“So?” said Rook. “Maybe whoever it was came in through another port of entry, like Boston or Philadelphia. Or isn’t on a watch list.”
“Let’s keep thinking on this,” Nikki said.
“Did Damon make any calls to the Bernardins in Paris?” asked Rook. “Any chance he was the elusive Mr. Seacrest?”
Detective Ochoa shrugged. “No record. But that call came from a burner, remember?”
Heat turned to the next page of Ochoa’s printout. “What’s this call here?”
“It’s not the call, it’s the timing. Check it out. Carter Damon made this one immediately after he hung up on his Paris call following your lunch with him.”
Raley said, “If it’s like Feller said, and Damon was a blunt instrument, looks to me like maybe somebody told him what to do, and he did it.”
“Miguel, I assume you ran the number,” said Nikki.
“You assume correctly. No wants or warrants on the party he called. The number is listed on Second Ave to a Salena Kaye.”
Heat and Rook whipped their heads to each other. He said, “Salena!? That’s my naughty nurse!”
The gumball on the roof of the Roach Coach reflected in Heat’s rearview mirror as they ran a convoy, Code Two, across Central Park and uptown to Salena Kaye’s address on Second near 96th Street. Nikki chirped her siren crossing Fifth Avenue as she came out of the transverse. As she steered onto Eighty-fourth, Heat checked her mirror to make sure Raley had kept up, and Rook said, “Well, now I know why Carter Damon lied to me about getting shot. He was just BSing me into swapping rehab stories so I’d give him Gitmo Joe’s name. He must have tracked him through my agency and had him replaced by his girl Salena.”
“I’m right there with you.” Nikki blasted her horn and jerked her wheel to pass a delivery truck that had dead-stopped her lane. Turning uptown, she continued, “Damon placed her with you to keep tabs on the case. Think of it, Rook, she saw Murder Board South, our case notes, and everything before she left.” Nikki couldn’t resist, and added, “Smiling those big white teeth the whole time.”
Rook caught her needle and countered, “She gave one helluva massage, too.”
She pulled to the curb at Ninety-sixth and threw it in park. “Time to pay a house call on a naughty nurse.” But when Rook got out, she said, “Oh no, you stay here.”
“Why? Is this payback for what I said about the massage? I was thinking of you the whole time, I swear.”
She joined up with Raley and Ochoa at the front steps to the apartment building. “Not going to debate this. Stay in the car, I mean it.”
“What is he, like, six?” said Ochoa on the way in.
“You flatter him,” said Raley.
Up at the apartment door on the fifth story, Raley knelt beside the lock, holding the key from the super at the ready. Heat and Ochoa flanked him with guns drawn. “Salena Kaye, NYPD, open up,” she called. No answer. Heat gave Rales the nod and he keyed the lock. Nikki turned the knob and pushed, but the door hit something solid, a piece of furniture, and stopped.
“Mine,” said Ochoa. He backed up and gave the door a flying kick with his foot. It opened only a few inches. “Together, pard,” he said, then he and Raley hit the door with both their shoulders, and they were in.
“Bedroom, clear,” said Ochoa.
“Kitchen, clear,” called Heat.
Raley came out from the bathroom and holstered. “Not in the bathroom, either.”
Detective Ochoa said, “She busted out of here in a hurry. The drawers are open and there’s a half-packed duffel on the bed.”
Nikki saw the open window. On her way out the door she shouted, “Fire escape. One of you go high. I’ll take the street.”
Heat blasted out the lobby stairs and raced through the vestibule onto the sidewalk. Rook was standing beside the Crown Vic, pointing. “A car service picked her up.”
“Get in,” she said.
“I saw them take a left on Ninety-seventh.”