Deadly Heat

ONE

NYPD Homicide detective Nikki Heat double-parked her gray Crown Victoria behind the coroner van and strode toward the pizza joint where a body waited. A uniform in short sleeves finger-looped the caution tape for her to duck under, and when she straightened up on the other side, Heat stopped, letting her gaze fall down Broadway. At that moment, twenty blocks south, her boyfriend, Jameson Rook, was taking bows at a Times Square press event to celebrate publication of his big new article. An article so big the publisher had made it the cover story to launch the magazine’s Web site. Heat should have been happy. Instead she felt gut-ripped. Because his big article was about her.

She took one step to go inside, but only one. That corpse wasn’t going anywhere, and Heat needed a moment to curse herself for helping Rook write it.

A few weeks before, when she gave him her blessing to chronicle her investigation into the murder of her mom, it had seemed like a good idea. Well, maybe not a good idea, just a prudent one. Heat’s dramatic capture of the surprise killer after more than a decade became hot news, and Rook put it bluntly: Somebody would write this story. Would she prefer a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist or some tabloid hack?

Rook’s interviews were intense and took both days of a weekend. With his digital recorder as sentry, Heat started with Thanksgiving eve, 1999. She and her mom were about to bake pies, and Nikki called her from the spice aisle of the supermarket, only to hear her mother get stabbed to death over the phone while she ran home, frantic and helpless. She told Rook about changing her college major from theater to criminal justice so she could become a cop instead of the actress she’d dreamed of becoming. “Murder,” she said, “changes everything.”

Heat shared with him her frustration in the quest for justice during the decade that followed. And her shock a month ago when a break came and a suitcase that had been stolen from her mother’s apartment the night of her murder turned up at one of Nikki’s crime scenes-with a woman’s body inside it. The path to solve the fresh homicide of the lady in the luggage put Heat on an unexpected journey into her mother’s hidden past. The trail led to Paris, where Nikki was stunned to learn that Cynthia Heat had been a spy for the CIA. Instead of the piano tutor she pretended to be, her mom had used music instruction as a cover to gain access to spy on the homes of diplomats and industrialists.

Nikki learned all this at the deathbed of her mother’s old CIA controller, Tyler Wynn. But, spies being spies, the old man had only faked his death to throw her off. Nikki discovered this the hard way when her mom’s mentor showed up, gun in hand, to relieve her of the secret, incriminating documents Cynthia Heat had died over. Why? Because Cynthia Heat had discovered that her trusted friend, Tyler Wynn, was a traitor.

During the interview, Nikki confessed she didn’t have to imagine her mother’s sense of betrayal. She had felt it herself when her college boyfriend, Petar, stepped out of the shadows beside Wynn, holding his own gun on her. And, more deeply, as the old spy slipped away with the pouch of damning evidence and a final instruction to Nikki’s ex, to kill her-just as Petar had killed her mother.

At that point, Rook had paused his Olympus recorder to change batteries, but really to allow Nikki to gather herself emotionally. When they resumed, she admitted that, in her heart, she’d always assumed once she captured her mom’s murderer, the wound could finally scar over. Instead, everything tore open and bled. The pain didn’t lessen, it seared. Yes, she managed to arrest Petar, but the mastermind who called the shots had escaped and gone off the grid. And Petar would be no help tracking him. Not after one of Wynn’s other accomplices brazenly poisoned his jail cell dinner.

Heat opened up to Rook with an intimacy she couldn’t have imagined a year ago when she got saddled with the celebrity journalist for a research ride-along. Pre-Rook, Nikki had always believed that there were two pairs of natural enemies in this world-cops and robbers, and cops and writers. That belief softened in last summer’s heat wave, when they ended up falling in love working their first case. Softened, maybe, but even as lovers, cops and writers would never have it easy. And this relationship constantly tested them.

The first test had come last autumn when the product of Rook’s homicide squad ride-along got published as a national magazine cover story, and Nikki’s face stared out at her from newsstands for a month. That attention made her uncomfortable. And seeing her personal experiences turned into prose gave Nikki an unsettling feeling about her role as Rook’s muse. Was this life they were living theirs, or just source material?

And now with his new article about to hit the Internet with a splash, what were once mere misgivings about going public had erupted into full-blown anxiety. This time it wasn’t about fearing the glare of personal publicity, but her worry that it would harm her active investigation. Because for Detective Heat, this case didn’t have loose ends; they were live wires, and Nikki saw publicity as the enemy of justice. And at that moment, a mile away in Times Square, the genie was about to come out of the bottle.

Nikki was glad she’d at least held one big secret back. Something so explosive, she hadn’t even told Rook.

“Coming in?” Detective Ochoa jarred her back to the present. He stood holding the glass door of Domingo’s Famous open for her. Heat hesitated, then let go of her preoccupation and crossed the threshold.

“Got one for the books here,” said Ochoa’s partner, Sean Raley. The pair of detectives, nicknamed Roach, a mash-up of their names, led Heat past the empty Formica tables that would have been filled for lunch in a few hours if it hadn’t been for the murder. When they got to the kitchen, Raley said, “You ready for a first?” He put his gloved hand on the topmost door of the pizza oven and drew it down to reveal the victim. Or what remained of him.

He-it looked like a he-had been shoved in there on his side, bent to fit, and baked. Nikki looked at Raley then Ochoa then back to the corpse. The oven still gave off a hint of warmth, and the body in it resembled a mummy. He had been clothed when he went in. Remnants of scorched fabric dangled off his arms and legs, and shrouded patches of the torso like a disintegrated quilt.

Raley’s look of dark amusement faded and he stepped to her. Ochoa joined him, studying her. “You gonna be sick?”

“No, I’m fine.” She busied herself gloving up with a pair of blue disposables, then added, “I just forgot something.” Nikki said it dismissively, like it was no big deal. But to her, it was. What she had forgotten was her ritual. The small personal ceremony she went through on arrival at every homicide scene. To pause silently a few seconds before going in, to honor the life of the victim she was about to meet. It was a ritual born of empathy. A rite as common as grace before a meal. And today, for the first time ever-Nikki Heat had forgotten to do it.

The slip bothered her, yet maybe it was inevitable. Lately, working routine homicides had become a distraction that kept her from focusing fully on her bigger case. Of course she couldn’t share that with anyone on her squad, but she did complain to Rook how hard it was to try to close a chapter when people kept opening others. He reminded her of the words of John Lennon: “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.”

“My problem,” she’d said, “is that death happens.”

“Kitchen crew found him, when they opened for lunch prep,” began Raley.

Ochoa picked right up. “They thought it was hinky that the oven felt warm. They popped the oven door and found our crispy critter.” Roach exchanged self-satisfied grins.

“You do know that just because Rook isn’t here, you don’t have to guest-host.” She held her palms to the oven. It felt warm but not hot. “Did they turn it off?”

“Negative,” said Raley. “Cook said it was off when they came in.”

“Any idea who our vic is?” she asked, peering inside the oven. The heat damage would make him hard to recognize.

Ochoa flipped to his notes. “We assume the victim to be one Roy Conklin.”

The medical examiner, Lauren Parry, rose up from her lab kit. “But that’s a guess until we can run dental records and DNA.”

“An educated guess,” said Ochoa. Heat read the gentle tease of Dr. Parry, his not-so-secret girlfriend. “We did find a wallet.” He indicated the stainless steel prep table and the evidence bag on it holding the disfigured leather block and a buckled New York State license.

“And the weird gets weirder,” said Raley, taking a Mini Maglite from his vest pocket and focusing it on the corpse. Heat moved closer, and Raley said, “Weird enough?”

Nikki nodded. “Weirdest.” Around the victim’s neck hung the laminated ID of Roy Conklin, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Ochoa moved beside her. “We already put in a call to DHMH. Ready for this? The body in that oven is a restaurant health inspector.”

“That’s definitely a violation.” All heads turned toward the familiar voice. And the wisecrack. Jameson Rook strolled in, a vision to Nikki in his perfectly cut navy Boss suit and a purple and white spread-collared shirt-plus the charcoal and purple tie she’d chosen for him. “This joint will have a Grade-B in the window by tonight, you watch.”

Heat came up beside him. “Not that I don’t appreciate your help, but what happened? Don’t tell me you got bored by your big red-carpet event.”

“Not at all. I was going to stay for the after-crowd handshakes, but then Raley texted me about this. And thank God he did. Why hang around for another grip-and-grin when you’ve got a chance to see…” He peered in the oven. “Hot damn. An alien from Area 51.”

Roach appreciated the gallows humor. Lauren Parry, not so much. “What’s that on your shoulder, glitter?” said the ME. “Out, before you contaminate my area.”

Rook grinned. “If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that.” But he stepped out to the dining room and left his coat on the back of a chair. He returned just as a pair of techs from OCME were removing the body from the oven. Ochoa handed him a pair of blue nitrile gloves to put on.

“Check out this badge,” said Raley. Heat got on one knee beside him for a closer look. Conklin’s ID badge and its lanyard showed absolutely no signs of scorching or melting.

Rook knelt with them. “This means whoever killed him must have waited for the oven to cool down or come back later and put this around his neck.” Nikki turned and gave him a look. “Hey, not fair. That’s your wild conjecture face. Don’t tell me you’re also going to bust my balls for a timely summary of facts.”

Ochoa, who was standing at the oven, said, “Detective?” Heat stood and followed the beam of his flashlight. In the back corner of the oven, where it had been blocked from view by the body, sat a folded coat. Just like the badge and lanyard, it showed no signs of scorching. Detective Ochoa used a long-handled pizza paddle to shovel it up. When he slid it forward to them, nobody spoke. They just stared at the coat and what was on top of it: a neat coil of red string and a dead rat.

Detective Feller had completed his interviews with the cook and the busboy by the time Heat, Rook, Raley, and Ochoa emerged from the kitchen. “Their stories square up,” he reported. “They served their last pies at midnight, tore down, closed up at one A.M., came back at nine, and found the vic.” He flipped through pages of notes. “No unusual activity in the days prior, no sign of burglary or forced entry. They do have a closed-circuit camera system, but it died last week. No beefs with customers or vendors. As for the health inspector, Conklin’s name or photo didn’t ring a bell with either one. I held back the info about where you found the ID, of course, but when I asked, generally, if they touched or tampered with the body, it was a double no.”

Heat said, “Soon as we rustle up some better head shots from family or DHMH, have them take a look. Meanwhile, go ahead and kick them loose.”

Determining exact time and cause of death would be tricky, since a baked corpse corrupted cellular structures and body temps. So while Heat left her BFF the medical examiner to take the body to 30th Street for its postmortem, she plotted the immediate moves for her crew. Ochoa would deploy a team of uniformed officers to canvass the neighborhood with cell-capture copies of Conklin’s ID photo. Once the unis got launched, Ochoa would go to Conklin’s home to notify family and see what could be learned there. Raley would do his usual spot check for area security cameras that might have caught something. Heat put Detective Feller on a trip to the Health Department to get the victim’s employment records and to interview his supervisor about his case work and office relationships. As for Rook, he offered to be an extra brain at the squad briefing, and Nikki couldn’t resist saying, “You flatter yourself, but sure.”

When the two of them stepped out of Domingo’s Famous, Rook wagged his head in disdain at the gathering of onlookers behind the yellow tape. “You know, Nikki, I can’t get over the looky-loos who hang out for whatever macabre thrill they get out of watching a body bag loaded into a van. More like looky-loozahs.”

A voice called out from the crowd. “Jameson? Jameson Rook?” They stopped. “Here, over here!” The waving arm belonged to a big-haired young woman in black leather pants and what could charitably be described as fuck-me heels. She pushed to the front of the rubberneckers and pressed the fullness of her leopard-print vest against the yellow tape. “Could I get a picture with you?… Please?”

Sheepish, Rook muttered to Nikki, “It occurs to me that, after my Times Square thing, I may have Tweeted that this is where I was going…”

“Make it quick.” And as Rook headed over to the woman, Nikki added, “You do know this is why Matt Lauer Purells.”

Heat waited in the undercover car while Rook posed with not just the one fan, but each of three additional babes who materialized from the crowd. At least he wasn’t signing their breasts this time.

She made a quick e-mail check. “Yesss,” she said aloud to the empty car when she saw one from a private investigator she’d been waiting to hear back from. “You about done?” she said as Rook got in the passenger seat.

“The photo was just the beginning. She wanted me to Tweet the picture myself and add hashtag-ruggedlyhandsome.” He put his head back on the headrest and said, “Apparently, I’m trending as we speak.”

Nikki started the car. “Remember Joe Flynn?”

Rook sat upright. “That PI. The one who has the hots for you? — No.”

“Well, that PI did me a favor and dug through his archives and found some old surveillance photos of my mom. He wants to have lunch.”

“I thought you called a squad meeting in an hour about Krusty the Corpse.” And then he added solemnly, “May he rest in peace.”

Heat drummed her fingertips on the steering wheel, once again feeling the conflict of the daily homicide grind. She did some quick calculations. “We’ll tell him it has to be a quick bite.”

“OK,” said Rook with a side glance at the crime scene. “But no pizza. Just sayin’.”

Since Heat and Rook didn’t have time to be trapped in a restaurant for two hours of small talk and dessert-tray recitations, Joe Flynn had arranged for a deli buffet in the conference room of Quantum Recovery, his elite investigation service headquartered atop the exclusive Sole Building. He had brought in a charcuterie platter from Citarella stacked with Parma ham, roast beef, Jarlsberg, Muenster, as well as rustic mustards and herbed mayo. They declined the microbrews poking out of tubs of shaved ice and opted for the Saratoga springwater, which their host poured for them.

“You’ve come a long way from your roots, Joe,” said Rook, who munched a cornichon, standing at the huge window looking out over Midtown Manhattan.

“You mean from staking out adulterers at hot sheet motels for a three-hundred-dollar per diem?” He joined Rook and admired the spring day with him. “I’d say fine art recovery has made life a little easier. Plus I don’t feel like I need a shower after I cash the check.”

Before Joe Flynn climbed to elite ranks and the express elevators that came with them, Nikki’s mom had been the subject of one of his adultery investigations-commissioned by Nikki’s dad. Worried about Cynthia Heat’s increasingly secretive life, her husband hired Flynn in 1999 because he suspected his wife was having an affair. Flynn never found evidence of infidelity, but he did have stakeout photographs of Nikki’s mom which could be useful now in her search for Tyler Wynn.

Just as Nikki sidled up beside them, unable to resist the view of the Empire State Building and, in the distance, between skyscrapers, a sliver of Staten Island, Rook got a cell phone call and excused himself to take it. As soon as the door closed, Joe Flynn said, “Lucky man.” Nikki turned to find him staring at her like a beaming hopeful on Antiques Roadshow awaiting the appraiser’s verdict. Nikki wished her phone would ring, too. Instead she switched topics.

“I appreciate you digging for those photos.”

“Oh, right.” Flynn produced a thumb drive from his pocket and rolled it on the fingers of one hand, not teasing but not yet giving it to her, either. “I looked for the man and woman whose pics you texted me last week,” he said, referring to the images she’d sent of Wynn and his accomplice, Salena Kaye. “Didn’t see them in here.” And then he grinned at her again, adding, “Your mother was a beautiful woman.”

“She was.”

“Just like her daughter.”

“Thank you,” she said as neutrally as possible.

He finally read the signs and handed over the memory key. “May I ask who they are? The pair you’re looking for?”

“Sorry, I’d like to, but it’s a confidential police matter.”

“Can’t blame me for asking. Curiosity comes with the job description, right? Can’t switch it off.”

Oh, did Nikki hear that.

Heat hoped to find more in those photos than something to spark leads on Tyler Wynn and Salena Kaye. She also sought a clue to solve her big secret.

A few weeks ago, Nikki had stumbled upon a series of strange pencil notations her mother had left embedded in her sheet music. She believed it was a coded message. The dots, lines, and squiggles followed no pattern she recognized. Nikki had Googled Morse code, Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Mayan alphabet, even urban street graffiti, all to no avail. To satisfy her police objectivity, she’d even researched to determine if the symbols were simply shorthand for how to play the music. All she found was another dead end.

She needed help to crack it, but, acutely mindful of its sensitivity-this code could be why Tyler Wynn had her mother killed-Heat knew she had to keep it secret. Absolutely secret. She weighed the notion of telling Rook about it, knowing Mr. Conspiracy would throw his body, soul, and hyperactive imagination into breaking that code. But Nikki decided to hold on to it herself, for now. This wasn’t just a secret.

This secret was deadly.

After their meeting at Quantum Recovery, Heat signed her and Rook out at the lobby security desk. She took a step toward the Avenue of the Americas exit but sensed Rook lagging. “Change of plan,” he said. “That call? Jeanne Callow, you know, my agent?”

“Gym rat, too much makeup, Jeanne the Machine, that Jeanne Callow?”

He smiled at her snarkiness and continued, “The same. Anyway, I’m going to hoof it to her office on Fifth so we can plan publicity for the new article.”

A familiar claw dug into Nikki’s diaphragm, but she smiled and said, “No problem.”

“Catch up with you at your place tonight?”

“Sure. We can go over these pictures?”

“Um, yuh. We can do that.”

Heat drove back to the precinct alone, reaffirming her instinct to withhold the code from Rook.

Nikki shot a tense look from her desk across the bull pen and once again felt torn between her big case and another homicide. The team of detectives she’d called in on the Conklin murder sat cooling their heels because she was late for her own meeting. Desperately trying to get a lead on Tyler Wynn, Heat had thought she could squeeze in this call before the squad briefing but found herself stalled by a gatekeeper. “This is my fourth attempt to reach Mr. Kuzbari,” she said, trying not to let her anger seep through. “Is he aware this is an official inquiry from the New York Police Department?”

Fariq Kuzbari, security attaché to the Syrian Mission to the UN, had been one of her mom’s piano tutoring clients. Heat had tried to interview him weeks ago, but he and his armed goons rebuffed her. She wasn’t about to give up. A man the likes of Fariq Kuzbari could well shed some light on a spook colleague the likes of Tyler Wynn.

“Mr. Kuzbari is out of the country for an indefinite period. Would you like to leave another message?”

What Nikki would have liked to do was throttle her desktop with the phone and shout something very undiplomatic. She counted a silent three and said, “Yes, please.”

Heat hung up and caught a few antsy glances from her squad. On her way to the front of the room, she started wording her apology for keeping them waiting, but by the time she reached the whiteboard and turned to face them, the homicide squad leader had decided her call and the delay were police business. Screw John Lennon, she thought. Then Detective Heat dove right in.

“OK, so we’re looking at Roy Conklin, male, age forty-two…” Heat began, running down the basics from the crime scene. After placing on the board blowups of the victim’s ID photo and a color head shot cropped from the Health Department Web site, she continued. “Now, there are a few wrinkles in this death, to say the least. Beginning with the condition and placement of the body. A pizza oven is not involved in your everyday homicide.”

Detective Rhymer raised a hand. “Do we know yet whether he was killed in the oven, or if it was used just to dispose of the body?”

“Good question,” said Heat. “OCME is still testing to determine both cause and time of death.”

Detective Ochoa said, “We did get word from the ME that traces of chloroform were found on the front of the victim’s jacket.” Heat whipped her head his direction. She hadn’t known that. Her mind shot back to a missed call from Lauren Parry while she was in the thick of it with the Syrian Mission. The medical examiner’s boyfriend gave Nikki a small nod. Ochoa had her back.

“So…” Nikki picked up her rundown quickly, “it’s possible Mr. Conklin was either chemically subdued at the crime scene, or else beforehand, and transported. Until we know COD, we won’t know if he went in the oven alive or dead. If he was alive, we can only pray he was totally unconscious from the chloroform.” The room stilled as the cops contemplated Roy Conklin’s last moments.

She resumed. “The other wrinkles are the unburned items on and near the body.” She recited each as she posted Forensic photos on the board: “The lanyard and ID around his neck; his folded jacket; and the coil of red string with the dead-unbaked-rat beside it. At the very least, this bizarre MO suggests kinkiness, revenge, or a message killing. Let’s not forget, he was a restaurant health inspector, not only killed in a restaurant-potentially by one of its pieces of equipment. The placement of the rat plus the preservation of his DHMH badge mean something. Exactly what, we need to find out.”

Ochoa reported that the unis had come up zero on neighborhood eyewits. And his visit to Conklin’s apartment revealed no signs of struggle, burglary, or anything. The building super said Conklin’s wife was away on a business trip, and the super gave him a cell number. Raley had found a half dozen surveillance cams in the area and was poised to begin his video surfing. Feller, back from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, had spoken to Conklin’s supervisor, who characterized him as a model employee, using terms like “motivated” and “dedicated” and calling him “one of those rare types who lived the job and never went off the clock.”

“Nonetheless, we have to see what else he was about,” said Heat. She assigned Rhymer to run his bank records to look for irregularities, with an eye toward bribes, big vacations, or living beyond his means. She put Feller on digging deeper with his coworkers and to see if there were any complaints about him from the places he inspected. “Rales, along with your surveillance screening, you and Miguel pair up and hit the restaurants and bars on Conklin’s roster. Listen to what they say about habits, vices, enemies-you know the drill. I’ll put in a call to the wife and try to meet her in the morning.”

Afterward, at her desk, Nikki studied the slip of paper with the name Olivia Conklin on it and the 917 number under it. She put her hand on the phone, but before she lifted it off the cradle, she paused. Just ten seconds. To honor the body. Ten seconds, that’s all.

When she came into her apartment, she found Rook twisting the wire cage off the bottle of Louis Roederer that First Press had sent him to commemorate his role in launching their Web site. “The amazing day I’ve had, Nik, what I really want to do, is saber this thing off. I’ve always wanted to try that. You wouldn’t, by chance, have a saber, would you?”

As he filled their flutes, Nikki said, “You never told me about your ceremony. I only saw the glitter on your shoulder.”

“I confess it was fun. Of course, I pretended it was a pain in the ass, but truly? It was so cool. We were all behind this rope line on the sidewalk right there on Broadway, across from GMA. Me, the mayor, Green Day, the magazine suits…”

“Wait a minute. Green Day was there?”

“Well, not all of them. Only Billie Joe Armstrong. American Idiot opens this week at the St. James, and he had his PR haftas to hafta do, also. Anyway, the moment comes, the editor in chief, Elisabeth Dyssegaard, gives me my intro. The cameras are flashing and/or rolling, and I press this huge red button.”

“Like for dropping the New Year’s Eve ball?”

“Mm… More like the That Was Easy button. But the whole deal was about me making the ‘first press’ of the button that posted the first article on FirstPress.com.”

“Clever.”

He raised his glass. “Here’s to ‘Bringing Heat.’ ” The title of the article brought her a sudden gut twist. But she smiled, rang her glass on his, and sipped the Cristal.

While they ate takeout from SushiSamba, Rook went on about the huge number of hits his article had already gotten on the Web site. He asked her about the pizza murder, and Nikki gave him the bullet points but quickly moved off that topic to vent her frustration at trying to reach Fariq Kuzbari.

“Wanna bet that he actually is out of the country?” Rook said. “My correspondent pals in Egypt and Tunisia tell me things are restless. Kuzbari’s probably been called back to Syria because a security pit bull like him has a big to-do list. So many tortures, so little time.”

She put down her chopsticks and napkinned her mouth. “Forget Kuzbari. That still leaves two other persons of interest my mother spied on that I haven’t been able to follow up with. One has been out of state competing with his show dogs and the other has stonewalled me through his attorney. God, talk about pit bulls.”

“Want to hear a win-win idea? Send that lawyer off to trade places with Kuzbari. While she kicks ass in Syria, you’ll have two of your POIs available.”

“Glad you think this is funny, Rook.” Heat shoved her plate away. “I am merely trying to catch the man who ordered my mother’s execution, OK?” He dropped his grin and began to speak, but she rolled over him. “And clearly, since Tyler Wynn also tried to have me killed in that subway tunnel, that old fucker is either still hiding something damaging from the past, or something bad is going on right now. So if you want to treat this like it’s all some sort of fodder to amuse you after I’ve opened my life for your precious article, keep it to yourself.”

She left him looking pale at the dining room table and hoped the slam of her bedroom door gave him a coronary. When he came to her ten minutes later, he didn’t switch on the light and she didn’t bring her face from her pillow. He sat beside her on the bed and spoke softly in the darkness. “Nikki, if I believed for one second that Tyler Wynn was a threat to you, I would drop everything and move heaven and earth to protect you. And find him. But the fact is, Tyler Wynn got everything he wanted in that subway Ghost Station when he got his hands on that pouch you found. Trust me, Wynn’s big concern is to disappear and become a ghost himself. Surfacing to do you harm would only expose him to risk. Besides, DHS, the FBI, Interpol, they’re are all on this. Let them carry the weight, they’re the experts. But I apologize for shooting my mouth off. I don’t think this is a joke at all, and I never, ever want to hurt you.”

A silent moment passed. She sat up, and in the dim light spilling from the living room, she could see a glistening under one eye. Nikki gently thumbed his tear away and held him. They embraced each other long enough that time evaporated.

At last, when the silence had done its healing, he spoke. “You said fucker. You did. You called Tyler Wynn an old fucker.”

“I was upset.”

“You never swear. Well, hardly ever.”

“I know. Except when we…” She let it trail off and felt the heat come to her face. Then the speed of his pulse rose and thrummed against her ear where it rested against the soft of his neck. They turned to face each other without a sign, just the knowing, and kissed. It was a tender one, at first. He tasted her vulnerability, and she his gentle care. But soon, as they shared breath and space, passion filled her. She pushed hard against him. Rook arched toward her, and she clasped both hands on his backside and pulled him closer. Then she traced her fingertips to his lap and felt her palm fill with him. His hand found her and she moaned, then fell back under his body to let his weight find all of her there for him.

Later, after they’d dozed in each other’s arms, he left the room, giving her a choice view of his magnificent ass. He returned with two flutes of Cristal, which they sat up and sipped. The bubbles were still tight and the wine rolled clean on her tongue.

They nestled against each other, and Rook said, “I’ve been thinking what hell all this has been for you for ten years.”

“Ten-plus,” she said.

“Know what I can’t wait for? I’m longing for the day when this whole Tyler Wynn case is closed and I can take you away someplace where just the two of us can sit and veg. You know, sleep, make love, sleep, make love… Get my theme?”

“It’s a good theme, Rook.”

“The best. Only to be interrupted by kicking back on tropical sand with a rum drink in one hand and a nice Janet Evanovich in the other.”

“Let’s get back to the make love part.”

“Oh, count on that.”

“I mean right now,” she said. And placed their champagne glasses on the nightstand.

Distant thunder awoke Nikki. She made a curtain check and saw by the city lights that the streets and rooftops in Gramercy Park were dry. The low cloud ceiling pinked up with a flash, probably from a bolt way out east over the Island.

On the couch, cross-legged in her robe, with her laptop cradled on her thighs, Nikki clicked on FirstPress.com, and her breath caught when she saw her own face staring back at her under the title:

BRINGING HEAT.

The shot was a candid, taken by a photojournalist when she emerged from the precinct after her ordeal in the subway the night she arrested Petar. Her face showed all the fatigue and hardness and gravity she’d borne. Heat never loved pictures of herself, but this was, at least, easier to look at than the posed magazine cover shot they had forced her to take for Rook’s first article.

She scanned the piece, not to read it-she had already done that days before-but to absorb the fact of its reality. Some genies come from rubbing lamps, others from uncorking complimentary Cristal. This was out there now, and she only hoped it wouldn’t kill her case.

Nikki Heat braced herself for the next round of notoriety. And the mild irritation that Rook had published some little bits of her investigative jargon, like “looking for the odd sock” and visiting a crime scene “with beginner’s eyes.” If that was the worst that came from it, she could deal.

The next morning, nursing a brain that had spun its wheels all night, Nikki stopped at her neighborhood Starbucks on her walk to the subway. She never used to bother with movie ticket-priced drinks. Blame Rook. He’d gotten her in the habit. To the point that when he donated an espresso machine to the squad room, she taught herself how to pull a perfect twenty-five-second shot.

When she ordered her usual, she got that unexplainable pleasure from hearing “Grande skim latte, two pumps, sugar-free vanilla for Nikki” called out and then echoed back over the jet whoosh of the milk steamer. It’s the tiny rituals that let you know God’s in his heaven and all is right with the world.

She made a scan of the room and caught a twentysomething guy in a sincere suit staring at her. His gaze darted back to his iPad then back to her. Then he smiled and hoisted his macchiato in a toast. And so it begins, she thought.

The barista called out, “Grande skim latte for Nikki,” but when she moved down the counter to get it, Sincere Suit blocked her, holding up his iPad with her face filling it. “Detective Heat, you are awesome.” He smiled and his cheeks dimpled.

“Ah, well, thank you.” She took a half step, but the beaming fanboy backed up, staying with her.

“I can’t believe it’s you. I read this article twice last night… Holy shit, would you sign my cup?” Inexperienced at this, she agreed, just to move it along. He held out a ballpoint he probably got for his graduation, but before she could take it, a wooden chair tipped over, followed by a chorus of gasps.

Across the room, near the drink pickup, a homeless man writhed and bucked on the floor, his legs kicking wildly against the toppled chair. Stunned customers fled their tables and backed away. “Call 911,” Heat said to the barista and raced to the man’s side. Just as she knelt, he stopped convulsing and someone behind her screamed. Blood had begun to flow from his mouth and nose. It mixed with the vomit and spilled coffee pooling on the floor beside him. His eyes stilled in a death stare, and a telltale stench arose as his bowels released. Heat pressed his neck and got no pulse. When she withdrew her fingers, his head rolled to the side, and Nikki saw something she had seen only once before in her life, the night Petar had been poisoned in the holding cell.

The dead man’s tongue lolled out of his mouth, and it was black.

She looked at the spilled drink on the floor beside him. A grande cup with “Nikki” grease-penciled on the side. She stood to study the crowd. That’s when she saw a familiar face on the way out the door.

Salena Kaye made eye contact with Heat and bolted.