Crashing Heat

by Richard Castle

  Nikki slipped on a pair of nitrile gloves she’d dug out of her jacket pocket, taking the notebook from Jada. Rook looked over her shoulder as she began flipping through it. “It’s her notes about whatever she was investigating.” Nikki looked at Jada. “Where did you get this?”

  “We have lockers at the rec. She usually put her locker key in my bag.”

  “You don’t use a locker?” Nikki asked.

  “We have to bring our own music, so when I’m teaching, I keep my bag with me at the front of the studio. That way I have my backup CDs in case my phone dies or the Bluetooth won’t work.”

  Made sense. Nikki had taken enough fitness classes over the years—before she began training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu—to know that music often made the class by creating the atmosphere or by giving motivation cues through rhythm and beat.

  “She put her key in my bag, but she left her cell phone on top. It went off in the middle of class, which made me pretty mad at the time. Everyone who practices yoga knows to turn the ringer off before class.”

  Yoga. The breathing Jada must have used to control her emotions. Her calm demeanor. It made sense. Nikki took over the questioning. “Her phone rang?”

  Jada shook her head. “Well, no. It flashed.”

  Nikki didn’t use the LED flash setting, but her niece did. “And she noticed?”

  “We were in Shavasana—”

  “And that is?” Rook interrupted.

  “It’s usually the final pose,” Jada said.

  Corpse pose, Nikki thought. It was a grim coincidence.

  “The lights are dimmed. You lay flat, completely relaxed but awake,” Jada continued. “Chloe was antsy all class. She couldn’t find a comfortable position and was kind of stiff. When her phone flashed, she noticed right away. I think she was waiting for it, actually.”

  “Sounds like it,” Nikki said.

  “After you found out she was dead, you checked her locker?” Rooked asked.

  “No. Not right away. I didn’t realize her key was in my bag until this morning. I thought I should take it to the police, but I wasn’t sure. This story was important to Chloe, but she was in trouble, and...and now I don’t know what to do. She trusted you, Mr. Rook. So here I am.”

  Jada had been holding herself together, but now the tears came. Her chin bunched up. She tried to talk, but the onslaught of grief hit her hard and she couldn’t get the words out.

  These were the moments that tugged at Nikki’s heartstrings more than any other. She would never let herself forget that the victims she worked to get justice for had people who were suffering from their loss. Jada Rincon, just like Tammy Burton, was in the midst of that pain.

  Rook took Jada’s hand in his. “It’s going to be okay.”

  And then, as if he, himself, were a talisman, her heaving slowed and her crying stopped. She drew in a ragged breath. Then another. After a few more, she was able to continue. “Chloe was scared.”

  Nikki believed that a person’s first instincts were usually right. Too often, people ignored the niggling feelings centered deep in their guts; she wished Chloe had listened to hers. “If she knew she was in danger, why did she go when she got the phone call?”

  Jada shrugged helplessly. “I should have stopped her—”

  “Jada,” Nikki said. “Nothing you could have said or done would have stopped what happened to Chloe. This is not your fault.”

  Jada’s tears started to pool again, but she squeezed her eyes shut as if they were dams holding back an onslaught of raging water. The poor girl was racked with guilt. Nikki wasn’t going to be able to change that. Jada was going to have to come to terms with what had happened to her friend on her own.

  “We can take Chloe’s notebook to the police for you,” Rook offered

  The visible relief in Jada was instantaneous. “Really?”

  “Of course. You did the right thing bringing this to us. We’ll take care of it,” he said, but Nikki had one more question for her. “Jada, did Chloe have a computer?”

  Jada nodded. “Of course. She always had it with her.”

  “Did she have it that day at your class?”

  “It was under her phone. She took it when she left.”

  Nikki cursed under her breath. Chloe’s computer was the golden egg they needed, but it was one they’d never be able to find.

  “Why would she lock up her notebook, but not her computer?” Rook pondered aloud when they were alone again. Jada had left looking like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, but their burden was still fully intact.

  “We know she was scared. And she thought she was close to some crucial information, so naturally—” Nikki said.

  “She’d want to keep the notebook separate from her laptop in case one was stolen.”

  Rook finishing her sentences always sent a stream of warmth through Nikki. In moments like this, it was crystal clear how in tune with each other they were. How perfectly they fit. If they hadn’t had a hot lead, she’d have taken him right then and there. Instead, she continued with her thought process. “She was running scared. She knew she had to protect her story.”

  “She wasn’t just worried,” Rook said. “She knew she was in imminent danger. Why else would she have taken such precautions?”

  They spent the better part of an hour going through Chloe’s notebook. “There’s no rhyme or reason,” Nikki said, frustrated. It was chock-full of information, sketches, designs, but not as organized as she would have thought based on the neatness of the girl’s apartment and bedroom. She’d used abbreviations and symbols. Given more time, they might be able to decipher it, but Nikki had an ethical obligation to turn it over to the police. “We’re going to have to give it to Ian,” she said.

  He gave a mirthless laugh. “Do you really think your ex is going to be able to figure out what Chloe got herself involved in with this if we can’t?”

  When she didn’t respond, he continued, “A lot of reporters and journalists create their own shorthand. It helps them take notes with speed, and also protects their story and their sources. Her system is not obvious. Drawings and letters and symbols. It’s like she combined them all. Unless Chief Cooley has a code breaker on staff, it’s going to take a while to figure this out.”

  A lot of detectives used some sort of shorthand, too. Taking accurate and thorough notes was essential, but so was speed. “Look at this.” Rook had turned the page and pointed at a name written in what they now knew was Chloe’s straight up and down penmanship. “It’s a name.”

  A. Albright, Nikki read. “Someone here in Cambria? Connected with the university?”

  Rook pointed to an arrow Chloe had drawn. The point stopped at the words July Pub Date. “It’s familiar. An editor?” Rook suggested.

  “If you’re right, A. Albright could be who Chloe was writing her article for. Someone with the local newspaper here? Or could it be someone big? Someone at the Post or the Times?”

  Rook opened a browser on his cell phone, immediately Googling the name. In a matter of seconds, he held the phone out for her to see. Several A. Albrights came up in the search. A neurosurgeon. A CEO. An author. “Well, would you look at that,” Rook said, his finger stopping on the fourth entry. “April Albright. What are the odds?”

  “Features editor for First Press?” The very publication Rook worked closely with. Nikki might even say it was the magazine that had launched their relationship. She looked at Rook. “You’ve never heard of her?”

  “Look at the masthead sometime. The list of editors is as long as my arm.”

  Nikki knew enough about the publishing world from her experiences with Rook to know that nothing there was simple, nothing moved quickly, and there were layers to everything. Much like the bureaucracy of law enforcement, come to think about it. “Could Chloe have been writing an article for the magazine?”

  Rook shrugged. “Sure. Why not? Definitely on spec, given how green she was, but this editor must have liked what she queried.”
<
br />   Nikki pointed to Rook’s phone at the same time he pulled up his contact list. “Same wavelength,” he said. “Hot.”

  “But later.” She flicked up her brows in such a way to suggest that “later” entailed an activity worth waiting for.

  Rook got the message. “Let’s work fast so later will come sooner. Calling my editor,” he said as he punched in the number and put her on speaker.

  Nikki continued to work her way through the notebook for the second time, listening to the conversation. After an update on Rook’s latest project and the investigation—because news of a murdered coed traveled fast—Rook cut to the chase. “Do you know April Albright? I believe she’s an editor with the magazine.”

  His editor, whom Rook had taken to calling Sparky, was a fast talker. Nikki had to stop in order to catch it all. “Of course I know her. I know everyone. She’s an editor-at-large. Thinks she’s hot shit ’cause she’s hit with a few great stories. Puts out too many calls on spec for my taste; I prefer a sure thing, like with you, Rook. By the way, where are you on the John Legend story? And what’s happening with that investigation? They can’t possibly think you killed a woman, can they?”

  Rook could hardly get a word in before Sparky was on to the next topic.

  “I have a story idea for you. Everyone’s crazy over Hamilton, right? New York history is all the rage. We’re much more than Times Square. I want a series. Three-part. Maybe four. An exploration into the history of what many people forget is a historic town.”

  Before she could keep going, Rook inserted himself. “How can I get in touch with April?”

  “April?”

  “Albright. Editor-at-large.”

  “I’ll text you her number. Gotta go, darling. Give me some ideas on the historic New York idea, yes? Great, thanks. Ciao.”

  “Thanks, Sparky,” Rook said, but before he even got the words out, his mile-a-minute editor had hung up.

  Nikki laughed out loud. “I can see why you call her Sparky.”

  “She’s a spark plug,” he said, holding up his phone after it pinged with a new text. “And she’d true to her word. Gotta love that woman.”

  He immediately saved the contact and called the number, once again putting it on speaker. After several rings, it went to voicemail. “Damn,” Nikki muttered under her breath as Rook left a message asking April Albright to call him as soon as possible.

  A short while later, with Chloe’s notebook tucked safely in Rook’s bag, which he held on to as if it housed a brick of gold, they headed back across campus toward the car. “I feel for Jada. That girl is going to need a good therapist,” Rook said. “Her guilt is going to eat her alive.”

  “Hey, nothing wrong with a good therapist,” Nikki said, thinking about her own sessions with the late Lon King. She hoped Jada found one just as good.

  Rook had a sixth sense when it came to knowing what Nikki was thinking. He took her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “She’ll be okay.”

  She hoped he was right. They turned the corner, still following the path leading them to the parking lot when someone running up from behind plowed into Nikki. The force of the blow ripped her hand from Rook’s. She fell, managing to tuck her body and roll to lessen the impact. From the corner of her eye, she saw Rook spinning, and then stumbling, trying to keep his footing. “Heat—” he yelled.

  “I’m good.”

  And then he went down hard, not as adept at falling gracefully as she was. The offender hadn’t stopped to check if they were all right. Instead, he barreled through them.

  “My bag,” Rook said, standing and spinning around. “He got the bag!”

  In a split second, Heat gave chase. She could hear Rook’s feet pounding the pavement behind her. She yelled over her shoulder and pointed at the bushes along the perimeter of the building. “Go that way! We’ll cut him off.”

  His footsteps faded, the sound replaced by her own breath and the pounding of her heart. With Rook cutting through the shrubs along the side of the building, and her following the path the thief was on, they’d be able to intercept him. And retrieve Rook’s bag—and Chloe’s notebook.

  Heat kept her focus on the back of the runner. The gait, the size, the height. She was sure it was a man. Probably a young man, from the way the guy dodged around the smattering of people strolling the campus. The hoodie he wore covered his head, so there was no way to tell the color of his hair. She wanted a good look at his face. She couldn’t say why, and she certainly couldn’t prove it, but it was crystal clear to her that Rook’s bag had been stolen because of Chloe’s notebook. Which meant someone had been in the lecture hall when Jada handed it over to them. She recalled the heckler challenging Rook and calling him a murderer, and then later, when the hall had cleared out, she remembered the rustling. Their thief.

  This guy would not get away with it. Heat moved faster, gaining on him. “Stop!” she yelled.

  He kept running, but he looked over his shoulder. It slowed him down just enough to give Heat the advantage she needed. Like a runner in the final stretch of a race, she gathered up every last ounce of strength she had and jetted forward. She caught sight of Rook in her peripheral vision. He was winning his own race, hurtling over the stubby shrubs like he was channeling superstar hurdler Lolo Jones. “Don’t let him get away!” he yelled to her.

  Oh, there was no way this guy was escaping. In one last burst, she came up within reach of him. Her hand outstretched, her fingers brushed the back of his hoodie. Then, coming in from the side, Rook hurtled through the air. They hit the ground in a tangled mass. Rook let out a loud oomph as Heat landed on top of them, her chest smashed against the side of his head. She worked to disentangle herself from the pile, straining to hear Rook’s muffled voice from underneath her. Finally, her feet found purchase on the pavement. She leveraged her body off of his, freeing his face. “You know I love it when you’re on top, Heat, but this—”

  “Can’t...breathe...”

  Rook’s hands curved around Heat’s hips and pushed her up. “Is not the way I want you to get off—”

  The muffled voice beneath them strained again. “Can’t...breathe... !”

  Rook and Heat scrambled back, freeing the thief at the bottom of the mound. The guy pushed himself onto his hands and knees, dragging air into his lungs. “What the hell, man?” he said once he caught his breath. “Why’d you do that?”

  Heat grabbed hold of his hoodie, yanking him up to standing. “Why did we do what? Chase you?”

  “You knocked me to the ground,” the guy said indignantly.

  Heat laughed. “You say that like you didn’t just steal his bag,” she said, hooking her thumb toward Rook.

  “Yeah, but you coulda hurt me.” He looked down at the torn-up knees of his pants. “You did hurt me.”

  This time Heat rolled her eyes. “Seriously? You’re a thief. You ran. You didn’t stop when I yelled ‘stop.’ We went down with you, remember?”

  “Thanks for blocking our fall, by the way,” Rook said. “Without you, we would have gotten hurt, too.”

  The guy shot Rook an unamused side-eye. “Without you, I’d be long gone.”

  “With my bag,” Rook said, bending to grab the strap of it. “This was a gift from Andrea Bocelli after I did an article on one of his charity events.” He slung it over his head, then patted the case. “This is special, and certainly not for grubby little thieving hands like yours.”

  “Want to tell us what that was about?” Heat asked.

  The guy responded by clamping his mouth shut like a defiant child.

  Heat stared at him. “Really? You’re going to play games now?”

  Rook stared the kid down. “We caught you red-handed. You don’t really think you can talk—or, silence—your way out of this, do you?”

  The guy still played the silence game.

  “Don’t want to talk, huh?” Heat said. She grabbed hold of one of his arms. Rook flanked him, taking his other arm. “He might change his mind at
the police station, don’t you think?”

  Rook put on his best innocent expression. “You know, he just might.”

  The burp of a police cruiser’s siren greeted them as they marched the thief to the parking lot. Nikki cursed under her breath. She usually appreciated a do-gooder, but whoever had seen their scuffle and called the cops interrupted their opportunity to interrogate the thief, and it also meant they’d have to turn over Chloe’s notebook a lot sooner than she would have liked.

  Chief of Police Ian Cooley and his girl Friday, Deputy Breckenstein, emerged from either side of the cruiser. Ian strode over to them, not bothering to mask his irritation. “Getting into trouble, I see.”

  Rook shrugged, his innocent expression tinged with smugness. “Trouble tends to find us.”

  That was an understatement. Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook: magnets for trial and tribulation, everywhere they went.

  “Want to fill me in?” Ian said, ignoring Rook.

  Heat did the honors, ending with the tackle and apprehension of the cross-body bag thief. “A gift for you,” she said, shoving their collar over to Breckenstein.

  The chief, meanwhile, pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves and took the notebook Rook had withdrawn from his bag. “I’m sure you were heading straight to the station to turn it over as evidence.”

  “Absolutely,” Heat said.

  Breckenstein put her hand on the perp’s head, guiding him into the back of the cruiser. Just as Nikki opened her mouth to ask about sitting in on the interview, Ian offered. Rook replied, “Love to, thanks, pal.”

  Irritation colored the chief’s face, but he’d already made the offer, so he couldn’t take it back. He drove off with Chloe’s notebook, leaving Heat and Rook to follow.

  The guy had a name: Joseph Hill. And young Mr. Hill looked like death. Pale. Hollow, dark-rimmed eyes. Dark hair he’d run his hands through so many times that it stood up on its own. He jiggled one knee under the table, wrung his hands, and chewed on his lower lip. Nervous didn’t even begin to cover it. Something was definitely up with this kid. Heat had seen her share of nervous Nellies in the interrogation room, but more often than not, they tried to look tough. This kid wasn’t even attempting it. Whatever posturing he’d done at the scene of the theft had evaporated. Now he was clearly petrified, and his fear seeped through every pore in his body.