“You’re smart enough to know, Kent, this is a total railroad job. Nothing here can be proved.”
“You’d better hope not. Because I’m going to dig until all the dirt is out of the hole. Starting tomorrow when I call closed-door hearings with the Pentagon and Intelligence Services.” Kent Duer got to his feet. The hero who had earned a Purple Heart leaned on his cane. “I’m all for profit. I’m more about giving this nation the best defense in the world. I think you can forget about the DOD program.”
“I’m innocent. I have a contract.”
The congressman nodded as he made a quiet decision. “I think I just canceled it.”
When Duer left, Heat got out her cuffs and rounded the table toward Swift. Two of his bodyguards took a step as if to block her. Raley pulled back his coat to show tin and his .357. They stopped.
“Tangier Swift, I am placing you under arrest for fraud, conspiracy, sabotage, and terror activity. Plus I am sure there will be numerous federal charges coming that will help your lawyers afford a boat like this of their own.” She cuffed him and added, “Meanwhile, you can have a nice ride on mine.”
Nikki indulged herself by sleeping in the next morning—though indulgence for her meant one extra hour and getting up at a slovenly six-thirty. Rook had been tossing most of the night with shoulder pain and bagged the notion of sleep altogether at about 4:00 A.M. to get up and keep pushing words forward in his article.
“Is making coffee going to bother you?” she asked after they kissed at the counter where he had set up shop.
“Only if you don’t give me any.” He finished the sentence he was typing and said, “BTW. Saw it online. Hack attack’s over.”
“Yeah, I got my first clue when my BlackBerry was vibrating across the nightstand, and I had a gazillion e-mails and memos.”
“Most of which you haven’t needed in a week, and bet you don’t need now.”
“True. I won’t call it preferable,” she said, pouring water from the Brita into the kettle. “But it does make you wonder how much tech we need.”
“Personally, there’s a certain drone I could have done without.”
“With you there.” She scrolled through her messages. “Surprise, surprise, an email from Zachary Hamner.”
“I picture that guy wearing an opera cape and sleeping in a coffin. And rising each day to breakfast on the hearts of young idealists who never heard his wings flapping.”
“Not so fast, babe. Get this.” Nikki then read the message aloud for him. “‘Captain Heat, it is my pleasure to relay congratulations from the chief of detectives on resolving your homicides. Your role in ending the cyber attack is also greatly appreciated and duly noted up the chain.’” She laughed as she read the rest. “‘Nonetheless your less-than-stellar performance as a precinct commander will be subject of an in-service review by your district supervisor. Also be mindful your CompStat numbers will still be expected next week along with your required presence at the One PP meeting. Warmly, Z.’” Heat laughed again. “‘Warmly?’”
“Must have just eaten a freshly beating heart. Bet he munches them like apples.”
“Here’s one from Special Agent Delaney. ‘Your FBI thanks you for TS. Almost makes up for losing GG.’”
Rook closed the lid of his laptop. “Want to know the worst part of busting Tangier Swift? Brace yourself for the onslaught of tabloid headlines: ‘Swift Justice. That’s SwiftRageous!’ Or when they show him in his orange jumpsuit, ‘Tailored Swift.’”
“Confessions of a Blown Whistle is starting to sound better and better.”
“I’ll stop.”
“Do.”
Heat drove Rook to his doc’s for a check of his bullet wound. While they were there, he gave a twofer, re-dressing Nikki’s forehead with a smaller bandage and pronouncing her stitch work pristine. If she slathered on the SPF, she might get away with minimal evidence of the scar.
“Good,” said Rook, “because we’re getting hitched, and when I lift that veil, I don’t want to be looking at Freddy Krueger.” When Heat and the doctor gawked at him, he said, “I, um, should probably cut back on the painkillers.”
The squad applauded when they came into the homicide bull pen. But each did it by clapping one hand on a thigh because they all had their other arms in slings. “I told myself I wouldn’t cry,” said Rook. “And I won’t.”
Ochoa took his sling off. “Breaking news.”
Heat said, “I know. Cyber attack’s over. Thank your partner.”
“Yeah, that, too. But I’m talking about something bizarre. Ready?” He inclined his head toward Raley, who took the handoff. They were just like the old Roach again.
“Lon King’s files turned up.”
Nikki felt a witch’s finger scratch her gut again. “Where?”
“At Wilton Backhouse’s apartment. Forensics has them.”
She turned to Rhymer and Aguinaldo. “I thought you searched there.”
“We did,” said Inez. “They just showed up. A bunch of banker’s boxes on his kitchen table.”
“Strange,” said Rook. “Almost covert.”
“Yeah,” Heat said. And excused herself to go to her office.
The Forensics detective she spoke with confirmed the files were there, and that they all had remained in alphabetical order, although there was no way of knowing who had had them or how they got back. There was no labeling, and they were trying to lift prints off the boxes, but so far there were none. Whoever had handled them wore gloves.
Nikki wasn’t certain which pained her more: to think that the written record of her most intimate thoughts and private confessions had been unaccounted for or that her file had been found and was now part of the investigative process, potentially available to be scrutinized by colleagues and detractors. She didn’t even want to imagine what Internal Affairs would do with it. Things had been said that she had only said because she had trusted them to be confidential. Forever.
She hadn’t come to that trust easily. But now she felt naive and stupid. And frankly, scared.
Nikki closed her door and asked if he would look to see if there was a file there under the name Heat. If it registered with the detective at all, he was too discreet to comment. She listened to the lid come off some boxes, heard tabs being riffled as he searched.
Lon King, PhD
Counseling Transcript
Session of Mar. 29/13 with Heat, N., Det. Grade-1, NYPD
LK: I’m surprised you came back. But glad.
NH: I told you I would.
LK: You keep your commitments, I do know that. But you became so agitated during our last session when we got to the subject of Rook. And your engagement.
NH: And I told you I was committed.
LK: There’s that word again. But it’s not like keeping an appointment, is it, Nikki?…Marriage.
NH: [Long pause] I love him.
LK: But?
NH: No but. [Longer pause] I think this should be our last session.
LK: That’s your choice, of course. But may I ask, is it because you have gotten what you needed here, or is this now taking you somewhere too painful to confront?
[Very long pause. NH stoic. Dabs eyes with tissue]
LK: Is it helpful if I speak? Good. It’s very important to know that it’s OK to have our feelings. Even ones we are not happy to have. So it leads me to ask, what is this feeling you’re having that you’re not happy to have?
NH: [Pause] I don’t know if I can say it.
LK: You know your are safe here, Nikki. Whatever you say here stays just between us. So. What are you feeling that is so troubling?
NH: That…[Long pause] I’m not sure I should marry Rook. [Pause for tears]
NH: It’s not that I don’t love him. I do. Completely.
LK: Completely?
NH: I just have so much in me that is…I had some time since our last session to think about why I’ve dug in so hard about keeping my own apartment. That’s not really about a connecti
on to my mom.
LK: You can say it.
NH: I can’t let go of my independence.
LK: I know that’s not just a word to you, Nikki. Your independence is what got you through it all, isn’t it? It’s where you drew your strength. From yourself.
[NH nods]
LK: But fear of losing independence. That isn’t really a revelation. What if you did lose it?
NH: Let’s not.
LK: What are you afraid of?
NH: Why are you pushing me?
LK: I am driving you, Nikki. To go deeper. What are you afraid of? Just say it.
NH: I…I am afraid to be alone.
LK: Interesting. You want your independence because you fear being alone.
NH: Is that nuts?
LK: No. You have had to cope with so much loss. Your independence is your cocoon. It lets you be alone, but on your terms. It explains your sex-only relationship with the Navy SEAL before you met Rook. Sounding right?
[NH nods]
LK: I’d ask you to examine whether independence is a life goal, or a perception. As you’ve told me, Rook is quite independent himself, and he honors your independence. That’s what works—so you’ve said.
NH: I feel like, if I marry him, it’s the first step toward losing him.
LK: And if you don’t, you lose him anyway, but on your terms.
[NH pauses, takes more tissues]
NH: You wanted a feeling I was unhappy to have. There it is.
LK: What would it take to change it?
NH: I don’t know. It would have to be big.
The phone scraped across the tabletop as the Forensics detective picked it back up. “No Heat,” he said. “And I checked the whole box, in case it got misfiled or shuffled. Want me to keep an eye out for it?”
She told him she’d like that and hung up, then had to sit down, just to collect herself.
Her feet kicked into something under her desk. She tilted her head sideways and saw a gift box wrapped in wedding paper. Nikki set the box on her desktop. It had no note. She used her scissors to snip the ribbon and carefully slit the decorative paper to touch as little of it as possible. She removed the wrap and saw a gift box like you’d find at any Hallmark. She hesitated, then lifted off the top.
Inside was a manila file folder, the kind you’d see at a doctor’s office. The tab read: “Heat, N., Det. Grade-1, NYPD.” Taking it by one edge, she opened the file.
It was empty. But there was something.
She took out the manila folder. Beneath it, the box was filled with bits of paper that had been run through a microshredder. She scooped some of it up in her palm and couldn’t read any of what was on it.
But she knew what it was.
An ecru Crane’s envelope was nested inside the confetti. No writing on it, and it wasn’t sealed. Nikki slipped the card from the lined envelope and, when she read it, the warmth of another’s grace filled her, and she smiled.
Heat carefully rested the note inside the box on top of her shredded files, face up, so she could appreciate once more the woman’s neat handwriting and the message that contained only two words.
“All in.”
On the dazzling August morning of Nikki Heat’s wedding day, she stepped before the full-length mirror in her dress fashioned of silk taffeta with a sheath of silver bullion lace and wished her mother could be there to see her. She kissed her fingertips and touched them to the heirloom wedding ring she wore on a thin chain around her neck and knew that her mother actually was there, and that in a way she always would be.
Lauren Parry, her maid of honor, and Margaret Rook gasped at her beauty, declared her stunning, fussed with her hair, which was up, accentuating her elegant ballet dancer’s neck, and assured her that the scar did not show at all. Time heals, and four months had done Nature’s work. Nonetheless, she asked Lauren to brush on a bit more powder. Just in case.
Heat’s only worry was Rook. He had been in Los Angeles pitching the book he had sold based on his magazine exposé—For Whom the Whistle Blows—to movie studios, and was supposed to have returned the day before. But some welcome thunderstorms had rolled through, breaking New York’s heat wave, but also causing the cancellation of his flight. His plane had finally arrived that morning at JFK, and the Hitch! he had hitched to the Hamptons had caught fire in Shinnecock Hills. Detectives Rhymer and Feller had sped off an hour before using sirens and a gumball to retrieve him, but there was no sign of the groom yet.
Nikki parted the drapes on the beach side of the suite to make sure everything was ready. The day was simply spectacular. That storm had broken the oppressive humidity, and Saturday in Bridgehampton felt more like May than August. The guests seemed relaxed enough, most of them already seated in the rows of white folding chairs facing the gazebo where the lawn met the white sand and the blue Atlantic beyond.
Her dad stood off to the side with the woman who had moved in with him in June. Jeff Heat had known Linda from his days as a student at GW, and they had reconnected through a social medium: AA. It warmed Nikki to see that her father had found love again. Ironically, someone new had made him the man he once was.
Heat heard laughter and leaned forward to see Raley and Ochoa cracking each other up in their front-row seats. Her road to taking command had not been smooth and, in hindsight, she should have listened to Rook on her first day when he highlighted the perils of being a leader who couldn’t pull the trigger. Naming Sean and Miguel interim squad leaders not only made her seem indecisive, the uncertain nature of the promotion had pitted her two best detectives—not to mention bulletproof partners—against each other in unhealthy competition. She had admitted her error; they had admitted theirs, and their raucous Roach laughter and—was that them sharing hits from a flask?—proved just how bulletproof they were.
Rook texted that he was “ninety seconds from bliss,” and she could hear the rumble of Feller’s V8 nearing the driveway of the inn. She laughed, imagining the indignity of a certain investigative journalist trying to change into a tuxedo in the backseat of an undercover police car as it negotiated all those turns from the highway down to Mecox Bay. Then the flutter of the largest butterfly she had ever felt took her by surprise, and she had to steady herself on the windowsill. She paused until it passed.
Then hoped to hell it would return to stay.
It did return mere minutes later, giving wings to Nikki’s heart when she saw her husband-to-be in his bespoke tux, standing up taller at the sight of her as he waited, all smiles, surrounded by flowers in the gazebo. Her father escorted her up the aisle to an aria from one of Bach’s wedding cantatas played by a chamber ensemble from Juilliard and sung angelically by none other than Rook’s mom, Broadway’s Grande Dame.
All eyes were upon Nikki as she proceeded slowly up the white linen runner that had been unfurled on the lush grass, but their joyful faces all simply blurred out of focus. Heat could only see Rook. And the smile she wanted to see for all time.
She arrived beside Judge Horace Simpson, their longtime poker buddy, and waited as the cantata came to an end. Rook whispered, “You look absolutely lovely.”
“And you, ruggedly handsome.”
He turned to the judge. “I knew I was marrying the right person.” And Nikki nodded with a grin as lustrous as the sea behind them.
They had written their own vows and, in a leap of faith, had not shared them with each other. After Judge Simpson had performed his opening remarks and the guests were all settled, Rook took Nikki’s hands and spoke his promise.
“I fell in love with you the day we met. I believe your first words to me were something like, ‘Stay in the car, or I swear I’ll shoot you.’”
While the guests all laughed, Nikki turned to them and said, “It’s true.”
“I have to cop to being a writer instead of a cop. But instead of thoroughly dismissing me as the pest I probably was—and/or shooting me—you performed a miracle in my life, Nikki, by doing the best thing anyone has ever done fo
r me. You trusted me. Simply, completely, and unconditionally. Except for my occasional conspiracy theories, many of which, may I say, have been borne out.
“What happened when you and I started to become us was the next miracle. I began to live a dream because you enhance everything. Even a New York skyline. With you I saw for the first time how the windows of the Carlyle gleam like orange jewels at sunset. You taught me that if I close my eyes on the Highline, it smells like a poppy field in Tuscany. I’ll never forget how we went for an early-spring run once, and it suddenly started snowing big fat flakes, turning Central Park into our own private snow globe. And then, when I whispered ‘Rosebud,’ you got it—you really got it! The world with you is exciting, whether it’s a Bowery sidewalk or the Île de la Cité. I can’t wait to see what magic you work on Iceland when we get to Reykjavík tomorrow.” Rook paused while quizzical murmurs of “Reykjavík?” spread across the lawn.
“We have so much in common. We like the same wines, we’ve read the same books, and now, we share the same home. We’ve even shared a bullet. How many newlyweds can say that?” He tugged at her hands and felt compelled to kiss her but waited. That would come.
“I owe a lot to Ernest Hemingway.” He addressed the guests and said, “Don’t ask, long story.” Then he gazed at his bride. “Hemingway once said, ‘The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.’ I’m no Hemingway, but I would add, ‘And the best way to tell if you love somebody, is to have it be Nikki Heat.’” He unexpectedly choked up, then proceeded.
“And now I, Jameson Rook, promise my eternal love to you, Nikki Heat. Simply, completely, and unconditionally. Until death do us part.”
They mouthed a silent I love you to each other, and Nikki took her turn.
“We met through our work and ended up partners in crime. And now, here we are, about to become partners in life. Yes, we did share a bullet, but we do share much more. Like a belief in goodness, in people, in laughter, in friendship, but most of all, in each other. What we didn’t already share when we met, I have learned from you. You have shown me that things are never as far as you thought, nor as impossible as they seem. And that fools drive, lovers enjoy the ride.