A Touch Of Heat (H.E.A.T. Book 2)

by Claire, Nicola

  Right above the coffee stain.

  “Coffee,” he whispered. Then smiled. It was sad, full of regret. “I bet that’s reminded you of my office all day.”

  I looked down at the stain, saw the healing scars on his knuckles as he held onto my shirt, and forced a smiled.

  His lips connected with my forehead in a soft, lingering kiss, and then he was gone.

  Trust Damon to notice. Trust Damon to see me.

  Chapter 12

  “Tricky things spiders. They hunt with patience. They sit and wait for their prey to come to them. You should try it, Keen. Sometimes you can catch the spider as he spins his own web.”

  There was no point wasting the battery life of the button camera and microphone bug on Damon while he and Nick’s agent were inside Angelo’s. So we watched the outside of the restaurant from Police CCTV footage, unable to hear what Damon and Abi were saying.

  We weren’t the only ones hacking the street cameras, though. Nick confirmed that a wireless feed was going to Sweet Hell as well. Kyan’s security team proving quite capable, but nowhere near in Nick’s league.

  “Can they tell you’re hacking it too?” I asked, looking over his shoulder at basically nothing.

  Damon and Abi had been inside eating for over an hour.

  “Amber, one of my tech team, has written a code that covers our tracks,” he explained. “We were pretty much stealthy before when we did this. Now we’re the invisible man.”

  “That’s not legal,” I pointed out.

  Nick looked up at me, big smile on his face.

  “You gonna tell?” he asked.

  I bit my tongue. Making an enemy of Nicholas Anscombe probably wasn’t a good idea. Besides, he received, no doubt, various dispensations from Auckland Police, when assisting on operations such as this. He’d only deny hacking the CCTV system outside of sanctioned jobs. And proving otherwise would be damn near impossible, I was betting.

  These guys were big news. Good or bad, I still couldn’t tell.

  But they were the least of my problems right now. We had nothing. Not really. This was a fishing exhibition, and we were handcuffed and blindfolded while we did it. If Sweet Hell was involved in Samantha Hayes’ murder it would be difficult to prove, unless Damon came up with something tonight.

  As for Eagle and Carole. I had my doubts they were there unwillingly. If they were there at all.

  My gut churned and roiled. Forensics had come up with nothing at the murder scene. The medical examiner had confirmed asphyxiation by strangulation as cause of death, but had discovered nothing else that would aid in singling out who had done it. Samantha was well liked, well courted by her elite customers, and from all accounts, well furnished with sexual conquests.

  Maybe this had just been a liaison gone too far. Her boyfriend had admitted to what could only be called kinky bedtime pursuits, including erotic asphyxiation, or breath control play. Exactly what her murderer may have been doing to her at the time of death.

  But on the street? Not even down a side alley? But across the road from a venue which was having an open night, well past normal business hours for clubs on Karangahape Road.

  Coincidence? Hard to say.

  Kinky could include exhibitionism. It might have all been a game.

  But then there was the doctored video surveillance footage. My gut said connection. On paper the case said circumstantial evidence at best. The camera had been playing up for three weeks. Computer Forensics couldn’t prove the damage was intentionally done.

  Sabotage to hide a crime? Hard to say.

  Last but not least was Rooster. Where did his reaction in Eagle’s alley fit in?

  I let out a long breath of frustrated air and then abruptly sat forward in my seat when I spotted Damon and Abi emerge from Angelo’s on the screen. I was the first to notice them. Which was ironic. Because I was the one who had been off inside my head while Pierce and Nick talked quietly about the case, about politics, about which rugby team would win the Bledisloe Cup.

  It took them a few seconds to catch up, but in that time nothing untoward had appeared on the multiple camera angles we were monitoring. Damon and Abi parted ways in the front of the restaurant, the diminutive blonde offering him a hug and peck on the cheek.

  He didn’t even know her, and he was receiving an intimate farewell.

  I snorted internally at my ridiculous flare of jealousy. It was a job, an act. They were both playing the part to perfection.

  Intelligently, I knew why trust came hard to me. Realistically, it was damn near impossible to overcome it.

  I am a product of my upbringing, mixed up with a good dose of post traumatic stress. I’ve seen things, done things, survived things that a normal person wouldn’t. And all in the name of the job.

  The Emergency Services is a hotbed of hazards, interspersed with an obstacle course of emotional strain. It takes a strong constitution to avoid the pitfalls. But even though I am the daughter of a cop, the granddaughter of a cop, I am also myself.

  And “myself” can’t seem to file things. Deal with them, tuck them away out of sight, and move on. I obsess. I remember. I dissect. And I tell myself I could have done better.

  I could have saved Carl.

  I could have helped Damon.

  Then neither would have let me down in the end. Broken my trust.

  “He’s on his way now,” Pierce said, watching Damon drive off from Viaduct Quay towards Queen Street. The most direct route up to K Road.

  “What’s happening at Sweet Hell?” I asked Nick.

  Several camera views were shifted to the main screen, where moments ago an image of Angelo’s had been. There was a crowd outside the club. A line of hopeful attendees. The open night had obviously drummed up some interest, but whether they’d get inside the building was another thing. Members only tended to mean exclusive, and this crowd seemed your typical run of the mill nightclubbing hopefuls and nothing else.

  I checked the other view angles. Down the driveway was a dark sedan waiting for access to the locked carpark at the back.

  “License plate on that vehicle,” Pierce demanded, pulling out his cellphone as Nick rattled off the digits just visible in the murky light.

  Pierce began talking to Comms, requesting a Query Vehicle, while Nick and I simultaneously watched Damon park his car down nearby East Street, close enough to the entrance of Sweet Hell.

  “That Lexus belongs to a David Gordon of Remuera,” Pierce announced, swiping at the screen of his smart phone. “And look at this,” he added. “He’s the CEO of Bainbridge’s.”

  Nick and I both arched our brows at him.

  “Interesting,” Nick offered. “Your vic’s employer.”

  And the plot thickens.

  “Perhaps a visit to his address tomorrow might elicit something,” Pierce suggested, looking at me.

  “Married?” I asked.

  “Yes. No kids. And his name wasn’t on the membership list ASI have provided.”

  “I should think a lot of names aren’t,” I agreed. “There were only a dozen on that list.”

  “I never said it was complete,” Nick offered. “But I’ll have Eric and Amber work on it over the weekend. See if we can flesh it out a little.”

  “We don’t want to show our hand,” I warned.

  Nick looked over his shoulder at me and grinned. “Detective, have a little faith.”

  His words were intentional. Chosen with care from my speech to Abi earlier. I held his smirking face with a level stare. I might have trust issues, but I could see a dangerous opponent when he grinned at me.

  “OK,” Pierce announced, breaking our staring match. Well, for me it was staring, for Nick I think it was a game. “Damon’s approaching Karangahape Road now.”

  “His camera and microphone have just come on line,” Nick advised, adjusting dials and switches and swiping at the tablet that controlled the sound.

  “This is it,” Pierce said, as my heart rate sped up and my palms beca
me moist with nervous sweat. Nervous for Damon. Nervous for so many reasons I couldn’t count.

  “What the fuck?” Pierce suddenly said.

  Both Nick and I swung our gazes toward him.

  “What did you see?” Nick asked, flicking glances back at the screens to try to determine what had just made Pierce go a mottled shade of red.

  I looked toward the screen he’d been staring at myself. There were so many people milling around the entrance to Sweet Hell it was difficult to tell at first.

  But then I spotted him, just as Pierce pulled his cellphone up to his ear and started to dial.

  “Wait!” I said, my mind racing, nerves replaced with the adrenaline of a hunt.

  “He shouldn’t be there. He could ruin the sting,” Pierce explained. “He has no idea we’re sending Damon in tonight. He’s just trying to get a drop on the case and kiss up to Hart.”

  “Just hear me out,” I said, holding up a finger to make him pause.

  I stared at Joseph Cawfield on the screen, my eyes darting from the focused expression on his face, to the dark club appropriate clothing he was wearing, to the circle of space he’d managed to acquire around him, indicating he was there alone.

  My mind whirred, connecting dots, lining up possibilities, trying to think of a motive.

  “Out with it, Keen,” Pierce ordered, the cellphone still sitting in his hand ready for him to call Cawfield off.

  I pulled my gaze away from the screens and looked at him.

  “Why would he be there?” I asked. “A night out on the town and you go to a scene potentially linked to a crime?” I shook my head. “And buttering up Hart? I don’t buy it. That’s not how Cawfield works. He’s more a schemer, a behind the scenes chess player. He likes to be in the know,” I conceded, “but everything he knows he keeps close to his chest until it can blow something apart.”

  “Sweet Hell,” Pierce pressed. “Why the fuck Sweet Hell?”

  I held my senior officer’s gaze for a very long time. Let him work it out. Let him come to the conclusion I’d been toying with for a while now.

  Finally Pierce lowered the cellphone and let out a devastated breath of air.

  “You peg him for...” He didn’t finish the question. We had an audience, and CIB’s problems weren’t up for public debate. “What have you got on him?” he asked instead.

  I looked back at the screen and watched Cawfield as he surveyed his terrain. He was there for a reason. My gut told me it wasn’t to impress Hart. But to hide something from the Inspector?

  “I’ve got nothing,” I admitted.

  “Just your gut,” Pierce said, not sounding as convinced of my instincts as he’d been earlier.

  I shook my head.

  “Not even your gut?” he guessed.

  My eyes closed and I reached up and pinched the bridge of my nose. I couldn’t tell what was what anymore.

  “He’s there for a reason,” I said softly. “A club we’re investigating in relation to a murder and the disappearance of two people. Why?”

  “I’m still going with arse kissing,” Pierce offered.

  My eyes opened and I looked blankly at the screen. It took a moment for me to put it all together. To register the fact that he was looking in one direction only. At one thing only. Aware of his surroundings, as any decent detective would be, but focused, in particular, on one thing. On one person.

  “He’s watching Damon,” I said, on a breath of shocked air. Why was he watching Damon?

  “Jesus Christ,” Nick said, the first time he’d spoken since Pierce and I had gone into freak out mode. “She’s right. He’s target locked on your man.”

  “What the fuck?” Pierce repeated.

  “You can’t call him off,” I said quickly. “If he is who we think he is, he’ll go to ground.”

  “He could blow this sting wide open,” Pierce argued. “Damon. Carole Michaels. Your informant.”

  I swallowed thickly, watching as Damon was allowed into the club before any of the wannabe attendees lined up outside. And as Cawfield slunk off into a shadowed corner out on the street to wait.

  “He’s not going in,” I said, mind racing. “He’s on a stake out.”

  “Why?” Pierce pressed.

  Another head shake. “I don’t know, but we won’t find out if we ask him.”

  I turned to look at Pierce again.

  “You know this, Ryan. Push him and we’ve got nothing. Maybe it is innocent.” I laughed at that. It wasn’t in amusement. “But if it isn’t, we have to ask ourselves why? Why here? Why now? Why Damon?”

  “Has he got something on your man?” Nick asked, and only an extremely brave man would have done that. Or an overconfident one.

  I didn’t rise to the bait, just shrugged my shoulders. Damon was there for his sister and no one else. Sure, he’d play the part to help me out with Eagle. But his main focus, almost his only focus, was getting Carole out. I believed him, when he said he’d only been to Sweet Hell twice before. And I believed why. I couldn’t see there being a nefarious reason lurking in the background. Reason enough for Cawfield to be staking him out.

  What did Cawfield know? What was his endgame? And how did this all fit in with betraying CIB?

  I had to know. And leaving Cawfield where he was, unaware of the sting or us watching, was our only chance.

  Which meant we’d be endangering the sting. Endangering Damon.

  And Carole. And Eagle.

  Maybe endangering our chances of solving this murder case.

  “We do nothing,” I said, eyes still on the screen, where Cawfield had faded into the darker recesses of the street. “We wait and we watch,” I added. “And then we catch the spider as he spins his web.”

  Tricky things spiders. They hunt with patience. They sit and wait for their prey to come to them. You should try it, Keen. Sometimes you can catch the spider as he spins his own web.

  “OK,” Pierce said, finally putting his cellphone away. “We do nothing.”

  But the look on his face was anything but content with that idea. Joe Cawfield had just become Ryan Pierce’s thorn. He’d pick at it, scrub at where the thorn had struck. And he wouldn’t stop until he plucked it out of his side. Like Inspector Hart, Pierce could be a dog with a bone.

  We turned our attention back to the screens, back to the interior of Sweet Hell. Viewed through Damon’s button camera. The picture was crystal clear. The low, heavy beat of the sensual music a percussion through the speakers in ASI control.

  We watched as he played roulette. As he moved on to the baccarat table. We watched as he bid and lost over a thousand dollars in thirty minutes. Looking bored. Looking nonchalant. Looking the epitome of rich boy needing something else. Something more.

  It was obvious he couldn’t see Carole. He was too relaxed. Playing the role, creating the illusion. Not for me. But because he hadn’t found his sister.

  I felt a pang of heartache for him. I nibbled on my bottom lip as I contemplated the disappointment and frustration he must have been feeling.

  And then when Nathaniel Marcroft finally approached Damon at just past the hour mark, I discarded all those superfluous emotions and focused on what comes next.

  Because what comes next wasn’t on the main floor of the casino.

  What comes next was down a plain, guarded hallway, similar to the one Jones and I had traversed, and through a double-height black door. With a gold embossed and stylised image in the centre. The Roman numerals for two, with flaming concentric rings surrounding them. I counted each one.

  There were nine.

  It wasn’t a Roman numeral. It didn’t mean two.

  Irreverent Inferno.

  And around it was The Nine Circles Of Hell.

  Chapter 13

  “Paradise is only attainable to those worthy and no others.”

  Marcroft paused before the black door, turning to face Damon at last. He’d barely said two words to him since collecting him from his card game out on the main floo
r and leading him down this nondescript hallway. We needed him to say something.

  We needed Damon to get the man to start talking.

  But until now, both had remained mute.

  “The rules are simple,” Nathaniel Marcroft explained. “To enter Paradise you must prove your worth. To prove your worth you must obey the rules. Until now you have simply existed. The moment you step within the hallowed walls of this chamber you transcend to the afterlife. But that does not guarantee you entry into Paradise.”

  I glanced at Pierce beside me. He had the same look of incredulity that I wore.

  “What is Paradise?” Damon asked.

  “That which you seek.”

  “What the fuck?” Nick said from his seat in front of Pierce and myself. “This guy has to be on something.”

  “Shhh,” I admonished as Damon spoke again.

  “I want to…”

  Marcroft raised his hand and shook his head to stall Damon’s words.

  “It doesn’t matter what you want. That is yours to claim. All we provide is the means necessary to obtain it.”

  “So I could want anything and you’d give it to me? Just like that?” Damon asked.

  “Good. Good,” Pierce whispered, encouraging Damon on even though he couldn’t hear us.

  Nathaniel Marcroft smiled, his face half cut-off by the angle of the button camera lens. But enough of him showed to convey his superior attitude.

  “That is why, Mr Michaels, we charge for the privilege.”

  “How much is Damon paying for this?” I asked, unsure if the fee to the back room of Sweet Hell had been discussed while I was inside my head earlier.

  Pierce swallowed, eyes still on the screen. But he looked uncomfortable.

  “Forty thousand.”

  “What?” Nick and I said in unison, proving the ASI owner was just as shocked as me. But we couldn’t get any further with Pierce; Damon was talking again.

  “Yet that price does not guarantee me Paradise.”