“You’re lucky I signed that waiver against lawsuits when I started my ride-?along.”
She smiled in the dark. “I guess we’re both lucky.” Nikki figured he must have heard the smile in her voice because he drew closer to her, until there was only the slightest gap separating them. They stood there like that, not quite touching but sensing each other’s closeness in the dark of the hot summer night. Nikki started to sway, and then leaned ever so slightly toward him. She felt her breast brush softly against his upper arm.
Then the bright light hit them.
“Detective Heat?” said the voice from the patrol car.
She took one step back from Rook and shielded her eyes against the spotlight. “I am.”
“Everything all right?”
“Fine. He’s…,” she looked at Rook, who wasn’t appreciating her pause while she struggled to define him, “with me.”
Nikki knew the score. As they lowered the beam out of her eyes, she pictured the meeting in Captain Montrose’s office after she’d left and the call that went out. It was one thing to rib each other and play their game of Too Cool to Care, but the precinct was family, and if you were one of their own and you were threatened, you could bet your badge they’d have your back. The gesture would have been so much more welcome if she hadn’t had Jameson Rook on her hip. “Thank you, but you know, this isn’t necessary. Really.”
“No sweat, we’ll be here all night. You want us to show you upstairs?”
“No,” Nikki said a little more urgently than she’d intended. She continued more softly, “Thank you. I’ve got a,” she looked at Rook, who smiled until she said, “flashlight.”
Rook lowered his voice. “Nice. Think I’ll tell James Taylor I have his new song. ‘You’ve Got a Flashlight.’”
“Oh, don’t be so—You know James Taylor?”
“Heat?”
“Yeah?”
“Got any ice up there in that apartment?”
Nikki gave it a moment while he rubbed his sore jaw. “Let’s go up and find out.”
Heat Wave
NINE
Nikki Heat’s apartment building was not the Guilford. It was not only a fraction of the size, there was no doorman. Rook looped his fingers in the brass handle and held open the front door as she entered the small vestibule. Her keys clacked against the glass of the inner door, and once Nikki unlocked it, she waved to the blue-?and-?white still double-?parked out front. “We’re in,” she said. “Thank you.”
The cops left on the spotlight for them, and thanks to its spill the lobby was dim but not totally dark. “Chair, see?” Nikki shined her light at it briefly. “Stay close.” A row of shiny metal-?plated mailboxes caught the reflection beside them. She twisted the beam a little wider, and although it was not as intense, it gave them a better sense of the area, revealing the long, narrow lobby, which was a small-?scale match for the footprint of the building. A single elevator sat ahead to the left, and on its right, separated by a table holding some UPS deliveries and unclaimed newspapers, was an open passageway to the staircase.
“Hang onto this.” She gave him the box and crossed over to the elevator.
“Unless that thing’s steam powered, I don’t think it’s going to be working,” said Rook.
“Ya think?” She shined the light up at the deco brass dial indicating which of the five floors the car was on. The arrow pointed to the 1. Heat rapped the heel of her flashlight on the elevator door and a series of loud bongs resonated. She called out, “Anybody in there?” and put her ear to the metal. “Nothing,” she said to Rook. Then she dragged the lobby chair to the elevator door and stood on it. “For this to work, you have to do this up top, at the header.” Clenching the tiny flashlight in her teeth to free her hands, she used them to pry the doors open a few inches at the center. Nikki angled her head forward and inserted the light into the partition. Satisfied, she released the doors and stepped down, reporting, “All clear.”
“Always a cop,” said Rook.
“Mm, not always.”