presence. It gave Nikki second thoughts about coming to see him in this venue, especially after her experience that day on the Intrepid. But he made no move to flee. In fact, when he finished shaking hands with the team mascot, who was attired in fifteenth-century garb as Peter Stuyvesant, Mills made his good-night wave then strode across the stage directly to her and said, 'Did you catch my stalker?'
Without hesitating and without lying, Heat said, 'Yes. Let's find a place to talk.'
Heat had arranged to have use of a room nearby and she escorted Toby Mills into a computer lab and gestured to a chair. He noticed Raley and the two waiting uniform cops on the way in and got a funny look on his face when one uniform stayed inside while the other closed the door and posted himself outside with his body blocking the little window slit. 'What's going on?' he asked.
Nikki replied with a question. 'Isn't Jess Ripton here? I'd expect he'd be all over an event like this.'
'Right. Well, he was going to come but called to say he had a sponsor fire to put out and to start without him.'
'Did he say where he was?' asked the detective. Heat already knew The Firewall wasn't at his office or his apartment.
Mills looked up at the classroom wall clock. 'Ten of nine, he's probably having his second dirty martini at Bouley.'
Without being told, Detective Raley moved to the door. He gave a soft two-tap as he opened it, and the cop in the hall stepped aside to let him out.
The departure of the plainclothes cop wasn't missed by Toby. 'This is starting to weird me out a little here, Detective.'
That was pretty much the effect Heat was hoping to have on the pitcher. Her instincts were on alert that Ripton had broken form and wasn't there, but on the plus side it gave her a chance to apply pressure on Mills without the security blanket of his handler. 'It's time, Toby.'
He looked perplexed. 'Time? Time for what?'
'For us to have a talk about Soleil Gray.' Nikki paused and, when she saw the blinks come to his eyes, continued. 'And Reed Wakefield.' She took another beat and, when she could see him dry swallowing, added, 'And you.'
He tried his best, he truly did. But as sophisticated as were the circles a multimillionaire athlete in Gotham traveled in, Toby Mills was at heart still the kid from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and his upbringing made him a poor liar. 'What about Soleil Gray and… Reed? What have they got to do with this? I thought this was about that creep following me and my family around.'
'His name is Morris Granville, Toby.'
'I know that. But he's always just 'the creep' to me. Did you get him or not? You said you got him.'
'We did.' She could see he wanted her to continue, and so she didn't. Toby Mills wasn't a star now, he was her interrogation suspect and she was going to run the board, not he. 'Tell me how you knew Soleil Gray and Reed Wakefield.'
His eyes darted to the door where the uniform waited, then back to her. And then he studied his shoes, looking in them for the answer to give now that he had no script from The Firewall.
'Soleil and Reed, Toby. Let's hear it.'
'What's there to know? I heard about her today. Man…' And then he tried out, 'I read in the paper you were harassing her. Were you chasing her today, too?'
Heat did not rise to his bait, let alone acknowledge it. 'My question remains, how did you know Soleil and Reed?'
He shrugged like a child. 'Around, you know? It's New York. You go to parties, you run into people. 'Hey, howarya,' like that.'
'Is that all you knew of them, Toby? 'Hey, howarya'? Really?'
He checked the door again and pursed his lips repeatedly the way she had seen him do on TV once when he had walked the ninth man to load the bases and the top of the order was coming up with no outs. He'd need different skills to get himself out of this jam, and Toby wasn't sure he had them; she could smell it on him. So with his confidence flagging, she said, 'Let's take a ride. Want to put your hands behind your back for me?'
'Are you serious?' He met her gaze, but it was he who blinked. 'I met them around. You know. Parties, like I said. Reed, I guess he played in my charity softball game for the Oklahoma tornado victims in summer '09. Soleil, too, now that I think about it.'
'And that's it?'
'Well, not totally. We hung out with each other from time to time. The reason I hesitated to talk about it is because it's embarrassing. I'm past all of it now, but I kinda got a little 'off the chain' when I first hit New York. Hard not to. And maybe I did do some partying with them back then.'
Heat remembered Rook saying that Cassidy Towne had written up some of Mills's wild nights in 'Buzz Rush.' 'So you're saying that was a long time ago?'
'Ancient history, yes, ma'am.' He said it fast and smooth, as if he had passed the dangerous shoals and come out into calm waters.
'All before your charity game summer before last.'
'Right. Way back.'
'And you didn't see them after that?'
He started shaking his head for show, even as he pretended to be thinking. 'Nope, can't say as I saw much of them later. They broke up, you know.'
Nikki seized the opening. 'Actually, I heard they got back together. The night Reed died.'
Mills kept a game face but couldn't keep the blood in it, and he went a little pale. 'Oh, yeah?'
'I'm surprised you didn't know that, Toby. Seeing how you were with them that night.'
'With them-I was not!' His shout made the officer at the door straighten up and stare at him. He lowered his voice. 'I was never with them. Not that night. Trust me, Detective, I think I'd remember that.'
'I have an eyewitness who says otherwise.'
'Who?'
'Morris Granville.'
'Oh, come on, this is crazy. You're going to take the word of that psycho over mine?'
'When we picked him up, he told me about Club Thermal and how he saw Soleil and Reed.' Heat leaned forward in her chair, toward him. 'Of course, what I knew in the back of my mind was that the only reason I could think of for Morris Granville to be outside Club Thermal that night was because he was stalking you.'
'Sounds like a load of bull. The guy's lying to get some kind of deal or something. He's just lying. The creep can say anything, but without proof, forget it.' Toby sat back and crossed his arms, attempting to signal that he was all done.
Heat slid her chair over to the computer beside him and inserted a memory key. 'What are you doing?' he asked.
When the thumb drive opened up, she double-clicked on a file, and as it loaded, she said, 'I pulled this off Morris Granville's cell phone.'
The image loaded. It was amateur cell quality, but the picture told the story. It was a shot of a wet street outside Club Thermal. Reed Wakefield and Soleil Gray were getting inside a stretch limo. Esteban Padilla, dressed in a black suit and red tie, held an umbrella over the open door. And inside the limousine, a giggling Toby Mills held a hand out to help Soleil get in. In his other hand was a joint.
As Mills weakened and his hands began to shake, Heat said, 'Cassidy Towne. Derek Snow…' When he bowed his head, Nikki tapped lightly on the monitor. When he looked back up at the image, she added, 'And think about this, Toby. Everyone here is dead-but you. I want you to tell me what's wrong with this picture.'
And then the phenom began to weep. Toby Mills had entered Stuyvesant High that night in the backseat of a black Escalade with a million-dollar check. He left in the backseat of a police car in handcuffs. The charges, for now, would be tokens just to hold him: lying to a police officer; failure to report a death; conspiracy; conspiracy to obstruct justice; bribery. From the confession he had made to her after he broke down and wept, it wasn't clear yet to Detective Heat if meatier charges would be brought. That would be up to a grand jury and the DA. And most importantly, if she could find a way to connect the pitcher to the Texan.
The stalker's cell phone picture would be compelling evidence. In her own way Nikki was in debt to whatever
