Crashing Heat

by Richard Castle

  Ochoa chimed in. “Right. Plenty of us to go around. If Rook’s in trouble, we’re there.”

  Nikki swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. These guys were her family, and they considered Rook part of theirs. “The best thing you can do for me is figure out what happened to Joon.”

  “You got it,” they said in unison.

  “And guys? Thank you.”

  Heat moved on. Before she left, she needed an update on Joon Chin and the squad’s other active cases. “Got an update for me?”

  “You know we got spread kinda thin, what with Feller taking that fall,” Ochoa said. Feller had been repairing some loose shingles on his roof in Brooklyn. He’d taken a tumble, but he was damn lucky. The statistics hadn’t been in his favor. She’d heard from a friend who worked the emergency room at Mount Sinai West that 20 percent of injuries from falls were from ladders. Feller had broken an arm and busted a rib. He was going to be laid up for a while, but otherwise, his pride was more injured than anything.

  “Have you checked Joon Chin’s phone and computer activity?” she asked Raley.

  “Looking for patterns, regular calls, and sites visited. Anything out of his normal patterns, but so far nothing’s hit.”

  “Keep at it,” she said. “There’s something we’re missing that’ll blow the whole thing wide open.”

  Detective Raley took the Expo marker from her hand, putting the cap on it. “We will, Heat. Now go. We can handle things here.”

  She looked at him, grateful in the knowledge that she didn’t have to say anything more to them. They both understood what she had to do. She nodded, grabbed the navy blazer she’d draped over the back of Ochoa’s chair, and slipped it on. “You can reach me anytime by cell,” she said, already heading out. “I’ll check in with you...”

  Her voice trailed away from them as she left the precinct, her mind already focused on Rook and the very dead Chloe Masterson.

  Nikki drove on autopilot, taking the West Side Highway to Henry Hudson Parkway, and finally crossing the George Washington Bridge. The route had tolls, but it was shorter than the alternatives and she wanted to get to Cambria, east of Lake Placid, as quickly as she could. The nearly five-hour drive meant she had plenty of time to think, which meant plenty of time to contemplate exactly what to say to Rook when she saw him. She would be out of her jurisdiction, but she decided not to register—at least not yet—with the local police department. Under normal circumstances, and in most states, it would be unlawful for her to arrest anyone outside of a municipality’s geographical boundaries. It would jeopardize the prosecution. The defendant would get off because the arrest was unlawful.

  But New York was different. If she had a reasonable suspicion that a crime had been committed, she could arrest anyone at any location in the state. Which meant she had free rein in Cambria to figure out what in the hell happened to Chloe Masterson.

  Rook hadn’t been arrested yet, but that could change any second. He couldn’t stay at his on-campus housing, so the university had moved him to a local three-star hotel. It was decent, but he preferred the five-star variety, so he’d upgraded to what he considered a more suitable location. He met her outside, taking the suitcase she’d hurriedly packed before leaving the city from the trunk of her car. “You travel light,” he said.

  When she spoke, she heard the aloofness in her own voice. Her wall of self-protection was forming again after Rook had worked so hard to help her break it down. “I didn’t have much time to plan a complicated travel wardrobe. What does one wear to investigate the murder of a young woman found in her husband’s bed?”

  Rook looked hurt. Truthfully, he looked like a five-year-old whose lollipop had just dropped in the dirt. “Ouch.”

  Heat held back her response. That comment had come out of left field. In her heart, she believed Rook was innocent. But she was also a highly competent detective, so until she had examined the facts and looked with new eyes at the situation, she wanted to keep some distance. Thus her mildly passive-aggressive sarcasm. She regretted the comment, though.

  “I’m innocent, Nik, remember?”

  “I know,” she said, but did she? “And I’m sorry. This is a new situation for me.”

  “Yeah, for me too. Let’s see, framed for murder. I believe that calls for casual pants, one of the classic button-down blouses you’re so fond of, and, mmm, three-inch heels. Two would be better for chasing down a suspect, but three puts your lips right against mine. Yes, let’s stick with three.”

  Heat had stepped out of her car half ready to keep Rook at arm’s length. She thought she needed to maintain perspective. She’d pressed the button, shooting up the protective wall that was always just a moment away from encasing her, but as usual, Rook had a way of disarming her. All it had taken was the mischievous smile on that devilishly handsome face of his, and the wall was down.

  He stepped closer to her, set down her bag, and slid his arms around her. “I am innocent, Heat,” he said, looking directly into her eyes. “You know that, right?”

  “Of course I do. Half the time you can scarcely stand to look at a dead body—forget about actually taking a life. You don’t have it in you.”

  “Now that’s not entirely true,” he argued. “If you were in mortal danger, I’d most certainly do my very best to take the life of whoever was threatening you.”

  “You did take a bullet for me,” she conceded. It was a sacrifice she wouldn’t have asked of anyone, but the fact that Rook had done it was something she would always feel a little guilty about.

  He grinned, not the least bit of sheepishness in him. “I did, didn’t I?”

  He leaned down to kiss her, and she let him, but only briefly. “Simmer down, tiger. We have a murder to solve.”

  “That we do.” He picked up her bag again and led her into the lobby of the hotel. Two blazer-clad people, one a middle-aged man, the other a twentysomething woman, manned the registration counter. Dark wood abounded, from the base of the counter to the paneling of the walls to the low coffee tables in front of the leather armchairs that dotted the luxurious lounge area. It wasn’t the Ritz, but it was pretty nice.

  It had been nearly ten days since they’d seen each other. Ten days since Nikki had felt her husband’s arms around her. Once they were in the elevator, the time they’d spent apart created a tension between them that was thick. Palpable. They had a history with elevators.

  The woman with the suitcase riding with them was oblivious, thankfully. Nikki’s tongue snaked out from between her lips as she watched Rook. He stepped backward, making sure he was completely out of the other passenger’s line of sight. Nikki followed suit. They stood side by side, silently watching the buttons on the elevator control panel light up as they passed each floor.

  Rook let his fingers find hers, taking hold of them enough to pull her closer to him. He angled himself behind her, moving her hair to the side, bending his head to let his lips brush over her neck. At the same time, his hand slipped around her, his fingers finding their way between the buttons of her blouse until they touched bare skin.

  She drew in a breath, but stifled the moan hovering in her throat, moving her body back until she was pressed against him. And then the elevator slowed and came to a stop. Nikki and Rook froze. Would the woman turn around and register what they’d been doing? Would there be people waiting to get on?

  The doors slid open. The woman picked up her suitcase. Without a backward glance, she stepped out, turned right, and disappeared. The corridor was empty. Nikki and Rook stood completely motionless until the doors slid closed again and the elevator began its upward climb. The second the car was in motion, Rook’s fingers danced against her skin. She watched the car’s buttons as they lit up. Twenty-five. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. The bell dinged, the doors slid open, and they practically stumbled down the hallway to Rook’s room. He dug his room card from his pocket and held the QR code to the mechanism on the door. The lock clicked and they were inside, the su
itcase forgotten just inside the threshold.

  The tension of the elevator morphed into a rushed, almost desperate frenzy. Nikki kicked off her heels while Rook hopped on one foot as he pried off one shoe, then switched his hopping to the other leg and removed the other loafer. They both shimmied out of their pants. While Rook reached behind him to grab the neck of his shirt and yank it over his head, Nikki undid the buttons of her blouse and slipped out of it. Two seconds later they were making up for the lost time.

  It took a while to make up for ten days.

  Eventually Rook rolled onto his back, blowing out a fatigued—but contented—breath. “Good to see you, Heat,” he said.

  She couldn’t help smiling at how his voice cracked with exhaustion. She turned onto her side, propping her head up on her bent arm. “Good to see you, too, Rook.”

  He spoke between heavy breaths. “Out. Of. Practice.”

  She danced her fingertips over his chest. “We should do something about that.”

  That was all the prompting he needed. He wrapped his hand around her wrist, gave a gentle tug, and just like that, she was straddling him. “You sure you’re up for round two?” he asked, his breath suddenly back to normal.

  She pressed her body against his, playfully nipping his lower lip with her teeth. “Are you?” she asked.

  Without the slightest bit of effort, he flipped her onto her back. Now he was straddling her. “Detective Heat, dare I ask, is that a challenge?”

  She waited a beat, letting him relax just a touch. And then, before he knew what hit him, she had wrapped one leg over his hips, angled her bottom leg under him, and flipped them both. Once again, she was on top and in the dominant position. “Are you up for a challenge?”

  He sighed, his mouth curving into that infernally adorable smile. “You win, Detective. Take me.”

  So she did.

  A row of well-kept brownstones lined both sides of the street on what the university called Faculty Row. Each house had a postage-stamp square of grass and a short stack of steps with heavy black railings leading to the front door. A few had window boxes. One had small terra-cotta pots with colorful draping geraniums climbing the steps on either side.

  “Turns out Ray Lamont knows just about everyone,” Rook said. “He pulled some strings and got me the best of the town houses. Or maybe it was Saunders. Either way, old school chums coming through for me backfired in the worst way.”

  “What’s the university saying? Do they still want you to teach?”

  “So far they’re operating on the innocent-until-proven-guilty platform. Not so for the police, I’m afraid. Asshole detective would have thrown me in jail if he had any actual evidence that I was involved. I had to remind him several times that I had no motive to kill that girl.”

  “He’s doing his job. You’re the obvious suspect. Being a hard-ass as I interviewed you is exactly what I would have done.”

  Rook had nothing to say to that. It looked bad for him. There was no escaping that fact. The best they could do was work the case. The best she could do was tamp down any niggling uncertainty she felt. Betrayal in her past didn’t equal betrayal in her present.

  Nikki hadn’t known which brownstone was Rook’s temporary housing, but it didn’t take long to deduce that it was the third from the end. The caution tape crisscrossing in front of the door was a dead giveaway.

  Rook stroked his chin, considering the entrance. “Yellow and black, just like the movies,” he said. “Which would have been pretty cool—if it wasn’t in front of my house.”

  She held out her hand. “Key?”

  “We can’t just go in.” He tilted his head, his brow furrowing. “Can we?”

  She repeated what she’d said to Ochoa and Raley. “I’m a homicide detective—”

  “Captain,” he corrected.

  She ignored him. “You can’t possibly think I’m going to leave this investigation to local law enforcement. Why do you think I’m here?”

  “Moral support?”

  “Sure, that, but we have a murder to solve, Rook. I can’t do that from an armchair. I’m not Miss Marple.”

  “Okay, but Nik, you don’t have jurisdiction here.”

  “That’s the beauty of New York,” she said. “I can slap cuffs on a criminal anywhere.”

  He looked at her for a beat. “I did not know that.”

  “It’s a special state.”

  “That it is,” he said. He unlocked the door and pushed it open. She took a breath, feeling like Bruce Wayne as he transformed into Batman. She wasn’t Nikki anymore; she was Detective Heat. This was wrong in so many ways. She was not officially working this case. She was bringing Rook, purportedly the prime suspect, right back to the crime scene. But she wasn’t going to think about either of those things right now. She couldn’t. Instead, she gloved up, handing Rook a pair.

  He took them, but hesitated. “I’ve been living here. My prints are all over the place.”

  “Do it anyway,” she said, and Rook complied.

  Heat crouched under the caution tape, crossing the threshold and standing upright just inside the door. Rook did the same, closing the door behind him. She held her arm out at ninety degrees, stopping him from continuing. She needed a moment to take it all in. She catalogued every detail of the space. Small foyer. Mid-quality occasional table with a dark wood-framed mirror hanging above it. It reflected the light, making the space feel just a little bit bigger.

  “Nice furniture,” she commented.

  Rook shrugged. “It’s not the Tribeca loft, but it’s serviceable.”

  “Nothing is like the Tribeca loft,” she said. It was true. Rook’s place was special. Rustic, yet refined. Spacious and well-appointed. He was a man who lived lavishly. It had taken some getting used to, but she had to admit that she’d grown fond of the luxuries Rook shared with her.

  Once she passed through the foyer, she could see straight through to the back of the house. Like all brownstones, the house was a shotgun. A staircase straight ahead led upstairs. To the left, a small beige couch and two armchairs formed a conversation area. “No TV,” she commented.

  “I assume the university thinks professors don’t deign to watch television. Clearly they have never seen Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura.”

  “Really?” She would never understand Rook’s obsession with conspiracy theories and secret societies and biblical prophecies.

  Rook shrugged. “Hey, it was a good show.” He dropped his voice a few notes. “‘I’ve been a mayor. I’ve been a governor. Now I get to be a detective and seek the truth.’” He grinned. “That was a damn good Jesse Ventura impression.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “If you say so.”

  “I do.”

  “What is it with you and conspiracies?”

  He pressed his open palm to his heart. “Um, hello? Roswell?”

  She walked through the living room to the kitchen with its rectangular dining table, granite countertops and island, and French doors leading to the small backyard. “I’m not going to talk about aliens right now.”

  “I agree. Now is, perhaps, not the time. But file it away in the back of your mind. Roswell is real. The government has many secrets.”

  Heat only half acknowledged him. She was busy looking at the house. There was no evidence of her husband in this place. It was like a model home. Perfectly appointed, but no evidence of any actual living person. She backtracked through the living room, put her hand on the railing, and headed upstairs.

  “It’s three bedrooms,” Rook said from behind her. “The master is in the front of the house. The other two are in the back.”

  “And Chloe was found in the master.” A statement, not a question.

  “Heat...” Rook started.

  She held her hand up. “Don’t say it.”

  “We haven’t talked about it—”

  “We don’t need to.”

  “I think we do.”

  She stopped and turned to face him. “Oh, belie
ve me, we will, Rook. But later. Right now we need to focus on the crime itself. There was a dead girl found in your house. In your bed. Which means you’re going to be named a person of interest. Hence the lead detective being an asshole, as you mentioned. We need to figure out what happened.”

  She knew he wanted to say something. To argue with her and direct the conversation. She saw the struggle on his face. And then she saw his resignation. Rook liked to talk things through. To push through her barriers. She was impressed that he recognized now was not the time to press her.

  She hiked up the rest of the stairs, took a right turn at the landing, and walked straight into a sitting room connected to the master bedroom. A good part of the wood flooring was covered with a medium-pile area rug. A dark brown leather armchair angled out from the corner. Next to it, a window overlooked the park across the street. A floor lamp sat to the left back of the chair. On the right was a round accent table with a burnished oak top. The style of the room was masculine, but comfortable.

  The master bedroom was to the right. Heat stopped. In a typical scenario, she would put herself in the mind of the victim. The minute she stopped thinking about them as people, who just minutes or hours or days before had been living and breathing, was the minute she’d hand in her badge. The fact that Chloe Masterson was found in Rook’s bed made it too close to home, but she wouldn’t let that deter her from being Chloe’s strongest advocate.

  As she did with every crime scene, Heat examined the room with beginner’s eyes. She catalogued every detail of what she saw, actively fighting against the blind spots veteran detectives often developed. Their observation skills became dull. Anesthetized by habit.

  But Nikki didn’t succumb to even the slightest level of complacency. She was in the moment, often going so far as to imagine the murder happening right in front of her, watching it as if it were a movie so as not to miss even the slightest piece of information. The same type of medium-pile rug was under the double bed. The brown-and-gold paisley bedspread was pulled back, the sheets beneath rumpled. She took a step forward. The bedsheet had been pulled up. Even so, the blood had seeped through. A lot of blood, she thought. She knew Chloe had been stabbed. Her body had been removed, but experience told Heat that she’d bled out fast. She heard Dr. Lauren Parry’s voice in her head: The average adult body holds five liters of blood. A stab wound to an artery will cause rapid blood loss. Exsanguination will happen fairly quickly under those circumstances.