“Pardon me?”
“I just asked if you have experienced any loss of concentration lately.”
“No,” she said, hoping the first question wasn’t pass/fail. “I feel sharp.”
“I deal with a lot of post-traumatic stress disorder, and I’m accustomed to police officers who are wired to prove they’re invulnerable. So please know that there’s no shame in anything you are experiencing or in what you share here.” Heat nodded and smiled enough to signal her acceptance of that, all the while worried this man could sideline her indefinitely with the stroke of a pen. “And, to be clear, I have no interest in keeping you in treatment,” he said, as if reading her mind. Or just knowing it. He continued to ask her questions, some of which she’d already covered in writing on the intake. About her sleep habits, alcohol consumption, whether she felt jumpy or frequently startled. If the shrink felt satisfied or troubled by her responses, Lon King displayed no tells.
He said, “I suppose we can stipulate the answer to one question is a yes-that you have, in your life, witnessed life-threatening events.”
“Homicide detective,” she answered, pointing at herself with both hands.
“What about personally, though? Outside the job?” She shared as briefly as she dared, without disrespecting the process, events of her mother’s murder. He paused when she finished, then, mellow as a smooth jazz announcer, said, “At nineteen, that can be formative. Do you ever experience things that make you feel you are revisiting or reliving that tragedy?”
Nikki wanted to laugh and say, “Only all the time,” but feared she might bury herself in months of off-duty shrinkage, so she said, “In the most positive way. My work puts me in contact with victims and their loved ones. Whatever intersection there is with my own life, I try to utilize to help them and my investigative work.”
King didn’t race over to slap a gold star on her crown. All she got was an “I see” before he asked, “And what about things that you associate with your mother’s murder? Do you ever find yourself avoiding people or things that remind you of it?”
“Huh…” Heat slumped back against the cushion and looked at the ceiling. A second hand ticked softly on a clock behind her, and through the closed window behind him, she could hear the reassuring flow of York Avenue twelve stories below. Nikki’s only answer was her avoidance of the piano in the living room. She told him that she couldn’t bring herself to play it and explained why while he just listened. Another aversion, one that hadn’t occurred to her until then, was the arm’s length relationship with her father. Nikki had always attributed that distance to him, but to raise it in that session could unseal Pandora’s box, and so she left it at the piano, and even asked if that was a bad thing.
“There’s no good or bad. We’ll just talk and let a whole picture emerge.”
“Great.”
“Is your father still living?” Was this guy a psychologist or a psychic? Nikki filled him in on the divorce and painted a distant but cordial relationship, shading the arm’s length part as coming from her father’s shoulder, not hers, which was partially true anyway. “When was the last contact you had with your father?”
“A couple of hours ago. I called him to do damage control on a mess created by my captain, who sent an investigator to question him about my mom’s murder.”
“So, you reached out to him.” Heat gave a strong yes, mindful of the PTSD warning sign of avoiding people linked to a trauma. “And how did your dad receive it?”
Nikki recalled his bluster and the jangle of ice cubes. “Let’s just say he could have been more present.” The therapist didn’t dwell on that but moved on to ask her about her other relationships, and she said, “Because of my work, it’s hard to maintain one, as you probably know.”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
Truthfully, but as briefly as she could, Nikki summarized the nature of her relationships over the past few years, the longest, most recent one being with Don. She gave King the same version she had shared with Detective Caparella the night before: Combat training partner with benefits. She told him next about Jameson Rook. His only digression in the session was to ask if he was the famous writer. Nikki used that as a point of entry to describe how they had met on his ride-along the summer before and how, even though she and Rook seemed exclusive, it was undeclared. Nonetheless she had not slept with Don or anyone since she met Rook.
“How are you dealing after last night’s shooting?”
“It’s difficult.” Tears made an invasion attempt as she reflected on poor Don, but she held them back. “Mainly, I’m trying to postpone dealing.”
“And last night, when you were with Don, was that platonic?”
“Yes,” Nikki said in a blurt.
“That was an emphatic response. Is it a sensitive topic?”
“Not really. Don and I had just had a workout. At our gym. And he came back to my place for a shower. That’s when the shooting happened.”
“A shower. And where was Mr. Rook?”
“Back at his place. We’d had a fight, and I… needed to blow off steam.” Lon King set aside the intake papers and folded his hands in his lap, watching her. Uncomfortable with the silence, she said, “I will admit, I toyed with straying, but…”
“You said you and Mr. Rook hadn’t declared exclusivity.”
“No, but…”
“What do you think the-toying, as you called it-was all about?”
“I don’t know.” And then Nikki surprised herself by asking, “Do you?”
“Only you do,” he said. “People make their own rules about what’s faithful, or not. Just as they have their own reasons for holding to those rules, or not.” She took a page from him and, for a change, waited him out. He obliged. “Sometimes… only sometimes, mind you… people in crisis try to mask their pain through deflection. Try to envision a subconscious attempt to change the radio stations in one’s head to a different pain than the one he-or she-doesn’t want to confront. What did you and Mr. Rook quarrel about?”
Whatever guard she’d had up before lowered. In spite of her attitude going in, Heat felt safe and comforted by all this. She walked him through Rook’s accusation about her defensive wall and how it sparked the fight.
“And why do you think that was so charged?”
“He’s been pushing me lately in ways I don’t like.”
“Tell me.”
“Rook’s been hounding me. Insisting on dragging me back over old family issues to investigate my mom’s mur-” Neither of them needed the end of that sentence to fathom the potential significance of what she was revealing. Nikki panicked. She saw herself imprisoned in Therapy World for eternity with no time off for good behavior and immediately tried to buy it back. “But you know,” she said, “people quarrel in relationships. If it’s not one thing it’s another, right?”
“Yet, this was one thing. And not another.”
As the silence crushed her, the therapist waited. And waited.
“What does it mean?” she asked.
“I can’t answer that. All I can do is ask, who were you truly angry with? And, who would be most hurt if you had slept with Don?” He smiled and then looked at the clock behind her. “We’re at the end of our time.”
“Already?” As he picked up her papers and slid them in a file, she said, “So?”
“All these years, all these sessions, it always ends with a cop asking, ‘So?’” He smiled again. “Nikki, you have a lot of loss you are coping with and more trauma than most carry in a lifetime.” Her mouth sprouted cotton. “But. Having said that, I see that you are remarkably resilient and, in my view, a strong, high-functioning, centered person with what Hemingway called grace under pressure. Far healthier than most I see in your profession.”
“Thank you.”
“That’s why I think you’ll be happy with my recommendation that you return to work-after one’s week’s rest.”
“But my work. My case…”
“Nikk
i. Look at what you’ve been through. You need some time to find your center. Grace under pressure comes with a price tag.” He got out a pen and wrote in the file. “So that’s why I’m ordering this seven-day forced leave of absence, with pay.” He twisted the pen closed. “For my final disposition, it might be viewed as a healthy sign if you demonstrated an attempt to mend connections you’ve severed related to the trauma.”
“You mean Rook?”
“That would be significant.” He closed the file and said, “Let’s meet a week from today to reevaluate.”
“You mean, this leave of absence might extend if I don’t?”
“Let’s meet a week from now. Then see where you are.”
EIGHT
The caller ID read “Twentieth Precinct.” Nikki stepped away from the cash register to let the customer behind her go ahead while she pressed answer. “Heat.”
“Roach,” came the voices of Raley and Ochoa together.
“Hey, in stereo.”
Raley said, “Uh, actually that technology is years away. Your earpiece is, sadly, monaural.”
“Buzz killer,” said Ochoa. “Detective Sean Raley, where joy goes to die.”
“Did you two call to try out your morning zoo routine? Because I have news for you. Howard Stern is safe.”
Ochoa led off. “Calling with an update on that taxi you shot up, figuring we’re still allowed to keep you in the loop. Catch you at an OK time?”
“Sure, I’m just buying a new rug. A runner for my entry hall.”
“Listen,” said Ochoa, “you need any help cleaning up over there? Because Raley’s got, like, no life.” The pair laughed, and he continued, “Seriously, we can swing over after shift.”
“Thanks, really. But I spent the rest of my afternoon sweeping and scrubbing. I’m good. Whatcha got?”
Forensics had just shipped the prelim, and Roach wanted to let her know they lifted lots of prints and were running them. To expedite things, Feller drove a mobile ID kit to the driver’s house so his could be eliminated. Roach didn’t sound hopeful about the rest of the fingerprints. Ochoa said, “I’m guessing the bulk are going to be from the parts scavengers. Man, they hit that cab like a school of piranha.”
“Even took the security dash cam and the hard drive, so no video of our shooter.”
Heat asked, hopefully, “How much blood on the seats?”
“What seats?” said Raley.
“He’s still out there, Detective. You watch your back.”
When she got off the phone, the clerk had already rung up her purchase, a three-by-seven Turkish wool with a color and pattern similar to the one she was replacing. Nikki paid, and he asked, “You want it delivered? We’re closing for the night, but we can have it there first thing tomorrow.”
Heat smiled and shouldered the roll. “It’s three blocks.”
Eight P.M., and traces of the departing day greened the sky to the west on 23rd Street. Window lights flicked on at a thrift store, and she stopped to admire a lamp, thinking she’d come back for closer inspection when they opened in the morning. Something reflected in the polished brass of the base moved behind her. Nikki spun.
Nobody there. When she turned back around, the roll of rug balanced on her shoulder almost whacked a passing leafleteer holding a stack of handout ads for men’s suits. Relieved to avoid a Three Stooges moment, Heat rounded the corner to take Lexington home. Whether it was Ochoa’s admonishment that the shooter was still out there or primal wariness as the street transitioned from shops to apartments and lost commercial light, she decided to hail a cab. Nikki raised her free hand as she walked along, but the only two cabs that passed were occupied, so she gave that up after she passed East 22nd with only two blocks to go.
Halfway to 21st, tires squealed followed by an angry horn behind her, and a woman’s voice, “Asshole, it says don’t walk!” Nikki turned around to check up the block, but all she saw were the car’s taillights lurching west and the Chrysler Building’s silvery glow a mile uptown. She continued on, but couldn’t pause the streaming video of the night before replaying in her head: the footsteps of the shooter in the hoodie stomping across her rooftop; his footsteps on the planks of the scaffold; his footsteps on the asphalt of Park Avenue South. Was she just jumpy from lack of sleep or could this really be happening again? It’s what fills your mind when you know somebody out there wants you dead and is looking for his next opportunity. What was she doing alone on the street at night? Heat missed the two pounds of reassurance gone from her hip after Captain Irons took possession of her service weapon. Her backup Beretta 950 sat in a desk drawer in her apartment, doing no good up there. Nikki sped up her pace.
Jaywalking across East 20th Street, she definitely heard footfalls matching hers, and when she stopped, they did, too. She pivoted, but the sidewalk was empty. It crossed her mind to lose the rug, but with her building coming in sight on the opposite side of the square, Nikki pushed it to a jog, double-timing west along the spiked wrought iron that fenced in Gramercy Park.
The notion of an ambush occurred to her. If this guy had an accomplice staking out her front stairs, she might be racing right into the jaws of a trap. She began to calculate one-on-one as better odds, especially if she surprised him with an impromptu reversal. At the corner of the park, the fence didn’t cut a sharp angle but curved. As soon as Heat rounded it, she stopped and dropped.
Squatting in a crouch, Nikki waited and listened. Sure enough, the jogging footsteps approached but halted fifteen yards off. Her view was blocked by the park shrubbery hiding both of them, but she heard panting. And a man softly clearing his throat. Resting a palm flat on the flagstone sidewalk, she leaned to her left and found his distorted reflection in the restaurant window across the street. He was only a dark shape in the soft lighting of the park, but she made out his hooded sweatshirt and ball cap. She lost him when he moved forward, resuming his pursuit. Heat got ready.
He came around the corner of the sidewalk at a trot. When he did, Nikki thrust herself upward, ready to bat his face with the three-foot roll of Turkish wool. Then she recognized her pursuer as Rook.
Heat just managed to pull her swing and missed hitting him, but he startled, shouting “Whoa, no, no!” flailing his arms up defensively and losing his balance. He pitched forward, bent over in a stoop, desperately fighting gravity and losing. Rook crash landed with an “oof!” on the slate flagstones, managing, at least, to shield his face, putting his forearm between it and the sidewalk as he dropped.
“God, Rook, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Protecting you,” came his muffled voice spoken into the sleeve under him. He turned over and sat up. Blood streamed from both nostrils.
When they came into her apartment, she said, “Please don’t bleed on the floor, I just cleaned it.”
“Love the compassion. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
She sat him down on a bar stool with a box of tissues and washed him up with the remaining towelettes Lauren Parry had given her the night before. While she dabbed the dried blood from his upper lip and nose, she said, “Rook, think back over the past year. Haven’t you learned yet not to shadow me?”
“Clearly, not. Ow.”
“Sorry.”
“And clearly, you haven’t learned that, if you’re being shadowed, it just might be the cavalry. Meaning me.”
“I.”
“No grammar police, OK?” He pulled a wad of tissue away from his nose to examine for fresh blood. Satisfied, he lobbed it into the trash can. “What’s wrong with us, Nikki? Why can’t we be like a Woody Allen movie? Two old lovers with unfinished business running into each other on a New York sidewalk?”
“You mean,” she said, “instead of running into a sidewalk?”
“Is my nose broken?”
“Let’s see.” She reached her fingers for it, but he pulled back.
“No. Enough pain.” He got up and checked his face in the teakettle. “Reflection’s too distorted t
o tell.” He shrugged. “Well, if it is broken, it’ll give me character. I’ll be even more rugged in my rugged handsomeness.”
“Until people find out how you did it.” That made him check himself out in the kettle again. While he turned away, bending to assess the damage, she said, “Thank you for trying to protect me.” Then she added, “Guess you can’t be that angry.”
He rose upright and faced her. “Wanna bet?” But his look told her he had, at least, downgraded to a simmer.
“And I don’t blame you. I know you felt blindsided.”
“Why? Because you ditched me, and a couple of hours later, I find a naked dead man in your apartment? And when I dare to ask, you think you can get away with saying it’s complicated and giving me the boot?”
“OK, so I guess you may still be angry.”
“What if roles were reversed? What if you had come into my place and found a naked Tam Svejda with her brains on the floor? All right, maybe not so much the brains, but you get the idea.”
A stillness charged by unseen toxic particles settled in the chasm between them. Nikki knew that it fell to her to break the silence, or not to. She recognized a tipping point when she saw one and waded in. “You may not agree,” she began, “because of the… indignity of your nose injury, but tonight’s unexpected encounter is sort of good timing. Today my shrink suggested I make contact with you.”
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