Detective Heat got her first look at the shooter as he reached the far side of the rooftop and turned to descend the front fire escape. Male about five-ten, strong build—possibly Caucasian—but no features to ID. He wore a gray hoodie topped with a black Yankees cap, and a dark mask or scarf over his nose and mouth. Nikki also got a look at the shotgun, a short barrel with a pistol grip that he held in gloved hands. He rested the stock on the lip of the roof and took aim from the ladder. She dove behind a chimney. He fired and peppered the brick with the spray of lead.
At risk of losing him, Heat dashed for the other fire escape, the one on the back of her building. Lucky was one thing, but the exposure from descending open stairs above a man with a shotgun would be pressing her luck, and that would be stupid. And deadly.
She rode the bottom ladder down on its springs and made a short dismount four feet to the service alley and flattened against the side of the building. Heat made a fast recon around the corner and pulled back. He wasn’t waiting for her; the narrow driveway between apartment buildings was empty. Then she heard running. Nikki peeked again and caught a flash of him sprinting by on the sidewalk. She charged up the service drive after him.
When Heat passed through the gate at the top of the incline and looked up the sidewalk, it was empty. He couldn’t have rounded the corner at Irving Place already. She sprinted down to it, passing into the construction zone for the building being renovated there. Slowing at the end of the sidewalk, she knelt at the corner wall formed by the temporary plywood work barrier and carefully looked down that stretch of sidewalk but saw no one. Where could he have gone? She remembered the outhouse back near the construction trailer. Heat backtracked to it, approaching it cautiously. But it had a padlock on it. So did the trailer door.
She went back to the corner and turned south toward East 19th Street, moving vigilantly under the corridor of scaffolding that wrapped around the building. Sirens approached, but Nikki couldn’t chance losing her man by breaking off the chase to go back and meet them. When she reached the corner at 19th, she stopped again, and once again saw no shooter. A man walking a Chihuahua and a golden retriever approached from the west, but he told her he hadn’t seen anyone matching the description. She asked him to go to her building and tell the police where she was, and he did. After the dog walker moved on, she waited. Nikki was just about to give it up and go back herself when she heard it.
Above her, one of the scaffolding planks creaked and a sprinkle of dust cascaded down onto the ground beside her. Unless New York was experiencing another aftershock, her killer was hiding above her, using the scaffolding as an elevated escape route.
Heat ducked between the lattice of support tubes and backed out into the street to see if she could spot him. No, her view was blocked by a waist-high plywood debris shield. The protective barrier ran continuously along the second floor of the scaffold, halfway to Park Avenue South, providing perfect cover for him all along the block. Making soft steps, she reversed course on Irving Place. Halfway back up the street, Nikki Heat started climbing pipe.