Slow Burn by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page B

continued to scan the paper.
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    Jon Monteith, Jared’s father, Spencer’s uncle, lay his head wearily on his pillow.
    If only they could let matters rest!
    After all, it hadn’t been a drive-by shooting, and any fool knew Spencer wasn’t guilty. It hadn’t been robbery.
    So why kill a cop?
    It was simple. The way he saw it, the cop had known too much.
    A cop learned things on the streets. He was an investigator. He found things out, and sometimes he was careful about telling even his associates what he knew.
    And pursuing what was going on could be dangerous. Danny had been bright. Danny had been on to so many things. And with Spencer raising a fuss and the newspapers going crazy, things were bound to happen.
    Yes…
    A veritable Pandora’s box could fly right open.
    He swore and groaned.
    Spencer had come home, and she wouldn’t let things rest. She just didn’t know what was good for her.
    Spencer was one royal pain in the ass.
    He picked up the phone and waited for an answer. “Have you seen the headline?”
    â€œYes,” came the reply. “I’m on it. I’ve been on it, damn it!”
    â€œMake sure you stay on it. Make damned sure, because if you don’t…”
    He let the force of the husky threat fade, then replaced the receiver with a sharp click.
    Accidents did happen. Oh, yes. Accidents did happen.

3
    T here were at least a hundred good reasons she shouldn’t be in a cemetery in the dead of night, Spencer thought.
    And the longer she stood in the darkness, the longer the list became and the more foolish her errand seemed to be.
    It was just that…she had to do something. Someone had to do something. She had tried very hard to let the police do their work. She had even understood when they had grilled her, relentlessly, apologetically, relentlessly again. She applauded their efforts—at least it had seemed as if they were traveling along every possible avenue.
    And she even believed—no, she knew —that David Delgado would have stopped at nothing to catch Danny’s killer.
    It was just that they weren’t doing enough.
    She’d gone away for a long time. She’d stopped working for a while, but idleness had been sheer misery. She knew that she couldn’t bring Danny back. But she also knew that she would never be able to live the new life David was ordering her to until she had laid Danny’s ghost to rest by seeing his killer caught.
    But this…this was probably sheer stupidity. She might not find out anything, and she might well be mugged by some petty thief. Or worse. The casual crime in South Florida was as scary as the acts committed with premeditated malice.
    Sly was worried about her, she knew. It was because of the beam that had collapsed in the old house she’d been working on last week. But the place had practically been condemned, and she’d only agreed to work on it because her cousin Jared had set up a meeting with an ace architect and one of the best builders in the city. And it had been a gracious old place, designed by DeGarmo, with fantastic huge beams in the ceiling, the original tiles and stenciling—all crying out to be saved. The beam could have fallen on anyone, and it hadn’t actually fallen on her. It had missed her by several inches. She wouldn’t have thought anything of it, herself, but Sly had been with her….
    A cloud rolled over the moon. It was very dark. A breeze suddenly stirred against the humidity and heat of the night, and she was startled to feel a creeping sensation of cold sweep over her.
    The paper today had carried a wealth of information. The grave robbers were at it again, and the police again suspected Trey Delia’s offshoot of Santeria. Santeria was indeed a strange religion, from what Spencer knew of it. It was a form of Catholicism mixed with some very odd theologies from the islands. Its rituals often called for live