Richard Castle: Frozen Heat

The light grew more intense directly in front of her. That put Petar right over her head. “Nikki?” he said tentatively. She had never hated the sound of her name so much as in his mouth just then. Heat readied herself. Made sure of her footing. Waited for his next “Nikki,” and then sprung.

She popped up and twisted to square herself with Petar where he knelt, peering over the edge of the platform, and sprayed his eyes with aerosol paint. He screamed and put his hand to his face, dropping his flashlight but not the Sig. Nikki tossed the spray can and reached up for him with both hands. Clawing him by the shirtfront, she hauled him over the side, letting go of him midair. He landed shoulder-first on the railroad bed and screamed again.

Nikki went for him, reaching for her handcuffs, but he rolled over onto his back and swung a beer bottle at her. It connected with her jaw hard enough for her to see stars. She staggered back, dazed, and sat down clumsily, just breaking her fall by putting one hand behind her.

Petar got up. His hands were empty. He wanted the Sig. Nikki had heard it hit the ground when he landed but couldn’t see it in the bad light, either.

He tried to boost himself up on the platform to get his flashlight, but it was too high. Petar had gotten to the metal ladder but had only cleared two rungs when she grabbed him again to pull him back down with her. He didn’t resist. Instead, he tried to pile drive her, letting himself be pulled and falling on top of her.

When they landed in a heap, he didn’t go for the ladder again. He tried to make a run for the station at 96th.

Without good light, he misjudged the height of the crossties and tripped, once again, landing between the rails. He hauled himself up to his feet but too slowly. Nikki hopped on him, throwing a blindside tackle. He spun himself on the way down, making her take the brunt of the landing. The wind got knocked out of her, and she ached for air so she could go after him. But he wasn’t running. Petar had her by the lapels of her coat. He was dragging her. When Heat turned her head and could see where, she was inches from the third rail.

In seconds he would drop Nikki on it and she’d take six hundred fifty volts.

Heat kicked a leg up into his crotch. They were too close together for her to generate the swing power to drop him, but it hurt enough to make him moan and loosen his grip. The back of her head hit the ground an inch from the hot rail.

He staggered away.

A downtown express was coming on the center rails. Petar started for those tracks. He was going to try to beat it across and put the train between them to give himself a chance to get away. Nikki stopped him before he got there.

She slammed a fist behind his ear and his knees buckled. He grabbed a metal beam with one hand to support himself and used it to swing his body around to strike back. But his own momentum carried him into her next blow, a fist to the temple. His eyelids fluttered and he started to lose balance.

The express train was fast approaching behind him. Heat pulled him up and slammed him against the steel beam. He took a looping swing at her. She tilted her head to dodge it and hit him with another punch in the nose. And then another. Blood gushed out his nostrils, mixing with the blue spray paint on his face.

As the telltale rush of wind from the oncoming train pushed into the tunnel, he lolled his head north, turned glazed eyes over his shoulder at the approaching headlight, and then back to her with resignation. He regarded her with the look of a man prepared to receive his fate. They both knew there were no witnesses.

This perfect moment was Heat’s chance to avenge her mother. The stuff of both dreams and nightmares.

Nikki gathered him up by his armpits and yanked him clear of the post, balancing him on weak legs as the first car broke the entrance to the Ghost Station.

He closed his eyes and waited for the push.

But when the speeding train got there, she threw him to the ground away from it. With his face in a puddle in the ditch, Nikki pulled his hands behind his back. She said, “Petar Matic?” And then Detective Heat paused before she gave voice to the words she had waited a decade to speak. “I am arresting you for the murder of Cynthia Heat.” She swallowed hard and continued, “You are also under arrest for the murder of Nicole Bernardin.”

After she put the cuffs on her prisoner and read him his rights, Heat looked up, choking back tears, and saw that Rook was still sawing at that bolt. Nikki took a moment to wipe her eyes and watch the sparks fly.

In spite of the late hour, when Heat stepped into the Observation Room on her way into Interrogation One, she found that, in addition to Rook, a small audience of detectives had come in to the precinct that night. Roach had made the trip, as had Rhymer and Feller. Malcolm and Reynolds would have been there, but they were still on Staten Island working Carter Damon’s van with Forensics. She felt all their eyes on her. They knew what this arrest meant. They also knew the ordeal she had suffered through that night, and this was a turnout for their team leader. But cops being cops, the show-up itself was the message of support. They weren’t going to express any sentiment.

To make sure of that, Ochoa said, “Real nice of you to get dolled up for us, Detective. Special.”

Heat resembled the cover of one of those commando video games. She hadn’t changed clothes, plus her face and hands were scuffed and filthy. In the hallway coming from the bull pen she had pulled a wad of grape chewing gum from the back of her hair. “Been a tad busy.”

Nikki stepped up to the magic window to look in on Petar Matic, who sat alone, in shackles, at the conference table on the other side. “Surprised you didn’t waste the asshole when you had the chance,” said Detective Feller. “Him and you? Nobody would ever know.”

“I would. Besides, he’s worth more alive. I want to know the whole story. Everything he did. Everyone he worked with. Who else he might have killed.”

“And where’s Tyler Wynn,” said Rook.

“Especially that.”

When Heat went into the box and sat across from Petar, she could see the fight all over him, too. The only difference was he’d been changed into jailwear. He bore more than his share of cuts, bruises, caked dirt, and dried blood. He even still wore the stripe of blue paint Nikki had tagged his face with. In his orange coveralls, he looked like he’d gotten ejected from a Florida Gators game.

The two stared at each other in frosty silence. Nikki didn’t like what she saw. Not just that she saw the man who had stabbed her mother to death and killed at least one other woman. Or that she saw the ex-lover who had called their relationship a job, merely a means to an end. What Nikki didn’t like was in the eyes. His submissive, resigned, defeated eyes from his takedown in the subway were history. Petar Matic had always been a strategic thinker, and his eyes told her he had done some brainstorming since they brought him up from the tunnel in handcuffs.

“You should have killed me when you had the chance,” he said.

“A lot of people around here think the same thing.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I’m not the jury. I’m just the cop. At the end of the day, I have to stand for something. You do, too. We both know what that is.”

“The ever-righteous Nikki Heat. Saint and soldier.” He leaned forward over the table and smiled. “Too bad lover doesn’t make the list.”

When she felt her face flush, Nikki reminded herself to separate. Petar was going to try for any leverage he could get, especially messing with her head to gain an advantage. She tried to ignore the emotional stab-and the fact that, even if her squad had left the Ob Room to work the assignments she had just given them, Rook stood on the other side of that mirror. She drew a slow breath to get her focus back. “Tell me exactly when you got the contract to kill Cynthia Heat.”