let it get complicated.'
She hardly knew what to say, so she just stared at him a moment. At last she said, 'So. I guess you were listening.'
He nodded to himself and said, 'We just had a Dr. Phil thing there, didn't we?'
She laughed. 'Sorta, yeah.'
'Because it felt sort of like one of those Dr. Phil things.'
They smiled and looked into each other a long time. Nikki was starting to wonder, What now? This connection they had just made was unexpected, and she wasn't prepared for what it might mean. So she did what she always did. Decided to not decide. Just to be in the moment.
He may have been in the same place, because in some unspoken ballet of synchronization, the two leaned forward at the same instant, drawn to each other for a tender kiss. When they parted, they smiled again and then just held each other, jaws resting on opposing shoulders, their chests slowly rising and falling as one.
'And so you know, Rook, I'm sorry, too. About this afternoon in the car, being so rough on you.'
A full minute passed and he said, 'And so you know? I'm good with rough.'
Nikki drew back from him and gave him a sly look. 'Oh, are you?' She reached down and took him in her hand. 'How rough?'
He cupped a palm behind her head, lacing his long fingers through her hair. 'Wanna find out?'
She gave him a squeeze that made him gasp and said, 'You're on.'
And then she gasped as he gathered her up in his arms and carried her to the bedroom. Halfway down the hall, she bit his ear and whispered, 'My safe word is 'pineapples.' ' Nikki wanted them to arrive at the Two-Oh separately the next morning. She got up early and, as she left, asked Rook to cab home to change and to take his sweet time before he came to the precinct. She had enough gossip swirling around her without the two of them showing up for work together looking like the poster for Date Night.
Heat rolled into the bull pen at five of six and was surprised to find Detectives Raley and Ochoa already there. Raley was on his phone listening to someone and gave her a howdy nod, then resumed his note taking. 'Hey, Detective,' said Ochoa.
'Gents.' She usually got a smile whenever she spoke to one member of the pair as the rep for both. This time, nothing. Ochoa's phone rang, and as he reached for it, she said, 'You boys got something against sleep?' Neither one answered her. Ochoa took his call. Raley finished his and passed by on the way to the whiteboard. Nikki had a feeling she knew what these two were up to, and sure enough, when she tailed Raley to the board, she discovered that he and Ochoa had started a new section labeled 'The Lone Stranger' in red marking pen.
Rales referred to his notes to update the status report they had begun under the taped-up police sketch of the Texan. As his dry-erase marker squeaked out block capitals on the bright white surface, Heat read over his shoulder: No overnight ER visits with gunshots or broken collarbones from anyone matching his description in Manhattan or the boroughs. Calls pending in Jersey. Checks of all CVSs and Duane Reades south of Canal Street and west of St. James Place came up neg for first-aid shoppers matching Tex. Digital copies of his sketch were blasted out in e-mails to private urgent-care storefronts in case he sought treatment at one of the local doc-in-the- boxes.
Under a section headed 'Patrols/Quality of Life' she saw that these two had already contacted all relevant precincts with no hits on any complaints, arrests, or homeless pickups matching her man.
Nikki Heat was standing witness to how cops had one another's back. A sister detective got assaulted, and Roach's stoic response was to come in to the precinct under a setting moon to start turning over all the stones. It wasn't just a code. It was life itself. Because in their city, you just didn't pull that shit and walk.
In any other sort of profession this would be a warm moment leading to a group hug. But these were New York cops, so when Ochoa got off the phone and stood beside her, she said, 'This the best you two could come up with?'
Raley, who was bent over writing, capped his marker and turned to face her, keeping an excellent straight face when he said, 'Well, seeing how you let the suspect evade capture, there's not much to work with.'
'But we all do our best,' added Ochoa. Then, for good measure, he threw in, 'At least you got a piece of him before you let the yokel slip away, right?'
And that was that. Without a high five or even a fist bump, the three of them had had their say. For one it was, Thanks, guys, I owe you; for the other two it was an emphatic, Got your wing, anytime, anywhere. And then they got back to work before one of them got all misty.
Ochoa said, 'That call I just got was Forensics. I've been all over them about the typewriter ribbon you found on the subway platform. Tests are done, they're e-mailing the digital images right now.'
'Way to gochoa.' A poke of excitement pressed her gut at the prospect of actual evidence to examine as she moved to her computer to log on.
Rook entered with a cheery 'Morning' and handed Raley a paper bag blotched with grease stains. 'Sorry, all they had left was plain.'
Raley squinted at the corner of Rook's mouth. 'You got a little something. There.'
Rook touched a finger to his face and came away with a blue sprinkle embedded in some icing. 'Huh. Well, I didn't say when they ran out. Just that they had.' He ate the sprinkle and turned to Nikki, selling a bit too hard. 'How are you this morning?'
She flicked only the slightest of glances up from her screen. 'Busy.'
While Heat waited for the server to log her on, Ochoa said, 'Remember yesterday at the ME's, you asked me to talk to Lauren Parry about the status of Coyote Man?' She gave him one of her nickname looks and he bobbed his head side to side. 'I mean, Mr. Coyote Man?… You were right, Padilla's autopsy was stacked. She's going to get on it herself first thing this morning.'
'Not so good news on the other Padilla front,' said Raley. 'Our canvass of residents and businesses where his body was found turned up NG. Same for security cams.'
Rook said, 'Which reminds me, have you seen today's Ledger?'
'Ledger's crap,' from Ochoa.
'We'll leave that to the Pulitzer committee,' said Rook, 'but check this out. About sunset last night they spotted a coyote hiding in Central Park.' He held up the front page. Nikki turned from her monitor and recognized the brazen eyes in the grainy picture of the animal peeking out of the shrubs near Belvedere Castle.
'Gotta love the headline,' said Raley, who then read it aloud, as if they all couldn't make it out. It was only in the size font they use on the top line of an eye chart. ' 'Coy-ote.' ' He took the paper from Rook to examine it. 'They're always doing that, putting some kind of groaner pun with the story.'
'Hate that,' said Ochoa. 'Can I have it?' Rook nodded and Raley passed him the newspaper, which he set aside for later. 'Like I said, Ledger's crap. But the price is right.'
'Here we go, boys and girls.' Detective Heat opened the attachment from Forensics. It was a huge file containing enhanced screen captures of every inch of the typewriter ribbon. Nikki read the accompanying e-mail from the lab technician aloud for the others. ' 'In case you are not familiar with the low-tech phenomenon known as the typewriter,' great-geek humor,' she said, and continued, ' 'each time a key is touched, the corresponding raised metal letter on the type bar strikes the ribbon, which not only prints the letter on the page but also embosses itself on the ribbon. Each letter strike causes the ribbon to advance one space, allowing us to scan the ribbon like a reverse tickertape, reading the sequence of letters that were printed on the writer's page.' '
'This dude's seen Avatar six times,' said Raley.
Nikki read on. ' 'Unfortunately, the owner of this ribbon had rewound and reused the ribbon at the end of each spool, causing overstrikes which have obliterated most of the retrievable text.' '
'Cassidy was cheap,' offered Rook. 'That's already in my article.'
'Is any of this ribbon readable?' asked Ochoa.
'Hang on.' Nikki scan-read the rest of the e-mail and summarized. 'He says he flagged those images that at least had some promise for us to examine. He's sending the ribbon to get X-rayed to see if more can be read on it. That takes time, but he'll let us know… He's happy to…'
'Happy to what?' said Ochoa.
'Live in his parents' basement,' suggested Rook.
But Raley read the last line over Nikki's shoulder. ' 'I am happy to have the privilege of doing any favor I can for the famous Detective Nikki Heat.' '
