Heat Rises

Three

The first thing Heat did after she clicked the tiny red square and closed the Huddleston file was call Lauren Parry. She tried not to think too much about it first, because she might hesitate and then hold back. That was the death of good police work. Gather facts but trust your hunches. Especially the ones about which facts to gather.

“So soon?” said Lauren when she picked up. “You leave something here? Tell me you didn’t leave your keys. I’ve had that happen, and you don’t want to know where I’ve found them.”

“You’re right, I don’t.” Even though she had her end of the bull pen to herself at the moment, Nikki looked over her shoulder before she continued. “Listen, I saw how busy you all were down there in B-23 this morning — ”

“Yeah, yeah, what do you need me to fast track?”

“The priest collar. The one with the bloodstain. Can you push it to the head of the class for me?”

“You on to someone already?”

In her mind’s eye, Heat kept seeing the bandage on Captain Montrose’s finger. She wanted to say she hoped not, but answered, “Who knows? As much to eliminate as anything.” Nikki heard papers rustle before the ME answered.

“Sure, I can expedite. It still takes time, you know.”

“Then let’s get this party started.”

“Then I’ll be burnin’ rubber.” Lauren chuckled and continued, “While we’re talking, I just shipped my report over to you.” Nikki checked her monitor and saw that the e-mail was parked there for her. “Heads up on an additional note I added. CSU did an evidence vacuum of the torture room — a few hairs, you can imagine — but they also came up with what looks like a sliver of fingernail.” Nikki replayed her survey of the dead priest while he was still on the frame and recalled that his nails were not broken. Her friend underscored that. “I just did a double-check of the body, and neither his fingernails or toenails show signs of chipping.”

“So it could be from whoever worked him over,” said Heat. “Assuming it’s not a holdover from another session.” That possibility might not make it court-worthy, but it could open an investigative lead. Before they hung up, Lauren offered to push that test up the chain as well.

“How’s it going in here?” she asked as she entered the audiovisual booth, a converted supply closet, where Raley was screening the security video from Pleasure Bound.

“Rockin’ it, Detective,” he said without looking up from his monitor. “That place isn’t as busy as you’d think, so I’m flying through these tapes.”

“This is why you’re King of All Surveillance Media.” She came around behind his table and leafed through the stills her detective had printed out so far. “Any hits on Father Graf?”

“Zip,” he said. “Speaking of which, check out the guy on the leash in a gimp mask with a zipper mouth. It’s like watching the outtake reel from Pulp Fiction.”

“Or Best in Show,” said Heat, examining it. Other than the cleaning crew and Roxanne Paltz, Nikki didn’t recognize any of the dozen people whose faces Raley had captured. She set the stack down beside the printer. “I want to run these past the housekeeper up at the rectory. How soon until you finish?”

He paused the deck and turned to her. “Excuse me, but is this how one addresses the king?”

“OK, fine. How soon until you finish... sire?”

“Gimme twenty.”

She looked at her watch. Lunch hour, for those who were fortunate enough to actually have one, had come and gone. She asked Raley what kind of sandwich he wanted and told him she’d be back in fifteen minutes. In the hallway, she smiled when the door closed and she heard his muffled shout, “Hello? I said twenty!”

Andy’s Deli would have delivered, but Nikki was in the mood for a walk, even in the cold. No, especially in the cold. The day had put her head in a vise, and something primal howled to be outside and moving. The wind had begun to diminish, taking a fraction of the ache out of the winter air, but after dropping all day to four degrees, it was still plenty bitter, and the sensation of it invigorated her. Rounding the corner at Columbus she heard a loud crack behind her and turned. A big SUV was inching forward from 82nd for a right as well, and one of its monster tires had shattered an ice patch in the gutter, hurling frozen chips up onto the curb. Heat looked to see who still drove those big-shouldered gas hogs in the city, but she never got a look. The throaty engine gunned, and the SUV fishtailed into traffic and was soon swallowed by its own fading roar.

“Penis car,” said a passing mail carrier, and Nikki laughed, loving New York and all its intimate strangers.

While the counter man at Andy’s made a pair of BLTs for her, Nikki checked her phone and e-mail again. Nothing from Rook since she had last surfed — right before she ordered. She got two extra honey packets for Raley’s iced tea from the condiment bar and checked her cell again. Then she thought, Screw it, and pressed Rook’s speed dial. It never rang, just dumped straight to voice mail. While she listened to his announcement, not yet even sure what she wanted to say, a man beside her waiting for a tuna on rye flipped open his newspaper and Nikki was confronted once again by Rook and his doable agent grinning outside Le Cirque. Heat hung up without leaving a message, paid for the lunches, and hurried back out into the freezing cold, cursing herself for caving in to chasing a guy.

Sharon Hinesburg always wore her emotions on her face, and when Heat breezed into the rectory unannounced, the detective looked like she had just opened the fridge and gotten a whiff of curdled milk. Nikki didn’t care. Misplaced sensitivity had led to one bad call assigning Hinesburg to handle this venue in the first place. She wasn’t going to compound her lapse by worrying about Bigfooting her subordinate.

The decision to take charge was validated by the briefing she got. After several hours on-scene, the best Hinesburg could offer was a rehash of the information Heat already had learned both from her own chat with the housekeeper and the call from the evidence crew about the missing holy medal and disturbed clothing drawers. Nikki had the not unsupported impression that Detective Hinesburg’s main activity had been to sit with Mrs. Borelli and watch The View.

She didn’t lash out at her detective, though. Hinesburg was, and always would be, Hinesburg. Heat decided there was no sense misplacing her anger, which was at herself for not getting to this interview until the afternoon thanks to reporters, department politics, and worries about her boss.

“I hope you don’t mind, Mrs. Borelli,” Nikki began as they sat down at the kitchen table, “but we need to ask some questions while things are still fresh in your mind. I understand it’s a difficult time, but are you up for this?”

The rims of the wiry old woman’s eyes were swollen and red, but the look in them was clear and full of strength. “I want to help you find whoever did this. I’m ready.”

“Let’s review the period leading up to the last time you saw Father Graf. And I apologize if you have already been over this with Detective Hinesburg.”

“No, she didn’t ask me about any of that,” said Mrs. B.

Hinesburg made a show of flipping a page of her pad. “You told me you last saw him yesterday morning at ten or ten-fifteen,” she said, citing information that was already in the missing persons report.

But Nikki only smiled at the old woman and said, “Good, let’s start there.” After Heat spent a half hour quizzing her about Father Graf’s last hours and days, through a series of questions doled out in small bites, a timeline emerged, not only of the previous morning but the weeks leading up to the pastor’s disappearance. He had been a man of habits, at least in the early part of his days. Up at 5:30 for his morning prayers, opening the doors to the church at 6:30, on the altar next door for Mass at 7 A.M., breakfast served by Mrs. Borelli promptly at ten minutes to eight. “He’d smell the bacon and keep the sermon short,” she said, comforted by the memory.

The rest of a typical day involved parish administration, visits to the sick, and meetings at a handful of community groups he served on. The housekeeper affirmed that he followed his pattern his last few days. Well, almost. “He had taken to longer lunches away in the afternoons. And was late for supper a few times, which was not like him.”

Heat drained her coffee cup and made a note. “Every day?” she asked.

“Let me think. No, not every.” Nikki waited while the woman thought and then wrote down the days and times she recalled while Mrs. B. poured her a refill.

“What about his nights?”

“He always heard confessions from seven to seven-thirty, although not many customers these days. Changing times, Detective.”

“And after confessions?”

The housekeeper’s face pinked and she rearranged the sugar bowl and creamer on the tabletop. “Oh, he’d read sometimes or watch an old movie on TV or meet with a parishioner if someone needed counseling — drugs, abused women, that sort of thing.”

Nikki sensed a dodge and asked another way. “Was there any time that he wasn’t working? What did he do for recreation?”

Her face reddened a bit more and she said to the creamer, “Detective, I don’t want to speak ill of him; he was flesh, as we all are, but Father Gerry, he liked his drink and he would spend his evenings most nights having his Cutty at the Brass Harpoon.” Another note to follow up on. If he had been a regular at a bar, even if it didn’t lead to suspects, it meant friends, or at least drinking buddies, who might have some insights into a side of the padre the old woman wasn’t privy to.

Nikki then got to the awkward question she knew had to be asked. “I told you this morning where we found the body.” Mrs. Borelli nodded in a small, shameful way. “Do you have any indication that Father Graf was... involved in that lifestyle?”

For the first time, she saw anger in the woman. Her face grew stony and her eyes were riveted on Heat’s. “Detective, that man took a vow of celibacy. He was a holy man doing God’s work on earth and he lived a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience.”

“Thank you,” said Nikki. “I hope you understand, I had to ask.” Heat then switched gears, studying the pages she had generated, and said, “I notice yesterday, the day you last saw him, as well as the day before, he left immediately after breakfast instead of conducting his usual meetings and office work. Any idea why he changed pattern?”

“Mm, no. He didn’t say.”

“You asked him?”

“Yes. He told me to butt out. Joking but not joking, either.”

“Did you notice any changes in his mood?”

“I did. He was sharper with me. Like the butt out joke. The Father Gerry I knew would have said that and I’d have laughed. And so would he.” Her lips drew tight. “He was definitely on edge.”

Heat had to come at it again. “And you have no idea where this tension came from?” When she shook no, Nikki asked, “Anybody argue with him? Threaten him?”

“Not the past few days, as I recall.”

Odd answer from the woman who seemed to recall everything about him. Nikki made a note to come back to that one later. “Any problems at the church?”

“There are always problems at the church,” she said with a chuckle. “But nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Any new people around? Strangers, anyone coming by at odd times, anything like that?”

She rubbed her chin and shook no again. “I’m sorry, Detective.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Nikki. “You’re doing fine.”

Fatigue and the stress of a traumatic day were starting to draw the old woman under. Before she faded, Heat opened the manila envelope of stills Raley had pulled from the security cam at Pleasure Bound. The housekeeper seemed glad for the change of tasks. She cleaned her glasses and studied each of the faces carefully before shaking her head and turning the next page. About halfway through the array, Heat noticed her react to one — not a large reaction but a hesitation. Nikki flicked a look at Hinesburg, who nodded; she’d caught it, too. “Something, Mrs. Borelli?”

“No, not so far.” But she looked at the photo one more time before she turned it facedown and flipped to the next. When she finished the stack, she said none of them looked familiar. Nikki had a feeling Mrs. Borelli might be going to confession soon.

They quit the kitchen, and Heat asked if Mrs. Borelli would mind walking her through the rectory so she could see firsthand the things that had been disturbed. “Where did the missing St. Christopher medal live?”

Before the housekeeper could reply, Sharon Hinesburg said, “The bedroom,” striving for relevance.

“Before we go up there,” said Mrs. Borelli, “I want to show you something.” She beckoned for them to follow, leading them into the study, where she gestured to a cabinet that doubled as the TV stand. “I told your CSI folks about this. After they got here, I looked around and found this cabinet door cracked open just a smidge. And take a look inside.” Nikki was about to stop her from pulling it open, but she could see that the door and its glass front had already been dusted for prints. There were two shelves inside. The lower was filled with books, a mix of paperbacks and hard-bounds. The shelf above was completely empty. “All his videos, gone.”

“What sort of videos were they?” asked Heat. She noticed that the TV rested atop a dinosaur VHS player, and to its side sat a compact portable DVD unit with red, yellow, and white cords jacked to it.

“A bit of everything. He liked documentaries and someone gave him the Ken Burns Civil War, that’s gone. I know he had Air Force One. ‘Get off my plane,’ over, and over, and over...” She shook her head, no doubt banking that as a fond recollection of the dead pastor, then looked back to the empty shelf. “Let’s see, there were also a few PBS things, mostly Masterpiece Theater. The rest were personal, like videos people took at weddings and gave to him. Also some videos he shot at some of his protest marches and rallies. Oh! The pope’s funeral! He was at the Vatican for that. I suppose that’s gone, too. Would that be valuable, Detective, would someone want to steal that?”

Nikki told her anything was possible and asked if she would write down a list of all the videos she could recall, just for a complete record or in case, by some unlikely chance, any of them showed up in someone’s possession or at a flea market.

The crew from the Evidence Collection Unit was nearly done upstairs, and so the three of them were able to go through the whole house, except for the attic, where the ECU was still at work. One of Detective Hinesburg’s observations had been correct, and that was that Mrs. Borelli was a housekeeper who took her job as a mission. She knew where everything went because she was the one who put it there and made sure it stayed clean, dusted, and in place. The anomalies were subtle and would have been lost on the casual visitor. But for the woman who went so far as to square the edges of stacked undershirts in bureau drawers and to align gleaming shoes on the closet floor, with tassels front, any disturbance was a Disturbance in the Force. With the guidance of her schooled eye, it was clear to Detective Heat that someone had definitely given the rectory a once-over. And that with the low degree of disruption to the house, it sure felt like a professional job.

That opened a whole new front. It certainly cast major doubt that the death of the priest had been a dominance session gone awry. Nikki knew better than to get ahead of the investigation, but the whole torture thing, combined with a search of the rectory, was pointing less toward a sexual proclivity and more toward someone trying to find something out. But what?

And what was Captain Montrose’s search about the night before?

Heat met up with the lead ECU detective, Benigno DeJesus, coming out of Father Graf’s bathroom, where he had just logged and bagged meds from the cabinet. He recapped his findings, which corresponded to Mrs. Borelli’s: the missing videos, moved clothing, doors slightly ajar, and the absent holy medal. “Something else we found,” said DeJesus. Atop the priest’s dresser he indicated the dark brown velvet box, hinged open to expose the tan satin liner.

“This where the St. Christopher was?” asked Nikki.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Borelli from behind her. “It meant so much to Father.”

The ECU detective lifted the empty box off the dresser. “Got something a little unusual.” Heat knew and liked Detective DeJesus and had worked scenes with him often enough to read his understatement. When Benigno said something was a little unusual, it was time to pay attention to Benigno. “Underneath the doily.” And when Heat hesitated, he added, “It’s OK, I’ve dusted, logged, and photographed.”

Nikki lifted the lace runner that covered the bureau top. There was a small scrap of paper under it, right under the spot where the St. Christopher’s case had been resting. DeJesus tweezed the strip and held it up for her to read. It was a handwritten phone number. Heat asked, “Mrs. Borelli, are you familiar with this number?”

The ECU man slipped the paper into a clear plastic evidence pouch and laid it on his open palm for her to see. She shook her head. “What about the handwriting,” asked Heat, “do you recognize it?”

“You mean is it Father Graf’s? No. And it’s not mine. I don’t know this writing.”

Heat was jotting the phone number onto her spiral when one of the other ECU techs appeared in the doorway and nodded to DeJesus. He excused himself to the hall and reappeared shortly. “Detective Heat? A moment?”

The attic had one of those pull-down wooden staircases that tele scoped into the ceiling. Nikki ascended it into the loft where DeJesus and the technician who had summoned him were crouched in a pool of portable light beside an old mini-fridge. They parted to give her a view as she joined them. The tech said, “I noticed the dust pattern on the floor indicated this had been opened recently, but it’s not plugged in.” She looked inside and saw three square holiday cookie tins stacked on the white wire shelves.

DeJesus snapped open the lid of the top one for her. It was filled with envelopes. The ECU detective took one out for her to examine. Like all the others, it was a parish collection envelope. And it was filled with cash.

Benigno said, “This might be worth some study.”

At the end of the day Detective Heat gathered her squad in the bull pen for an update of the Murder Board. It was a ritual that served not only as a chance for her to recap information, but also as an opportunity for Nikki and her crew to bounce theories.

She had already logged Father Graf’s moves on the timeline, including the notation of the unaccounted for hours the day preceding and the day of his disappearance. “There’s nothing on his calendar that helps. If we had his wallet, we could run his MetroCard to see what subway stops he made, but that’s still missing.”

“What about e-mails?” said Ochoa.

“Right there with you,” said Heat. “Soon as Forensics finishes with his computer, why don’t you pick it up and start reading? You know everything to look for, don’t need to tell you.” She tried not to let her gaze sweep to Hinesburg, but she did, and registered the pissy look before turning her back to print “Graf’s e-mails” on the board.

Raley made his report. At Heat’s direction, he had gone to Pleasure Bound to show copies of the stills to Roxanne Paltz, who made ID of the three dommes who worked there, two past and one present. As for the men, the manager either didn’t know or wouldn’t say. Afterward, on his own initiative, Detective Raley had walked the area near the underground dungeon, flashing the stills at local retail shops and to doormen. “I didn’t get any hits,” he said, “but I may have gotten a nice case of frostbite. Windchill’s down below zero today.”

The canvass of Dungeon Alley had also come up empty. Detectives Ochoa, Rhymer, and Gallagher covered the main BDSM clubs stretching about twenty blocks from Midtown to Chelsea, and none of the workers or guests they encountered said they recognized the photo of the priest. Detective Rhymer said, “It could mean someone’s lying or it could mean Graf was discreet.”

“Or he wasn’t in the lifestyle,” said Gallagher.

“Or,” added Nikki, “we haven’t talked to the right person yet.” She told them about the slip of paper that was hidden under the lace runner. “We ran a check on the phone number. It was for a male strip club.”

“Male strip club? Who did you run the check with — Rhymer?” When the laughs died out Ochoa continued, “You deny it, Opie, but it’s always the wholesome ones.”

Raley chimed in. “Don’t listen to him, Opie. Miguel’s just mad ’cause you only put a buck in his thong last time.”

Heat declared that since Raley and Ochoa seemed the most knowledgeable, they could have the detail of going to the strip club to show Graf’s picture. After Roach took a chorus of ribbing from the squad, she finished her recap of the missing items at the rectory. Detective Rhymer, who was on loan from Burglary, wondered if the videos got stolen because they had sex tapes in them. “If the priest was into something... unpriestly... maybe there was something embarrassing to someone else who was on the video.”

Heat acknowledged that could be so and jotted it under “Theories” on the board as “damning sex video??” That notwithstanding, Nikki said that some things made her want to broaden the scope of their investigation. No sooner had she said the words than behind the squad she saw movement from the glass office. Captain Montrose got up from his desk and stood leaning against his door frame to take in her briefing.

“Starting tomorrow,” Heat said, “I want to dig deeper into the parish. Not just to look into the parishioners who could have motives, but also any of the other activities Father Graf could have been involved in. Clubs, immigration protests, even charity drives and fund-raisers.”

Then she told them about the stash of money in the attic, which came to about a hundred fifty thousand. All in bills under a hundred, all in parishioner collection envelopes. “I’ll reach out to the archdiocese to see if they had any knowledge or concerns about embezzlement. Whether it’s skimming, or an inheritance, or, I don’t know, a secret lotto win — however that money came to be in his attic — we can’t rule out the possibility that someone wanted to get it and tried to force him to say where it was. But,” she cautioned, “it’s too soon to run for that piece of candy, because there are other things to look at as well. Let’s just say it’s one of many reasons to open this case wider.” Then she relayed the findings of the autopsy. “What was particularly striking was the degree of electricity the victim took before he died. TENS, in mild doses, get used in some torture play. But his burns, the heart attack, this did not look like play.”

The room fell silent, the quietest that bull pen had been since Nikki had arrived to turn the lights on that morning. She knew what each squad member was going through. Each was reflecting on the last minutes of Father Gerald Graf’s life on that St. Andrew’s Cross. Heat looked at them, knowing that even in this group of smart mouths, there was no amount of cop humor that would overcome the compassion they felt for another human’s suffering.

Mindful of the collective mood, Nikki resumed quietly. “Like any assault, perps use pattern behavior. I’m already looking into other assaults like this, especially involving electrical means.”

“Detective Heat.” All heads turned to the voice at the back of the room. For many, it was the first they had actually heard that voice in a week.

“Captain?” she said.

“I’d like to see you in my office.” And before he stepped inside it, he added, “Right now.”

Nikki wheeled her leg around, caught him on the back of his upper calf, and he went down. Don landed hard on the blue wrestling mat in the gym and said, “Jeez, Nikki, what’s eating you tonight?” She extended a hand to hoist him up, and midway through the lift, Don thought he’d get cute and flip her. But he telegraphed his move with his eyes and she cartwheeled to his weak side, still holding his hand, twisted his thumb, rolled him on his stomach, and parked a knee on his back.

That afternoon, when she had gotten the text from her onetime personal combat trainer and now regular sparring partner, Nikki declined Don’s offer. Her day had been a meat grinder, and all she wanted to do was get home and sink into a bath, hoping an early bed would let her escape the burden of the case, and of Rook, in sleep. But then came that last meeting with Montrose. Heat came out of there feeling caged, frustrated, and above all, conflicted. First thing she did was grab her cell phone and text the ex–Navy SEAL that she wanted a workout after all.

Poor Don was on his feet about two seconds before Heat dropped him again.

The meeting had been with a Montrose Nikki didn’t know. He closed his door, and by the time he had walked around behind her to his desk, he had accused her of losing focus on the case. She listened but couldn’t take her eyes off the Band-Aid on his finger, wondering whose blood was on that priest’s collar if it wasn’t the priest’s.

Don went to the corner of the gym and toweled the sweat off his face. Nikki hopped on the balls of her feet in the center of the mat, energized, eager to resume.

Her captain had said, “We agreed this afternoon that you’d keep working the bondage line on this case. What happened? Did you eat some funny mushrooms for lunch and get it in your head to change it up?”

Who was this man, she wondered, talking to her like that? Her mentor, advisor, and protector all these years. Not so much the father she never had but certainly the uncle.

Don tried to fake her out. He shook his arms loose, going all rubbery, working on the tightness to catch her sleeping. But then he lunged, going low with his left shoulder to her waist, trying to straight-out tackle her. She sidestepped and laughed when he caught nothing but air and landed on his face.

“I started getting information that opened my thinking, Captain,” she had told him, all the while wondering what to tell him and what to hold back — something that had never occurred to her to do with this man.

“Like what? Talking to all his parishioners to see who thought his sermons lacked humor? Interviewing the members of his Knights of Columbus? Going to the archdiocese?”

“There’s that money we found,” she said.

“There’s the agreement we had,” he said. Then Montrose had calmed a little, and a glimpse of the old the skip came to visit. “Nikki, I’m accountable for supervision here and I see you spinning your wheels on side shows. You are a great detective. I’ve told you before. You’re smart, intuitive, you work hard... I have never seen anyone better than you at finding the odd sock. If there’s one aspect of a case or a crime scene that doesn’t ring true, seems slightly out of whack, you see it.” And then that phase was over. “But I don’t know what the hell to make of what you’re doing today. You’re half a day late to interview a key witness, and that’s after your poor judgment sending Hinesburg. That’s right, I said it, your poor judgment.”

Don’s feet bicycled the sky on his flight over Heat’s shoulder. She rounded her back and dropped on one knee as she released him, keeping her head down and tucked toward her tummy in the follow-through. Twisted that way, she couldn’t see him land. But the floor shook.

“I agree I should have been to the rectory sooner.” Heat had halted there, saying no more about it. She reflected on her OCME round trip, heavy traffic included, getting delayed by that phone call from the administrative assistant at 1PP, and of course, that file she stopped to read about the old homicide. But to go further, to explain herself, would only be to sound defensive. This was hard enough. Hard enough trying to pretend she hadn’t seen what she saw in that file. That the lead detective on the 2004 Huddleston murder had been Detective First Grade Charles Montrose.

“Yes, you should have been there but you weren’t. That’s not like you, Detective. Are you distracted by all this business of your promotion?” Then after he had let that work on her, he leaned forward on his blotter, hands clasped so she couldn’t avoid seeing the Band-Aid right there. And then he lobbed out, “Or is it that you were too busy with other things? Like blabbing to newspaper reporters.”

Station House Privacy Rule #1: There is no privacy in a station house.

“Let me assure you of one thing, Captain. The extent of my conversation with that reporter was basically different ways to say, ‘No comment.’ ” She held his gaze so he could see the truth written on her. In that moment, she also made a decision. She concluded that this was not the meeting to ask him about the old Huddleston case. For now, as far as her boss was concerned, she had never even asked for that file. Whatever storm this was, she just hoped it would pass so she could focus on the work and operate in the open again in her own house.

“Make sure you keep it that way,” he had finally said. “I know what the press can be like. Especially the Gotcha Press. You don’t think I have them all over me? And the community pressure? And the jerkoffs downtown? I’ll tell you what I don’t need, Detective Heat, and that’s one more reason for someone to climb up on my ass, and it better not come from you.” His tone had been measured, which made his words sting all the more. “Know this. I will pull you off the case if you don’t focus. Stay on the BDSM path and nothing else. Am I clear?”

She had no words and only nodded.

When she reached for the doorknob, he added, “Blow this case and it’ll be bad for me. Bad for you, too.”

Heat left wondering if that was advice or a threat.

Don, who had asked her to spar that night, had made an additional in vitation. And that was to sleep together. They had a history of that, but it had become a dimming one. Somewhere along the line, years back and without much fanfare, Nikki’s Brazilian jujitsu trainer had become her trainer with benefits.

When it started, they were perfectly matched for that. Neither was in a committed relationship; they liked each other, were intensely physical, and equally happy to let their grappling go no further than the gym or the bedroom. Their sex was occasional, energetic, and mutually passionless. It all changed for Nikki when Rook came into the mix. It wasn’t even about serial monogamy for her so much as something else. Something she couldn’t — or wouldn’t — exactly put into words. Since the heat wave, Don and Nikki had confined their wrestling to the mat. He had floated invitations from time to time, which she had declined without explanation, also part of their unspoken rules.

That night, after the drubbing she gave him, before they parted for their respective locker rooms, he asked her again. And this time, for the first time in a long time, Nikki was tempted. No, more than merely tempted. She came very close to a yes.

On the walk back to her apartment, she sorted through her feelings. Close as she had come to saying, “My place,” she had taken it right up to the line in her imagination and declined. The month without Rook had been a long one emotionally and physically. She could have easily had a night with Don, and neither he nor Rook would have had a say in her choice. But her no came from the same place as all the ones that preceded it. But why? Was she in a committed relationship now with Rook? She might have answered that differently before he went away. And certainly it loomed as a bigger question after the Le Cirque shot and all it meant. The issue for her was what kind of relationship, if any, she would have with Rook when — if — they did see each other again. Sleeping with Don that night would have been revenge sex. Which Don sure wouldn’t care about, even if he knew. But she would. That wasn’t her reason, though. Her no to Don had been about postponing a definition.

Or perhaps it was more transparent than that. Maybe she knew the last thing she wanted was to have one more complication added to the stress of her life. Hell, of her day. What she needed was a night of letting go, of lightening up.

She already had the bath in mind, lavender bubbles for sure. One more thing would give her the head break she needed. On Park Avenue South, Nikki stopped at the newsstand at the end of her block and snatched up tabloids and celebrity mags. Hok, the news vendor, gave her a special hello, the one with the wink he started giving Heat the day she was on the cover of First Press with Jameson Rook’s exasperating story, “Crime Wave Meets Heat Wave.”

Counting out the change for Hok, who smiled brightly when he got exact change, Nikki smelled fumes from an idling engine. “Hok, how do you stand that?” He made a face and fanned the air in front of his nose. She looked in the direction of the exhaust. It was coming from a big SUV a few paces down the sidewalk. She turned back to give the vendor his coins when the phrase “penis car” entered her thoughts. She turned again toward the SUV. It certainly looked the same as the one she had encountered on her walk to Andy’s Deli — graphite gray with wide tires — but something was different. The plates. She had clocked those plates as Jersey. This had New York State tags. Hok offered her a plastic bag, which she waved off. She stepped from the newsstand and was surprised to see that the SUV was gone. Nikki stepped to the curb in time to see its headlights disappear as it backed down the street against traffic and disappeared into a side street.

Backward?

Nikki turned in a circle, getting a look at her surroundings. She saw nothing unusual. Nothing else unusual, that is. She was only a block from her place. Heat unfastened her coat, took off the glove on her right hand, and started walking with her eyes and ears on alert.

Her street was quiet. No cars at the moment, and in the stillness of the sub-zero night, she paused briefly to strain her hearing for any sense of a low engine rumble. Nothing. She moved quickly up her front steps to the vestibule, keys already in hand.

Vestibule, clear.

Heat unlocked and let herself in. Following an instinct not to get trapped anywhere, she bypassed the elevator and climbed the stairs to her floor, pausing occasionally to listen and then moving upward.

On her floor, she swept the length of the hallway in both directions. It was empty. She let herself into her apartment, threw the deadbolt behind her, and exhaled. Nikki quizzed herself. Was this paranoia? Stress response at the end of an exponentially crap day? Or did she have a tail? And if so, why? And who?

At the hall closet, looking for a hanger for her coat, she heard a noise from around the corner in the kitchen. A small sound. Perhaps the squeak of a shoe?

Heat unholstered her Sig. Holding it in her right hand, she moved forward, carrying her coat in her left. Nikki stopped, drew a slow breath, mentally counted three, then whipped the coat around the corner. She followed it in a low crouch with her gun braced in both hands, calling, “Police, freeze.”

The man wrapped up under her coat stopped struggling with it and raised his hands up inside it. Heat knew before he even spoke. Nikki pulled the coat off his head, and he smiled sheepishly. “Surprise?” said Rook.