She pulled away and smiled. “All yours.”
Rook didn’t hesitate. He swung around to face the coffee table and opened the music
book, bending closer, turning his head side to side, squinting some more at the
pencil marks. While she let the man she trusted with her life study in peace, her
gaze went to the silent TV, where a bartender at the Crown Salon in Belfast pulled
Tony Bourdain a perfectly murky pint of Guinness. Nikki had made her leap of faith.
At least for the moment, she, too, had no reservations.
They sat up most of the night, working together, banging their heads, trying to
figure out the code. They switched from hefeweizen to French Roast, but the coffee
only made them more alert, not any more enlightened. Heat answered all of Rook’s
questions but tried to avoid sharing too much of her path; his fertile imagination
would do its best work unconstrained.
Even when he signed on the Internet, covering the same ground she had again and
again, Nikki didn’t warn him off or try to stop him. With his Beginner’s Eyes Rook
might find something she hadn’t, and she didn’t want to pollute his fresh
thinking.
His quest went beyond her searches of the Egyptians, Mayans, and urban taggers, to
the Phoenicians and Druids. Rook even investigated a site devoted to the mutt
languages of some TV series called Firefly. That was when they knew it had come time
to call it a night and start fresh at sunup. “You mean in about forty-five minutes?
” she asked.
Immune to the caffeine, Heat fell into the deepest sleep she had enjoyed in ages.
Call it the power of sharing her burden. When she awoke, the sheets on Rook’s empty
side of the bed felt cold to her touch. She pulled on her robe and found him sitting
on the bench seat of the bay window, staring down at Gramercy Park, although Nikki
couldn’t be certain he was actually seeing anything at all except pencil marks on
sheet music.
“Now you know where my head’s been all these weeks,” she said, resting her palms
on his shoulders.
“My brain itches.” He tilted backward and she kissed the top of his forehead.
“You’re going to hate me.”
“You’re giving up?”
“No.”
“You don’t believe it is a code?”
“I do.”
“Then what?”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“Always a source of concern.”
“We’re not going to crack this on our own. At least not soon enough to do any
good. We need an assist.” Nikki tensed and withdrew her hands. He turned from the
window to face her. “Relax, I’m not talking about going to Yardley Bell. Or Agent
Callan.”
Old doubts about sharing with Rook began their noxious trickle. “Who then?”
It was only eight in the morning, but when Eugene Summers opened the door to his
Chelsea loft, he greeted them looking radiant, groomed, and polished. The
professional butler turned reality TV star bowed his silver head and smartly kissed
the back of Nikki’s extended hand, dismissing her apology about coming by so early
and on short notice. “Nonsense. I’m delighted to see you. Plus it got me out of my
robe.”
“No kidding,” said Rook. “You’ll have to show me how you get a perfect dimple
like that in a necktie.”