Slow Burn. Heather Graham Pozzessere
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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 sacrifices—chickens and goats, usually, although human body parts were also considered useful, especially by some offshoot groups. Grave robbers had absconded with fingers and toes and the like before.
Today in the office, Audrey had idly pointed out how the grave robbery had seemed to follow a pattern the first time, a pattern that circled the city, then came dead center back into it. And now it seemed that things were happening just the same way again.
Was that what had brought her here?
She had one contact left who no one knew about. Not the police, not anyone. His name was Willie Harper; he lived on the streets in downtown Miami, and though he didn’t have a drug problem, he did like a good bottle of Scotch. Spencer had once been very unhappy about Willie, telling Danny that he was paying the man just to help him kill himself with his alcoholism. But it wasn’t really that bad. Willie was a good sort. Danny paid him well, and before he drank any of it away, he bought food for all his friends, blankets, sometimes even a cheap hotel room for the night. But Willie liked living on the streets. He liked to make money, too. When he’d contacted Spencer, she’d promised to keep paying him for any information he could give her that might help find Danny’s killer.
He’d called her that afternoon—with the same observation that Audrey had made.
She exhaled, leaning against the edge of the small family mausoleum that sheltered her from the view of anyone who might have been driving along the twisting roads that led through the cemetery. The stone felt very cold, and she felt like an absolute idiot for being here. It wasn’t as if she was carrying a gun—or as if she would know how to use one if she did. She had pepper spray in the car—Danny had always insisted she carry it, and he had shown her how to use it. But she hadn’t thought to bring it with her; she wasn’t planning on accosting anyone. She had just come to see what was going on, to make sure that if any grave robbers did come, they wouldn’t touch Danny’s grave or desecrate his tomb in any way.
She started to shiver.
This was nuts. What did she think she was going to do, if someone did show up? Was she going to yell at some ghoul in the middle of a dark cemetery and tell him to stop?
Especially when he might be her husband’s murderer?
It was an old cemetery, filled with trees and foliage. She tried to tell herself that her car was parked relatively close by at the doughnut shop just across Eighth Street, that even though it was very late, the main streets were teeming with people—even though the cemetery did seem unbelievably dark and still and silent, and far from civilization. In fact, there were probably a number of cops eating doughnuts right by her car. But then, that was at least half a mile away.
An owl let out a hoot, and a nearby tree rustled, and she nearly jumped into the mausoleum. She forced herself to remain still and stare toward the tree. Images of Dracula came to her mind. Creatures breaking out of their tombs. Maybe the human monsters from Night of the Living Dead. Werewolves, mummies…
But this wasn’t Egypt, and there was no full moon. In fact, with the clouds, there was barely a moon at all. She felt like an idiot. And she deserved to. She shouldn’t be here. A squirrel had rustled the tree—she could see it now, even in the shadows, leaping from the ground to a monument, and then to another tree. No creatures from beyond the grave were going to come after her. In fact, she’d gone through a period of mourning when she’d lain awake at night just praying that Danny could come back as a ghost, in voice, in spirit—in anything. But Danny hadn’t come back. It was just as her father had once told her, the dead were the least threatening people in the world.
No, it wasn’t the dead she had to fear. It was the living.
The cloud broke over the moon, and a silver light fell down on the cemetery. It was time to go home, she told herself. A very light fog was rising, and it was growing cool and damp and uncomfortable here. It was time to go crawling over the wall and go home. Nothing was going to happen. Unless she was arrested in her black jeans and black denim shirt and sneakers for breaking into the cemetery. No, the cops would never arrest her. They would just suggest to someone in her family that Danny’s death had been her undoing, and that it was sad, but she really ought to be put away somewhere—fast.
She started to move, but then a chill swept over her again, and for some reason she couldn’t fathom, she stood dead still. She tried not to give way to flights of imagination, but the fog had added a strange feeling to the graveyard. It was a ground fog, deepening, swirling around marble images of Christ and praying angels. She heard a rustling sound again, and this was different. Something much larger than a squirrel was coming around one of the old oaks just down the trail past the vault she was leaning against.
She breathed quickly, her heart hammering. She could hear footsteps; then a figure appeared. Then another figure, and another, all dressed in black. Carrying spades and picks. They emerged in silence from the fog, walking her way. Walking as if they were staring right at her.
They couldn’t possibly see her; it was just coincidence that they were heading in her direction. Her fingers icy, her heart slamming so loudly that she was certain someone would hear it, she ducked very low against the mausoleum.
“Where?” someone demanded in whisper.
“There, in the center,” someone whispered back.
Keeping low, Spencer swung around. She noticed what she hadn’t seen before in the darkness—a new grave, the earth just packed over it. This was crazy, she thought. They were living in the twentieth century, and people weren’t just dumped underground, they were well protected before being placed in their graves. But apparently these grave robbers knew what they were doing. They moved furtively and quickly, six of them, she counted, and every one of the six carrying a tool with which to dig—or to break open a coffin. She wasn’t even sure just what all the tools they carried were, exactly.
She couldn’t tell one man from another—if they were all men. They were dressed much like she was, in black, but they wore black caps, as well, and ski masks. They looked like bank robbers, she thought, and realized that hysteria was bubbling up inside her. The way they were moving, she had to inch around the mausoleum to keep from being seen. When she had rounded a corner, she sat on the earth, her back flat against the stone, staring into the night. She couldn’t get up and run now; she would be seen. She could only sit where she was, barely daring to breathe, listening.
She heard the sound of spades hitting the earth. Somehow, just the sound made her flinch. She twisted to peer around the corner of the small mausoleum. As she did, her sneakered foot scraped against a rock.
It was a small noise. It shouldn’t have been heard, not against the determined shoves of the spades digging into the earth. But somehow…