Slow Burn

by Heather Graham

  He dragged his fingers through her perfect blond hair. The harder and faster the better. He dragged up her satin gown, throwing toast and coffee from the table so he could lower her onto it, and onto his own engorged sex at the same time. Her hands slid beneath his waistband, cradling his buttocks, drawing him tightly to her.

  “I bet you’d like it if Marie walked in,” he told her.

  “Maybe.”

  “I bet you’d like it even better if David Delgado came in right now.”

  He got his answer. She came the instant the words were out of his mouth, and she held on to him, limp, as he finished himself.

  A few minutes later he slipped on his jacket. Cecily was sitting at the table again, reading the paper and ignoring the toast and coffee on the floor.

  And they were supposed to have such a great marriage, he thought irritatedly.

  “Be careful with Spencer!” she warned as he was about to leave.

  He sighed. “You know, Cecily, she is my cousin. I’ve known her all my life, and I know how to be careful with her. And you know something else? I really love her. In all the right ways, Cecily. Platonic ways.”

  She stared at him with surprise for a moment, then nodded and smiled. “Yeah, I understand.”

  He kissed her forehead and started out.

  Maybe his marriage wasn’t so bad after all.

  In a penthouse on South Beach, someone else was reading the morning paper.

  Ricky Garcia stared at the front page, rubbed his cheek and swore in his native Spanish. ¡Cono! The damned fool woman!

  He set the paper down, stood up and stretched, staring out the picture windows that gave him a bird’s-eye view of so much that was beautiful about his adopted home. The bay shimmered beneath the rising sun, stretching out in colors that were at once both vivid and tranquil, hypnotic to behold. Soft puffs of clouds moved very slowly across the horizon. Boats lined the docks below him like a flock of birds, while others moved across the deep blue and green waters, stirring the imagination. He loved sailing. Loved the breeze. Loved salt air on his face…

  He’d come here with nothing. Nothing. Just the shirt on his back, and that had been ripped. And he’d looked at everything there was to be had here. But not by petty thievery. No, the price to be paid for what you could gain by such a silly crime was too high.

  Ricky had known from the beginning that he needed to play on people’s desires, on their fantasies, their needs. He’d started with the girls. All they had known was how to stand on the streets. He’d known how to make them look good standing there. He’d added class to the action. Then, with a little bit of capital, he’d gotten into bookmaking and gambling. He didn’t like drugs; he wouldn’t dream of taking them himself. But drugs were a part of his world, the underworld, and there was money to be made from them. They were also a damned good way to keep firm control of the people working beneath him.

  One way…

  Another was that he wasn’t the least bit averse to violence. Nowadays his underlings usually took care of such matters for him. Yet everyone knew that if something needed to be taken care of, Ricky could take care of it himself without blinking an eye. If he had to. It was a good thing. It was important. He kept his people and his world under control.

  And now…this.

  David Delgado and a woman in the cemetery. Delia being brought in for questioning. The whole thing would be ripped open again. They would be hounding him again, the cops. Day and night, day and night.

  He turned away from his sweeping windows with their million-dollar view and walked across the room to a black lacquered desk, opening the top drawer. He rifled through the papers there until he came to a picture.

  Danny Huntington at a policemen’s benefit ball. With his wife. Spencer. In heels she was at least five feet ten or eleven. Her hair was swept up; her neck was long. She wore a shoulderless cocktail dress with a flared skirt in royal blue. Even in the picture, it caught the color of her eyes. She was flawless. Regal.

  Spencer Huntington.

  He slammed the drawer shut, swearing in Spanish again.

  Maybe he would just have to have a little chat with Spencer Huntington.

  Someone needed to tell her to keep her nose out of other people’s business. And maybe he was just the man for the job.

  6

  David helped himself to coffee just after Spencer opened the door. He knew his way to the kitchen and walked past her to reach it. He knew where the mugs were kept, as well, and didn’t mind helping himself. She followed him in, watching, waiting, while he took a first sip.

  “Decent?” she inquired after a moment.

  He didn’t actually answer her question. “I can cook a little, but I’ve never managed to make coffee come out right.”

  “American or Cuban?”

  “Either.” Even while he responded to her question, his eyes were moving critically up and down the length of her. “Trey Delia asked his attorney to reach me,” he said. “We’ll be going right into the jail. Who knows who we’ll meet up with. A few drunk drivers, perhaps a couple of vagrants—and some murderers, rapists and thieves. Not to mention Delia himself, and we’re not quite sure what he is at all. Is that all you’ve got to wear?”

  Spencer looked at her clothing. She was wearing a black rayon business suit with a tailored peach blouse. She stared at David.

  “Spencer…” He paused, then set his mug down with a bang. “That—that creation hugs every inch of you.” She was staring at him now.

  “It’s just a business suit.”

  “It’s too erotic for the jail.”

  “Erotic?”

  “It fits like a a second skin and ends above the knee. How about jeans and a sweatshirt?”

  “I’d die of the heat before anyone could do me in.”

  “Yes, but you’d go quickly, without being tortured.”

  Spencer let out a cry of frustration but whirled, left the kitchen and headed for the stairs. When she reached the top, she realized that David had followed her. He was standing in the marble entryway at the foot of the stairs, observing the living room.

  He’d been in her house often enough, she thought. Danny had insisted on it, though she’d managed to have something to do most of those times.

  She couldn’t help wondering what he saw when he looked at the place now. Did it look cold to him? she wondered. Was he looking around and judging the way rich girls grew up?

  His eyes touched hers suddenly, and he scowled. “Spencer, I haven’t got all day.”

  “You should. Aren’t you supposed to be following me? Sly’s orders?”

  “I don’t take orders.”

  “Not even from Sly?”

  “Not even from Sly.”

  “Good, then you can quit following me!”

  “I agreed to accept the job he offered me. I took a check from him. Like I told you, Spencer, if you’ve got a problem with Sly, take it up with him.”

  “I intend to.”

  “And if you want to talk to Trey Delia, get your butt in gear.”

  She gritted her teeth, staring at him, dying to tell him what he could do with himself. But she had a chance to talk to Trey Delia, and she wasn’t going to blow it by getting into an argument with David.

  “I’ll be two seconds,” she said icily.

  She came down a bit more than two seconds later in jeans and a short-sleeved cotton blouse. He didn’t look much happier.

  “Don’t you own any loose clothing?”

  “These are not too tight!” she said indignantly.

  He sighed with exasperation. “All right. I guess you’ll do.”

  Despite having spent virtually her entire life in the area, Spencer had always managed to avoid the Dade County Jail.

  She was glad she had.

  There was something spooky about a facility that housed so many of the down-and-out, the pathetic—and the vicious. As they reached the perimeter, Spencer saw her first inmates. They were behind an electrified fence i
n an exercise yard. She felt the eyes of some of them on her. David had been right. They assessed her, assigned her a money value, just about counted the change in her handbag. Maybe they did more. Stripped her, raped her and cut her to ribbons—throat first.

  When she and David entered the building, a scent hung in the air, a miasma of unwashed bodies, urine and hopelessness.

  She felt the clammy air moving around her while David showed his identification to a guard, who arranged to have Trey Delia brought to a private interview room to see them.

  A man passed by, handcuffed, between two guards. He was in a gray Armani suit. He noticed her with David but was intent on hollering belligerently at his guards. “You gotta get me out of here, quick! Do you know who I am? Hey, you think you’re going to put me in here with the human refuse? Get me out of here before something happens to me. I’ll sue the shit out of you assholes if you don’t get me out of here!”

  The guards ignored him and kept walking, their prisoner between them. “Drunk driver,” the desk officer told David with a shrug. “The guy’s an attorney himself. He knows the rules. He probably will get himself off—and because of him an eight-year-old girl is in the hospital right now, fighting for her life! But you know the story. Here’s Caplan,” he said, indicating another uniformed guard. “He’ll take you to meet with Delia,” he said. “You think Armani Joe there was howling, you should have heard the uproar when we had Delia in a communal cell.”

  David arched a brow. “Thanks for your help,” he told the man and took Spencer’s arm firmly as they followed Caplan down a corridor to one of the small rooms where prisoners usually met with their families and attorneys.

  Caplan pushed open a door. “Hey, Delia! Your visitors are here.”

  Spencer stared at the man standing behind the room’s one piece of furniture, a plain wooden desk. She’d never seen anyone quite like him.

  He was of mixed heritage, and his appearance gave evidence of every one of them. His skin wasn’t black, or even brown, but coffee-colored. His eyes were a strange, almost glowing yellow green. He wore Rastafarian dreadlocks, something that looked like an old seventies Nehru jacket and faded denim jeans. Crosses in gold and silver and wood hung around his neck, along with what looked like a few chicken’s feet. When he smiled at her, his teeth were capped with gold. “Hey, mon! Boss!” he said to David. “You brought the lady along. I’m glad. I wanted to talk to her.”

  The door started to close behind Spencer and David. “I’ll be right outside,” the guard said. “Knock when you’re ready to leave.”

  Spencer had thought she wanted the truth about Danny more than anything in the world. Now she wasn’t so sure. She had told herself that she wasn’t going to cling to David in the effort, but something like primal fear was gripping her now that she was shut in this tiny room with a man who was suspected of doing who knew what with human body parts. She hesitated, but David didn’t seem to notice. He had his hands on her shoulders, watching Delia.

  And Delia was staring straight at Spencer.

  The world seemed to dim for a minute. She heard two sets of footsteps somewhere outside, in a hallway that led past the holding cells. One set was heavy; the other was clicking. One set belonged to a man, the other to a woman. She could dimly hear their speech, hear the man’s deeper voice, the woman’s soft but crisp one. Spencer realized that the woman was an attorney, and that she was arguing with the man. She must have been young and attractive, because Spencer could hear catcalls and whistles, too.

  “Cut it out, fellows, cut it out!” the woman called. Laughter—and a few foul suggestions—followed. Spencer gritted her teeth. From the sound of her voice, the woman was probably young, younger than Spencer. Making her way in this rugged, ragged, filthy world. She seemed to know her way around it. Cecily would have called her a woman with balls. Spencer decided that she needed to work on acquiring a few herself.

  Delia was grinning. The sounds from the corridor faded away.

  “So you are Spencer,” Delia said, drawing out the two syllables of her name. He had a light but masculine voice, almost melodic. Despite her fear and Delia’s strange appearance, she could feel the hypnotic appeal of the man. He was fastidious, she noticed. Even here, his nails were clean and long, and his face seemed scrubbed. He looked a hell of a lot better than the man in the Armani suit.

  But the way he said her name…

  “I would offer you something…café con leche?…tea?…but alas, look where we meet. I would have liked to meet you at my home. Not yours, eh? You would have been looking at your security system, thinking about buying a big dog, no?” He laughed softly. Then he looked from Spencer to David. “I’m glad that you came.”

  David shrugged. “You always agreed to see me when I asked.”

  Delia nodded. “Honor among thieves! Well, you see, they do not understand me.” He looked at Spencer again. “I knew your husband well, Mrs. Huntington. He was constantly on my back. He did not quite understand, either. But I liked him. I didn’t mind the investigation. He asked questions that mattered. I think that I will now be locked away for some time, and I understand it was your fault.”

  Spencer gasped. David’s hands tightened on her shoulders.

  “Listen, Delia,” David began. “I don’t know what you heard, but—”

  Delia’s laughter, surprisingly light and amused, interrupted him. “I do not blame Spencer Huntington. She is looking for answers, and you have not found them. She is the one who listens to the truth, because she is the one who wants to hear it. I want you both to know this—I didn’t kill Danny Huntington. There are things which your very white world calls crimes of which I am guilty, but I did not kill your husband. I have sought the spirit and the strength and soul of life. I have crushed human bone for meal, and I have drunk blood for the giving of life, but I did not kill this man. When I am locked away, they will try to make it seem that I was guilty, and they will pat Spencer on the head and try to assure her that her husband’s murderer has been put away. I repeat, I am innocent of his blood, and I bear you no malice, Spencer.” His smile deepened, with a slightly wicked curl. He glanced at David, his eyes still sparkling. “I am not angry with you, either, Delgado. Maybe you will speak well for me when I come to trial.”

  “Doubtful,” David said matter-of-factly. “But I bear you no malice, either, Delia.”

  “Goodbye, Spencer,” Delia said.

  Spencer was surprised when she extended her hand to the man, still caught by the curious, green-gold light in his eyes. He was crazy, she thought. But not stupid. He calculated his every word; he was, in a way, extremely sane.

  “Thank you for seeing me.”

  He smiled again. “I have long wanted to see you. Danny Huntington, he always wanted to go home to his Spencer. I pray for his soul. And for you.”

  David tapped on the door and called to the guard; in moments the door was open and they were out in the corridor again. In a few minutes they had left the jail behind, and Spencer was back in the passenger seat of David’s Mustang. She refused to let David see her fingers shaking, so she kept them tightly laced in her lap. She stared straight ahead.

  “Well?” David said, and she felt him watching her.

  “Well what?”

  “Did you believe him?”

  She hesitated. She didn’t want David laughing at her for being gullible or falling prey to a strange man’s stranger magnetism. But then she blurted out the truth. “Yes.”

  To her surprise, David shrugged, eyes on the road as he guided the wheel. “Yeah, I believe him, too. He really did like Danny. He loved to get into long theological arguments with him. Danny was one well-educated cop, and along the way Delia managed to get himself into a few good schools, as well.” He glanced at her. “What now? You want to go home? You want to go to work? You want to get something to eat?”

  “I want to take a shower,” she said, and shivered despite herself.

  But he didn’t laugh; he didn’t even crack a smi
le. He didn’t give her any speeches about some women being cut out for the realities of life, but not pampered little rich girls like her.

  “Yeah, I kind of know how you feel. That place can really get to you.”

  Spencer tightened her lips, staring at the road. David would know. From both sides. He’d been behind bars once. Her mother had him put there.

  She winced and said nothing, but she felt as tight as a bowstring. He didn’t speak, either; they both knew they were thinking of the same occasion.

  You can’t go back and undo the past! she wanted to shout. It was something she knew far too well. They both knew it. There was nothing she could say about what had happened all those years ago. Nothing he could say, either.

  She sat tensely and stared straight ahead. She simply wouldn’t think about it.

  It wasn’t far from the downtown area to Spencer’s house in the Grove. She left the car quickly and stood staring at David when he got out, too. “I’m all right,” she said. “You don’t—”

  “We have to talk, Spencer,” he said flatly.

  Right, she reminded herself. Sly had hired him. David had taken Sly’s money. He was on the job.

  “Suit yourself, but I’m taking that shower,” she said angrily, and turned and walked toward the house.

  He was behind her as she twisted the key in the lock, and he caught the door when she would have let it fly in his face. She ignored him and started for the stairway.

  “Spencer, you’ve got to realize that you can’t run around doing stupid things like you did last night!” he yelled after her.

  She paused, her hand on the railing, looking at him. “Stupid things? At least I got Delia arrested! That was more than the rest of you incredibly intelligent people managed to do in over a year.”

  She didn’t want to hear his answer; she continued up the stairs.

  He didn’t intend to let her have the last word. She was sure he’d never been up these stairs before, but he followed her, right to her bathroom door.

  “Spencer, you might have gotten yourself killed in that graveyard.”