“That’s her,” said Heat. “Do you have an address?”
“Sure do,” he said and brought that file up for them to see. “It’s in Fairfax,
Virginia.” No surprise to Heat. She turned away to scan the gym, hoping to find
someone Salena worked out with—also a long shot; Kaye would be a loner and just use
the facility to keep up her battle strength. Then Macka said, “But I know where she
lives. You know, she’s kind of a looker. I was waiting for my bus one night and saw
her go in the Coney Crest on Surf Ave.”
On their way there, Rook said, “Excuse me, you’re not going to check in with our
cousins at Homeland Security?”
Heat knew she should, but answered, “It’ll slow us down,” speaking the perfect
brand of truth: the one that also functioned as camouflage for a deeper truth.
Someone may have tipped off Salena Kaye about Heat’s visit to the rent-a-car. Nikki
simply would not take the chance that it could happen again, and made a field
decision that this raid would be lightning-quick, minimal in size, and known solely
by the actual participants. She only made two calls. One to Benigno DeJesus, whose
evidence collection team had finished scouring Heat’s apartment, and the other to
the Sixtieth Precinct to request some uniformed officers to establish a perimeter
around the motel and provide backup. Detective Heat never said for what, and nobody
asked her to. Everyone just assumed it was all about the Rainbow case.
The Coney Crest fell into that subcategory of lodging known as the SRO, or single
residence occupancy—a weekly transitional rental for the increasing number of
unfortunate souls who’d lost their homes in a bad economy. In police shorthand,
SROs also functioned as flophouses for the marginally legal and folks hiding out:
shitheads, robbers, and offenders. The thing most of these places had in common was
few questions asked, bad smells in the halls, and names that sounded classier than
the joint.
As Heat walked the second-floor breezeway toward Room 210, a trio of uniforms crept
up the far stairs to converge with her in the open hallway. She paused to look over
the rail at the cloudy swimming pool where Rook waited beside the broken diving
board. The Coney Crest’s manager, no constitutional scholar, never asked for a
warrant. The weary man with pouched eyes simply gave Nikki his passkey, even though
he pointed out that the one Heat had brought from Salena’s bag would fit 210 and
about a half dozen other doors in the place.
Detective Heat and the officers behind her took positions on opposite sides of the
door. Using the silent signals and the plan they had worked out in the parking lot,
Nikki knelt, slid the key in the lock, called, “Salena Kaye, NYPD, open up,” and
unlocked the door. The nearest uniform booted it open and they all rolled in,
covering one another and shouting don’t-move commands.
In fifteen seconds, it was over. They had cleared the bedroom, the closet, the
bathroom, even searched the modest array of cabinets in the kitchenette.
“You didn’t really expect her to be in here, did you?” asked Rook when she
allowed him in.
“Not really. Kaye’s a trained agent. She’d been burned, we had her key; she’ll
never come here again.” She smiled at him. “But let a girl have her fantasies.”
“Every wish begins with Kaye,” he said.