Richard Castle: Deadly Heat

“He’s already laying track.” Bell studied Nikki. “You don’t mind hanging it out there, do you?” asked Bell.

“I had to. My mother’s note only said she suspected Callan was the Dragon, but couldn’t prove it. I wanted to smoke him out and see how he reacted.”

“And?” They both chuckled at that. Then Bell said, “I always had concerns Callan might be dirty. All the way back when he was FBI and running your mother’s case, but they were too flimsy to justify, and I was just a rookie.”

Heat remembered Algernon Barrett telling her how he eavesdropped through the peephole on her mother and the lady who looked like a cop, and now she figured that must have been Bell. “Nice of you to tell me, Agent.”

“You mean like you told me about your mother’s code, Detective?”

Nikki had to give her that and said, “Fair enough.”

Bell continued, “After Nicole Bernardin got killed on Callan’s watch, I called in a chit with the director to send me up here to collaborate on the case. But really, it was so I could get inside and stay close to him.”

“Callan thought you were there to Bigfoot him.”

“And you thought I was the Dragon. Or at least the mole. Come on, you did.” And when Nikki didn’t answer, she said, “Or maybe you just hoped I was.”

Nikki smiled. “Let’s say that I consider all options viable until proven otherwise.”

Callan cried out as the EMT tried to maneuver his arm into a brace, and both women turned to watch. Bell said, “What put you onto him?”

“You know how it goes, things accumulate. Initially, I suppose, it was his interference in my case. Like you-no offense-Callan was very disruptive. But the major giveaway for me was the helipad. All the inconsistencies. And Hinesburg, shot in the temple like that.”

“Close range.”

Heat looked again in the ambulance. “Sharon probably thought he was going to rescue her. But she was working for him and he had to shut her mouth.”

“You do know he wanted you.”

“You mean to join the team so he could keep me on a leash?”

“Come on, Heat, I saw the way he looked at you. You didn’t pick up on it?”

Nikki had done enough interrogations to smell bait being cast in the pond. She played it down. “I never bought it. I mean, none of what he said ever really felt romantic.”

Yardley said, “Maybe you just weren’t receptive.”

Heat paused then looked Rook’s ex in the eyes. “Count on it.”

Rook unlocked the door to Heat’s apartment and dropped his carry-on by the umbrella stand. And he waited. “Hello? Back from the coast. No greeting?”

“In here,” she called.

He draped his jacket on a chair back and made his way to the living room, where he found Nikki reclining on the floor atop a tropical-patterned beach blanket. She held a rum punch in one hand, and in the other a copy of Sizzling Sixteen . “So, this what you had in mind?”

“Sort of.” He sat on the blanket beside her. “You’re naked.”

“As can be.”

“I see.” He looked around the room. “Just what kind of island is this?”

“Fantasy.”

She set the drink and book down and reached her arms out to him. Rook got on his knees, hovering over her, and they kissed softly. He lowered himself to her and she drew him close, feeling his weight drape over her skin, the warmth of their bodies melting them into each other, even through his clothes. Soon the heat of their connection filled them with an urgency that grew into a powerful need. They teased and touched each other, and they joined each other deeply. The release from responsibility, the closeness of their bodies, and the hunger each brought to that moment cast them aswirl, into the heart-pounding, frenzied dimension created by their passion.

Later, enfolded in a lazy tangle of limbs in her bed, they dozed, skin to soul. Nikki’s fingers caressed his two-day beard, and her breast rose and fell in rhythm with his placid breathing. Her cell phone double-pulsed and she dutifully checked the text, then put the phone back on the nightstand.

Without opening his eyes, Rook said, “Please, not another murder.”

“Worse. Yardley Bell wants to have lunch tomorrow.”

He blinked open. “You going to go?”

“I don’t need a new best friend.”

“You should go.”

“I don’t like her.”

“You don’t know her.”

“I know all I want,” said Heat. “And I know what I like.”

“So do I.”

“Show me.”

And he did.