Richard Castle: Frozen Heat

“Just tell me one thing, you owe me that,” she said, still trying to engage him. “Did Tyler actually go to all the trouble to find out who I was dating and then recruit you to kill my mother?”

That got a reaction from him. He snorted and shifted his weight back onto one of the support pillars. “You like to flatter yourself? Go ahead.”

“I’m not flattering myself, I’m just trying to figure out Tyler’s approach. ‘Hello, young man, would you be interested in earning a few extra dollars murdering your girlfriend’s mom?’”

“See, that’s where your head’s up your own ass. Nikki, do you honestly believe our relationship was ever about romance?” Heat felt herself absorbing yet another emotional shock but kept the conversation going, kept pushing.

“Sure felt like it to me.”

He laughed. “It was supposed to. Come on, do you think we met in Venice by accident? Like it was Kismet? It was a job, man. The whole thing was a setup.”

“You mean like ‘accidentally’ running into me and Rook in Boston? Was that to find out what I knew?”

“No, I was just tailing you. Or was, until fucking Rook spotted me. My assignment in Venice was to get in your pants and work that to get close to your mom.”

“To kill her?”

“Not at first. To find out some things.”

“And then kill her.” Nikki gritted her teeth, fending off her own fury to stay focused on getting him distracted.

“Yeah, kill her. Like I said, it was a job. I’m good at it.”

“Except for the suitcase.”

“Right. I fucked that up. I used that old piece of shit to carry papers from your mom’s desk and forgot all about it. Hey, it was ten years, I’m allowed one.”

“That’s not all you screwed up.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The High Line. You were the sniper, weren’t you?”

“And?”

“And you blew the shot.”

“I didn’t blow the shot. There was an earthquake.”

“Then you blew the second shot.”

“No way.”

“And the one you could have taken at the end of the line. I saw the laser dot. But instead, you jumped.”

“You’re crazy.”

“You bet I am.” Nikki took a step toward him.

“Stay where you are.”

She took another step. “I want you to shoot me.”

“What?” He shined the light in her eyes and raised his gun, but she took another step. “I’m warning you, stop.”

She moved closer. “You seem to be real good at slipping knives in women’s backs. Can you put one of those bullets in me? No you can’t. Come on, Pet. Face-to-face. Right here. Bring it on. I’ll even make a better target for you.” She moved closer yet.

But he took a step back and bumped into the support pillar he’d been leaning on. A sound like the low roar of the sea floated up the tunnel. The train was coming. Right on time. He wagged the gun, gesturing her to step to the edge.

Heat stood firm.

“Go on. Let’s not make this harder than it has to be.”

“For whom, Petar?” She took one more stride closer. They were only three feet apart, and for the first time, she could look into his eyes. And he, into hers.

“Now,” he shouted.

“Do you really think I’m going to make this easy for you? Stand with my back to you so you can give me a shove?”

His eyes darted away, then returned.

The roar grew into a rumble. The concrete platform vibrated.

“You killed my mother. You lied about loving me. Take me out of my misery, you son of a bitch!”

“I’ll do it,” he said.

Nikki smiled and spread her arms before him, daring him to go ahead.

And then she heard the whine of a small power tool and metal grinding. Sparks showered down through the ventilation grate at the top of the stairway, falling into the dark tunnel like fireflies.

Petar turned to look at them.

Nikki made her move.

She threw herself toward him, leaping inside the danger circle of the gun on his right side. Her arms were already up from her “go ahead and shoot me” gesture, and as she brought her body next to his, her right hand was in position to lock onto his wrist to aim the gun away. At the same time, Heat brought her left elbow up over his shoulder and spiked it into his nose.

He cried out but managed to keep his grip on the pistol. Heat delivered a sharp knee to his quad. With her right hand still clamping his wrist, she wrapped her left on top of the Glock and began to twist the barrel inward to point back at him.

Petar must have had some combat training, too. He surprised her by suddenly dropping his butt to the floor, pulling her off balance. Nikki fell forward and hit the deck on top of him, still clutching his gun wrist, but her other hand had come free of the Glock.

He tried to head butt her nose. She slipped it and went for the gun again with her free hand, but he pulled it away.

She called out to Rook, but he couldn’t hear her over his grinding.

Nikki leaped back to her feet. Keeping her joint lock on his wrist, she yanked his arm to full extension and smacked it, trying to break the elbow. But Petar jerked his arm back defensively, just enough for her blow to hit his forearm instead. She didn’t disable the joint, but the punch did loosen his hold on the Glock. It dropped to the floor.

Heat dove for it, but the gun landed just beyond her reach, skimming across the deck. Scrambling to snatch it, she reached the edge of the platform just as the pistol tumbled over the side onto the tracks below.

She almost went over after it. But bright light grew in the tunnel. The train raced toward her, seconds away.

Heat shouted for Rook again.

The sparks continued to fall.

Petar got to his feet. He reached for her Sig Sauer in his waistband.

Nikki scoped the platform in the light from the train. No cover for her.

The Sig came out.

The train broke the mouth of the station.

Petar brought it up to aim.

Heat made a choice.

She dove over the side.

Nikki stretched herself out lengthwise and hunkered as flat as she could in the grimy ditch between the rails. In the two seconds before the lead car got to her, she flashed on news stories she’d seen on subway commuters who had fallen on the tracks and survived that way. And those who hadn’t; it all depended on the terrain.

Heat had never been in a tornado, but that’s what it felt like to her. A ten-car cyclone of howling wind and screaming steel. The ground quaked, her body shuddered. She screamed a scream that nobody heard.

On the hike to get there, Nikki had cursed the deep depression in the railroad bed. It had created an obstacle course, making her climb up and over the crossties. Now she hoped that trenching would save her life. She pressed her face hard against the soil and emptied her lungs to make her torso smaller. The tiny breath she dared take made her mouth taste of stagnant water and rust.

Unable to count the cars, they seemed to go on forever. Hundreds more than ten. Which car, she worried, would be the one with the protruding bolt that would carve her open? Or have the dangling loop of chain to snag her and decapitate her?

Then, sudden silence. Except for the grinding of Rook’s power tool, above.

Nikki didn’t wait. She rolled under the edge of the platform and looked for the Glock in the dim spill from Petar’s Maglite. She swept the area but couldn’t see the gun. Only more plastic soda bottles and old spray cans left by taggers.

The flashlight beam hit the tracks. He was searching for her body.

Heat didn’t call to Rook again. She scrunched herself further underneath the lip of the platform and waited quietly. The concrete felt cold on her back where her flesh touched it. The bottom of one of the cars must have sliced her coat and blouse.