Slow Burn

“Stop!” she charged herself out loud, closing her eyes tightly. She was sitting all but stark naked on a coffee table waiting for her husband to come home so that they could make a baby together. A baby they both wanted. A husband who was one of the best men in the entire world.

She was waiting for Danny, but if she didn’t get a grip on herself, she would be remembering the first time she’d ever made love. With his best friend.

David Delgado.

“If it’s a girl, I think I like the name Kyra,” she said out loud. “I wonder what Danny thinks of it? He’ll never tell me, I know. He’ll be so happy we’re going to have a baby that he won’t give a damn about a name at all.”

It had been at Sly’s house. She’d been sixteen years old at the time, and he hadn’t been much older. And, like everything that had happened between them, she’d forced the issue. He never wanted to touch her; she was Sly’s granddaughter, and he’d loved Sly ever since he’d met him. But Terry-Sue was after him big time, and Spencer just hadn’t been able to bear it. She had known what she wanted all the time she was forcing the fight and pushing him into a corner. She had known what she wanted….

She just hadn’t been prepared for what she had gotten. Or what would follow…

“If it’s a boy, it will be Daniel, of course,” she said loudly.

Then she heard the tapping at the door. She smiled. Danny was home, and she really did love him. Together they always dispelled all the demons of the past. Almost made them go away for good.

“It’s open, come right in!” she called.

The door swung inward, and she saw a tall silhouette framed there against the rising sun. He took a step into the house, and even before she saw his features, she knew he was all wrong, too tall, too broad shouldered to be Danny, wire muscled, tense—and dark where Danny was blond. This man had ebony dark hair and bronzed, taut features.

“David!” she gasped. Her breathing seemed to cease, her heart to stop beating. She felt like an idiot, cross-legged, naked on the table—her black tie perfectly in place.

She leaped up and all but hurled herself across the room, tearing an afghan from the back of a sofa and wrapping herself in it, then staring at the man who was staring at her in return. She wished that she could crawl beneath the coffee table.

Then she started babbling. “I’m—ah, I was just waiting for Danny to get back. He was going to talk to you. Did you miss him? There’s coffee in the kitchen. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just go get dressed—”

“Spencer,” he said. Just that, and nothing more. His tone was level, but it held a wealth of agony. He didn’t tease her, didn’t even make an offhand comment. He just stared at her, and suddenly she felt a gripping chill. And she knew. She knew from the raspy sound of his voice, from the look in his eyes.

“Danny?” she whispered. And then it all fell into place. There were red splashes on the Marlins tank top he wore, on the white trim of his black jogging shorts. And there were tears in David’s eyes. Tears. The only time she’d ever seen David Delgado with tears in his eyes was the day they’d buried Michael MacCloud….

“Danny. Oh, my God. Danny!” she breathed. She’d never been so afraid in her whole life. She was going to be sick; the world was starting to spin; it was going black.

“Spencer, you’ve got to come with me. Quickly.”

She heard the words, but just barely. She wanted to fight the encroaching darkness, to go with him. No good. Consciousness was slipping away from her. Black heels, stockings, tie and afghan, she sank to the floor, and everything went black, just as if someone had turned out a light….

She made it to the hospital in time. David had brought her to with a cool cloth and a few shakes, and she had immediately wished that she could plummet back into the darkness. Danny hadn’t even been at work! He hadn’t been in uniform, or even on plainsclothes duty.

“Spencer, he’s alive. Come on, hurry.”

That had brought her up short. She’d found some strength and some dignity and taken only minutes to dress. A police escort had brought them to Jackson Memorial in less than ten minutes.

Danny had already been taken into surgery. For hours she and David paced the hospital corridors, drinking bad coffee out of paper cups from a machine, waiting.

Danny lived. Amazingly, he survived the surgery. The list of things the bullets had done to his body was endless, ripped and torn pancreas, liver. Damaged lungs and intestines.

But he held on. For days he held on. Day by day, she held his hand as he lay in the trauma unit.

Then, three weeks to the day after the shooting, the doctors told her that he had gone into a coma. David was there with her, standing behind her along with Sly as they explained what had happened, what she hadn’t wanted to understand. None of the injuries to his body had really mattered. Somehow an infection had gotten started and spread to his brain. And the brain was the one thing they absolutely couldn’t bring back. So Danny was alive. But he was dead. They wanted her permission to take him off the machines.

She signed the papers. And she sat by him again in the hospital. She held his hand. His hand looked so good! So strong, so normal! Long, still bronzed fingers. Clipped nails. Those hands had touched her, loved her. She could still draw them to her face, feel his knuckles against her cheeks. It wasn’t fair that he should still be the same….

Four weeks after the shooting, he drew his last breath. David was with her again, not speaking, just watching, waiting. He’d been there all along. There were always cops around, too—waiting, praying, guarding. David wasn’t a cop anymore, but it didn’t seem to matter. He’d let his business go straight to hell to sit with Danny. With her. He was silent most of the time. But he was there. And the past remained buried. A silent truce held between them. They both loved Danny, and for his sake, everything else was set aside. Her family came; her friends came. They offered words of comfort, words that, despite the very best of intentions, could do little. David’s silent presence was the only thing that mattered. She heard him talking sometimes to the cops who came. They were completely baffled as to who had done this to Danny. It hadn’t even really hit her yet that he was going to die, was already dead in the only way that mattered. She still thought that he would twist, turn, move, listen to her, awaken. They had said that he was brain-dead, but his heart was so strong. It kept beating. And David kept his quiet vigil behind her.

And after it was over, he was there to hold her when they came for the body, when she shrieked out, unable, after everything, to believe that Danny was really gone.

David was the one to give the eulogy when hundreds of people appeared at Danny’s funeral. He talked about Danny the boy, and Danny the man, and what Danny had meant to those who loved him. He talked about how he’d been a good cop, too, always there, the most moral man David had ever met, the finest.

When he was done, he stepped away from the microphone while the dispatcher stepped up to it.

“Detective Daniel Huntington is now oh-six,” she said softly.

Officer off duty, out of service. A twenty-one-gun salute exploded in the air.

And then it was over. Danny was, at last, at rest.

2

He’d been reading the file on his desk when she suddenly swept in, just like a relentless breeze. No, just like a damned hurricane, was more like it. She threw the morning paper down on his desk, and those beautiful, crystal blue and accusatory eyes stabbed into him like twin knives.

David looked up, arching a brow. “Spencer. How nice to see you,” he said dryly. It was nice to see her. No matter that she looked like a lioness on the hunt—ready to go right for the jugular. No matter what, Spencer looked good. The last year had take its toll on her, her face was leaner, her cheeks a shade more hollow, but even tragedy looked good on Spencer Anne Montgomery. Huntington, he reminded himself, as he so often seemed forced to do.

He’d been avoiding her, and he knew it. She’d made it easy for him at first. Right after the funeral, she’d gone to one of her mother’s family’s estates in Newport; then she’d come back and worked in her own West Palm offices for a few months. But she’d been in Miami for nearly two months, and now she was standing in his office, staring at him with barely suppressed fury.

“I take the Miami Herald,” he told her.

“Taking it doesn’t mean you read it,” she said. She inched the paper closer to him with a long, slim, beautifully manicured finger, and he was convinced that if he didn’t pick it up soon, she would press his nose right into it. He knew the article; he’d already read it—and ached over it.

All this time, in the year since Danny’s murder, there hadn’t been an arrest. There still wasn’t even a solid suspect. The police had worked on the case continuously, and David had put all his energies into it, called in favors, prowled the streets. They still didn’t even have a firm motive, though a number of them had been conceived and then dismissed. Hell, he’d even been questioned. So had Spencer. Wives were automatically number-one suspects, just as best friends were often number two—unless, of course, there were a number of ex-wives or mistresses running around in the background.

“Want to sit, Spencer?” he asked her, indicating the leather-upholstered chair in front of his desk. “Or do you want to keep standing there, glaring at me.”

“I want you to do something!”

By that time Reva had come to the doorway. “Spencer’s here, David,” she informed him cheerfully. No one else could have gotten past his kid sister. Reva knew how to stop anyone in his or her tracks—except Spencer. He almost smiled. It had been like that even when they’d all been kids.

“Thanks, Reva. Why don’t you suggest to Mrs. Huntington that she sit down?” David said.

“Spencer—”

“Reva, have you read this article?” Spencer demanded, swinging around. She and Reva were both of an age, and both striking women, David thought, watching the two of them, a bit distracted for the moment. He’d been feeling that way lately. Frustration did it, he thought. They looked a little like a pair of modern-day fairy-tale princesses, Rose White and Rose Red, Spencer with her sweeping golden hair and sky-colored eyes, Reva with a curling mass of nearly black hair, tanned to the hilt, and though her eyes were really a very deep blue, just like David’s, they often looked as if they were black. They had always liked one another, but their relationships with him, he knew, had kept them from ever becoming close friends.

“I’ve read it, Spencer,” Reva said. “But you’ve got to know that David has done everything in his power—”

“It’s not enough!”

“But, Spencer—”

Spencer turned to face David again. “He was your best friend. How can you just forget him? Read the article! The reporter is claiming police incompetence, that no one seems to care anymore.”

David stood. “Spencer, I did read the damned article. And in case you didn’t notice, that reporter is also suggesting that you should have been more thoroughly investigated.”

“And all the while the real murderer is walking around at large, laughing at everyone.”

“Spencer,” Reva said, beginning to grow protective, “David almost allowed his entire business to fall apart, he was so desperate to find Danny’s killer. You’ve got—”

“Then I’ll hire David and the entire damned agency, and that way no one will be worrying about anything falling apart.”

David stood. He’d had it with Spencer carrying on, and he would be damned if he’d have his little sister fighting his battles for him, even against Spencer.

“I won’t work for you, Spencer,” he said flatly. “And for the moment, you can either sit down, in which case I’ll go over everything I know, or you can get out.”

“Damn you, David, I will not leave.”

“You will leave, because I’ll set you out bodily, then call the cops and tell them you’re harrassing me and affecting my business,” he told her, then sighed with exasperation as she continued to stare at him as if she were about to explode any second. “Spencer, please, sit!”

She sat. Reva caught his eye. “I’ll get some coffee,” she said.

“If it’s for Spencer, make it decaf. She certainly doesn’t need the caffeine!” David said.

Spencer let that pass. When David sat down behind his desk again, he felt a wave of guilt and sorrow sweep over him. She was so pale, and so damned thin. All her life, she had dressed beautifully but simply, and that hadn’t changed. She was wearing a sleeveless dress that stopped just above the knee. But the cut was perfect, and David assumed it was some kind of designer original, although Spencer also made a point of buying things just because she liked them, not because there was a name attached to them. Spencer had never acted as if she came from money, but it was always there in the background, just the same. He had to admit, though, he wasn’t sure just who had buckled to the family pressure, him or her.

Whatever, the dress, simple, perfect, looked wonderful on her. One minute she seemed like a tempest, and now she seemed all but ethereal. She needed more meat on her bones, more color in her face. Her eyes were haunted. Hell, his probably looked that way, too. It had been rough, learning to live with Danny gone.

And hunting for his killer.

“It’s been a year, David,” she said almost tonelessly.

“Spencer, have you been to the police—”

“Of course. Lots of times. They’re always as nice as they can be—except, of course, when they start questioning me again.”

“They have to do that, Spencer.”

“How could I have killed him?” she asked bleakly.

He hesitated. “The way they see it, anything is possible. You might have run out, shot him, run home, then waited for someone to come and give you the news.”

“But you know—”

“I’m telling you what the D.A.’s office could come up with in terms of motive. You were his wife. You inherited a sizable fortune on his death.”

“But you found me—”

“Stark naked. What a great way to shed bloody clothing.”

She was standing again, staring at him as if he were a cold-blooded killer. “You bastard! What about you? He died in your arms!”

“Spencer, sit down, or I’ll make you sit down in about two seconds!”

She didn’t sit. He swore, rising. She sat, teeth grating, staring at him. “Spencer, damn you, they questioned me, too, over and over. Guys I worked with for years. They had to explore all the possibilities.”

Tears were hovering in her eyes. She was trying very hard not to shed them. “I loved Danny.”

“I know that, Spencer.” He clenched his teeth, feeling as if he’d been punched in the heart. He’d loved Danny, too. Just about everyone who ever met Danny Huntington cared about him. Except, of course, the killer. Or killers?

“Spencer, remember the case just a few years ago? Right on Bayshore Drive. Wife calls in, her husband’s been shot. Says some men broke in and killed him. Turned out she hired the men who shot them, let them in and out, waited long enough for them to disappear, then called emergency. Remember, Spencer?”

“Yes, I remember,” she said impatiently. “She was also much younger than he was and wanted his money. The two cases are nothing at all alike.”

“Spencer, the police can’t help it. Most murders are committed by people close to the victims. Wives rank right on top.”

“Damn you, David, I didn’t come here to listen to you explain why the cops questioned me. Danny has been dead for over a year. A cop, David, a cop murdered—and no suspect in sight! And you sit there justifying why they questioned me! I want to know what else they’ve got! And all anyone will ever tell me is that, oh, we’ve a few leads, we’re following this one or that one! They humor me. They pat me on the back, but nothing happens!”

“Spencer, they’re trying. It takes time—”

“I want to know what you’ve got.”

“Spencer, go home. Reconstruct something,” he told her. Was reconstruct the right word? He wasn’t sure. Montgomery Enterprises wasn’t really a construction company, nor was it a decorating firm. Sly had begun the business in the very early days of the city’s existence. Back then he’d done detail work, cornices, moldings, mantels, working with the best architects and builders. He had liked to remember those old times, when the now bustling, international city had been nothing but a small southern settlement carved out of a swamp. Now they preserved the old, making it as good as new. They restored buildings, down to the small details, the tiles, moldings and cornices. David found it hard to imagine that there was enough here to keep them going, but it was remarkable to see sometimes, through Sly’s eyes, just how much was considered to be of historical value. Especially in the last decade or so, with the Art Deco boom, the refurbishing of the beaches and certain other areas of Greater Miami, the old had become in. Montgomery Enterprises was doing extremely well.

“Go home, or go repair a quaint old bathroom or something,” he told her, rubbing his temple.

Her eyes narrowed. “I went home, David. I went away for a year, and I left everything to the cops and to you, his best friend, the hometown boy who could find out anything! I went away, but damn it, it seems like I’m the only one who really cares! I have to stay on this if we’re ever going to find Danny’s killer. The eulogy was just great, the cops who turned out were wonderful, the twenty-one-gun salute was grand! But that buried him, and he’s stayed buried. And the case has stayed buried with him. I want something done now. I want to know what you’ve got. He was a homicide cop. What was he on to? Why was he meeting you that morning?”

Reva cleared her throat from the doorway. “Coffee!” she said cheerfully.

David was glad for the interruption. It bought him a little time as his sister came into his office and set the tray on his desk. He was deterred from his thoughts by the tray, though. They kept mugs in the office. Good sturdy mugs. But there were china cups sitting on a silver tray, and the coffeepot was silver, as well, along with the creamer and sugar bowl.

He stared at Reva, who glanced at Spencer and shrugged. He smiled, shaking his head.

“Thanks, Reva,” Spencer said, restlessly standing again, approaching the tray.

“Spencer, please, relax!” David said.

“I can’t just sit still!” she exclaimed, reaching for the coffee server. She glanced at Reva. “I don’t mean to be difficult—yes, I do, except not about the coffee—but do you still have those great mugs around here anywhere?”

“I—” Reva said blankly, then stared at David again. “Yes, sure, of course.”

Reva went out. David leaned back in his chair, not knowing whether he wanted to grin or pick Spencer up bodily and remove her from the office altogether.

He leaned forward, fingers folded on his desk. “Spencer, if you believe that I cared about Danny, then you know that I’m doing what I can. Everyone in the world knows that cops will do anything they can to catch the killer of another cop—”

“Why was he meeting with you that morning?” Spencer interrupted determinedly.

“To go over the Vichy case.”

“I want to know about the Vichy case.”

Reva returned with the mugs. Spencer flashed her a smile of gratitude. “Thanks. I don’t know why, but coffee always tastes better in a mug.”

“A quick cup of coffee shouldn’t matter much,” David said.

“But it may not be quick,” Spencer warned.

How the hell was he going to be able to get rid of her?

He stood up. “I’ll pour the coffee.”

“None for me!” Reva said, casting David a quick glance and grinning. “My work is looking good at the moment.” She made another quick departure.

“Spencer, damn it, if you’re staying, sit down!” David said, his tone carrying the rough edge of aggravation. Spencer sat, and he poured coffee into two mugs. “Still black, one sugar?” he asked her.

“Yes, please.”

Still black, one sugar. Exactly the way she’d been drinking coffee since high school.

Some things just didn’t change. Like the way he had always felt about her.

He almost slammed her mug down in front of her before returning to the chair behind his desk. He opened a drawer and threw a mile-high pile of folders on top of his blotter. “This is what I’ve been doing all year, Spencer. There are over two hundred interviews in here, notes on people, places, stakeouts. Five of the files are completely closed—they concern homicides Danny was working on that have been solved and could in no way have anything to do with his death. The Vichy case remains open and may remain open forever.”

“Why?”

“You know Eugene Vichy.”

“I know him?”

“He belongs to your yacht club.”

Spencer frowned. He realized that she probably hadn’t been to the yacht club in a very long time.

“He’s fifty-something, white-haired, good-looking, always looks like he just walked off a movie set. His wife, the late Mrs. Vichy, was sixty-something, and not quite so good-looking but very rich. She expired from a knock on the head. The house had been ripped up, some diamonds were missing. Vichy claimed to have come in and found the place in disarray and to have been brokenhearted at the loss of his beloved Vickie.”

“Vickie? Vickie Vichy?” Spencer said.

“You know her?”

She shrugged. “The name sounds vaguely familiar—and absurd—but then, maybe Danny talked about the case. I don’t remember. But why do you think the case will remain unsolved?”

“Because Vichy passed a lie detector test and he still holds to his story.”

“Maybe he’s innocent.”

David shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not for a minute. And neither did Danny.”

Spencer sat forward, suddenly very intense. “So Danny was pressuring this man. And Vichy knew that Danny wouldn’t quit. And he’d already proven himself adept at murder—”

“Spencer, the cops have to have some kind of evidence to make an arrest.”

“Fine. Go on.”

“Go on?”

“Who else is in the suspect lineup?”

“Spencer, you should go home—”

“I’m not going home until you tell me exactly where you are in this investigation.”

“Spencer, I don’t have to tell you anything. I’m not working for you.”

“Then start working for me.”

“No.”

“David, financially I can compete with any other clients you have. I need—”

“Damn it, Spencer!” He’d been planning to remain calm. Understanding. They weren’t kids anymore; too much of life had already cracked them over the head. But there was something about Spencer. He wanted to either hold her or shake her. Shaking her was a whole lot safer. “I can’t be bought, Spencer. You know that.”

“You shouldn’t have to be bought!” she lashed back, trying to keep her anger in check. “He was your best friend. He—”

“Spencer, get out.”

“I won’t leave until you finish.”

“Spencer, I’ll pick you up and put you out!” he warned her.

Her eyes narrowed sharply. “I’ll leave on my own accord. I just want to know what else you’re doing, who else you’re watching.”

He groaned. “They threw you out of the police station, so you’ve come to torture me.”

“David—”

“Yes, Vichy might have been tired of Danny’s determination to prove him guilty,” he snapped coldly, staring out the huge plate-glass window to the garden beyond. A slatted wood fence surrounded the garden, making it private and quiet. A mass of deep purple bougainvillea grew clinging along the fence. Wood chips filled in the space around deep green ferns and impatiens. It was a pleasant and peaceful view, but he felt anything but pleasant or peaceful now. “There are only two other people Danny was investigating who might have had the motive and method to kill him. The first is Ricky Garcia, who—”

Spencer gasped, interrupting him. “I’ve seen the name. In fact, I definitely remember Danny talking about him. He’s a crime boss, the head of a Cuban Mafia-type ring. He controls drug rings and prostitution, gambling—”

“Exactly. He’s as slippery as an eel, as well. He can snap his fingers and find a dozen hit men.”

“Then it must be him,” Spencer whispered, her eyes steady on his. “And there must be a way to trap him.”

“If there is, Spencer, the police—or I—will find it. And there’s no guarantee that Danny actually had anything on him, or that he had anything against Danny. In fact, he liked Danny.”

“He liked Danny?”

“It’s more common than you think for criminals to like the cops who are after them,” he said with a shrug.

“But—”

“Then there’s Trey Delia. You must know that name, as well.”

She nodded, frowning. “He’s the cult leader.”

“He’s not exactly a cult leader.”

“He was the one accused of raiding graves for body parts!” Spencer exclaimed. “For his rituals.”

“He was accused of grave robbing, but the police weren’t so certain he was after body parts. They think he might have been trying to hide evidence. A number of his church members were dying inexplicably. He managed to get most of them cremated. Danny thought he was behind the vandalism in several cemeteries. He was digging up some of his own people and making sure nothing could be found if the police did decide to exhume a few bodies. Now, that’s it, Spencer. I’ve given you every name I’ve got left on my list of possibilities. I haven’t been sitting back idle, I’m doing everything I can. Now I want you to get up, go home and forget it.”

She was up, hands on his desk, staring at him as he stared at her. “I can’t forget—”

“You have to.” He gritted his teeth, wishing again that he didn’t feel the awful urge to either shake her or wrap his arms around her. The last would be one dreadful mistake. She would welcome him with all the warmth and comfort of a porcupine. Nothing would ever be right between them again; Danny’s death had made that an even greater certainty. He needed to keep her away from him. He’d always needed to keep her away from him. Temptation was too great when she was near. And temptation with Spencer was pure torment. He’d learned the hard way that there was nothing in the world quite like wanting Spencer. And nothing in the world quite like the way a man could find his soul wrenched right from his being by the void she could leave in his life. She looked as if she belonged on a pedestal. A blond goddess with her perfect alabaster skin. An Anglo goddess with a perfect pedigree. Yeah, Danny had matched her just perfectly.

“Get out, Spencer.”

“Damn you, David!”

“When I know something, I’ll tell you. If you can do something, I’ll tell you. Until then, leave me the hell alone so that I can keep working.”

“David…”

She fell silent as he approached her with pure menace. He forced himself to close his hands around her arms with some control—but not a lot of it. He turned her bodily around and ushered her out of his office as quickly as he could, wishing even for those few seconds that he didn’t have to touch her at all. He could smell her. He didn’t know what the scent was, only that she had worn it as long as she had worn a bra, that it wasn’t just cologne or perfume, it was soap and body lotion, as well. It was subtle, mixed with something that was just plain Spencer, and it was also intoxicating and sensual. Feelings of guilt instantly began to creep over him, like a crimson tide. He felt the attraction just as he had felt it when Danny was still alive, just as he had felt it when he and Spencer had both been young and a little bit wild and alive with the sheer power of their youth and growing sexuality. He wanted Spencer, he’d always wanted her, had never stopped wanting her, even when she had been married to his best friend. But he would never have touched her when she was Danny’s wife, and as Danny’s widow, somehow she seemed twice as taboo.

“David, damn you,” she began again, as he escorted her past Reva’s desk and through the reception area.

“Say goodbye to Spencer, Reva. She’s got to go out and get on with her life now.”

Reva looked up miserably from her desk. Furious, Spencer snatched her wrists away from David. “Thank you, Reva,” Spencer told his sister; then her eyes, ice blue now, met his. “And thank you, of course. For your unconditional support and assistance!”

“Spencer, how many times can I say this? I swear, I’m doing everything I can!”

“It’s not enough, David. It’s just not enough.”

But that was Spencer’s final volley. She was out the front door of his office. He watched her heels click smartly on the pavement as she marched to the small parking area just off Main Street.

Maybe he should have put his office out on the beach, he thought. Up in Miami Springs, or over on Key Biscayne. Somewhere other than where Spencer had always lived. No, he had always lived here, too. And Spencer and he would be entangled now even if he’d moved his office to Never Never Land.

He turned around. Reva was staring at him. Something seemed to close around his heart. “What?” he snapped to his sister. “You think she’s right? You think there’s something else I can do that I haven’t?”

Reva shook her head, watching him almost sadly. “I know that you’ve spent more than a year trying to trace Danny’s killer,” she told him flatly. “I just feel so sorry for her.”

“Wonderful. She bursts in here like hell on wheels, and you feel bad for poor, poor Spencer.”

Reva ignored that with a shrug. “None of us could believe what happened to Danny. It seemed that everyone in the world loved him. I mean, can you remember a time in our lives when Danny didn’t come through for anyone? And Spencer was married to him. The rest of us may be able to accept that, as awful as it is, the killer will never be found. But Spencer…Spencer will never be able to rest until the case is closed.”