Richard Castle: Frozen Heat

She was almost to York with her hand up for a cab when he walked toward her, trying out any leverage he could bring to bear. “Think about this. Doesn’t the fact that someone can reach one of your prisoners and kill him while he’s in custody tell you something about how serious this threat could be?”

“I can’t help. I simply don’t have anything to give you.”

“I could help you get Tyler Wynn.”

Or, thought Nikki, keep me from getting him if it didn’t serve your purposes. She said, “Thanks for the tip on the wafel,” and got into her taxi.

Heat got back to her apartment that evening and Rook got up from his MacBook at her dining room table to greet her with a deep kiss. He folded his long arms around her and they melted into each other where they stood. After they held each other a moment, he said, “You’re not falling asleep on me, are you?”

“Standing up? Are you calling me a horse?”

“Neigh,” he said, and she laughed for the first time that day.

“So stupid.” She laughed again because it was stupid. And welcome. She cupped a hand on his jaw and caressed his cheek.

When he asked her how she was managing, she told him the truth. That the day had been a struggle and that she craved a warm bath. But after he mentioned he’d made a pitcher of Caipirinhas, the bath went on hold and the glasses came out.

They settled on the couch and she filled him in on her meeting with Bart Callan. “So that was your mysterious lunch engagement, DHS?”

For a moment, she thought about telling him about her shrink session but felt too spent to open up that topic and let it go. But then Nikki considered what Lon King had said about her reticence to reveal herself-his version of the wall speech-and she said, “No, I saw my shrink.”

“So you’ve gone from calling him ‘the’ shrink to ‘my’ shrink? That’s new.”

“Let drop it, OK?” Baby steps, she thought, baby steps.

But he persisted. “I think it’s good for you. If ever there was a time, Nikki. For the Petar baggage alone, if not for Don.”

“Speaking of Don,” she said, seizing an alternate topic to steer the conversation elsewhere. “I’m planning to fly to San Diego day after tomorrow. His family is holding a memorial at the navy base.”

“I’d like to go with you, if that’s all right.”

Nikki’s eyes widened in surprise. “You’d do that?” Rook’s smile said yes, and she leaned forward and kissed it, beautiful to her as it was.

They snuggled for a moment, and after just the right amount of stillness, he said, “But if Petar has a funeral? I’m busy.” The shock and poor taste of it made her laugh the way only Rook could, making the unsayable funny because it wasn’t unthinkable.

Then her brow darkened. He knew what that was about. She didn’t need to say anything. “I know it’s disheartening. You solve this huge case only to have it lead to another dead end. We’ll find out what’s behind this. Just not now.”

“But suppose what both Petar and Bart Callan said is true, that something big is coming that needs to be stopped?”

“At this point, I don’t know where to go with that. And from what you said about Agent Callan, the feds don’t either. Obviously Tyler Wynn is the key. It’s all about whoever he’s working for now. What did my friend Anatoly say that night in Paris? That it’s a new era and that when spies turn it’s not for other governments but-what did he call them-’other entities’?”

She rubbed her face in her palms. “It all feels bigger than me right now.”

“Nikki? That’s all right.” Rook put a hand on each of her shoulders and turned her to him. “You don’t have to be the one-person crime task force. You’ve already done a great job. Right now you could plant the flag, declare victory, and move on. Nobody would fault you.” And then he added, “I’ll be with you, either way.”

Everything rolled up in that sentence warmed her to the core, and Nikki said, “That helps, thanks.” She set her unfinished drink on the coffee table. “Would you be terribly offended if I took that bath and just spent some alone time here tonight?”

“You want to cocoon?”

“Desperately. I need it.”

“You’ve got it.”

Rook packed up his laptop and notes into his backpack, and after they kissed at the door, he said, “Think about this tonight in your jammies.”

“OK.”

“One thing that’s made this worth the trip: At least you learned your mother wasn’t having an affair. And she wasn’t a traitor. In fact, your mom was a hero.”

“Yeah, you know what F. Scott Fitzgerald said, though. ‘Show me a hero…’”

”’… I’ll write you a tragedy.’”

“Plus,” she said, “noble cause or not, I still feel pissed that she shut me out of so much of her life. Intellectually, I can say I want to forgive her, but the truth is, I don’t feel it. Not yet.”

“I understand,” said Rook. “Listen, I’m no shrink, but if I were, what I’d suggest is that maybe the best you can do in the meantime is find some way to connect with her and see where that goes.”

She floated in the indulgent warmth of lavender-scented water until the next track loaded on her boom box: Mary J. Blige, testifying to “No More Drama.” Nikki sang along at first, belting it out, but then became an audience of one receiving the message of the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul about standing for yourself, ending the pain and the game. Nikki had heard the song many times, but-like the answering machine recording that documented her mother’s stabbing-that day, it came to new ears. Especially the part about not knowing where the story ended, only where it began.

Sitting cross-legged on the couch with a hot cup of chamomile and wet hair dampening the terry shoulders of her robe, Nikki traced her mother’s life story into her own. She tried not to dwell on the blemishes Cynthia Heat’s secret life had created. Of course there were the absences that bred longings and fears, but more impactful were the learned traits that Nikki had so elegantly carried into her own life and selectively employed: caution, secretiveness, isolation. These could be her never-ending story, if she allowed it. The shrink had cautioned her to accept that her mother was dead, but Nikki knew her mother’s story would live on through her and that her mother still resided in her heart, as she always would.

Still, Nikki sought the beginning of a story. One that fastened itself to the many good things received from her mother that so outweighed the rest. Or, at least, they would, if she chose no drama.

In her living room in the solitude of the night she owned, Heat’s choice was to reflect on virtues and gifts. On the independence she’d gained from the upbringing her mother gave her. The sense of wonder, of imagination, of standards, and character, the value of hard work, of goodness itself, and the power of love. The new story she began went on like that, a tale of glasses that grew from half-full to brimming the more she composed it. It told her that laughter transcended, forgiveness healed, and music enkindled the coldest of hearts.

Music.

Nikki stared at the piano across the room.

Her mother had played it beautifully and shared its wonder with her. Why had it gained so much power in silence?

A flutter rose in her breast as she recalled Rook’s parting words about finding some way to connect with her again. The flutter became dread, but she chose courage and stood anyway. As she crossed the rug to the baby grand, her dread melted away and became something that buoyed her as she lifted the bench’s seat to take out the top booklet of sheet music. Mozart for Young Hands.

It was the first time in ten years she had opened that bench; even longer since she had held that book. Nikki was certain it had been lost.