A Lick Of Heat: H.E.A.T. Book Four

by Claire, Nicola

  Carl hadn’t come home for a week. Rachel thought he was dead. That’s why she was breaking her vow of silence.

  Which meant the Carl I’d seen in Eagle’s alley and at Mount Eden Prison and outside Pitt Street Fire was not Carl at all.

  “Shit,” I said, which about summed it all up, I thought.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Where You Find One, You’ll Find Two. And Where You Find Two, There’s Always Another.”

  “He might not be dead,” I said as I started the car outside Rachel’s house.

  “Of course not,” Damon replied, but I thought his words sounded hollow.

  “Maybe Weston got to him somehow,” I suggested. I’d thought it a possibility, and it would explain the shocking change in behaviour I’d witnessed in Eagle’s alley. And I could see Weston manipulating Carl into staying away from those he loved, meaning Rachel.

  Part of the mind manipulation process involved isolation. We believed Weston used hypnosis, but having discovered he was a former PSYOPS agent, I was more inclined to believe now that he would use a combination of methods. Including brainwashing; the ultimate military mind manipulation method.

  And brainwashing included isolation.

  It made sense when so much didn’t make any sense right now. I had to cling to something. Because the thought of Carl being dead - really, truly dead - just about did my head in.

  My fingers wrapped tightly around the steering wheel until I was sure I was imprinting the shape of it into the palms of my hands permanently. I could feel my heart racing which was accompanied by an increase in the rate of my respirations. I tried to count to three slowly inside my head like Hennessey had taught me. I knew it wasn’t working because my chest hurt. My lips tingled. I blinked my eyes, trying to dry them. Sweat coated my skin, and when I glanced up into the mirror in the sun visor above me, my face was too pale, and my eyes looked like big, bright shining orbs in some sort of too-thin alien face.

  I pulled the car over to the side of the road in Panmure; I couldn’t drive safely like this. The engine ticked as it cooled after I switched it off. Damon said nothing. Silence stretched.

  Damon wasn’t one to fill the void with useless words. If he had something to say, he’d say it. But he wouldn’t rush to give platitudes or false reassurances.

  His silence when I was so close to the edge, however, was unusual. Damon expressed emotions differently to me. He sometimes overflowed with them, when I could close down and appear unfeeling. It seemed ironic that right then he was the block of ice and I was the fire, crackling and spitting and roaring in defiance of what I was feeling.

  He sucked in a deep breath of air and let it out slowly. Strangely, it helped to match my breathing to his. I didn’t think he was doing it on purpose; he was deep in thought. But it helped to watch him. To listen to the steady, slow breaths as he made them. To link that life-giving process to his.

  “I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” he finally said.

  It wasn’t what I expected him to say. But it also wasn’t a surprise either. We were both so close to the edge; we could have stepped over it together. In sync as now our breaths and heartbeats were in sync.

  “This isn’t your fault,” I murmured, staring out of the window at the late afternoon sun as it reflected off the Panmure Basin.

  “None of this would have happened if I hadn’t taken Carole from him.”

  “That’s not true,” I told him. “Carl would still have been shot and fallen off that cliff. Weston is not Declan King.” Carl had found out something about King’s association with the Crown Prosecutor. That was what had caused his fall from the cliff.

  So many killed at his hands to protect me.

  So many hearts broken like Rachel’s.

  “Weston’s not so different from King,” Damon said. “Perhaps he’s stepped into his shoes in his absence.”

  It was a possibility; someone had to. Crime does not exist in a vacuum.

  Where you find one, you’ll find two. And where you find two, there’s always another.

  Carl had known that. Every cop knew it — especially cops who crossed that line and made the law a laser beam.

  I wondered idly what Cawfield was up to. Was he still back on Ponsonby Road, watching the halfway house in that shifty way he’d adopted? Catching Carl-Not-Carl’s eyes from the shadows? Working with Weston?

  I contemplated starting the vehicle again, but the sun was going down, and the tide was in, making the Basin look picture perfect.

  We sat in silence for a while. Birds swooped. Runners jogged the perimeter of the Basin. The hotel that sat across the water looked like it was setting up for a wedding reception. Life went on all around us and yet it was possible my mentor was actually dead.

  “If he’s not been manipulated,” I said into the somehow, considering what we were discussing, comfortable silence that enveloped us, “then he’ll be dead.”

  “Weston abducts people,” Damon argued. “He took Stretch to get to me. He could have taken Carl to get to you. You’ve become a thorn in his side too, now, love.”

  He’d want revenge on me and not just Damon now. It made sense.

  Why did that sentence leave me feeling so antsy?

  Abduction. Blackmail. Manipulation. Murder.

  What if accidental murders, like Angelo's, didn’t count?

  He planned his abductions and blackmails and manipulations. Why would he not plan his murders?

  I started the car and headed towards the Panmure roundabout. I didn’t go straight over and on towards the city centre and Pitt Street Fire when the opportunity to merge with traffic arose. Instead, I flicked my indicator on and circumnavigated the roundabout, heading back towards Howick.

  “What are you thinking?” Damon asked softly. It was as if we were both in some sort of cotton wool cloud. A bubble that kept our words carefully modulated and made everything seem distant somehow. He wasn’t quite as ice cold as he’d been. Nor was he displaying the emotions he normally would be. And I was neither of those things.

  Numb. We were both so, so numb. How much more could we take? How much more could Weston do to us before we actually broke? Dashed against his jagged rocks and fracture into tiny pieces.

  “I’m just checking something,” I said back in that same soft, modulated tone of voice.

  You’re close to breaking, Lara.

  Just one more day. Twenty-four hours. That’s all. Just give me long enough to see this through to the end.

  We crossed the Panmure bridge. Passed Pakuranga Plaza. Saint Kents. Lloyd Elsmore Park came up on the right. The local College on the left. And then we were back in Howick.

  I didn’t take the road that led to Rachel’s. I took the one on the left instead; that headed towards Mellons Bay and the coastline. Damon’s hands flexed where he had them resting on his thighs. He’d figured it out. He wanted to reach for me or to hold onto something for dear life; anything to stop this inexorable fall towards the rocks.

  This was going to hurt.

  I hadn’t been back here. No one in their right mind would after what had happened on that small stretch of grass. Most of the reserve had been given over to car parking. But there was a bench seat fixed into the grass and trees at the end near the cliffs. The view from the top of the cliffs was stunning at this time of the day, and there were a couple of cars parked in the parking spots. But no one was in them watching the sun set.

  The smell of barbecued meat was on the air when I opened the door to the sedan. A house across the street was having a party. The cars would be their guests’. I could see three men standing around a grill with beers in hand and laughter on the wind.

  There was no scent of chilli. The cicadas were long dead. The tar seal beneath my boots felt cold despite the sun still hanging low in the sky. I looked across the water to Motuihe Island. Its bigger brother, Waiheke, had started to light up with street and house lights.

  I’d parked in the middle of the carpark when w
e both knew there was only one place to check.

  I closed my door and beeped the locks. Damon walked around to my side of the car, and closer to the cliff end of the parking area. He reached out and took my hand in his without a word.

  I was shaking. My palm was slick with sweat. He said nothing; just offered a squeeze of his fingers to bolster me and then we started to walk.

  Kenny Tyndall had approached Carl under the trees at the south end. He’d backed my partner up to the edge of the cliffs. It had been a King Tide. High seas. The waves had been slamming against the rocks at the base of the cliffs. Those waves had saved Carl’s life when the bullet Tyndall had fired had failed to take it.

  I’d been too late. Too slow. I’d fired my own weapon a split second after Tyndall had fired his. The sound of the bullets firing in near sync ricocheted around inside my head.

  My hair blew into my face. I didn’t reach up and tame it. I kept my eyes on the small piece of grass at the end of the carpark where it had all begun.

  Run, Lara. Run!

  I wasn’t running anymore.

  I took one step after the other until we crossed from tar seal to grass and we were there. Not quite to the edge of the cliffs but back in the nightmare.

  Wind. Waves. Chilli. Cicadas. Bullets flying. Carl screaming. My heart fracturing. Tyndall dying.

  The images and remembered sounds flickered like static behind my closed eyelids. I swayed. Damon wrapped an arm around me. My forehead met his chest. He was breathing too quickly.

  Count, Damon, I said inside my head. One. Two. Three. Breathe.

  I shook. Damon rubbed my back and said something soothing. It was nonsense words. The tone was all that mattered. The fact he was there with me and held me was what I clung to.

  Run, Lara. Run!

  I’m not running anymore, Carl. I’m here.

  I pulled back from Damon and wiped my eyes; sucking in breath after breath that matched no count I could think of. I straightened my spine. Put my shoulders back. Rested a hand on my hip where my badge should have been.

  I barely registered its absence.

  And then I put one foot in front of the other.

  Damon walked with me. The party across the street got louder. Beer bottles clinking. Sausages sizzling. Someone barked out a laugh that sounded like a sea lion.

  My feet reached the end of the grass where a woefully inadequate chain fence and a small sign warned of the dangers of going any further. They hadn’t upgraded it since Carl’s death.

  Since the first one, that is.

  I looked out across the water, aware the longer I took, the harder it would be to see any details at the bottom of the cliff. I couldn’t look down. I couldn’t lower my face. My neck was stiff; solid; unyielding. My eyes watered making Waiheke Island waver.

  I felt Damon stiffen beside me. He sucked in a minute amount of air as if he thought breathing right then would alarm me.

  I looked at Waiheke Island and thought about life and death and right and wrong and Carl Forrester.

  It wasn’t a King Tide tonight.

  I looked down.

  I made a sound.

  And then the grass hit my knees, or my knees hit the grass and Damon was right there beside me.

  I’d mourned my partner’s death. I’d mourned him badly, horrifically. I’d dealt with it the only way the daughter of Ethan Keen could. Badly. Horrifically. We don’t break down; we do our jobs.

  The tears stung. My throat ached. My chest hurt; there was nothing left inside there now.

  I’d mourned him, and then I’d discovered he’d been alive. The relief, the hope, the astounding elation had been tempered with the horrific truth. He was not my Carl. He was murdering people.

  I’d mourned him, and then I’d faced reality; not well; not prettily. But I’d faced it. Accepted it.

  Accepted that he was alive.

  At the bottom of the cliff lay a crumpled body. No fedora hat. No trench coat. He was naked. Which out of all the indignities here affected me the most. Carl wasn’t modest; he’d get changed in the locker room in front of me. But in death, there should be some dignity.

  But death is undignified. Death is never pretty.

  I cried for my partner. I cried for my friend. I cried for Rachel and Sally and Liz and Margaret. I cried for me, and I cried for Damon who would pick up the pieces afterwards.

  Then I packed it all away. Inch by excruciating inch, I clawed my way back to the surface. I filed the emotions in a mental drawer and locked it; then I tucked the key away because my father was wrong. You didn’t throw it away; you kept it. Because sooner or later, you had to open that drawer back up and face what you’d hidden inside of it.

  For now, though, I needed to think. To operate. To function. And I could not function with so many wild and painful emotions swirling around inside me.

  The drawer slid shut. The key turned in the lock. I sucked in a breath of air.

  Then I pulled my cellphone out and dialled Ryan Pierce.

  There is a chain of command in the police service. It isn’t the military, but there is order to these things. We need order at times like this. We need procedures to follow and rules to adhere to.

  I clung to them.

  Damon pulled his cellphone out and dialled Horse. HEAT had its procedures too. And Horse was head of Rescue.

  Pierce answered on the first ring.

  “Where the hell are you? And what have you done to my car?”

  I stared across the waves - not a King Tide - at Waiheke.

  “Sarge,” I said. “I need you.”

  Silence and then, “Where?”

  I closed my eyes and tried not to blink. Blinking made the tears sting more.

  “Mellons Bay Cliffs,” I said.

  He swore softly and then murmured, “Are you alone?”

  “Damon’s here.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  The phone went dead, but I didn’t lower it. I stared at Waiheke Island and then made myself look down again.

  Carl lay pale and broken at the base of the cliffs. We’d come full circle in the end.

  This was what should have greeted me that night. I’d been cheated, and then I’d been given a reprieve of sorts. And now I’d been struck a lasting blow. It hurt.

  It doesn’t matter if you’re ready for it. It doesn’t matter if you’ve felt it before; even if falsely.

  None of that matters but the moment — the truth of it.

  Carl Forrester was dead, and Rhys Kyle Weston had done it; I was sure. No fedora and no trench coat and no clothes, because Weston needed them to fool me.

  He’d been playing a sick game at my expense. He’d known exactly where my pressure points were. Hell, Hennessey had probably been forced to tell him. The man knew me better than he knew Damon; his object of revenge. Because a shrink knows you better than your sibling ever could.

  Carole didn’t know Damon like Hennessey knew me and Weston had used it.

  He’d struck a blow. The mental set of drawers inside my head rattled, but the lock held firmly.

  Thanks, Dad.

  Weston thought he’d win with this.

  He almost had.

  Carl was dead.

  And if I had anything to do with it, Weston would soon be following.

  I slid my cellphone back inside my jacket pocket and turned towards the carpark. I needed to secure the scene.

  And then I was catching a killer. God help him. Because nothing on this earth would.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Life Sucks. Death Sucks Harder.”

  The thing about being suspended from CIB was that I was suspended from CIB. As soon as Pierce arrived, I was officially out; no longer in charge of the scene. He tried to include me in the logistics. He even deferred to me with regards to the placement of uniforms around the perimeter. He listened and nodded his head and then did what the officer in charge is supposed to do; he called it in.

  And everything changed as soon as word g
ot out and every detective from CIB turned up to see the body.

  To see Carl’s body.

  I was shunted off to the side. Not even Damon could keep me company. He wasn’t suspended, and HEAT was on site. As Chief Investigator and therefore Head of HEAT it was his job to oversee the Rescue.

  Rescue, I thought as I leaned against Pierce’s sedan and watched the organised chaos play out, was a misnomer. There was no one left down there to rescue — just a body.

  It took them an hour to abseil down and safely winch him back up to the top of the cliff. They couldn’t get the coastguard’s boat in close enough and traversing the rocks from the nearby beach was too dangerous while toting a body.

  This was what Rescue was made for, though. To rescue people in difficult and dangerous positions. Or to retrieve bodies from the very same thing. Except the difficult and dangerous conditions were in reference to the rescuers and not the body.

  Cawfield was here. Along with his sticky bun eating sidekick, Simpson. They stood huddled together with the rest of CIB watching as Carl’s body was lifted over the edge of the cliff on a secured stretcher.

  I felt numb. I felt nothing. I watched as my former CIB partner who I had thought had been murdered in front of me and then came back to life to haunt me was hauled up in a stretcher deceased.

  The fall might have killed him. He might have been dead before the fact. We wouldn’t definitively know until the Chief Pathologist did the autopsy. But ESR was on site, and the forensic team approached as soon as Rescue placed Carl’s body down on the small strip of grass, this side of the chain fence and pathetic warning.

  Someone will have to upgrade that, I thought abstractly.

  Everything felt a little abstract right then.

  Trevor Jones approached, peeling himself away from the CIB Club. The club I was no longer a part of.

  Not officially, Pierce would say.

  To hell with that. I was standing on my own beside my former superior’s stolen sedan, and the rest of them were over by Carl comforting each other as only detectives could. A little bit of black humour, a little bit of manly shoulder slaps, and a little bit of silence punctuated with agreeable grunts and head nods.