Richard Castle - Naked heat

Nikki kept it slow on the paved pathway that ran north along the river. Even though it was mid-afternoon on a chilly day, there were enough joggers, cyclists, and dog walkers to pop out of nowhere, and she felt as long as she could see the motorcycle ahead, she could bide her time and make her move farther upriver, where there was less access to the greenway.

Her break came after the Boat Basin and before the sewage treatment plant in Harlem that had been converted into a state park. The stretch of pathway between the two landmarks ran parallel to train tracks that were fenced in and therefore formed a barrier to pedestrian access. Nikki gunned it. The cycle ahead also took advantage of the open path, but Nikki had the faster machine and was gaining on them. Soleil, looking surreal in the distance, like an apparition in white sequins, kept back-checking and gesturing for her driver to go faster. He shouldn't have.

Just before the state park, the path took a jog to the right, curving sharply away from the river. It was a turn engineered for pedestrians, not speeding motorcycles. Nikki knew the terrain from her weekend runs along this part of the Hudson and slowed before she got to the curve. When she came around it, Heat saw the bike on its side. The paparazzo was sliding his leg from underneath, his forearm bleeding from road rash. Soleil Gray was a short distance off trying to run away, hobbling on one of her legs.

Rook's driver also took the blind curve too fast and Nikki had to goose her bike to avoid getting hit. The other rider careened past her and struggled against a wipeout. Just as it looked like they were going over, he managed to correct and brought the bike to a stop without falling.

"Take care of this one," said Nikki, "he's hurt." And then she drove her motorcycle across the grass after Soleil, who was pulling herself up and over the chain-link fence separating the path from the train tracks.

The West Side Line was historically the conduit for Manhattan freight service with its tracks emerging from a tunnel at 122nd Street and running along the bank of the Hudson River from New York to Albany. Nineteen years before, the line had been taken over by Amtrak for northbound passenger service out of Penn, and as Detective Heat dismounted her motorcycle, the low rumble of a locomotive signaled one of those long passenger trains was coming. Soleil jumped down from the fence and ran across the siding in an attempt to make it onto the other side of the rails before Nikki got there, buying herself getaway time as the Empire Service rolled past and blocked the cop. But the locomotive got there first, and now Soleil was walled in by the long, lumbering train as Nikki also began to climb the fence.

"It stops here, Soleil," she called over the groan of metal and the screech of steel wheels passing behind her suspect. "Get away from the track. Lie down and put your hands behind your head."

"Come closer, I'll jump."

Nikki leaped down from the top of the fence, landing on both feet, and Soleil made a move closer to the track and leaned, canting her body toward the train, making as if she was going to throw herself under its passing wheels. "I'll do it."

Heat stopped. She was thirty feet away. Even though it was a flat surface, the gravel made poor footing and the singer was quick. Nikki couldn't hope to cover that distance and stop her from hurling herself under a wheel. "Soleil, come on, step away from there."

"You're right. It does stop here." She turned to look down at the track, metal rusted and coated with dust and carbon on the sides but gleaming brightly, like a fresh sheet of aluminum foil, on top, where the wheels churned by and friction carried away all grime. When Soleil looked up, Nikki was a few yards closer, and Soleil shouted, "Nuh!" and so she stopped.

"Just be still, then, Soleil. Take a minute, I'll wait." Nikki saw all the signs she didn't like on her. The woman's posture was deflating. Her body was turning in on itself, making her seem small and alien to the show wardrobe she had on. Every bit of arrogance and hardness was gone from the singer's face. Her mouth trembled and Nikki could see red blotches surfacing through her stage makeup. And she kept staring down at those wheels grinding by two feet away from her. "Are you hearing me?" Nikki called over the noise, knowing she was but just trying to pull focus.

Soleil said, in a barely audible voice, "I don't think I can do this."

"Then don't."

"I mean go on anymore."

"You'll work it through." Both of them knew she had to arrest her, but the detective was trying to get her to look past the immediate. Move her out of The Now.

"What happened to that guy? You know, from yesterday morning?"

"He's fine. Be out of the hospital tomorrow." Heat was guessing but told herself this was the time for positive thoughts. She flashed back to Interrogation 1 the day before and the cut on Soleil's knuckle, the one she kept nibbling at. At the time she assumed it came from rehearsal, having seen how physical the routines were. The god of hindsight visited her, and she now saw it as the mugger's battle scar.

"I had to get it. He wouldn't let go, so I had to…"

"He's going to be OK. Come on, get away from there."

"I still have nightmares about it." Soleil ignored Nikki; she was off in her own conversation. "I can deal with jail, maybe. But not the nightmares. About what happened to Reed, I mean. I want that night back. It was so stupid." And then she shouted, "I was so stupid… And now I'll never have him again."

As Soleil broke down in sobs, Heat was torn between wanting her to go on and tell the story of what happened to Wakefield; an obligation to read her her rights so if this turned into a confession she could use it in court; and a human need to not lead Soleil into a place so dark she would take her own life. "Soleil, we can talk about this later. Come on, come to me, let's get you some help, all right?"

"I don't deserve to live. Do you hear me?" Her mood weather vaned from somber to angry. The biting tone Nikki was accustomed to receiving suddenly got turned inward. "I don't deserve to be here. Not after Reed. Not after what I did to him. Fighting, killing our relationship. That was all me. I called off the marriage. I hurt him so bad…" And then the anger gave way to more sobs.

Nikki glanced down the track, wishing to spot the end of the train, but the line of passenger cars extended as far south as she could see. It hadn't gotten to speed yet and its slow roll made its length feel infinite to Heat.

"And then that night. Do you know the guilt I carry around about that night?"

Nikki assumed it was the night of Reed's death, but again she didn't want to tip Soleil over the edge by asking at a time of such vulnerability, so she said, "You won't have to carry it alone anymore. Understand?"

Soleil pondered that, and Nikki began to have hope that at last something she said was reaching her. That's when they both turned toward the noise. Three NYPD motorcycles rolled slowly with lights but no sirens down the path. Nikki turned the other way just as a Parks Department SUV was rolling up beside Rook from the other direction. Heat saw the change in Soleil and called out to Rook, "Tell them to stay back!"

Rook stepped to the driver's window and spoke to the Parks officer, who Nikki watched grab his microphone. Seconds later, the NYPD motorcycles must have gotten his call, because they braked and waited in the near distance, idling, the purr of their engines mixing with the squeaking and moaning of the lumbering train.

"I can't deal with it all, I can't," moaned Soleil. "It's all too much."

Nikki could finally see the end of the train about a hundred yards away and began calculating her rush.

"I just feel… hollow. I can't turn off the pain."