Free Slow Burn by Heather Graham

Sly.”
    â€œDamn it, David—”
    â€œTake it up with Sly, Spencer. He thinks you’re in danger.”
    â€œBut I’m not!”
    â€œAnd as of tonight, I agree with him. Hell, Spencer, you’re a damned danger to yourself, if nothing else. Don’t forget the alarm,” he said again.
    â€œDavid, I’m telling you—”
    â€œDon’t tell me, Spencer. Tell Sly.”
    â€œDamn you—” she began, but he’d managed to exit, pulling the door shut behind him. She slammed the door, just as she had slammed his back, swearing.
    â€œThe alarm, Spencer!” he called back to her.
    She told him what he should go do to himself.
    â€œThe alarm!”
    She set the damned alarm, then turned away from the door, hurrying for the kitchen. She had good brandy somewhere, and she had never wanted a swallow of it more.
    She downed half a snifter in a gulp, then stood there as it warmed her. Dear God, what a night. She knew what a stupid move she’d made. She’d been scared out of half of her hair pigment, but in the end they’d caught someone, and something might be solved because of that.
    Might be. They hadn’t been after Danny’s grave, no one knew yet what had really been going on. But…
    But something might come of it.
    David was following her. Sly had hired David to follow her. Oh, God. Sly had paid David to watch her. The last thing she wanted in her life was David following her, watching her.
    Oh, God. She poured more brandy and gulped that down, too. And then she had some more.
    It might be nearly three o’clock in the morning, but brandy was the only way in hell she was ever going to get to sleep tonight.

4
    S ometimes the past seemed forever away. And sometimes, especially in dreams, it felt as if it had never gone away.
    It was almost as if she was there again, on that long-ago day by the rock pit where they all congregated after school. She had been sixteen, David and some of the others were almost eighteen then. The dream had texture and taste. She could feel the stinging warmth of the sun.
    It probably wasn’t such a great place for them to be. There certainly wasn’t any kind of supervision. The water was very clear, so clear that you could swim down and see all the wrecked cars that had gone off or been dumped. The boys liked to tease the girls and tell them that there were still bodies in the trunks of the cars, that there were a few skeletons still sitting right in the front seats, as well. “But we all know that’s not real,” Cecily would inform them regally. “Boys just like to scare girls. It’s easier to get into a girl’s pants if she’s scared. At least, that’s what boys think,” she assured them all.
    â€œAll” meant their group, one they had formed when they were around twelve and pretty much kept together ever since. Danny Huntington was the leader of the male pack, with Spencer’s cousin Jared coming in a close second. Then there were Ansel Rhodes and George Manger, followers to the core. And then, paradoxically a part and yet not a part, there was David Delgado.
    It wasn’t that they didn’t want him in their group—they did. It was funny. When they had been even younger and Danny had first dragged him in, they’d all stuck their noses up just a bit. David just didn’t come from the same kind of family. He spoke Spanish as easily as he spoke English. He was dark; even his eyes were dark, though they were blue, not the black they often appeared. His clothes were mended and remended, and a lot of the time he couldn’t do things because he had chores to take care of for his grandfather. But he didn’t seem to resent not having a good time.
    Then, suddenly, he was in school with them. He worked hard; Spencer saw him staying after school to study almost every day. It was a hard school; homework took about three hours a night. Unless, of course,