“You e-mail yourself? Rook, if you’re lonely, I could e-mail you.”
He continued working keystrokes as he explained. “I always back up my iPad docs and smart phone notes by e-mailing them to myself. That way, if my iPad takes a dip in a swamp or my phone gets confiscated by some former Eastern Bloc gun runner . . . or I leave it on the R Train like an idiot . . . I don’t lose all my work.” With a flourish, he double-tapped the track pad. “Done.”
After they made love again, of all places, in the bedroom, Heat and Rook held each other in the dark. A trickle of sweat ran across one of Nikki’s breasts and she wondered—his or hers? She tracked the sensation of its slow, meandering course between them and smiled. After a month apart, how wonderful to be close enough that she couldn’t tell whose sweat was whose.
* * *
When they both decided they were hungry, she wondered aloud who was still delivering after midnight, but Rook was already at his suitcase fishing out a pair of sweatpants. “You’re not going out,” she said. “10-10 WINS said it’s in minus temps tonight.” He said nothing, just handed Nikki her robe and led her to the kitchen. He opened the door to the refrigerator and came out with a half dozen takeout trays.
“Rook, what did you do?”
“Hit SushiSamba on the way over.” He set a container of each on the counter. “Let’s see, got your Samba Park roll, your BoBo Brazil, your Green Envy . . . ,” he paused to purr like a tiger, “. . . your tuna sashimi.”
“Oh my God,” said Nikki, “and you got yellowtail ceviche?”
“Do I know you? Margarita, se?orita?”
“Sí.” She laughed, remembering how long it had been since she’d done that.
Rook set the pitcher he had mixed on the tiles and, as he salted two glasses, said, “Consider the potential irony. Four weeks surviving nighttime jungle landings in the cargo bays of unmarked planes, multiple detentions by corrupt border guards, getting roughed up in the trunk of some paranoid Colombian drug lord’s El Dorado by his crackhead flunkies, only to be gunned down in my girlfriend’s apartment.”
“No laugh, Rook, I was feeling jumpy. I think someone was following me tonight.”
“Seriously? Did you see who?”
“No. And not a hundred percent sure about it.”
“Yes, you are,” he said. “Should you call Montrose?”
There was a time that’s exactly what she would have done. Detective Heat would have let her captain know and then vehemently declined his offer to park a cruiser out front (which he would have done anyway, ignoring her protests). It wasn’t the uncertainty about the tail that stopped her, though. It was the uncertainty in the face of him questioning her judgment and leadership. Plus her own awkwardness dealing with the captain with so many suspicions swirling. “No,” she said. “It’s too weird with Montrose now. Kind of tense.”
“With Montrose? And you? What’s going on?”
The day had been such a grind, and this respite was such a welcome oasis, she said, “Way too much to get into now. I’m not shutting you out, but can we leave it until tomorrow?”
“Absolutely.” He held up his glass. “To reunions.”
They clinked salut and sipped. The taste of a margarita would always remind her of the first night they had sex in the summer heat wave. “Hope you learned your lesson about sneaking in here without a heads-up.”
“You gave me a key. And what kind of surprise would that make, if I called?”
“The surprise would have been yours if I’d had company.”
He served the food, placing the cut rolls of sushi on her plate and then his with chopsticks. “You’re right. That would have surprised me.”
“What?” she said, “You mean, surprised if I had been with someone?”
“You wouldn’t be.”
“I sure could.”