Nicole showed up like the devil on her shoulder, and, next thing I know, Cindy’s off to St. Tropez, or Monaco, or Chamonix, paying her way by selling her talent cheap.” He turned to his daughter. “Things got better when you came along. We had the place in Gramercy Park, your mom settled down into raising you, and loved that. She loved you so much.” When he said that, some of the old Jeffrey Heat found his face and Rook could see in it the same jawline he saw in Nikki’s whenever she smiled.
“It was a very happy time,” she said. “For all of us.” Then she reached for her keys.
“Those things don’t last, though, do they? When you turned five she went back to the old habits. Tutoring kids of rich New Yorkers, sometimes gone weekends with their families or keeping strange hours, nights even. And never talked to me about it. Said she needed her independence and just did her thing. Shut me out.” He paused as if making a decision, then said, “I never told you this, but I even got paranoid your mother was having an affair.”
Nikki shifted the keys to her right hand. “OK, well, maybe this isn’t the time and place to get into this.”
Rook asked, “Did you ever tell the police you suspected that?” and caught a slight elbow from Nikki. He ignored it. “Seems they’d want to know.”
“I didn’t mention it.”
“Because you had already divorced?” This time the elbow came a little sharper.
“Because I already knew she wasn’t.” He closed his mouth and sucked in his cheeks. Then he continued, with his lower lip trembling. “This is awkward for me, especially after what happened.” Nikki slid forward on the couch and reached a hand to rest on his knee. “I’m ashamed now-but I hired a private detective to, um, follow her.” And then, regaining himself a bit, he added, “Came up with nothing, thank God.”
Lightning struck with a simultaneous cannon crash in the woods behind the condo complex, hurrying their jog back to the car. When they got in, Heat checked her cell phone and found a text invitation from Don, her combat trainer. “Whip yr ass 2nite? Y/N.”
Rook asked, “Something new on the case?”
She shook her head, texted, “N,” and fired up the ignition. He must have read her mood, because, for a change, Rook respected her silence the whole ride back to Manhattan.
The squad worked the case diligently, but their results still didn’t move the needle on the case. The French consulates in both New York and Boston had no recent dealings with Nicole Bernardin, she had no record of a landline, and her cellular calls were mundane take-out orders and mani-pedi appointments. Ochoa came back with confirmation of two, uncharacteristically last-minute color-and-cut cancellations made from the cell. Her stylist, who grieved the loss of one of his best clients, said she was a very nice, albeit private lady who seemed scattered lately. Neither of much use in furthering the hunt for her killer. Rook took a cab back to his place, leaving Heat to update the murder boards. Unfortunately, that amounted to writing check marks beside each bullet instead of entering new information.
The elevator doors opened for Nikki in the lobby of Rook’s building that evening and a massage table rolled out on two wheels followed by Salena, the rehab babe. “Hiyee!” she said, finger waving with her free hand, making her triceps ripple. “He’s all yours.”
“Gee, thanks. Appreciate that.” The last thing Heat saw was that row of perfect white teeth as the door shut, making her ruminate the whole ride up about Cheshire cats and how she’d seen grins without airheads but never an airhead without a grin.
By the time Rook came out from his shower, she had plattered the antipasto ingredients she had picked up at Citarella and poured them some wine at the counter. “Thought we’d stay in and do some grazing tonight,” she said.
“Fine with me.” He looked at the wine label and said, “Ooh, Pinot Grigio.”
“Yeah, perfect accompaniment to tea tree oil and pheromones.” They clinked. “I passed your naughty nurse on the way up. How was your ‘rehab’? And yes, those were air quotes.”
“Sadly, my last one. But I needed it after those rib shots I took from your elbow this afternoon.”
“Really?” She forked a slice of prosciutto and rolled it around a ball of bufala mozz. “It didn’t seem like you were even aware of them. Remember, you were supposed to be the rodeo clown, keeping my dad from getting mired?”
“Yes, it was quite a role reversal, wasn’t it?”
She set her food down and dabbed her fingers with her napkin. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, I was prepared to run interference for you, but you weren’t asking any questions. So I did.”
“Rook, we didn’t go there to ask questions. I went as a courtesy to my father to fill him in on the case because it ended up in your old girlfriend’s tabloid.”
“Let’s ignore that second jealous comment you’ve made in under a minute and focus on the visit with your dad.” He nibbled the meat off an olive and placed the pit on the side of his plate. “Yes, we went there for one purpose, but he kept sharing things that made me want to know more. His suspicion about the affair was too big to just let pass. When you didn’t say anything, I assumed you were too busy absorbing it emotionally and I picked up the slack. He never mentioned it to you?”
“You heard him. He said no.”
“And you had no clue?”
She took another sip of wine and watched the ripples on the surface as she swirled the stem. “Can I share something with you?”
“Anything, you know that.”
She paused to ponder, mirroring her father’s tortured expression, hours before. “Yes. I suspected my mom might be having an affair, too.” She took another drink from her glass. “Not until I was older, in my teens, but I started noticing the same things my dad brought up today. Gone a lot. Sometimes a weekend or nights, out late. You know, when you’re in high school, it’s all about you, and you feel angry and lonesome. And then I started to wonder if there was more to it. Also the tension between my parents was a big elephant in that apartment. I even started trying to get to our mail before she did so I could look for any letters from men or anything. It’s crazy, but it’s what it became.”
“Was she seeing someone?”
“I never knew.”
“And you never talked to her about it directly?”
“Like I’d do that.”
“And she never confided in you? Not even a hint?” Nikki gave him a derisive sniff. “Hey, just asking. I got the impression you and your mom were close.”
“In our own way, yes. But my mother had this very private side to her. It was a bone of contention between us. Even the night she was killed. Know the reason I was gone from the apartment for such a long time before I went to the market? I needed to take a walk because things were tense between us about her… what should I call it…? Separateness. Don’t get me wrong, my mom was warm and loving to me, so I’m not invalidating that. But… there was a part of her that she kept totally to herself. As close as we were, she had this wall that divided us.”
Understanding now why Nikki had balked at digging into her mother’s past, Rook said, “There’s no shame here. We all have our private areas, right? Some people erect a little more protection around theirs than others. What did my man, Sting, call it, ‘A Fortress Around Your Heart’?” He ate a marinated artichoke with his fingers and added, “You, of all people, should know that.”
Nikki frowned and studied him. “Meaning?”
He swallowed wrong, coughing on some vinegar as he realized his mistake. Trying to contain the damage, he said, “Nothing. Forget it.” But it was out there.
“Too late. What exactly should I know that you have now somehow become an expert on from listening to Classic Rock?”
“Well… OK, look, we all have aspects we inherit from our folks. I have my mother’s brash theatricality and adorable impulsiveness. As for my dad, I have no clue. Don’t even know who he is.” He hoped that sidetrack would end that thread of discussion, but he was wrong.
“Spit it out, Rook. Are you saying I’m inaccessible?”
“Not at all.” He felt himself trapped in a sparring match he didn’t want to be in and that everything he said was the wrong thing. Such as stupidly adding, “Not all the time.”
“And at what times am I inaccessible?”
