Slow Burn (26 page)

He moulded the curves of her backside with his palm, then brought his hand in front, rubbing his knuckles against her even as he all but devoured her mouth, forcing entry with his tongue, so damned hungry that he was determined to force the fire that filled him to leap to her as well. A sound escaped her, but barely. She was stiff, but just briefly. Then her fingers were on his cheek, his shoulders. Running down the length of his back. Nails just brushing his buttocks.

He caught her hand. Curled the fingers around his thrusting sex. Groaned against her mouth.

Her lips broke free of his. “We shouldn't be doing this,” she told him, her voice rasping.

“I know.”

They shouldn't be doing this. But he would shoot himself if they didn't. She stroked him, and then her fingers dipped lower, cradled his balls. He groaned again. The bikini bra had a hook in front, and he popped it open, then leaned forward and caught a taut pink nipple between his teeth.

“David…This is crazy,” she gasped.

“Yeah. It's one of the definitions of insanity, you know,” he told her.

She shook her head, blue eyes on him, confused.

He smiled. “This is crazier than you think. Going in circles. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. We'll make love. You'll cry. I'll go away furious with myself. Right?”

“Then don't—”

“No.” He pressed a finger to her lips. “Just call me fucking insane,” he told her.

He lifted her suddenly, setting her on the tile edge of the pool. Then he parted her thighs and buried his face between them. She cried out, trembling. Seconds later, she cried out again, and he caught her hips, dragging her into the water, on top of him, slowly, impaling her as he lowered her. She seemed to close around his shaft like flowing lava. He held her against the side of the pool, shuddering with the force of his desire as he slammed into her, his arms around her, holding her.

This seemed like the only true drive in life. But it was a little like dying, as well. Finally his force was spent. The hunger exploded, shattered. Exploded from his body, swept into hers. She was limp, arms around him, holding him.

He didn't move. For the longest time, he simply didn't move.

 

Hell and damnation. He couldn't believe what he'd seen tonight. He'd been all but glued to the narrow slit in the fence, but,
cono,
what a night. And it was even sweeter because he'd eluded the cop sitting out front.

He leaned closer for a better look. His knees trembling, and his blood racing, he eased one foot back.

 

David shifted at last. She was shivering. The night air was cool, the water a shade warmer. But the intense heat of the day was gone. Chills were setting into her.

Either that or she was sobbing again.

“Don't cry!” he told her. “Damn you, don't start crying again!”

“I'm not crying,” she grated out.

He started to set her down so he could look in her eyes.

Then they both heard it. A snap in the foliage beyond the fence.

“Son of a bitch!” David swore. He was out of the water in a flash, wrenching on his jeans in one fluid motion. He didn't try for his shirt or shoes, but leaped for the fence, half jumping, half crawling up it.

He leaped down the other side as a car engine revved from the other side of the block.

He tore through the brush tripping over a sprinkler in the yard behind Spencer's.

Some bright dog finally started to bark.

He hit the street just as a car went flying along it.

A blue sedan.

S
pencer dispensed with the idea of trying to find the pieces of her suit quickly, leaped from the pool and dived for her beach robe. As she huddled into it, she felt absolutely ill. Violated.

Someone had been out there. Watching them.

She nearly screamed when David suddenly—and all but silently—vaulted over the fence into the yard. She stared at him, pale and stricken, but he ignored her, walking to the open French doors. “Get in and lock up,” he told her.

“Should I set the alarm?”

“I'll do it from the front. What the hell happened to Harris?” he demanded.

He was talking more to himself than to her, Spencer realized.

She locked up the back and followed him to the front door. He was looking out into the night in disgust.

“Gone. He was supposed to call in if he was going to leave the house. Damn him! We could have had our man!”

“Did you see—”

“I saw a blue sedan. Speeding away. There isn't a prayer of catching it now. I've got to call in and report our peeping Tom. And find out about Harris. You can call it a night, if you want.”

He was almost casual. Very matter-of-fact. Ignoring what had just happened.

Spencer felt as if she were a vivid crimson hue from her hair roots to her toenails. “You can't call it in. What are you going to say?”

“I'm going to say someone was in the bushes, staring in through the fence!” he told her.

“They'll ask questions.”

He set his hands on his hips. “Don't worry. I won't report just what Danny's widow, Saint Spencer, was doing.”

“Fuck you, David.”

He arched a brow. “Again? Twice in one night? This could become habit-forming.”

She spun around, starting for the stairs. She was going to start crying again, but he would never understand why. Not when she couldn't articulate her feelings, even to herself. Not when they were so confused. If only he wouldn't mock her.

But maybe he had to. She had hurt him badly once. And David was a careful man. He wasn't going to leave himself vulnerable a second time. Not with her.

She started up the stairs, turning back at the landing. “You sure as hell can't blame tonight on me!” she told him.

“I don't know. I think maybe bikinis fall into the same category as towels, robes and nakedness.”

“David, you are a—”

“Spencer, I'm not blaming anything on you, all right? Any time, any thing, I take full responsibility for what I do, okay?”

She turned without answering and walked to her room, where she paced the floor. She could hear him on the phone. He seemed to be talking forever.

He was probably on with Oppenheim. Robbery and homicide were handled by different divisions, but in situations like this, where the two cases ran together, the different units worked together well. More men would probably come out and look for more clues. Which would be fine—as long as they didn't question her.

She hesitated, then went to the linen closet and found an extra pillow. After slipping it into a pillowcase and taking the matching sheets, she went to the top of the stairs. She couldn't hear him talking anymore.

“David?”

He came to stand at the foot of the steps and she threw the bedding down to him. “The daybed is much more comfortable than the stairs,” she told him.

He caught the pillow, but the sheets ended up draped over the banister.

“Thanks,” he told her.

Spencer nodded coolly, then turned and went to her bedroom.

Lying down on her bed, she stared at the picture of her and Danny together at the amusement park. Fingers trembling, tears stinging her eyes, she turned the picture facedown. She was going to start flat-out crying again. But tonight it was different, she realized.

She wasn't crying for Danny anymore. Tonight she was crying for herself.

 

David made up the daybed, then walked around the house, checking windows, doors, bolts, locks and the alarm. Finally he stretched out to rest. The daybed actually
was
fairly comfortable.

You know, he told himself, if you're going to keep starting things with Spencer, it's too bad you don't do it at bedtime. Sleeping might be a hell of a lot more comfortable that way.

No. He didn't want to wind up in Danny's bed with Danny's widow again. He would just have her in the pool instead, he mocked himself.

And
he
had been ready to admonish poor Jimmy for the way he had been behaving!

He tossed and turned in bed, the sheets twisting around him. When he got his hands on Harris, he was going to twist his neck, he thought angrily.

What the hell was going on here? Last night it had been someone small in Frye boots, tonight a voyeur in a blue sedan. The same person? Two different people?

And
why?

 

The doorbell was ringing. David rose, blinking in the sunlight, and went to answer the summons, certain it was Jimmy, come to take his turn on watch. He stumbled to the door and looked through the peephole.

Sly was standing on the walk.

Sly, in a white-and-gold shirt and beige shorts, standing ramrod straight, as always, but just a little bit thin now for his height. David stepped back, turned off the alarm and opened the door.

“Mornin',” Sly said. “Everything all right?”

“Ah…yeah.” David wasn't ready to tell Sly too much yet.

“Coffee ready?” Sly asked.

“Spencer's not up yet,” David began, but Spencer
was
up. She was coming down the stairway in bare feet and a sundress, blond hair pulled into a ponytail at the back of her head.

“Sly!”

“I've come to take you to breakfast,” her grandfather told her. “Both of you.”

“Sorry, Sly, I can't go. I've got a little bit of catching up to do this morning,” David said.

Sly gave David the once-over. “You do look like pure hell, boy.”

“Thanks,” David acknowledged dryly.

“Spencer, I won't take no from you,” Sly said.

“I have no intention of refusing you,” Spencer said. “You can come to church with me after.” She glanced at her watch. “Or first. I'll just get some shoes and a purse. You can let David out for me, right? Unless he wants to make some coffee for you?”

“Are you kidding?” Sly said. “I've had his coffee!”

“Jimmy should be here any second, right?” Spencer said, staring at David. “Maybe he'd like to come to breakfast with us, too, Sly.” Watching David, Spencer shivered. Why on earth had she baited him that way?

Then David looked over at Sly. “That's Jimmy pulling up outside right now. He'll be taking the day shift. And I'm sure he'd enjoy breakfast.” He shifted his attention to Spencer, his eyes suddenly cold. “He seems to enjoy everything Spencer has to offer.”

David turned and disappeared into the family room, returning a moment later with his shirt and shoes in his hands. He didn't even bother to put them on. He just told Sly goodbye and walked out.

Spencer felt ill again, worse than she had felt yet. Maybe she
was
getting an ulcer. Her emotions had been gnawing away at her insides for a long time now, but she caused so much of her pain herself. She wondered if there was a way to tell David that she was finally coming to terms with herself over Danny's death.

She wondered if there was a way to tell David anything.

 

David went home to shower and shave, then drove to his office. He began going through his files while he hit the play button on the phone answering machine. The first three messages were inquiries about his services. He would have Reva get back to them on Monday.

The fourth call had come from the police lab downtown. The cops had combed the bushes and the ground outside Spencer's fence again. This time they'd found only one fairly mangled print, but the lab had identified it as a size-twelve Rockport men's loafer.

The fifth call caused him to stop dead still. It had come from one of the officers who'd been investigating the accident in Rhode Island.

“We're not sure if this is anything or not yet, Mr. Delgado, but the rental agency called us about something rather strange. The mechanic who'd worked on the car Mrs. Huntington rented disappeared a few days after the accident. Of course, the agency blamed it on us, saying we'd destroyed his confidence with our questions or some crap like that. But when we tried to check him out further, we couldn't come up with anything on him. All the information he'd given on his application was false. We checked his social security number and discovered it belongs to someone who's been dead for nearly twenty years. Anyway, we got one of his fingerprints off a tool he used, and you'll never guess…he was an ex-con. He'd escaped from prison, where he was serving ten to twelve on an armed robbery conviction. And guess who he'd last been working for? A man I'm sure you know. Ricky Garcia. That's all we've got so far, but if I can be of any more help, give me a call. The number here is—”

David was already dialing as he listened.

 

Spencer spent the entire day with Sly. And Jimmy.

It was surprisingly nice, relaxing. Over breakfast she toyed with the idea of mentioning that she wanted to go to the yacht club for lunch on Monday, but she was afraid that Sly would just turn around and tell David, ruining her chance to meet with Vichy. As far as she knew, David still felt she was safe when she was at work, so he wouldn't be watching her tomorrow, leaving her free to inveigle Sly into taking her to the club.

After church and breakfast, they went by the house Spencer had told Sandy she planned to buy, since she still had the keys. As far as she was concerned, it was already her house.

“Are you buying this place just because it's close to me?” Sly asked.

“You know me better than that,” she said.

“Are you?”

She shrugged. “It
is
a bonus that you're just down the street.”

“What are you going to do with your place?”

“Sell it, I guess. I don't need two houses. And it's going to cost a fortune to fix this place up.”

Sly looked around slowly, staring up the stairs to the balcony. Spencer shivered, remembering how frightened she had been when she stood there with Jared.

It must have been her imagination! With everything else going on, she was crazy to be frightened of her cousin.

“What's wrong, Spencer?” Sly asked, sensing her changed mood.

“Nothing.”

“You look scared.”

“Nothing's scaring
me. You're
the fussbudget.”

“A man gets no respect once he gets old.”

“No whining. You're younger than guys who could be your grandsons. Age is just a state of mind, remember?”

“I remember, but my kidneys don't always. And let me warn you, young lady, youth is no guarantee of safety!”

“Ah, but I have a grandfather to set guards on me day and night.”

“Come on, it's not that bad.”

She remembered how frightened she had been with Jared the other day and realized that she was actually grateful to be guarded day and night. She just wasn't sure she was grateful that the guard was so often David.

“Let me show you the rest of the house.” She looked around him to Jimmy. “Want to see the rest?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said politely.

She smiled, starting through the living room. Jimmy was absolutely unimpressed with the house. All he could see was the decay. He was being polite.

He was being a marvelous watchdog.

 

She decided to cook that night. Roast leg of lamb, new potatoes, asparagus, salad with her own raspberry vinaigrette.

She didn't know if she was calm because she was hoping David would appear, or glad and relaxed because he didn't. In any case, Jimmy and Sly were both very complimentary about the meal.

Sly left about nine, and Jimmy told her that he was going to keep vigil in front of the house.

At eleven she gave up waiting for David and went to bed, where she lay awake, praying for her inner tension to unwind. She couldn't go on living like this. Something had to break—fast.

Sometime after twelve she fell asleep.

Sometime after two she woke up again.

She looked out the window. David was standing vigil now, leaning against his car.

Half of her wanted to go down and insist he come inside. The other half of her wanted him to go away. Far, far away.

She lay down. She had to stay away from him, she thought, the tension within her knotting even more tightly. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. Pounded her pillow. Rose, paced. Lay down and pounded her pillow again.