HEAT CRAVE
NYPD hottie and cover girl Nikki Heat plus magscribe-cum-boyfriend Jameson Rook have been arm in arm on another case, this time, trying to solve the murder of this column’s founding doyenne, Cassidy Towne. Apparently her brief taste of fame gave her a craving for more spotlight because Heat has been taking her act to all the high-viz peeps and places, most notably on a tear to bring down singer Soleil Gray. Detective Hot has been tailing the former Shades lead wherever she goes, including rehearsal halls and even a command perf busting up Miss Gray’s rehearsal at Later On by showing her autopsy photos of stabbing victims! Since Soleil wasn’t rehearsing a number from Sweeney Todd, you have to wonder, why all the heat? Is a certain detective getting ready for her next close-up, Mr. DeMille?
Heat looked up from the paper and Rook said, “Nikki, I am so sorry.” Her head spun. She pictured trucks unloading bound stacks of the Ledger curbside to newsstands all over the city. Copies piled on tables in apartment lobbies or landing on doormats . . . Captain Montrose getting a call from 1PP. She also thought back a few hours to her meeting with Soleil Gray and Helen Miksit, and the lawyer’s parting words about how the PR machine can turn against you. Nikki was certain that this was a shot across her bow from The Bulldog.
“You OK?” asked Rook. In the tenderness of his tone Nikki heard all the empathy he had for what was swirling inside her, a maelstrom of regret and anger carrying crumpled pages of First Press and the New York Ledger.
She handed him the newspaper. “I want my fifteen minutes back.”
Jameson Rook called a car service to bring him home. Nikki had asked him for a night of quiet, and he respected her desire without question and with only the slightest twinge of paranoia that she might be meeting up with Petar. After she gave Montrose the heads-up about the Ledger item, they had each taken a copy of Cassidy Towne’s manuscript to read overnight, and Rook promised he would only call if he hit something that jumped out about the case. “E-mail instead,” she had said, and he saw in her a need to find an oasis of solitude in her life. Probably starting with some lavender-scented bubbles in that claw-footed cast-iron tub of hers.
After the black car dropped him in Tribeca, he navigated the garbage heaps and approached his front stoop carrying a bag of Chinese takeout in his teeth while he fished for his door key. He thought he heard a foot scrape beside the stairs. There was no traffic on the street. Down the block, Rook watched the taillights of his ride disappear around the corner. Just as he was thinking about the manuscript in his messenger bag and weighing fight or flight, he saw movement in the shadows of the stoop and turned with his fists up as Cassidy Towne’s daughter stepped forward.
“Did I scare you?” said Holly Flanders.
“Mno.” He took the bag out of his mouth and said, “No.”
“I’ve been waiting here a couple of hours.”
He looked around, instinct telling him to be cautious and make sure he wasn’t going to be surprised by a companion.
“I’m here alone,” she said.
“How did you know where I live?”
“Last week, after I saw you at my mother’s a couple of times, I boosted a key for the new lock from JJ’s workshop and let myself in again to see who you were. I found your name and address on her receipts for the messenger service.”
“Enterprising and creepy all at the same time.”
Holly said, “I need to talk to you.”