“You heard him. He said no.”
“And you had no clue?”
She took another sip of wine and watched the ripples on the surface as she swirled the stem. “Can I share something with you?”
“Anything, you know that.”
She paused to ponder, mirroring her father’s tortured expression, hours before. “Yes. I suspected my mom might be having an affair, too.” She took another drink from her glass. “Not until I was older, in my teens, but I started noticing the same things my dad brought up today. Gone a lot. Sometimes a weekend or nights, out late. You know, when you’re in high school, it’s all about you, and you feel angry and lonesome. And then I started to wonder if there was more to it. Also the tension between my parents was a big elephant in that apartment. I even started trying to get to our mail before she did so I could look for any letters from men or anything. It’s crazy, but it’s what it became.”
“Was she seeing someone?”
“I never knew.”
“And you never talked to her about it directly?”
“Like I’d do that.”
“And she never confided in you? Not even a hint?” Nikki gave him a derisive sniff. “Hey, just asking. I got the impression you and your mom were close.”
“In our own way, yes. But my mother had this very private side to her. It was a bone of contention between us. Even the night she was killed. Know the reason I was gone from the apartment for such a long time before I went to the market? I needed to take a walk because things were tense between us about her … what should I call it …? Separateness. Don’t get me wrong, my mom was warm and loving to me, so I’m not invalidating that. But … there was a part of her that she kept totally to herself. As close as we were, she had this wall that divided us.”
Understanding now why Nikki had balked at digging into her mother’s past, Rook said, “There’s no shame here. We all have our private areas, right? Some people erect a little more protection around theirs than others. What did my man, Sting, call it, ‘A Fortress Around Your Heart’?” He ate a marinated artichoke with his fingers and added, “You, of all people, should know that.”
Nikki frowned and studied him. “Meaning?”
He swallowed wrong, coughing on some vinegar as he realized his mistake. Trying to contain the damage, he said, “Nothing. Forget it.” But it was out there.
“Too late. What exactly should I know that you have now somehow become an expert on from listening to Classic Rock?”
“Well … OK, look, we all have aspects we inherit from our folks. I have my mother’s brash theatricality and adorable impulsiveness. As for my dad, I have no clue. Don’t even know who he is.” He hoped that sidetrack would end that thread of discussion, but he was wrong.
“Spit it out, Rook. Are you saying I’m inaccessible?”
“Not at all.” He felt himself trapped in a sparring match he didn’t want to be in and that everything he said was the wrong thing. Such as stupidly adding, “Not all the time.”
“And at what times am I inaccessible?”
He tried to dodge. “Not most of the time.”
“When, Rook?”
Seeing no way out, he chose the Robert Frost path and went through. “OK, sometimes, when I want to broach certain subjects with you lately, you do ice me.”
“You think I’m cold?”
“No. But you do know how to freeze me out.”
“I freeze you out, is that your point? Because that’s ridiculous. You’re the first person I’ve ever heard say that about me.”
“Actually …”
She had started to take another sip of wine, but the color left her face and she clanked the glass down on the cold stone countertop. “You’d better finish that.” Already feeling up to his neck, Rook’s brain clawed for a way out, but all the passages were marked “No Exit.” “I mean it, Rook. You can’t lay something out there like that and retreat. Finish it.” She fixed him with that unblinking X-ray stare he’d seen her melt bull-necked sociopaths with during interrogation.
“All right. The other night in Boston, Petar and I were talking and—”
“Petar? You were talking to Petar about me behind my back?”
“Briefly. You went to the loo, and I was just minding my own business—I mean, what do I have to say to Petar? Anyway, he brought up the notion—Petar did—that—his words, now—that you had a protective wall.”
“First of all, I think it’s cheap of you to throw Petar under the bus like this.”
“He brought it up!”
She ignored him, swept up in her anger and the release it was giving her. “And second, I would rather have a slightly cautious, slightly controlled side that values privacy and discretion than be a reckless, immature, self-centered jackass like you.”
“Look, this came out all wrong.”
“No,” she said, “I think it just finally came out.” She grabbed her blazer off the back of her bar stool.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m not sure. I suddenly feel the need to have a wall between us.” And then she left.
Don took the brunt of it. Seeking an outlet to subdue the riot coursing through her veins, Heat had texted back her combat training partner, and thirty minutes later the ex-Navy SEAL landed facedown on the gym mat with the air knocked out of him. He drew himself up on all fours, gasping, but Nikki smelled the fake. He sprung at her shoulder-first, his long arms octopussed out to wrap up her legs for a takedown. Before he got there, she dropped to a crouch and hooked the inside of her elbow into his armpit, then kicked herself upward off the mat, lifting and flipping him midair. Don crash-landed on his back with her on top of him for the pin. Nikki hopped to her feet, panting, blowing sweat droplets off the tip of her nose, as she danced side to side, ready for more. No, craving more.
At the close of the hour, both drenched in sweat, they bowed and shook hands, center mat. “What got into you?” he asked. “Fierce tonight. Did I piss you off somehow?”
“No, it’s not you. Got a lot on my mind. Sorry if I made you my punching bag.”
“Hey, anytime. Keeps me sharp.” He dabbed the perspiration off his face with the belly of his shirt and said, “Got enough energy left for a beer or something?”
Nikki hesitated. The “or something” meant bed, and they both knew it. He made it sound casual because it was. Or had been once. Before she met Rook, Nikki and Don had no-strings sex on a semiregular basis for two years. They both got the same thing out of it, which amounted to a full-contact, no-commitment, physical relationship without the emotional hangover or jealous inquiries when one or the other passed. When they both wanted to, it was fine. When not, same deal. It never interfered with their jujitsu sessions, and Don hadn’t pressed or sulked once in the months since she’d chosen to remain exclusive to Rook, who knew nothing about her arrangement with her combat TWB. “Beer would be nice,” she said on impulse, feeling a flutter in her rib cage that might be guilt. But hell, it’s just a beer, she decided.
“Wouldn’t mind a shower first,” he said, plucking the wet shirt from his skin. “No hot water here. They shut it off after the earthquake, and I guess the city’s backed up on inspections.”
The flutter rose again, but she ignored it and said, “You can get a shower at my place.”
Heat stayed in her gym clothes but changed into a dry tee shirt while Don hit the shower. She checked her cell phone again for case updates from the squad and got nothing but three more voice mails from Rook she didn’t listen to. In the refrigerator she found a six-pack and tried to decide whether to drink there in such proximity to the bedroom or go out to the Magic Bottle after Don made himself presentable.
She washed her face in the kitchen sink to rinse the sweat salt from her eyes. As she dried herself with a paper towel, Nikki tried to figure out what she was doing with Don back in her apartment. Was she seeking escape? The mere company of a friend? Or was she testing the old waters of independence again to see what that would feel like? She told herself, if any more did come of the evening, that it would not be to spite Rook.
Then why did she take that extra step to invite Don over? Was it because their relationship was shallow enough that he wouldn’t be asking her too many questions or try to go deep when she didn’t want to? Was she looking for mind-numbing sex as an escape?
What bugged her about Rook wasn’t so much that he had pushed a hot button with the accusation about her wall—and then hidden behind her old boyfriend. It was that he insisted on poking around in places he had no business. Dragging her back over family secrets she wanted to be done with. Quizzing her father like he was in the interrogation box up at the precinct … And then, tonight, pushing her to talk about her relationship with her mother. How could Nikki explain something like that—and all it encompassed—to him or to anyone? And why should she have to? Did she have an obligation to share with Jameson Rook the way her mom made her feel when she bandaged her skinned knees? Or how she dropped everything and took her right out to a Broadway show when her junior prom date stood her up? Or how she taught Nikki the joys of Jane Austen and Victor Hugo? And that practice, whether it was for the piano or anything else in life, should be a journey of discovery. Not just about the music but about herself.
She couldn’t tell him all that. Or wouldn’t. These, and the hundreds of thousands of other random memory slideshows, were journeys to the places Nikki seldom ventured herself. Like the lid of the piano across the room, those were doors too painful to open. Maybe Rook was right. Maybe her defenses did constitute a fortress wall.
Was it one just like her mother’s?
And if so, was that really a character deficit, or simply one more valuable life lesson Cynthia Heat taught her daughter by example? Like demonstrating how to let the spaces between notes breathe, because they are music, too.
The shower water shut off, forcing Nikki to ask herself what this moment was all about, because she could not deny she had put herself at a crossroads. Why? But, as the bathroom door opened, Heat knew that wasn’t the most pressing question. The immediate issue was what she would do on this night full of risky impulses.
He came up the hall with his skin glistening and nothing but a towel around his waist. “I believe you mentioned something about a beer,” he said. Before she could agonize over it too much, she grabbed the pull handle on the fridge, popped open a pair of bottles from the six, and set them on the counter between them. They side-clinked necks and each took a sip. “Gonna be hurtin’ for certain tomorrow,” he said.
There was a soft knock at the door. “Expecting anybody?” he asked as he stepped toward the entryway.
Rook had a key, but maybe he was learning to be discreet for a change, so she whispered, “Don’t say anything, just look.” She came around the counter trying to figure out how to handle the introductions as Don’s towel slipped and it landed on the floor before he could snag it. He turned to her with a wink and impish grin and then leaned forward to look though the peephole.
The shotgun blast punched a hole clean through the door and threw Don backward with such impact that he landed headfirst at Nikki’s feet. A seemingly endless flow of blood rivered out of him where his face had been, and pieces of his brain stuck to the front of Heat’s legs and shirt.
If she let the fear in, it would paralyze her. If she contemplated the horror facing her, she’d be done. So before the tsunami of feelings that bore down on Nikki could immobilize her, she threw the cop switch. She made her emotional disconnect. She became all about balls and action. She went to work.
Throwing herself low, Heat rolled backward on the rug, to where the corner of the entry hall met the end of the counter, and snapped off the lights. A table lamp still burned in the living room, but any dimness helped give cover. Protected by the wall, Nikki stood on shaky legs and grabbed for her Sig Sauer and cell phone off the granite countertop. Her arm bumped one of the beers and it sailed into the kitchen, slamming against the oven door. The bottle was still spinning when she knelt at Don’s side, hitting 911 send while she pressed two fingers to his carotid.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“This is Detective Heat, One-Lincoln-Forty, reporting a ten-thirteen, officer needs help, shots fired.” With eyes on the door, Nikki spoke as low and calmly as she could, giving her address and cross street. “One man down, deceased.” She took her fingers off Don’s neck, wiped his blood on her gym shorts, and gripped her Sig. “Shooter has a shotgun. Shooter still at large.”
“Help is on the way, Detective. Can you describe the shooter?”
“No, I never saw—”
The chilling sound of a pump-action racking a round
snick-snicked
on the other side of the door. Nikki let the phone drop to the rug. Light that had been streaking in the gaping hole from the outside hallway got blocked out, eclipsed by movement. From her mobile on the floor, the small voice that kept asking, “Detective Heat? Detective, are you there?” grew smaller as Heat duckwalked back, taking cover once more around the corner and under the kitchen counter. Keeping in a low crouch, she peeked around the edge just as the fat muzzle of the single barrel poked through the ragged hole it had put in the wood. She knelt again, this time with both hands in an isosceles brace against the wall. “NYPD, drop it!” she called.
The barrel adjusted its aim an inch toward her. Nikki spun back around the corner for cover. A deafening blast filled the room and tore fragments from the wall beside her. Before he could rack another round, Heat rolled out, braced, and, with ten quick reports, emptied the magazine of her Sig in a diamond cluster under the shotgun. She heard a man moan, and the black barrel chafed as it tipped upward and retreated from the hole in the door. But amid the muffled neighbors’ voices of alarm coming through walls and windows, she heard another round getting pumped into the shotgun. Heat dove in the darkness, across the entryway to the living room, ejected her clip, and snatched a fresh magazine of 9mms from the gym bag she had left on a chair.