Slow Burn

by Heather Graham

  She was afraid, and she wasn’t even sure why. Perhaps because the love she and David had felt for each other had been so intense that it had all but self-destructed. Back then, there had simply been too much against them.

  And now, dead or alive, there was Danny, standing between them.

  She didn’t even know what David really wanted. He had promised to stay out of her life. He wanted her to have the child, but…

  Did he think they could make it? That they could put the past behind them and create a new world for the future?

  How long had it been? Ninety seconds…

  She started to splash cold water on her face.

  Then she heard a fierce pounding on her front door and David shouting her name. “Spencer!”

  Even knowing that he had to hurry, David had locked the door behind him when he’d gone walking around her fence, certain that he’d seen a form in the bushes.

  Sneaking up on the bastard had been easy.

  He hadn’t meant to break the guy’s nose; he had just turned at the right minute for his face to connect with David’s fist.

  The son of a bitch was heavy, David thought as he dragged the man around to the front of the house. He was out cold, dead weight. Of corse, he knew that dead weight could turn lively quick enough, and as he stood on the porch, waiting for Spencer to come open the door, he tied the bastard’s wrists behind his back with his own necktie.

  The door opened at last. Spencer stared from him to the man with the bloody face. She gasped with horror, then stared at David again.

  “Our peeping Tom,” he told her. “Or Tomas. He’s definitely Hispanic.”

  “I’ll call the police,” Spencer breathed.

  “No! Wait!”

  “Why?” she asked incredulously. “David—”

  “Get me some cold water, maybe a towel with a few ice cubes.”

  “Oh, God, what did you do to him?”

  “His nose is broken, Spencer.” He sighed. She was still staring with horror. “Spencer, I didn’t mean to break it, but bear in mind that this guy would probably be willing to snuff one of us without blinking. I want to talk to him.”

  “David, I don’t want him in here.”

  “Spencer, I’m coming as far as the foyer. Please, get me some ice, huh?”

  She turned unhappily and headed for the kitchen as David propped the unconscious man against the wall. When Spencer returned with crushed ice in a towel, he pressed it firmly to the guy’s face.

  The man groaned. A second later he tried to sit straighter and his eyes flew open. He saw David, then Spencer, and groaned again.

  “Who are you?” David demanded. “And what the hell were you doing back there spying on us?”

  “¡Batardo!” the man murmured, groaning again. He tried to raise his hands to his injured nose and discovered that he couldn’t.

  “Mrs. Huntington wants to call the police,” David said calmly.

  “Bueno.”

  “I told her no,” David continued lightly. “Because I want to find out why you were back there before I do anything. Nose hurt?”

  The man stiffened against the wall. He was about five-ten, dark haired, dark eyed, sallow complected. He sucked in his cheeks as he looked at David.

  “What you going to arrest me for, eh? Being a vagrant? Trespassing? ¡Cono! How long do you think I’m going to stay in jail?”

  “That’s why I’m not in any hurry to call the police. I can do what I want to scum bags like you now that I’m not on the force. So, I’ll ask you again, what were you doing here?”

  The man sputtered something in Spanish.

  Some very eloquent cursing, Spencer thought. She’d heard something very like it quite recently. From David.

  “Last time. What are you up to?”

  The man didn’t answer. David swung his arm back as if to strike.

  The man screamed, trying—and failing—again to raise his hands to protect his injured nose. “Wait!”

  “Go on.”

  “I talk to you, I’m dead.”

  “Who are you working for?”

  “You don’t understand. I talk to you, I’m dead.”

  David sat back, thoughtfully watching the man. “You can call the police now,” he told Spencer.

  “But I thought you wanted to know—”

  “I do know. He’s working for Ricky Garcia. Call the police, Spencer. And the paramedics. His nose needs some attention.”

  It barely took a minute for a police car to reach her house. And this time she didn’t even have to talk. She simply stood beside David while he explained that he had seen the man watching the house and gone after him. David was certain he was the same man who had been watching the place all along.

  When the man had been taken away, a young uniformed cop stood on the porch talking to David. “You know, sir, we don’t have much to hold him on.”

  “He won’t be in a hurry to go. And if you need something, you can try holding him for questioning on the murder of Danny Huntington.”

  “You think this guy—”

  “No. But I think the fact that he’s watching Spencer’s house has something to do with the murder. Call Oppenheim. He’ll think of something. And if the guy somehow gets out on the streets again, let me know.”

  “You got it. Mr. Delgado, Mrs. Huntington, good night.”

  “Good night. Thank you,” Spencer said quietly, her mind turning a million different ways.

  The cops left with the man, whose name had been revealed as Hernando Blanco, secured in the back of the police car.

  “They were fast,” Spencer commented, closing the door. “But how can you be so certain that he was working for Ricky Garcia?”

  “Because he was so certain he’d be dead if he gave anything away.” He hesitated. “And there’s more.”

  “What?”

  “A guy who was once connected with Ricky worked on that rental car we nearly got killed in in Rhode Island. He disappeared right after the accident, but the cops up there got one of his fingerprints and pulled his records.”

  “But that—”

  “Is one hell of a coincidence,” David said.

  “So you think Ricky Garcia killed Danny?”

  “Or had him killed.”

  Spencer moistened her lips, feeling almost guilty with relief. She prayed it had been Ricky Garcia, because that would mean Jared was innocent.

  Not that she’d ever really believed Jared was involved in Danny’s murder. But he had frightened her half to death in that old house. And yet, at first, she had almost thought he was getting ready to jump himself….

  “Why would he be after me?”

  “Because you’re stirring things up. Like you keep telling me, Spencer, Trey Delia is in prison because of you. Maybe Ricky just doesn’t want to be next.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “I talk to Ricky again,” David said softly. “Go through the files. Again.” He hesitated. “Did Danny keep any files here?”

  “I turned his papers over to Oppenheim right after the attack.”

  “Were there any papers that weren’t in those folders? Papers that might have been private?”

  “Maybe,” she said slowly. “Some of his things, newspaper clippings, notes, old stuff, are still up in the office.”

  “That’s where I’ll start, then,” he said softly. He paused, staring at her. “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “The test.”

  “The test!” she gasped, then turned, heading for the stairs.

  He passed her halfway up.

  “Damn you, David! This isn’t fair. So help me, I’m warning you…”

  But he was ahead of her. He burst into the bathroom and found the little white stick on the back of the commode. He picked it up, turning his back to her.

  “David, this is absolutely—”

  She broke off. He had turned to her, blue eyes incredibly dark, lips white, features drawn and taut.

  “
What?”

  “A bright blue plus sign,” he said softly.

  A blue plus sign…

  She could still remember that day over a year ago when she had taken a different test. When she’d gotten a little blue line to say that yes, the time was right. She could remember Danny’s face, clearer in her memory than it had been for a long, long time.

  I’m blue, Danny, blue….

  And then he had gone out to meet David, and her whole world had changed.

  The world began to spin and, with amazing speed, it turned from blue to black.

  Ricky Garcia loved South Beach. There was no place quite like it in the world.

  Cafés opened their doors to let in the welcome breezes of the night. The ocean whispered in the background, waves shifting, surf endlessly rolling.

  Then there was the sea of humanity. Shifting, changing, as endless as the flow of the ocean. People walked by alone, in twos and threes, in groups. Shorthaired, long-haired. Hispanics, Anglos, Germans, Canadians, tourists, natives. In leather and in lace. They walked beneath the Deco lights, dressed in mauve and pink and turquoise. They listened to the beat of the music from the clubs, a beat that washed over the sidewalks, sizzling by day, alive with the pulse of drums by night. And the women…So many women…

  Young women, old women. Blondes, brunettes, redheads. Beautiful, tall, sleek black women, Haitians, Brazilians, Hondurans. Pale white Northerners. Women in tight pants, women in short shirts. Women on the arms of their lovers, women on the make, crawling the night…

  Ricky enjoyed them all. He liked the night. Liked the beat. Liked the café con leche served at every café. He often sat at a table alone, secure in the knowledge that his two burly bodyguards were just a few feet away.

  Sometimes the police came to harass him, but not too often. They had come after Danny Huntington had died. They had started coming again when his widow had returned to Coconut Grove.

  Two of them had come tonight—early—and taken seats near him.

  They had ruined his view.

  But the police didn’t have anything on him, so they had left; they’d had no choice. He had good lawyers, and he wasn’t afraid to take the police to court.

  Now his night was disturbed again. As he lit a thin cigarillo, one of his men came by and whispered in his ear, “Hernando is in Dade County Jail.”

  His match flared. Died. “Hernando is a fool,” he said. “Fools are better off dead.” He flicked a minute particle of lint from the sleeve of his gray silk shirt. “Hernando was worse than a fool, I think. He was not right up here.” He pointed to his head. “Not where it counts for a man.”

  The man bowed his head and backed away, everything completely understood.

  It was time to take matters into his own hands, Ricky decided. Soon. But for the moment…

  He saw a girl, generous curves contained within black velvet stretch pants. She had wavy, jet black hair, smooth bronze skin. She giggled a little annoyingly. It didn’t matter. He would not be with her long.

  She walked down the street. He lifted a hand. His man would go after the girl. Invite her to the penthouse. Entice her with promises and money. And she would come.

  Ricky had never been wrong about a woman.

  He hadn’t been wrong about Spencer Huntington, either. Something would have to be done. Now.

  And he was going to have to do it himself.

  Cecily stepped out of the shower. She’d gotten too much sun today. Oh, God, when was she going to learn? Her looks just weren’t going to last forever.

  She reached for her lotion, then stepped out of the bathroom to glance at the bedroom television. Jared was there, stretched out on the bed, flicking the channels on the remote control.

  “You’re home!” she said, surprised.

  “I am.”

  She perched on the edge of the bed, staring at him. “Did you fix things?”

  “No.”

  “Damn it, Jared. She was out of the office most of the day!”

  He rolled over and stared at her. He looked tired. Worn. Still handsome, though. “Cecily, she came back after lunch, rushing around like a tornado of energy. She swept through the place at a thousand miles an hour. She was into files, into the computer, into everything. If I had been fixing anything, I would have been in big-time trouble today.”

  “It has to be fixed!” Cecily said. “Jared, our lives depend on it!”

  “But Spencer’s life—”

  “The hell with precious little Spencer and her life! You’ve got to think about us now, Jared. Think about the children. Look, I think I caused some trouble for Spence today. Enough to keep her a little off kilter for a while, anyway. Jared, you must—you must!—take care of things!”

  He groaned and turned his face into the pillow. “I will, Cecily,” he said hollowly. “I will.”

  He sounded exhausted. Like a man who had absolutely reached his limit.

  “Jared, things will be all right afterward. I swear, we’ll make everything all right…after.”

  She moved closer to him, and he laid his head on her lap. She rubbed his temples soothingly.

  “It’s funny, isn’t it?” Jared said. “So damned funny. But I do love you, Cecily.”

  She frowned. “It’s not all that funny.”

  “Maybe it’s habit.”

  “You want to hear something really funny?” she queried.

  “What?”

  “I guess I love you, too.”

  He started to smile, then he reached up and pulled her face down for a kiss.

  He was going to be all right. Yes, he was going to be all right, and it—life—would be all right, as well. Just as soon as this business with Spencer was finished.

  When Spencer opened her eyes, she discovered that she was lying on her own bed. She still felt light-headed.

  David was sitting on the side of the bed. Not touching her, just watching her.

  “You okay?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “Just not prepared…”

  “Yeah, well, I can see that. I’m really batting a thousand here, huh? Let’s see, sex with me and you cry your eyes out. A pregnancy and you pass out cold. Spencer, if you’re not careful, you’ll be letting all this go straight to my head.”

  “David…”

  He stood up. “I know. I said I’d leave you alone. I just wanted to make sure you were all right. I’m leaving now.”

  She struggled to sit up. “You don’t understand.”

  “No, Spencer, my problem is that I do understand. I’m not Danny. I can’t be Danny. And this isn’t Danny’s child. It’s yours, and it’s mine, and that’s enough. I can’t help but be glad. I want children, Spencer.”

  “But under the circumstances—”

  “I don’t give a damn about the circumstances, Spencer,” he said softly then started out of the room.

  “David!” He paused in the doorway, but he didn’t look at her. “You don’t understand. I—I want this baby.”

  His body seemed to quicken. He was afraid to go close to her again. Afraid to push.

  He stayed in the doorway. “If it helps any, Spencer, I want you to know this,” he said. He had to pause. Had to regain his breath and force himself to speak steadily. “I love you. I loved you all those years ago, I never stopped loving you, and I love you now. Keep that in mind, will you, when you’re thinking?”

  He left the room, closing the door behind him. He was shaking.

  He started down the stairs. Carefully. Walked into the kitchen, picked up Spencer’s wine and downed it in a single gulp.

  Spencer was going to have a child. His child. He was going to be a father. She could still change her mind, he reminded himself. But she wouldn’t. Spencer adored children, and they adored her. She and Danny had been trying…

  He winced and walked to the family room to stare at the pool. He could almost hear Danny’s voice again, Danny’s laughter.

  For a moment he felt a shaft of the misery Spencer must be feelin
g at the irony of it all. She was pregnant at last—but with his child.

  He closed his eyes, torn.

  Then he was suddenly at peace. He had told her the truth that afternoon. He loved her. He always had. And he had loved Danny, too. No one had been a better friend. And no one had known Danny better.

  Danny Huntington would never begrudge them a moment’s happiness.

  “Come to terms with it!” he told himself softly out loud.

  All right. He loved Spencer. It didn’t matter what he had ever tried to tell himself. She was going to have his baby and, come hell or high water, he was going to make her his at last.

  All he had to do was keep her alive….

  18

  Leave it to David, Spencer thought. First he’d dragged her out on that boat, then forced her into taking a pregnancy test, finally ground out something about having loved her all his life—and then walked out on her again.

  But not completely. David still owed Sly, and he wasn’t going to quit protecting her.

  When she went downstairs that night, David didn’t even mention the test, or anything remotely personal. He just wanted to see all of Danny’s remaining papers. She took him into the office, where she had done a quick job of stuffing Danny’s personal papers, notes and clippings into file cabinets. Despite appearances, Danny had been organized. He had always told her that there was a method to his madness, and it was true; he’d always been able to find what he was looking for right away.

  “There’s really nothing here,” she told David.

  “There must be. Someone is trying to break in here for a reason.”

  “The guy downstairs was just watching the house—”

  “But Harris stopped an intruder.”

  “Breaking and entering in any big city.” She hesitated. “Besides, I thought someone was supposedly trying to kill me?”

  “Yeah, someone is out to hurt you, Spencer. But I think that someone wants into the house, too.”

  “The house sat empty for months while I was away after Danny died. Why didn’t they break in then?”

  “Because until you started stirring things up again, scaring someone, they didn’t see any need.” He took several of the files and tucked them under his arm. “I think I’ll start with these.”