Slow Burn (28 page)

“I don't know whether Cecily is right or not,” she said. She was lying. He could tell. She knew, or at least she suspected. “But I…”

“What?”

“I wouldn't get—an abortion.”

He felt dizzy. Thank God. Thank God for every little favor…

She stared at him. “Danny…Danny came out that day to—to tell you he was coming home. We…”

“You were trying to make a baby,” David said, looking out over the water himself.

She winced. “Damn it!” she said, suddenly fierce. “You knew!”

“He was my best friend, Spencer. Yes, I knew you two were trying to plan a family.” He hesitated. “And I did find you naked except for a black tie that day.”

“It's just not fair,” she whispered. “He wanted a baby so badly, and now—it's like God is laughing at us. At me.”

Suddenly irritated, David stood, then reached down and caught her by the shoulders, drawing her to her feet. “Danny is dead. I'm sorry. You're sorry. We both loved him, and neither of us would ever have wanted anything to happen to him. Damn it, Spencer, if you loved him so much, remember what he was like! He would have wanted you to be happy.”

She jerked her shoulders free, stepping back. She didn't want to hear this. Not from him. And certainly not now. “I'd like to go home,” she told him.

“Fine.” He pointed to the boat. “Sorry. There's no choice but to go back the way we came.”

She nodded and kept staring at him. Under other circumstances he might have smiled. He'd never seen Spencer Anne Montogmery—Huntington—look so lost in her life.

She walked into the water and started swimming. Once again he followed behind her, climbing up the stern ladder first when they reached the boat, then extending a hand to help her up. She hesitated for a second.

“Dammit, Spencer.”

She grasped his hand, a flash of anger in her eyes, and disappeared into the cabin as soon as she was aboard.

Spencer showered and changed. He stayed in his salty, ruined trousers and bare feet.

Just before they made it to the club, she appeared on deck. Her makeup was gone, her face fresh scrubbed, and she was still pale. But her eyes were clear.

She helped him tie up the yacht, but when he would have leaped off, leaving her alone, she called his name. “David.”

“What?” he asked warily.

“I'm sorry. I don't even know if this is happening yet, but I didn't mean to be so hateful. I just need some time. I suppose I need to find out if it's true, as well.”

He nodded, leaped to the dock, then reached for her. She stepped out alongside him, wearing a soft, sleeveless yellow knit dress and sandals. She walked ahead of him to the parking lot, then paused.

“Sly is gone, remember? My car,” he whispered against her ear.

Her shoulders squared, but she followed him without a word. He opened the passenger door, seated her, then settled into the driver's seat.

“Home?” he asked her.

“Yes, please. Wait, no. I've got to go to the office for my car.”

At least she seemed to be coming back to the land of the living, he thought, driving through Coconut Grove to her office. Traffic was already growing heavy. There were a number of private shools along the winding roads that hugged the bay, and every day at about this time, things started to clog up with school buses and parents out to pick up their kids.

His heart suddenly seemed to quicken. Kids…The world was full of them. He liked them. He'd always liked them. Their enthusiasm, their trust. Their belief in miracles and in magic. He'd always wanted them, too. He wanted to share his father's dream of freedom with them. The dream of success in America that Michael MacCloud had given his grandchildren. He wanted them to feel the sun, to learn to sail, to grow in this melting-pot community where all things were possible.

And, once upon a time, he'd even dared to want children with Spencer.

He was glad his hands were on the wheel. Otherwise they would have been trembling, and he didn't want her to see just how shaken he was.

He reached the offices of Montgomery Enterprises and let her out by the door. “I'll see you at the house,” he told her.

She nodded and tried to close the car door, but he held it open. “Spencer?”

“Yes?”

“You're still in danger. You know that. I have to keep my promise to Sly, whether you want to see me or not.”

“I'm not arguing,” she told him, then closed the door and disappeared into the office.

He stared after her a moment, then dialed Jimmy on the cellular phone. “Can you make it here quickly? I want a tail on her at all times now.”

“Sure. I'll just drive right over the school buses,” Jimmy said cheerfully. David started to reply, then realized that Jimmy was already on his way. He smiled and clicked off.

There was a lot he had to do, he thought as he drove away. For one thing, he had to spend some time with Mr. Gene Vichy. Plus he needed to find Willie, get back to the Newport police and check in with his contacts on the Miami force.

Today, they could all wait.

Spencer saw Jimmy when she left her office. She waved to him, trying hard to look calm, though she felt anything but.

As she drove home, she wondered how Cecily had realized what was going on before she did herself. Anyway, Cecily could be wrong, damn it. Cecily and her fixation with pre-baby bodies!

True, she hadn't been feeling quite right. Not bad, really, just not great. But that didn't mean anything.

It was just that she was usually as regular as clockwork. So regular that she didn't even think about it. Of course, she was under a lot of stress….

She reached her house and got out of her car mechanically, then headed for the door as Jimmy pulled up behind her car.

She was trying to find the right key on her ring when she looked up.

David was there, standing on the front porch, waiting for her. He took the keys from her fingers.

“David,” she whispered uneasily. “I need a little bit of time to think—”

“So do I,” he said flatly. “But I want to know what I'm thinking about.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that it's time to find out if we've got a plus or a minus sign.”

“But I don't have—”

He held up a small bag from the drugstore. “But I do. Moment of truth, Spencer. Then I'll leave you alone and give you time. I swear it.”

She felt as if the blood had drained from her face, her whole body. The possibility of a plus sign…

She almost started laughing, but she didn't dare, because she would have laughed until she cried again.

 

He'd changed cars. He was certain Delgado had seen the blue sedan, so now he was using a ten-year-old black Mercedes coupe.

Didn't matter. He couldn't park on her block any longer. He didn't even dare get too close to the house, but that was all right. He'd dressed as a meter reader that morning and combed his way through the nearby backyards, ripping up enough foliage to get a good, straight line of vision from the street where he was parked alongside the Huntington house to the cars parked in the front. Now he could tell who was coming and going, and when.

He picked up his car phone. “Mrs. Huntington is home. Delgado got here first and waited for her at the door. Larimore came up behind them, but he's gone now. I think Delgado and Mrs. Huntington are in for the night.”

“What makes you think that?”

He snickered. “Just a hunch.”

There was a moment's silence while a conversation went on at the other end of the line. Then, “Stay with them,” followed by a click, then static.

He continued to stare at the house, wondering if he should risk a walk through the foliage to the fence again. No, they wouldn't be out by the pool again. They'd known he'd been watching. Delgado had almost caught him.

He wondered what the boss would decide to do about the woman. If the boss decided to whack her…

What a waste. He sure as hell hoped he'd get a chance with her first.

He got out of the car, unable to sit any longer, his imagination on fire. He wasn't supposed to be taking risks, but he was in a new car. The cops weren't around; the one P.I. had already taken off. And Delgado would be…involved.

He walked forward another step, finding a knoll, trying to peer over the fence.

A branch crackled behind him, and he spun around. Too late.

Something smashed into his face with the power of a steel battering ram. Dimly, just before the blackness descended, he heard the cracking sound as his nose broke.

“T
his is insane. I don't owe you anything, and I don't have to agree to anything.”

“Humor me.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm trying to keep you alive.”

“Well, I can't very well humor you. The directions say that you're supposed to test in the morning.”

They were standing in Spencer's kitchen. With a great deal of marked aggravation she'd taken the bag from him, the box from the bag and the instructions from the box. Then she'd poured herself a glass of wine, which he'd snatched away. Next she had gone for a diet soda. He hadn't liked that, either.

“May I have water?”

“I don't know. Is there lead in the pipes?”

“Oh, will you stop?”

“No.”

“We don't even know whether—”

“So take the test.” At that point he took the instructions from her.

“Spencer…look. It doesn't matter if you test first thing in the morning if it's after the first few days.”

She snatched the paper back. “It hasn't been long enough.”

“You're lying.”

“I don't believe this!”

She grabbed the box and started out of the kitchen toward the stairs.

He was right behind her.

She swung on him. “What do you think you're doing?”

“I don't trust you.”

“You are not following me any farther. I draw the line at that. So help me God, David, I mean it.”

His knuckles whitened around the banister. “Swear to God you'll be honest.”

She hesitated.

“Spencer?”

She exhaled. “Yes.”

He walked away, and she started up the stairs. She could hear his footsteps as he paced the living room.

The test took less than a minute to perform, but you weren't supposed to check the results for at least three minutes, so Spencer set the little white stick on the back of the commode and stared at her pale reflection.

She was amazed to realize that she was feeling a flicker of excitement. If only the circumstances had been different….

She closed her eyes. She didn't know how she felt. Her emotions were in a tremendous uproar. It had hurt so badly at first to think how hard she had tried with Danny. This possibility had seemed too ironic, the most incredible joke. And now…

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.