Richard Castle: Deadly Heat

“Know what I can’t wait for? I’m longing for the day when this whole Tyler Wynn case is closed and I can take you away someplace where just the two of us can sit and veg. You know, sleep, make love, sleep, make love… Get my theme?”

“It’s a good theme, Rook.”

“The best. Only to be interrupted by kicking back on tropical sand with a rum drink in one hand and a nice Janet Evanovich in the other.”

“Let’s get back to the make love part.”

“Oh, count on that.”

“I mean right now,” she said. And placed their champagne glasses on the nightstand.

Distant thunder awoke Nikki. She made a curtain check and saw by the city lights that the streets and rooftops in Gramercy Park were dry. The low cloud ceiling pinked up with a flash, probably from a bolt way out east over the Island.

On the couch, cross-legged in her robe, with her laptop cradled on her thighs, Nikki clicked on FirstPress.com , and her breath caught when she saw her own face staring back at her under the title:

BRINGING HEAT.

The shot was a candid, taken by a photojournalist when she emerged from the precinct after her ordeal in the subway the night she arrested Petar. Her face showed all the fatigue and hardness and gravity she’d borne. Heat never loved pictures of herself, but this was, at least, easier to look at than the posed magazine cover shot they had forced her to take for Rook’s first article.

She scanned the piece, not to read it-she had already done that days before-but to absorb the fact of its reality. Some genies come from rubbing lamps, others from uncorking complimentary Cristal. This was out there now, and she only hoped it wouldn’t kill her case.

Nikki Heat braced herself for the next round of notoriety. And the mild irritation that Rook had published some little bits of her investigative jargon, like “looking for the odd sock ” and visiting a crime scene “with beginner’s eyes .” If that was the worst that came from it, she could deal.

The next morning, nursing a brain that had spun its wheels all night, Nikki stopped at her neighborhood Starbucks on her walk to the subway. She never used to bother with movie ticket-priced drinks. Blame Rook. He’d gotten her in the habit. To the point that when he donated an espresso machine to the squad room, she taught herself how to pull a perfect twenty-five-second shot.

When she ordered her usual, she got that unexplainable pleasure from hearing “Grande skim latte, two pumps, sugar-free vanilla for Nikki” called out and then echoed back over the jet whoosh of the milk steamer. It’s the tiny rituals that let you know God’s in his heaven and all is right with the world.

She made a scan of the room and caught a twentysomething guy in a sincere suit staring at her. His gaze darted back to his iPad then back to her. Then he smiled and hoisted his macchiato in a toast. And so it begins, she thought.

The barista called out, “Grande skim latte for Nikki,” but when she moved down the counter to get it, Sincere Suit blocked her, holding up his iPad with her face filling it. “Detective Heat, you are awesome.” He smiled and his cheeks dimpled.

“Ah, well, thank you.” She took a half step, but the beaming fanboy backed up, staying with her.

“I can’t believe it’s you. I read this article twice last night… Holy shit, would you sign my cup?” Inexperienced at this, she agreed, just to move it along. He held out a ballpoint he probably got for his graduation, but before she could take it, a wooden chair tipped over, followed by a chorus of gasps.

Across the room, near the drink pickup, a homeless man writhed and bucked on the floor, his legs kicking wildly against the toppled chair. Stunned customers fled their tables and backed away. “Call 911,” Heat said to the barista and raced to the man’s side. Just as she knelt, he stopped convulsing and someone behind her screamed. Blood had begun to flow from his mouth and nose. It mixed with the vomit and spilled coffee pooling on the floor beside him. His eyes stilled in a death stare, and a telltale stench arose as his bowels released. Heat pressed his neck and got no pulse. When she withdrew her fingers, his head rolled to the side, and Nikki saw something she had seen only once before in her life, the night Petar had been poisoned in the holding cell.

The dead man’s tongue lolled out of his mouth, and it was black.

She looked at the spilled drink on the floor beside him. A grande cup with “Nikki” grease-penciled on the side. She stood to study the crowd. That’s when she saw a familiar face on the way out the door.

Salena Kaye made eye contact with Heat and bolted.

Nikki dashed to the exit, shouting, “Police officer, everyone outside.” Few patrons seemed eager to get closer to the corpse, but Heat worried about the poison and wanted to preserve the crime scene for clues. She yanked open the door and called to the barista holding the phone, “Tell 911, officer in pursuit of homicide suspect.”

Heat flattened against the wall of the vestibule then goosenecked a peek up the sidewalk to make sure she didn’t hustle out into an ambush. There. A flash of Salena Kaye, weaving away through pedestrians. She took off after her.

Kaye never looked back, just kept sprinting with purpose. And speed. Nikki made a quick scope of 23rd, hoping for a blue-and-white. In that split second, she collided with two teenagers backing out of a bodega, laughing at their Twizzler fangs. They all kept their footing, but when Heat cleared the boys, she spotted Salena popping the back door of a taxi.

The cab was too far away to read its plate or medallion number. Heat memorized its missing-a-chunk bumper and the gentlemen’s club ad on the roof, hoping to find it again in the sea of rush hour taxis about to swallow it.

She stepped out into the middle of the street, holding her shield out to drivers and signaling them to stop. An off-duty cab blasted its horn and accelerated off. A green Camry screeched to a stop just past her. Nikki rushed up and opened the driver’s door. The startled old man looked at her from behind the thick glasses of another decade. “Police emergency. I need your car. Now, please.”

Without a word, the slack-jawed senior climbed out. Heat thanked him, got in, saw the tiny old woman looking at her from the passenger seat, and floored it.

“Hold on,” said Nikki, taking a sharp left onto First. She’d briefly spotted the XXX from the strip club’s rooftop ad and scanned the avenue of cabs ahead of her to find it again. Her passenger said nothing, just clawed the dash with arthritically distorted hands while her seat belt clunked into lock mode. Up ahead, partially blocked from view by an ambulette, Heat picked out the taxi’s scarred bumper and then Salena Kaye’s face peering out the back window.

Nikki punched it through the red light at 24th, offering calm reassurance. “You don’t have to worry, I’ve done this before.” The elderly woman just stared at her, saucer-eyed. But she nodded. The old gal was game. “You have a cell phone?”

“It’s a Jitterbug,” she said, and held up her bright red phone. “Shall I call 911?”

“Yes, please.” Heat tried to sound casual even as she lurched the wheel and mashed the brake. A gnarled forefinger tapped the large, senior-friendly keypad. “Say ‘Officer needs assistance.’ ” While Heat threaded through the uptown rush, keeping pace with the cab, her passenger repeated Nikki’s parceled-out messages to the emergency operator, asking her to radio for patrol cars to get ahead of them so they could wedge the suspect in a vise. “You did great.” As the woman snapped her Jitterbug closed, Heat threw a protective arm out across her. “Hang on, hang on.”