Slow Burn

Slow Burn by Heather Graham Page A

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Authors: Heather Graham
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take a switch to, young lady!” he muttered aloud.
    Well, that was the hell of it. Spencer was a grown-up. He couldn’t take a switch to her. He couldn’t insist that she move in with him for a while. He couldn’t force sense into her, couldn’t tell her that it would be better for her to live a full life rather than discover who had killed Danny if it meant dying herself.
    He read the article again. He would talk to David Delgado later, but for the moment, he wanted to read between the lines again. He did. And decided maybe it wouldn’t matter if he talked to David later or not. He could pretty much tell the story.
    Spencer had somehow gotten wind that the grave-robbing ghouls might be coming to Danny’s cemetery. She’d gone, and David had been on the job. Just like he’d promised, however grudgingly. He hadn’t wanted to follow Spencer, and Sly was no fool; he knew why. Some things just didn’t go away when you grew up. You could get old, you could think yourself past the hurts and the desires that had plagued you when you were young, but they were still there, lurking in the heart. No, you just didn’t get past some things, no matter what.
    Maybe that was bad. And maybe that was good. Maybe it meant that whether he liked it or not, David would stick to Spencer like glue.
    The phone started ringing. Sly rose to answer it, certain that he knew who was calling.
    Jerry Fried, Danny Huntington’s last partner in the homicide division, sat down at his desk and stared at the memo in front of him. At fifty-five, he was getting too old for this shit. He ran his fingers through his cap of snow-white hair and hunched over, thinking he needed to exercise more. Walk, at least. He still cut a fairly decent figure in and out of uniform, but it seemed to get harder and harder. His paunch was threatening to protrude over his belt.
    He hadn’t been on duty last night; he hadn’t heard a thing about the graveyard arrest until he’d come in this morning. Now everyone was talking about it. And there was this damned memo on his desk from the lieutenant.
    So they had Delia in custody now. And Danny’s widow had something to do with it. Tall, slim, elegant, Mrs. Huntington had managed to get herself into the right cemetery when the police hadn’t been able to add up two and two and get four. Why couldn’t she believe that the police always took care of their own? And why couldn’t she just stay out of all this? Keep out of harm’s way? If she kept messing where she shouldn’t be, there was going to be trouble. Big trouble. And she was going to be in danger.
    Danny Huntington…He’d been dead more than a year now, but he still seemed to haunt Jerry’s every waking moment. Danny had been so damned popular. The rich boy, playing cop. Because he wanted to know the streets, real life. Everyone had liked Danny. Everyone. The politicians. The police brass. The guys on the force. The frigging crooks had even liked Danny. And Danny had known things he hadn’t thought to share with his own partner!
    Jerry groaned and put his head down on his desk, spilling his morning coffee as he did.
    He sat up, swearing at Danny’s widow once again. Danny Huntington just couldn’t seem to stay buried.
    Â 
    Cecily Monteith lounged in the sitting room adjacent to her bedroom, sipping the coffee that Maria, her maid, had just set on the table along with her toast—done well, but not burned, just touched with margarine, not butter, the crusts carefully trimmed off—and read the paper with a growing sense of dread and unease.
    Jared, in a tailored shirt, stood in the doorway, slipping a tie around his neck, struggling with the knot, then scowling and swearing profusely. “You’d think Sly Montgomery would come to terms with the modern world. It’s hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk today. Everyone has gone casual, but that old man still

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