Driving Heat (10 page)

“There’s enough of that,” said Ochoa. He had second thoughts about that and backpedaled. “I mean IA.”

Heat made it easy. “And Rook. We all know that.”

A still moment passed among the three of them in the empty bull pen. “Must be tough,” said Raley at last. “You and Rook. Both have big jobs. Stressful jobs. Competing jobs,
sometimes. Like now. Guess it’s bound to happen, right? What you need smacks head-on into what he’s holding. Guess he’s lucky it’s you, and not IA.”

And in that instant, clarity came to Nikki. This situation was all very complicated, but also very simple, if she let herself see it objectively. “Fellas?” she said. “He knows
something about this murder and he’s getting a pass.”

“A press pass,” joked Ochoa.

But the quip was lost on Nikki, who stayed her pensive course. “Let’s be honest. It’s not just because he’s a reporter, it’s because of our relationship. If he
weren’t my fiancé, I know exactly what I’d do. As my duty to the case. And to the victim.” She rested her hands flat on her thighs to steady herself. Then she said the
words before her newfound clarity could be muddied by emotion: “Budget one more undercover car. I want you to put a tail on Rook.”

G
uilt, second thoughts, self-reproach, more guilt. Like drop-in company, all the unwelcome demons paid Nikki a visit after she
ordered a tail on Rook. It bothered her so much that, twice during the night, she even picked up her phone to email Roach and call it off. They would understand. Or they wouldn’t, and they
would just have to live with it. Precinct commanders made iffy decisions and reversed themselves all the time. However, Heat didn’t know the stats on such things on her first day in
command.

Every time she weakened, though, something would reset her resolve. Like watching Rook furtively respond to a text at dinner without regard to her, and, after hitting send effortlessly resuming
his theory on A-Rod’s shelf life in pinstripes. Or when he excused himself to the gents, only to veer instead into the restaurant vestibule for a quick but intense call that was
unacknowledged when he returned to the table. Mostly, however, what kept her from rescinding her order was the ineradicable image of Rook on that security video, striding with impunity into Lon
King’s office—the safe place where she had gradually learned to let her guard down and bare her soul to a stranger with a trust that did not come naturally to Nikki Heat. So she held
firm.

But resolve is not closure. To her, it felt more like a frayed bungee cord straining against the lid on Pandora’s Box.

At the end of the evening, as she tucked into her precinct paperwork instead of their bed, she told herself that she wasn’t doing that to avoid Rook. Being Captain Heat meant keeping up
with new responsibilities—memos, emails, and reports. A quick kiss, and it was back to grand-larceny spreadsheets for her; a trip up that hall with the new le Carré for him. But the
distant whir of his electric toothbrush triggered a pang of melancholy that led to a confrontation with the truth—which was that she wasn’t retreating from Rook, but from herself. And
that she harbored qualms about her own duplicity. Their lovemaking included looking each other in the eye. Nikki was afraid of what he might see in hers that night.

Heat needed to move the needle, or at least to try. She quit her laptop, rose from the dining table, and discovered yesterday’s celebration bottle of the Sancerre in the fridge. After
pouring a generous glass, she folded herself onto the couch in the library, a cozy alcove Rook had defined with freestanding bookcases, and stared out over the Tribeca rooftops. Between her and
Battery Park, almost close enough to touch, the new One World Trade Center’s upper floors illuminated an engulfing cloud, making it look like an angel’s halo.

Nikki set her wineglass down untouched and admired the spire of steel and light, a gleaming, necessary statement about resiliency, bravery, and pride. Heat’s impromptu pause to consider
its significance didn’t solve her problems, but it sure put them in perspective. At the very least, she decided, she would not end her first day as commander of the Twentieth Precinct in a
self-manufactured funk. With a new understanding of the burdens that weighed upon the shoulders of the PCs she had served under, Wally Irons and her mentor, Captain Charles Montrose, Nikki raised
her glass. Her silent toast took her back to a time when Montrose had broken out a bottle of Cutty from his desk drawer and they clinked coffee mugs at the end of a shift. She recalled his words
then as if he were there to remind her of them now: “No mystery to this job, Heat. Embrace every problem. Because they
are
the job.”

Easier said…The pressures of command relentlessly carved out chunks of her beloved skipper’s soul, and it also didn’t escape Heat that she was filling the shoes of two men who had
both died on said job. So there was one thing to avoid.

Maybe Nikki couldn’t exactly embrace the Rook problem, but she would have to live with it. Raley had nailed it: Their careers were bound to make them smack heads sometimes. And that gave
Heat a choice. Live in constant inner hell or accept the fact of an occasionally conflicted life.

OK, fine, she thought. But why today, my first day?

With a sense of renewed balance, if not of buoyancy, she drank her wine standing in the great window, taking a quiet moment to watch the streets reflect neon candy colors as a soft shower passed
through Lower Manhattan. Nikki brought her glass up to drain it and, when she brought it down, caught sight of a man in a baseball cap standing on the near corner, staring up at her. She
couldn’t make out his features, which were cast in silhouette against the shimmer from the wet streets. She wondered if Detective Feller had begun his assignment of tailing Rook early. But
Heat couldn’t be sure that the figure had Randall’s physique, even though there was something familiar about him.

Maloney?

Heat retreated one step back into the shadows and observed the man. In that light, she couldn’t be certain, but he seemed to be still watching her. Nikki picked up her BlackBerry from the
coffee table and texted Roach, asking whether they had Maloney under surveillance. Raley and Ochoa immediately group-texted that he hadn’t returned to his apartment. Apparently he had slipped
his leash. By the time Heat looked up from the screen, the man was gone.

The next morning, Rook was already in the kitchen when Nikki came out
from her shower, dressed for work. “You’re not
fooling me, you know,” he said as he leaned across the counter and poured a cup of French roast into the mug beside his. Nikki tensed a little, wondering if he had overheard her call to
Feller giving him a heads-up that she and Rook would be leaving separately, and that Rook would probably hail a cab or hitch a Hitch! But then he came around to her beaming a self-satisfied grin.
“I pay attention. No uniform today. How good am I?”

“Plus-ten for you, Rook.” Heat slipped her Sig onto the waistband of her jeans and gave the holster a security tug.

“What’s the matter? Didn’t like the way the kids made fun of you at school yesterday?”

“Oh, please.”

“One mobster says you look like you’re in the St. Paddy’s Parade, and you change everything? I thought you were made of stouter stuff, Ms. Heat. Or is it still Captain Heat?
With all the denim and cashmere you have going on there, it’s, frankly, fried out a few of my circuits.”

“It’s a choice I made.”

“And you’re allowed to just do that? Aren’t there regulations about what you folks wear?”

“Sure, but there’s room for discretion.” She added some Equal to her coffee; he stirred it. “Spending another day doing detective work in full regalia isn’t
something I’m going to do.”

“So it was Fat Tommy’s smack talk.”

“Fat Tommy can bite my ass.”

He gave his eyebrows a Groucho flicker, and bent for a salacious look-see. “And in those jeans, who wouldn’t want to?”

“Rook.”

“Fat Tommy’d have to take a number. And who’d be first? Me. Doing an Ickey shuffle like the big man himself at the cold cuts counter. ‘Whoo! I’m next. I am gonna
bite Nikki’s ass.’”

Heat laughed so hard she had to set her mug down. And while she caught her breath, the thought surfaced again about calling off the tail. A short-lived waver, as it turned out.

“Listen,” he said, “I’m going to have to split off from you today. Don’t ask why, OK? I’m not answering.”

“Are you shopping for a wedding venue?”

“No.” He slapped his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Dang. Got me. I said I wasn’t answering.” But Rook’s impishness faded when he saw her all-business
stare.

“You do what you have to do, Rook. And I will do what I have to.”

“Ooh. Chilly in here.”

“Just giving you fair warning. This cuts two ways. You’re holding. I’m digging. Someone put a bullet in a member of the police family. My shrink. And your…?” She left
the thought hanging there, giving him ample chance to Mad Lib the blank. But he didn’t, so she pulled a go cup from the cabinet and poured her coffee into it.

“You’re not staying for breakfast?” he asked.

“I have a breakfast meeting with a business leader from the precinct.” She slid on her blazer and gave him a kiss. “Guess I’ll see you when I see you.”

“I like it better when we do this together.”

“Me too,” she said. And meant it.

On her way out the door, her BlackBerry chimed with a text. She read it and popped her head back in. “If you’re interested, Lon King’s partner just came home from a run and
found someone inside their apartment.”

“Interested,” he said, and pulled down another go cup.

The sidewalks were fresh smelling and still damp from the overnight rain
as they walked from his building, both working their
devices. He was moving his mystery meeting to later; she was calling off her breakfast and getting ready to text Randy Feller about the change of plans.

“Nothing like an April shower to wash that urine-y fragrance away, huh?” he said as he pocketed his cell. But then Rook stopped short. Nikki jerked to a halt beside him. Both stood
astonished by what they saw.

Around the corner on Reade, where they had left it parked after dinner, someone had key-etched the paint on Heat’s new Malibu and flattened all four tires. She recovered quickly and
checked the doors, which were still locked, and found that nothing inside had been disturbed. Heat turned around in a circle, first to see if any other cars had been vandalized (none had been) and
second, to see if the perpetrator had hung around to enjoy the impact of his work (nobody took any notice except passers-by).

Heat was mainly interested in one person. And she would personally brace ex-Detective Timothy James Maloney about this later.

“Want me to hitch a Hitch!?” asked Rook.

“Yeah, maybe we should. Or just hail a cab.”

“Never mind. Look,” he said then whistled and waved both arms. “There’s Randall Feller. How fucking lucky is that?”

Heat tried to act surprised as Detective Feller—totally made—responded to the street hail and pulled up beside them in his undercover Taurus. Jameson Rook, the conspiracy
theorist’s conspiracy theorist, said it must be Kismet—as he called shotgun.

The only one who seemed to be enjoying the ride was Rook. Nikki hid
under the radar in the backseat, finding it easier there to mask
her tells—to avoid inadvertently revealing by her expression that it was in fact no coincidence that, with 508 linear miles of road in Manhattan, one of her detectives had just happened to be
happening by the spot where they had been standing. Feller worked his jaw muscles behind the wheel, no doubt calculating how long it would take to live down getting eyeballed on a stakeout by the
journalist everyone knew he had written off as a dilettante showboater.

When Rook asked what had brought Randy to Tribeca, Nikki jumped in like a rodeo clown. “I’m going to have to call in the ten-thirty-nine on my vehicle.”

“Yeah, and who fucks with a cop’s ride?” asked Feller, continuing the redirect.

Rook, now on their track, speculated. “Maybe he or she didn’t know it was a police car.”

“First of all, bro,” said Feller, “let me explain something to you. They call these undercover? But get real. Every miscreant on the street knows what they are a block
away.”

“Plus I had my courtesy plaque on the dash,” Heat said, adding, “I think I know who it was.” The two up front listened intently as Heat described her sighting from the
window the night before.

“You should have called it in,” said Feller.

“I did. At least I know Roach did right after I texted them to see if Maloney was buttoned down or not. Before I went to bed I saw three cruisers from the First Precinct gridding the
neighborhood.”

Rook said, “He must have done your car beforehand.”

“Or after,” countered Feller. “Maloney’s a sick fuck, but he’s got skills. I heard from the Spliff about how he outplayed you in the park uptown. A guy with a head
like that probably saw the blue-and-whites and figured he’d leave his mark, and fuck you.”