Slow Burn

by Heather Graham

  “Spencer, dear!” her mother said. “You look awake and refreshed. I’d thought that perhaps since you were here, you’d come with me to a luncheon at Daisy Eaton’s house this afternoon.”

  “Sorry, Mom, I want to see the beach and the mansions today. Get a few ideas for some projects.”

  “Spencer, you don’t even need to work,” her mother said unhappily. “And Daisy Eaton’s house is far nicer than any of those gaudy public mansions. If only Danny had lived, you might have been pregnant by now, and he could have given up his foolish notions of crime fighting. You two—”

  “Mary Louise!” Joe said sharply.

  Spencer would have protested herself, but her mother’s words had created the most awful pain in her heart, as if someone were twisting a wire coat hanger into her flesh.

  She glanced at her father, a little surprised. He was leaning toward her mother, staring at her firmly. “Spencer and Danny had the right to choose their own way of life, just as you are free to pursue your desires. Reminding Spencer that her husband was murdered does not seem constructive to me in any way.”

  Mary Louise gasped, staring at her husband. Hurt filled her eyes; she was about to burst into tears.

  Spencer thought of all the times her mother had manipulated her life, and for a moment she sat very still. She’d always forgiven Mary Louise. She’d never wanted to hurt her. But her father was right. Mary Louise could see only one road—and it was time she acknowledged some others.

  Spencer stood up. She felt her parents watching her and David staring at her curiously. “I’ve got to go,” she said softly, and turned to leave them. She was striding to the garage when she realized David was barely two steps behind her.

  She spun to face him. “What? No applause?” she demanded bitterly. “I think that was just about as good as a slap in the face, don’t you?”

  “Spencer…”

  She didn’t want to hear any more. She opened the garage and saw the rental car sitting there, keys in the ignition. She strode over to the driver’s seat and slid in, slamming the door behind her.

  He crawled in on the passenger side.

  She eased out of the driveway, staring ahead, completely miserable. She owed Danny so much, and she was failing him. And just what the hell was she doing now?

  David was silent beside her.

  “Say something!” she demanded.

  He was silent for another moment; then he said softly, “I can’t pretend that I’ve respected your mother in the past.”

  “You hated her.”

  “I didn’t care much for her. But I’m sorry for her now, and maybe I’ve finally seen something myself. She can’t help being what she is, Spencer. You grew up with a broader vision. You were sent to a preppy school, but it was bordered by a neighborhood filled with ghetto kids. You watched the refugees pour in your whole life. You saw what you had and what others didn’t. Your mother never had that experience. She grew up rich. She was surrounded by wealth and only wealth. She couldn’t accept what she didn’t know, and she still can’t accept things that scare her. But she can change, Spencer. Anyone can change. And she loves you.”

  She turned to stare at him, incredulous.

  “The light, Spencer!”

  She stared at the red light ahead of them, just at the bottom of a sharp incline. She slammed on the brakes.

  Nothing happened.

  “Spencer! Hit the brake!”

  “I am hitting it. There are no brakes!”

  They were going very fast, the incline giving the car added momentum. At the bottom of the hill the cross traffic moved by lazily. Beyond the light was a white fence. Beyond the fence, a strip of rock and straggly grass and flowers. Below the rock—far below—lay the jagged shores of the Atlantic Ocean.

  They careened down the slope. Spencer cried out, slamming her foot again and again on the brake. David threw his body across the car, half atop her, half beside her. His foot came down on hers.

  No amount of force was going to help.

  The car picked up more speed, and she stared in horror at the intersection.

  The light turned green. The cross traffic stopped. All that loomed ahead of them was the little white picket fence. The ragged strip of land.

  The water and the rocks…

  They flew into the intersection.

  And then a void of sky and ocean seemed to stretch out endlessly before them.

  10

  David swung the wheel hard to the right. They took the turn, along with half the white picket fence. They careened into the traffic. Thank God there wasn’t much of it. Horns blew as the car tilted, sliding along on two wheels, fighting to right itself.

  The road still led slightly downhill. Enough to keep the car’s forward motion going. Terrified, watching cars and people seem to rush toward her, Spencer forced a hand up. She slammed it hard on the horn.

  The cars coming toward them jerked to either side of the road. Wheels screeched against pavement. Other horns began to sound. Up ahead, there was a curve, and after it, an embankment of thick brush.

  “I’m going for it,” David said tensely.

  A no formed on her lips but got no further. He was right. There would be another turn, another picket fence. Then a flight into nothing, a crash down to ocean and rock.

  Or there would be a car, a bus, a motorcycle. Something with which to collide. Others who could be killed.

  She kept silent, her throat frozen. They spun sharply around the next curve, and then he straightened the wheel, sending them tearing into the brush. Spencer screamed as she heard the foliage rip and tear around them, battering the automobile. Glass shattered and spilled over them like prisms of deadly rain. Spencer instinctively closed her eyes. The shattered glass missed her face, falling instead upon her hands.

  Amazingly, the car came to a halt.

  Spencer just sat there, afraid to open her eyes. She felt a weight against her. Something warm. David. Was he dead?

  She dared to open her eyes just as he was carefully shifting away from her. Glass fell between them.

  “You all right?” he asked softly.

  She stared, then forced herself to nod. There was glass in his hair. She reached out. He caught her hand. “Careful. Stay where you are. I’ll come around.”

  He forced open his door. They were smack in the middle of a clump of bushes. A tree branch had broken through the passenger side of the windshield. David had missed being clubbed by about three inches.

  He jerked on her door, swore, slammed his body against it and pulled on it again.

  Spencer heard sirens and closed her eyes momentarily. She hated the sound of sirens. It always made her flinch. Even when she knew they were coming for her. And even when, by the grace of God, she and David were still okay.

  He got the door open. Reached for her. His features were tense, handsome, matter-of-fact. “Nothing broken? You’re certain? Neck trauma, back—”

  “I’m all right.” She managed to say it without a tremor in her voice. She took his hands.

  “Careful. Slow. Watch the glass,” he told her.

  Motorists had stopped. Pedestrians who’d been strolling along the beach walk were hurrying across the road.

  A police car got there first, swerving onto the curve beyond the car. The officer looked as if he couldn’t be more than twenty, but he moved like lightning, reaching them, asking them if they were all right.

  “Jesus, it’s a miracle that you’re okay!” he told them, scratching his head, staring at the vehicle. “What the hell happened?”

  “The brakes went.” Spencer said.

  “Rental car?” the officer asked.

  She nodded.

  “We picked it up last night in Boston,” David said. By then an emergency vehicle had arrived. A female paramedic with short curly dark hair and a gamine’s easy smile took hold of Spencer, telling her that they had a special vacuum with them to sweep the glass particles out of people’s hair.

  Spencer foun
d herself being led away to have her head vacuumed while David continued to talk with the officer. She watched while he drew out his license and the rental agreement, then realized there was a jagged tear in his shirt. His dark head glinted when the glass particles were touched by the sun.

  “How’s that? All right now?” the young paramedic asked. She looked at Spencer. “I think you should both come into the emergency room just to be safe.”

  “I’m all right. Honestly.”

  “You’re going to be sore from head to toe. In an accident like this one, you instinctively tense up for impact. A hot bath helps. And keep moving, okay? It helps to work the soreness out.”

  Spencer nodded absently, still watching David. He seemed very insistent about something, and the cop was scratching his head again. At last the cop nodded, and David walked back to Spencer.

  More police cars arrived. An older man in plain clothes came over to talk to Spencer, and the gamine paramedic melted away.

  “You were the driver, miss?”

  Spencer nodded.

  “And you say your brakes just went?”

  “That’s right. They just went.”

  “No matter what, the driver is responsible for the vehicle. You’ll be ticketed for a moving violation. You’re incredibly lucky, young woman.”

  “You’re going to ticket me?” Spencer said incredulously. “We only picked up the car last night! Ticket the rental agency! They gave me the car,” she went on indignantly.

  “Sergeant, wait!” someone called. Another young officer who had been talking to David came hurrying over. “Sergeant, this is Spencer Montgomery Huntington.”

  The older man’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a Montgomery?”

  “Yes,” she replied dryly, glacing over his shoulder to where David stood.

  “We’ll see what we can do,” the man said gruffly, walking away. The younger officer gave her a broad smile. “I’d be delighted to be of service, Mrs. Huntington.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured. They’d been just about to hang her, but David had seen to it that they knew who she was. The Montgomery name had done the rest.

  A tow truck arrived. David was occupied with the wrecker and the cops for a few minutes longer; then he strolled over to her.

  “Think you need to go to the hospital?” he asked her.

  She shook her head firmly. “What about you?”

  He smiled slowly. “Not on your life. Come on. The officer over there has offered us a lift back to your parents’ place. I would like a shower and fresh clothing.”

  The young officer with the great smile ushered them both into the back of his vehicle. “They wanted to give me a ticket,” Spencer said wryly to David. “We almost died, and I was going to get a ticket.”

  “It’s the way the law works.”

  “But then you told them I was a Montgomery.”

  David hesitated a minute. He shook his head. “I didn’t tell them you were a Montgomery. I told them you were a police widow. Someone knew the name—apparently you’ve contributed heavily to help police widows who aren’t Montgomerys, and to help their children.”

  Spencer felt her cheeks redden. She looked at her lap, staring at her fingers. There was a small cut on her ring finger, right by the plain gold band she had always wanted and Danny had given her.

  “Danny and I didn’t have kids. Lots of guys who are killed do. Their mothers struggle to cope with their pain and raise the kids alone. They deserve some kind of a break.”

  “You don’t have to explain it to me. I was a cop.” He paused, then took a new tack. “Maybe now you’ll have the sense to admit that your life is in danger.”

  “What?”

  “Spencer, we were nearly killed—”

  “The brakes failed! We’re not in Miami, we’re in Rhode Island! Come on, David!”

  He nodded, waiting for the echo of her words to die away. Then he looked at her sternly. “Ricky Garcia is a millionaire. Trey Delia can command a fleet of cultists across the country. And Gene Vichy is basking away in a truckload of his wife’s money. You don’t think that any one of them could have extended a hand to Rhode Island?”

  Spencer stared straight ahead. “That’s absurd. I don’t know anything.”

  “But as you keep pointing out, you did manage to get Trey Delia arrested,” he told her curtly. “Maybe Garcia thinks he’s next.”

  “But as you’ve pointed out, Ricky Garcia is extremely rich and powerful. If he really wanted me dead, wouldn’t I be dead?”

  “Is he going to walk up to you in the street and shoot you, bang bang, you’re dead? No, he’s much more subtle than that. Automobile-accident subtle!”

  “Then he’d get me at home.”

  “It would look far less suspicious if you were to perish in Rhode Island.”

  “You’re exasperating,” Spencer told him.

  “Spencer…”

  She suddenly elbowed him in the arm, unaware when he winced. “That’s the house ahead. Warn him to pull in.”

  David gritted his teeth and angled forward, pointing to the drive. The man nodded, smiling again. When he paused by the gate, Spencer got out to hit the call box for entry, then waved them past, deciding to walk up the driveway and maybe shake off a little more glass. And maybe think a bit about David’s words. By the time she got to the house, both men were out of the car waiting for her. The officer was staring at the house with undisguised curiosity.

  “Can I offer you a soft drink or a cup of coffee?” Spencer suggested, heading for the steps.

  “No, thanks, I’m on patrol,” he said. “But I’d sure love to take a rain check for another time.”

  “Freely given,” Spencer assured him, shaking his hand.

  He tipped his head to David. “I’ll keep in touch, Mr. Delgado.”

  “Thanks,” David said.

  “What’s he keeping in touch about?”

  “He’s going to keep me posted on the brakes.”

  “Meaning?”

  “They’ll be trying to find out just how and when they were tampered with.”

  “What makes you think they were tampered with? They might just have been faulty,” Spencer said.

  “Yeah, they might have been,” he said. “Just like I could fly—with a little bit of fairy dust. Let’s go in.”

  His hand at the small of her back, he propelled her up the front steps. Henri was standing at the front door, a questioning look in his eyes.

  “We had a little accident with the rental car, Henri,” Spencer said smoothly.

  “Can I get you anything? Do anything?” Henri asked. “Your parents have already gone out to your mother’s luncheon. They’re not due to return until late this afternoon.”

  “Good,” Spencer said softly beneath her breath. David heard her, and arched a brow her way. She ignored him and started for the stairs.

  “I’m just fine, Henri,” she said.

  “I’d like a great big snifter of brandy,” David said pleasantly.

  “I shall bring it right up, sir,” Henri assured him.

  David shrugged to Spencer as he passed her on the stairs. “Something to get all the creaks out,” he informed her, then hurried to his door.

  In the shower, Spencer stood beneath the hot spray for long minutes, hoping that any remaining glass was being rinsed away. She washed her hair very carefully, keeping the water steaming hot all the while.

  David had to be wrong. It was just a mechanical problem.

  The only time she had really been in danger was when she had put herself into the very path of it—at the cemetery. Admittedly, that had been foolish. But Sly must be getting paranoid to think that a falling beam in a tumbledown house was anything but an accident. And brakes did fail; accidents did happen. She had been arguing with David at the time; maybe she had unwittingly done something wrong.

  You’re reaching there, Spencer, she told herself.

  But she still couldn’t believe that she was in danger, especially not here.<
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  She stepped from the shower and pulled on a fluffy terry robe. She took a brush to her hair, staring at her pale reflection in the mirror. She set the brush down firmly and walked out to the balcony. She moved to stand in front of the open doors that led into David’s room. She could hear him singing something from the bathroom. An old Beatles tune. He had a decent voice.

  She gingerly entered the guest room, something stirring deep inside her, something warning her that she was making a mistake, that if she had ever walked into danger, that time was now.

  She walked in anyway. She tried to conjure up Danny’s face. She tried to tell herself that she had just come in to talk. She and David were older and wiser now. Mature enough to know that their differences and a dozen other barriers stood between them like a high brick wall.

  She almost turned around.

  Then his voice lashed out at her suddenly.

  “Who’s there?”

  Well, what kind of P.I. would he be if he didn’t hear footsteps padding into his room? she mocked herself.

  “It’s Spencer,” she said. Well, she’d come this far. She strode on in to lean against the doorframe to the bathroom.

  The guest bath had been extensively remodeled. A huge Jacuzzi with marble steps and gold-trimmed porcelain faucets sat along the far wall. David was deeply ensconced in the tub, the water whirling. He was sitting up just straight enough to roll the liquid amber of his brandy in a big snifter. He cast a glance her way, one that told her beyond a doubt that she was interrupting a moment of privacy.

  “If all else fails, I think you’ll be able to join a rock band,” she told him.

  “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” he told her. “What do you want, Spencer?”

  “David, you and Sly have to be reasonable. He only got scared to begin with because a beam fell. A beam!” She forgot for a moment just how funny it made her feel inside merely to walk into a room and find him naked…wet…. She walked across to the tub and sat on the edge of the marble step. “David, I don’t have a death wish. I really do want to keep on living. I just can’t believe that what happened here today has anything to do with Danny’s death. Danny was a cop. Cops make enemies—”