Deadly Heat

“But the other side of the coin is they may do better at heading this off

than we will. I mean ethical questions aside.”


Heat snapped at him, “We don’t put ethics aside, Rook. It’s not who we are. It’s

not who I am, anyway. Don’t you think I would love ten minutes alone in a locked

room with Carey Maggs?”

“You mean to work out your mom stuff, or to stop the smallpox attack?”

She thought about that and said, “I guess I have the luxury of not having to know

the answer.” A moment passed and she asked, “What about your mom? Did Margaret get

out of town?”

“Oh, yes, Oswego-bound, hours ago. I have a feeling that, at this very moment,

Broadway’s ‘Grand Damn’ is in the lounge, on her third Sidecar, and the Drama

Festival committee is wondering what they got themselves into.”

“You know, Rook, we’ve done our best. No points off if you want to leave. You have

your place in the Hamptons.”

He took both her hands in his, looked into her eyes, and said, “Yeah, I’m outta

here.” And after they both laughed at that, they kissed.

Since they were all alone, they made it count.

In the overnight Heat didn’t dare leave her desk. She dozed in ten-minute intervals

in her chair and left her cell phone on ring instead of vibrate so she’d be sure to

get any calls. Raley and Ochoa checked in just after four when they wrapped Brewery

Boz. For the hell of it, she asked them to swing by Varick Street and door-knock the

Homeland HQ to see if they could create some movement. They called back an hour

later with no joy.

At sunup the commander of NYPD’s counterterrorism unit called from his staging area

at the 69th Regiment Armory near Gramercy Park. He didn’t want Heat to think he had

dismissed her, and reassured her that he had put calls out through all his sources

to learn what he could about the whereabouts and status of the DHS agents and Maggs.

Heat told McMains he was a good man and asked him to keep her posted. “And God help

us all,” he said.

After too many days and nights in the same clothes, Nikki budgeted herself five

minutes for a quick shower in the locker room, which did a world to make her feel

sharper for the day ahead. After she toweled off, she smiled, amused that she was

actually resorting to changing into her backup bag of backup clothes, and wondered

if she should have a backup for that, too. The brown leather jacket she’d been

wearing seemed a little warm for the forecast, so when Heat returned to the bull

pen, she hung it on the coat rack and got down the blazer Yardley Bell had returned

to her after its DHS bioagent sweep.

When she slipped it off the rack, she noticed a clear plastic evidence bag had been

looped over the hook of the hanger. Thoughtfully, the Homeland Security scientists

had emptied her blazer pockets and returned all their contents with an inventory

slip. Nikki looked inside. She found a lipstick, her sunglasses, a notepad and golf

pencil, and an open package of Reese’s peanut butter cups. She doubted she would

want the remaining candy and took it out to throw away. Her hand froze above the

trash can.

“Rook,” she called.

Couch springs groaned from the break room, and he appeared in the door with bed hair

and one shirttail out. “What?”

She held up the blazer. “Now I know where I picked up my contamination. Come on.”





TWENTY