Nikki went for him, reaching for her handcuffs, but he rolled over onto his back and swung a beer bottle at her. It connected with her jaw hard enough for her to see stars. She staggered back, dazed, and sat down clumsily, just breaking her fall by putting one hand behind her.
Petar got up. His hands were empty. He wanted the Sig. Nikki had heard it hit the ground when he landed but couldn’t see it in the bad light, either.
He tried to boost himself up on the platform to get his flashlight, but it was too high. Petar had gotten to the metal ladder but had only cleared two rungs when she grabbed him again to pull him back down with her. He didn’t resist. Instead, he tried to pile drive her, letting himself be pulled and falling on top of her.
When they landed in a heap, he didn’t go for the ladder again. He tried to make a run for the station at 96th.
Without good light, he misjudged the height of the crossties and tripped, once again, landing between the rails. He hauled himself up to his feet but too slowly. Nikki hopped on him, throwing a blindside tackle. He spun himself on the way down, making her take the brunt of the landing. The wind got knocked out of her, and she ached for air so she could go after him. But he wasn’t running. Petar had her by the lapels of her coat. He was dragging her. When Heat turned her head and could see where, she was inches from the third rail.
In seconds he would drop Nikki on it and she’d take six hundred fifty volts.
Heat kicked a leg up into his crotch. They were too close together for her to generate the swing power to drop him, but it hurt enough to make him moan and loosen his grip. The back of her head hit the ground an inch from the hot rail.
He staggered away.
A downtown express was coming on the center rails. Petar started for those tracks. He was going to try to beat it across and put the train between them to give himself a chance to get away. Nikki stopped him before he got there.
She slammed a fist behind his ear and his knees buckled. He grabbed a metal beam with one hand to support himself and used it to swing his body around to strike back. But his own momentum carried him into her next blow, a fist to the temple. His eyelids fluttered and he started to lose balance.
The express train was fast approaching behind him. Heat pulled him up and slammed him against the steel beam. He took a looping swing at her. She tilted her head to dodge it and hit him with another punch in the nose. And then another. Blood gushed out his nostrils, mixing with the blue spray paint on his face.
As the telltale rush of wind from the oncoming train pushed into the tunnel, he lolled his head north, turned glazed eyes over his shoulder at the approaching headlight, and then back to her with resignation. He regarded her with the look of a man prepared to receive his fate. They both knew there were no witnesses.
This perfect moment was Heat’s chance to avenge her mother. The stuff of both dreams and nightmares.
Nikki gathered him up by his armpits and yanked him clear of the post, balancing him on weak legs as the first car broke the entrance to the Ghost Station.
He closed his eyes and waited for the push.
But when the speeding train got there, she threw him to the ground away from it. With his face in a puddle in the ditch, Nikki pulled his hands behind his back. She said, “Petar Matic?” And then Detective Heat paused before she gave voice to the words she had waited a decade to speak. “I am arresting you for the murder of Cynthia Heat.” She swallowed hard and continued, “You are also under arrest for the murder of Nicole Bernardin.”