He walked out of the room and started toward the door. She followed him. “You’re leaving?”
“Spencer, my clothes are crusted with salt, and I’m tired. And I told you that I’d leave you alone. Besides, to be truthful, at the moment I need to get away from you, too.”
And that was it. He left. Juan was outside, on watch. The next morning, Tuesday, Jimmy followed her to work.
She wanted time; she had told him that, and she’d meant it. One minute she still felt an almost hysterical sense of irony, as if she had betrayed Danny a thousand times over in her heart and in reality. The next minute she would manage to get a grip on sanity. There was something she was reaching for, something she had to know, something she had to understand. And if she could just touch it, she would be all right….
Each time her careening thoughts and emotions followed that swing of the pendulum, she wanted David. She wanted to shake him, to ask him if he’d meant what he’d said about loving her. There was something there between them. There always had been, a link that neither time nor distance had erased, and which had exploded anew when circumstances brought them together again.
She couldn’t do any work to speak of on Tuesday morning. But later she was forced into thinking when she got a call from Sandy about a problem with the purchase of her new home. She had used a check from her personal account for the down payment, and, for some reason she couldn’t even begin to guess, that check had bounced.
“I can’t understand it,” she told Sandy, frowning. She switched on her computer and drew up the account records. According to the screen, the money was there.
“The seller is getting antsy on this one,” Sandy said unhappily. “Maybe someone transferred those funds somewhere else? Or perhaps you could write a check on another account?”
“Yes, I’ll do that. Swing by. I’ll have another check for you in a matter of minutes.”
She hung up. There would be no problem borrowing money from one of Sly’s accounts, but she certainly wouldn’t do it without asking him. She hurried from her office to his, unaware that Audrey was staring at her as she hurried by.
“Sly, there’s something wrong with one of the money market accounts. My records don’t coincide with the bank’s, and I have to straighten it out. Until I do, I need a loan. A big loan.”
Sly arched a brow and sat back at his desk. “You can take anything you want, you know that, Spencer.” He frowned. “You don’t mean that money is missing from the trust fund Danny set up, do you?”
“No, I’ve never touched that.”
“Why not? He left it for you.”
“But I didn’t need it, Sly. And somehow, I feel that it’s blood money. I guess I never intended to keep it. I haven’t decided exactly what to do with it, but I’m leaning toward splitting it between a children’s hospital and the fund for the children of slain officers.”
Sly nodded. “It’s a lot of money, Spencer.”
“I’ve never needed as much money as people seemed to think,” she remarked lightly.
Sly smiled. “What was David’s big beef yesterday?” he asked her, catching her off guard.
“I…” she began, then stopped. She wasn’t ready to get into this with anyone. Not even Sly.
Maybe especially Sly. Although she almost smiled, imagining her mother’s expression if she were to call with the truth. “I know how you felt about my marrying David way back when, Mom, but don’t worry. I’m not going to marry him—in fact, he hasn’t even suggested it. I’m just going to have his illegitimate child.”
Ah, yes, that would go over very well….
She would tell a lie at the moment. A very white lie. “I ran into Gene Vichy at the club.”
“Ran into him?”
“All right, he’d called and asked to see me.”
“I see,” Sly told her.
“That’s all? You’re not going to say anything about me being an idiot?”
“Do I need to?” he asked.
“All right, no, but it wasn’t dangerous. Really. He just told me that he was innocent.”
“Spencer, are you expecting someone to call you and confess?” he asked.
“You never know,” she said stubbornly. “Something just might slip out somewhere.”
“I hear David caught a peeping Tom in your yard, a man who worked for Ricky Garcia.”
“So David thinks.”
“I imagine he’s right.” He hesitated for a minute. “I just talked to him a few minutes ago. The man was found hanged in his cell this morning. The other three guys in there didn’t see a thing.”
She felt sick. Absolutely sick. “I have to go,” she whispered to Sly.
Moments later she passed Audrey again, slipping inside her office, and closed the door, then leaned against it, resting her cheek against the cool wood.
A peculiar sensation crept along her spine. She spun.
Jared was there.
“Jared!”
“I have to—I have to talk to you, Spencer.”
She sat down uneasily, indicating one of the chairs in front of her desk.
He sat. He looked gray.
“I took the money, Spencer.”
“What?”
“I ran up some gambling debts. You were away. I couldn’t tell Sly—I’m not his precious granddaughter.” For a moment, he sounded very bitter. “God, Spencer, I’m sorry. I’ve spent the time since trying to replace every last cent I took, but I was bleeding it back in through the company account and I ran out of time.”
She felt cold, numb. As if huge waves of ice water were washing through her. She tried to form words, but she couldn’t, so she just sat there.
Finally her voice began to work. “Did you plan to push me off the balcony of the house when we went to see it?”
“What?” he demanded.
“You heard me. Did you try to kill me, Jared?”
“God, no, Spence!” He leaned forward, pressing his temples with his palms. “God, no! I swear it! Is that what you thought? Sweet Jesus, for a moment there I did think about jumping, but I wouldn’t hurt you, Spencer, not for the world.”
She sat back, desperate to believe him. “Why didn’t you just come to me when you were in trouble?” she asked hoarsely.
He lifted his hands, shook his head. “Spencer, you were practically bleeding yourself when it happened. Danny had just died. You didn’t really hear anything anyone said to you. Then you were gone. And I couldn’t just take the money from one of Sly’s accounts. He may be old, but he’s got an eagle eye.” He stood up, looking worn-out and old.
And Sly thought I looked like hell! Spencer thought.
“I didn’t tell Cecily at first, and we nearly split up—she thought I was having an affair.”
“Were you doing that as well?”
“Briefly,” he admitted uncomfortably. “It was how I got started gambling. I confessed to Cecily—about the gambling—because I didn’t want my marriage to fall apart.” He sat down again. “You know, the years go by, some of the excitement goes…sometimes you’re looking for other things, or trying to get the excitement back. But I do love my wife. You know Cecily, though. If I’d fallen into disgrace, she wouldn’t have been too willing to come along with me. At first I went to my father, but he’s retired. He couldn’t cover what I owed. I really thought I could get it all back into your account before you found out, but then you decided to buy that damned house…. If you’d waited even a few more days, everything would have been okay.”
She sat there, staring numbly at him. He got up and went around to her side of the desk, then went down on one knee next to her, taking both her hands. “Spencer, I’m sorry. I swear to you, I’m sorry. And I still can’t believe you thought I would hurt you.”
She believed him. She didn’t know if it was only because she wanted to, but she believed him. She exhaled slowly.
“How did you make the money back?”
“It took a while, but I sold my investment acreage up
in Jupiter. I got lucky. I more than tripled my investment.” He sighed, looking down. “And I went into the kids’ college funds, but I’ll make that up, too.” He stood. “Are you going to tell Sly?”
She shook her head.
He smiled a little bitterly. “Are you going to wait until the company’s yours and then fire my ass?”
She had to smile at that. “I could wait a long time. Sly may be in his nineties, but his grandfather lived to be a hundred and thirteen, so he tells me. By the time Sly is gone, we could both be old and senile. I’d probably have forgotten what you did.”
“Thanks, Spence,” he said softly. He headed for the door, then looked at her.
“Spencer, I swear I’ve worked hard for this business. I’ve done well with our investments, I know the architectural history almost as well as you do, and I’ve always put my heart and soul into the operation of Montgomery Enterprises. For all my sins, I never wanted to be the cousin hanging on to your shirttails.”
“I know that, Jared.”
He nodded and started to speak again, but he couldn’t seem to find words.
“Two things, Jared. If you’re ever in trouble again, be honest with me, damn it.”
“Yeah,” he said huskily. “What’s number two?”
“Go away and don’t talk to me about this anymore. And don’t go looking over any more railings, scaring me half to death.”
He grinned. “I think you hit three and four, as well.” He swallowed painfully. “Thanks, Spence.”
“Number five, Jared. Quit saying that.”
He nodded and left. After the door closed behind him, Spencer looked down. Her fingers were trembling. Had he been telling her the truth? The complete truth?
It had to be the truth. It would be too painful if it was anything else.
David sat at his desk, yawning. He sipped his coffee, blinked hard and looked at the papers spread before him.
Danny’s personal files were a mess.
He’d kept dozens of newspaper clippings, some of them bits about mysterious deaths, some of them articles on the grave robberies attributed to Trey Delia and his followers. At least Trey Delia was still in prison.
Perhaps he was still ruling his empire from behind bars? Not perhaps—certainly. But that didn’t mean he had killed Danny, or that he wanted to kill Spencer.
David started sorting through the papers again. He came across a magazine article on a witchcraft case during Louis XIV’s reign. Even the Sun King’s mistress had been involved, playing with different potions. Some of her “aphrodisiacs” had turned out to be poisonous. The woman had gotten away with her crimes, though she had lost the king’s affections. Dozens of others had burned.
David set it aside, then picked it up again and read it more closely, looking to see if the witches had raided cemeteries and used human body parts. Nothing on it. He set the article down again.
More clippings, these on Ricky Garcia’s alleged crimes.
Then still more clippings, this time on the death of Gene Vichy’s very rich socialite wife. She’d been found slumped against the coral rock fireplace in her elegant bedroom. Despite all the masterpieces in the exquisite house on Bayshore Drive, only her diamonds had been taken. And not a fingerprint—other than those that should have been there—had been found. She’d been bludgeoned with a statuette from the mantel, but the killer had apparently worn gloves. Only the maid’s prints and Mrs. Vichy’s prints had been on the statuette. Gene Vichy’s had been absent. And no one had ever suggested that the maid had killed her mistress, or that Vickie Vichy had conked herself on the head.
He set the pages down and rubbed his eyes, then clicked the intercom. “Reva, would you mind getting me some coffee?”
His sister’s soft chuckle sounded as if she was right next to him. “Café cubano, brother? Something to keep you up?”
“Anything with lots of caffeine.”
“Coming right up.”
“Thanks.”
He clicked off and studied the clippings again, then flipped through his files on the case.
Vichy had killed his wife. David was certain of that. But it had been a damned near perfect crime. Vichy had been at the yacht club at the time of death the coroner set. Dozens of witnesses had seen him there.
But David didn’t care where Vichy had been. He had ordered the crime and paid for it. Unfortunately, he’d done such a careful job of planning it that no one—not the police, the D.A.’s office, or the private investigators Vickie’s family had hired—had been able to prove it. The day he was attacked, Danny had been coming to see David to talk about Vichy and see what they could come up with together.
David was rubbing the back of his neck as Reva came in with his coffee. “You look like death warmed over,” she told him, perching on the edge of his desk.
He took the coffee from her, a small cup of rich, thick, syrupy Cuban coffee. It could warm the blood. Maybe it didn’t even go into the stomach. Maybe it shot caffeine straight into the veins.
Whatever. It tasted damned good right now. He swallowed it down in one quick gulp.
“You know,” Reva told him, “you keep thinking you can solve this overnight, but you need to be realistic. Look at all the time that’s gone by since Danny died. You’ve got to face up to the fact that his death may never be solved.”
“It has to be.”
“Why?”
“Because Spencer won’t be safe until it is.”
Reva hesitated. “Spencer won’t be safe, or the two of you won’t be able to get on with your lives?”
He looked at her. He started to deny her words, then shrugged. “Both,” he told her.
Reva turned to leave his office. “David?”
“Yeah?”
“A long time ago, I said some not-too-nice things about Spencer.”
“Yeah, so?”
“I take them back, that’s all.”
She walked out of the office. David smiled and turned to his work, but the words seemed to run before his eyes. Suddenly he picked up his phone and punched in Oppenheim’s number. He had to wait several minutes to get the lieutenant.
“What now, Delgado? When men quit my team, they usually leave me alone!”
“Do me a favor. Get Vickie Vichy exhumed.”
“What?”
“Do it, Lieutenant, please. Somehow.”
“For what? She died because her head was smashed in by a blunt instrument. The weapon was found right by her body, covered with blood and brains, for Christ’s sake! We hardly even needed the autopsy.”
“But they weren’t looking for poisoning. Maybe something very obscure.”
Oppenheim was silent. “If we don’t find something, Gene Vichy will probably sue the whole damned city.”
“I’ve been going through Danny’s personal papers,” David said. “And I’ve got a hunch. I think he was on to something.”
“Vichy paid a killer. We all know that. We just can’t prove it.”
“But I think he did that because she wasn’t dying fast enough his way and he didn’t dare hurry the process along. Lieutenant, please.”
“I’ll think about it, David.”
“Think fast, will you?”
A click was his reply. He had just barely replaced the receiver before Reva buzzed him.
“Willie the Snitch on line two,” she said tensely, well aware that David had been trying to find the man.
“Yeah, Willie! Where the hell have you been?” David demanded. There was silence. For a sinking moment, David thought Willie had hung up on him. “Willie, damn it, you there? I hung around under that damn bridge for hours looking for you, so you’d better be there!”
“Why’d you do that?” Willie asked, perplexed.
“Why? I need information.”
He could almost see Willie shrugging. “From what I hear, you’re tight with Huntington’s widow. She knows how to get me.”
“What?” David said. His head was suddenly pounding.
&nb
sp; “Yeah,” Willie said huskily. “Danny and I were close. He must have made sure she knew how to get me. Maybe she helped him sometimes, I don’t know.”
“She contacted you recently?”
“Sure,” he said proudly. “How do you think she knew to go to that cemetery?”
David groaned inwardly, glad Spencer wasn’t there right now. He wanted to shake her. But shaking would be bad for her. For her and the baby.
Off the subject! he warned himself.
“Why are you calling me now, Willie?”
“Why were you trying to get me?”
“You first.”
“I need money,” Willie admitted. “And I’ve got some information.”
“All right.”
“When do I get paid?”
“You know I’ll pay you.”
“Mrs. Huntington pays better.”
“Yeah? Well I’ll break your teeth if you don’t answer up and accept my meager wage scale,” David warned him.
Willie thought that over; then he sighed. “You’re persuasive, Delgado. What I know is this—Ricky Garcia has had a man watching the Huntington house ever since Spencer Huntington moved back into it.”
David clenched his teeth. “I know that, Willie. The man is dead.”
“You killed him?”
“No. He died in jail.”
“How?”
“Hanged himself.”
“Yeah, well, maybe.” For a moment Willie sounded worried. “But what you should know is that Ricky wants you dead. He’s mentioned it a few times, and you know how that works.”
“I can take care of myself. What else?”
“Well, sources say he just wants to talk to Danny’s widow. That he has information he’ll give to her but not to any cops.”
“I’m not a cop anymore.”
“Doesn’t matter. You still smell like pork to Ricky.”
“That everything?”
“Yeah. You keep an eye on her, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“I mean a good eye. All the time.”
“All right. Willie—” David began, but the line went suddenly dead. He stared at the receiver.
A good eye. All the time.
Slow Burn Page 26
