there wasn’t anything here that couldn’t wait.

  “Spencer!” Audrey said. “This isn’t fair! Last Friday Sly was with you all day. Then you worked on-site all weekend. This week you’ve been in meetings every day. I had a dentist’s appointment yesterday. This is my first real chance to pry into your life!”

  Spencer looked up, laughing. “I’m sorry, Audrey! It’s not as if my life is worth prying into.”

  “At the moment it is,” Audrey said simply. “Spencer, think back while it’s still fresh in your memory!”

  Too many things remained fresh in her memory.

  “Weren’t you terrified when those men arrived? Weren’t you terrified before that, being all alone in a pitch-dark cemetery? I’d expect hands to be coming out of the ground. Moldy hands, grasping hands! I’d imagine Night of the Living Dead, I’d—”

  “I admit, I had a few bad moments,” Spencer said, but she smiled wistfully. “Danny’s buried there.”

  “I know. But then…?”

  Spencer shrugged. It seemed so long ago now.

  “The grave robbers got wind of me, I started running—and a hand did come out of a grave.”

  “I would have died!”

  “No, you wouldn’t!” Spencer told her wryly. “You’d have smacked the hand.”

  Audrey grinned.

  “Honest to God, that’s about it. You know the rest. It was David Delgado. He phoned the police—”

  “He phoned the police from a grave?” Audrey queried dubiously.

  “Cellular phone. He’s one man who’s always prepared,” she said lightly. Always. Except for what happened the next day. He hadn’t been prepared at all.

  Neither had she.

  “So are you still seeing him?”

  “Seeing him?”

  “Delgado. Mr. Sex. Mr. Macho,” Audrey said. “Dark, masculine. Tall. Handsome. Great voice. All the right things.”

  “I didn’t know you knew him.”

  “He’s been in the office a few times this week. I admit, my heart went flutter-flutter.”

  “Audrey, your heart goes flutter-flutter every time you pass a construction site.”

  “Same difference,” Audrey assured her with a smile. “Are you seeing him?”

  “No.”

  “But you did.”

  “Years ago. Before time began.”

  “Umm. Well, all I know is that you did come in very late last Friday. So just what were you doing then?”

  Meeting an old lover in my dead husband’s bed, Spencer thought. Just what you’re waiting to hear….

  Never.

  “Audrey, you know where I went. I went to the jail and saw Delia.” She shrugged.

  Audrey nodded, suddenly serious again. “You seemed very nervous when you came in later, you know. Was he as frightening as he seems?”

  “In a way. But I don’t think he killed Danny, so I guess it was a dead end, as far as finding out anything about what really happened back then. Of course, in my mind, it doesn’t hurt that Delia is in jail anyway. The police don’t seem to appreciate it very much, but…”

  She shrugged, losing her concentration. She didn’t think she could bear to sit there any longer, answering questions.

  The week had been rough. Now it was worse. She knew David was following her. Watching her all the time. Keeping his distance from her. Well, she couldn’t blame him for that, after the way she’d acted. The problem was, she didn’t want to see him, and yet she did. She just didn’t want to admit it.

  “That’s it, honestly,” she told Audrey. “You were right on the money about the route Delia’s followers were taking.”

  “It was obvious,” Audrey said modestly.

  Spencer smiled slowly. “Well, it wasn’t obvious to the boys at the station, and though they’re glad to have Delia, they’re a little embarrassed.”

  Audrey smiled, then started for the door, as if sensing that Spencer needed a little privacy. “Any other brainstorms, I’ll let you know,” Audrey promised.

  “Thanks!” Spencer told her. She picked up the files on her desk and started to flip through them. Then she set them down and rose from her desk, prowling around her office. There was a 1930s photograph on the wall of one of the hotels they were restoring on the Beach. She loved the hotel. But she couldn’t start working on it yet; the building inspectors needed to make sure it could be salvaged. Sly had insisted on it. Ever since that stupid beam had fallen the other day, he had become an incredible dictator. They’d always been careful. Now they were being almost ridiculous.

  She could do paperwork. Correspondence. She could answer the stack of invitations in her in box.

  She just didn’t want to.

  Maybe she should just go away for the weekend, she decided later that afternoon. Up to Newport. It wasn’t likely that David would follow her; there would be no reason for him to. Danny had been killed down here; she couldn’t cause much trouble in Newport.

  And David hated her parents.

  She hit her intercom. “Audrey, see if you can get me on a plane to Rhode Island, will you?”

  “Going up to see your folks?” Audrey sounded surprised.

  Well, Spencer did love her parents, but there were so many other emotions mixed in with that love. “Getting away to breathe a bit,” she said.

  “You haven’t been back that long.”

  “I’m not going away for that long.”

  “I—” Audrey began, then cut herself off abruptly.

  Spencer wondered whether Audrey had been about to ask if her leaving had something to do with David Delgado and then thought better of it.

  Audrey was the most efficient person Spencer had ever known. Spencer had barely completed riffling through her files again when Audrey had stepped in to tell her she was booked out on a 6:35 p.m. flight.

  Great. She could leave right from the office. She kept a bag in the office with a few bare essentials for unplanned overnight trips when she wound up looking at properties up the coast. She could just drive straight to the airport. David could follow her if he wanted, but he would just wind up at the airport. And he wanted nothing to do with Newport.

  Jared stuck his head in, tapping on the door. “Hey, cuz.”

  “Hey,” she said, waiting.

  “Oh, no. What are you up to now?”

  “Nothing at all, I promise.”

  “Audrey’s out there with your overnight bag. Just promise, no more graveyards.”

  She nodded, grinning. “No more graveyards.”

  He smiled, but then his handsome features sobered. “Spencer, this is serious. You’ve got to be careful.”

  “I will be.”

  “Then tell me, what are you up to now?”

  “Nothing! Honestly. In fact, I’m going up to the folks’ place for the weekend.”

  “Yeah?” He arched a brow.

  She nodded.

  “Sly know?”

  “I just decided.”

  “How come?”

  “I don’t know. I just need to get away.”

  “It may be a good idea, but…Newport? A weekend in the Bahamas might be nice.”

  “I don’t think I’m ready for—for a weekend in the Bahamas.”

  “Yeah,” he said wryly. “You’re still into suffering! Parents can make you suffer all right!”

  “Jared!” she protested. But was he right?

  “Just kidding. Well, all right, I’m not really kidding, but you know what I mean. Personally, I think a weekend in the Bahamas would be good for you. But then again, your mom and dad will be glad to see you. But you know, Cecily and I miss having you around, too. The kids are nuts abo
ut you, Spencer. And we haven’t seen a whole lot of you since…” His voice trailed off, and he shrugged. “Since Danny died.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ll make it up to them.”

  “That’s not what I mean. You don’t need to make anything up to anyone, we just…miss you. Dad asks about you all the time. He wants the kids to come over and do some fishing sometime soon. Can I count you in?”

  She wanted to tell him that she wasn’t fit company for anyone, but then she decided that maybe it was time for her to make an effort, to start becoming fit company again. “Yeah, sure.”

  “By the way, how’s David?”

  “What?” Absurd. Her heart was pounding furiously at the mere question, as if she was guilty of something.

  “David Delgado. Cecily puts his name on just about every invitation she sends out. Reva’s kids play ball at the same park as mine, but we don’t seem to catch David too often. Remember what a tough kid he was?”

  Was he taunting her? Or just being nostalgic? Spencer wasn’t sure.

  “He seems to be…fine,” she said.

  “It’s nice to have him around again. Seems like old times. Except that now—”

  Now Danny was gone. The words were left unsaid between them.

  “Well, I haven’t really seen him. Sly has him around, so it seems.”

  He shrugged. “Well, I’ll let you go. Give my aunt and uncle a kiss for me. Wait, give my aunt a kiss and my uncle a handshake. I’ll be holding the fort—along with Grandfather Atlas in there—till you get back.”

  “Thanks. Tell Cecily I’m sorry. I’ll be better company when I get back. Promise.”

  He gave her a thumbs-up sign and left her office. She glanced at her watch. She was going to have to hurry to make the airport.

  But she couldn’t leave without telling Sly what she was up to. She walked into his office. He was on the phone, so she sat on the edge of his desk to wait. He flashed her a smile and she smiled back. Sly didn’t look a day over sixty, and a debonair sixty, at that. She slid off his desk and kissed his cheek. He slipped his hand over the receiver. “What’s that for?” he asked.