Richard Castle - Naked heat

They didn't laugh. Something unwritten about the decorum that was appropriate for what was happening up the hall kept them from doing that. But they did enjoy Ochoa's barb, all silently bobbing their heads and smirking.

Rook explained that he had just finished reading the chapter and gone to the kitchen to get his cell phone to call Nikki. He had just picked it up off the counter when he heard the elevator groan to a stop. Rook wasn't expecting visitors, and when the picks started shimmying in his lock he ran back to the office, figuring he could get out the fire escape. But his window wouldn't open and he was trapped in that room. Knowing there was a good chance it could be Wolf coming for the chapter, he didn't know where else to hide it, so he jammed it down his pants.

Ochoa shook his head. "That's amazing."

"I know," said Rook, "I'm surprised there was enough room for it." When the others groaned, he added, "What? It's a big chapter."

By that time, all of them but Nikki had read Cassidy's climactic pages, so Rook filled her in on the broad strokes of the narrative. If nothing else, it explained the zeal with which Jess Ripton and Rance Eugene Wolf pursued getting their hands on it. The final chapter was the smoking gun that busted Ripton's client Toby Mills as well as Soleil Gray for a debauched evening culminating in the apparent OD of Reed Wakefield and their cowardly flight from responsibility. The druggy night, celebrities running off and not even calling 911 to get basic medical aid for a companion-that was shocking and sensational by itself. Cassidy had plenty of fireworks right there to guarantee a best seller plus create devastating legal and financial ramifications for all concerned. But the gossip writer took that expose and shouldered it to the next level. And that level was murder.

Her key was the concierge. Popular with hotel guests, not just for his service but his discretion, Derek Snow was a handler of sorts in his own right. Jess Ripton knew the story of his shooting by Soleil Gray, and therefore saw Derek as a man who took his money and kept his mouth shut. So when Snow came back up to the hotel room from delivering Toby and Soleil to the street, Jess Ripton had reasonable expectation that, for an agreeable sum, Derek Snow would pretend like that night never happened. And Snow, upon accepting the terms, assured The Firewall he needn't worry about him.

When the slim man in the Western wear arrived to assist with the cleaning, Ripton reinforced the need for silence by having the man from Texas plainly threaten to find him wherever he hid and kill him if he talked.

Things got more dicey when the Texan opened his black bag and took out a stethoscope. Derek was in the living room, wiping down knobs and switches with some special wipes they'd given him, when he heard the cowboy's voice from the bedroom say, "Shit, Jess, this man's still alive."

The concierge said at that point he almost fled the room to call 911. But he was frightened by the chilling threat from the Texan and so he didn't. Derek Snow continued his fingerprint wipe-down but moved closer to the bedroom door. He looked in once, and they almost saw him so he stayed back, positioning himself so that he was hidden but could see their reflection in the vanity mirror in the bedroom.

He said they spoke quietly but that he definitely heard Ripton say to the other man, "Do something about him." Tex asked him if he was sure and Ripton said he didn't want Wakefield delirious in some ER telling cops or paramedics what happened and who he was with. "Put the fucker down."

At that, the other guy took some squeeze bottles and vials out of his bag. After he forced some pills down Wakefield's throat, he began spraying large amounts of something into his nose. Then the Texan got out his stethoscope again and listened for a long time. Derek was afraid of getting caught by them, so he moved away to the far side of the living room with a fresh wipe and looked busy. It was quiet in there for a long time, until he heard movement and Ripton say, "Well?" and the other man said, "Put a fork in him, he's done." When they came back out into the living room, the concierge pretended he didn't know what had happened and just kept cleaning. All Ripton said was "Nice job. Do the TV remote once more and then you can go."

What made Derek Snow talk to Cassidy Towne was his guilt. He was no angel; he took her money just as he had taken Ripton's. But sharing with the gossip columnist the details of what really happened, which was the murder of Reed Wakefield, became for Derek a quest for absolution. He said he was afraid of the Texan, who had said he would kill him, but he was more afraid of living his life burdened by his own complicity.

Snow also told Cassidy how painfully difficult it was for him to not be truthful with Soleil Gray, who had begun to call him regularly and sob about her guilt over the responsibility she bore for her ex-fiance's OD. He saw her descending deeper and deeper into an abyss. He said to Cassidy that when she was done with him for her book, he might contact Soleil and tell her the truth. Towne begged him to wait and he said he would. But not forever. Soleil's pain only added more weight to his own guilt.

Rook asked Nikki, "Do you think that's why Derek was calling Soleil that night when she got that call at Brooklyn Diner?"

"I had the same thought," Heat said. "It was the same night Cassidy Towne was killed. I'll bet Derek spotted Rance Wolf snooping around for him and tried to tell Soleil before it was too late."

"Which it probably was," said Ochoa.

"It's sad," said Nikki. "Soleil not only never got to hear the truth from Derek Snow, but the manuscript she stole was missing the last chapter so that everything she read up to that was an indictment of her behavior, feeding her guilt."

Rook nodded. "The double tragedy for her was that she died not knowing she was off the hook for Reed's death."

Ochoa eyed his partner. "What's got you all twisted up in yourself?"

"What makes you think that?" said Raley.

"Hey, I know you, you're like my wife."

"You mean 'cause I'm not sleeping with you, either?"

"Funny. I mean I know you. What is it?"

Raley said, "OK, about Soleil Gray… If Jess Ripton was running all this-I mean the killings-whether it's on Toby's behalf or his own, then how did she figure in? I mean besides being paranoid and guilty about the night of the OD."

Heat said, "Knowing what we know now, I don't think she was involved at all with Ripton or Wolf or Toby. At least not as part of any of the killings."

"And yet she did mug Perkins to get that manuscript," said Raley. "Are you saying she did that coincidentally?"

"No, not coincidentally, simultaneously. There's a difference."

Rook took another pull of his beer. "Well, then what made her suddenly decide to do that?"

"I have an idea," said Nikki. She got off the bar stool and stretched. "I'll let you know if I'm right tomorrow. After I have a talk with somebody in the morning." Something was different when Nikki Heat walked along West 82nd from the precinct the next morning. In the distance she detected a low droning sound she hadn't heard in over a week. As she got nearer to Amsterdam, a modest cough of diesel smoke rose and the droning became a brief roar that stopped with the hiss and squeal of air brakes as a city garbage truck came to a halt. Two sanitation workers hopped off and attacked the hill of refuse accumulated there from the strike. First one car and then another pulled up behind the trash truck as it idled, temporarily blocking the street while the men tossed black and green plastic bags into the rear loader. As she walked past, Heat could hear a driver curse through the rolled-up window of his blocked car and shout, "Come on!" Nikki smiled. The garbage strike was over, and now New Yorkers could be frustrated by something else.