At the next corner her paparazzo, with the exclusive he could only have dreamed of, faked a right turn but instead cut a U, not only traveling the wrong direction on the one-way street but bearing down head-on at Nikki. Heat evaded, cutting to her right, and side skidded, nearly setting the bike down in the middle of traffic. But gearing down and steering into the skid, she made a U-turn herself, although almost clipping a parked FedEx truck as she swung her one-eighty.
Going the wrong way herself now, Heat flashed her headlight and used her horn. Fortunately the only close call she had was with a motorcycle driven by one of the other paps, with, she realized in disbelief, Jameson Rook on the back of the saddle, also in pursuit.
When they came to the end of the block, Soleil’s driver cut a right and opened it up, racing north on Eleventh Avenue. Nikki kept pace, although she lost time slowing and creeping through the red lights instead of just busting them with impunity like the lead bike did. This was the time Heat wished she had her two-way so she could call in roadblocks or intercepts. But she didn’t, so she kept her focus and grabbed speed where she could.
Eleventh Avenue became West End Avenue and shortly thereafter Soleil made another back glance that told Nikki to expect another stunt. It came at 72nd Street. Her driver carved a diagonal across the intersection, nearly getting popped by a bus, and then gunned it toward the Henry Hudson on-ramp. Heat followed cautiously through the intersection and had to lurch to a stop for an elderly woman on a walker, who shuffled into the crosswalk against the light and almost became Nikki’s hood ornament. She waited until the yellow tennis balls slid by and then sped onward, but stopped at Riverside Drive and cursed.
She had lost them.
Heat almost got on the northbound Hudson but something stopped her. The traffic was thick, at a crawl. Even with the advantage of a motorcycle to squeeze through, that wouldn’t be the escape route she would take. She heard a backfire and turned toward the sound. Behind the Eleanor Roosevelt statue at the opposite corner, a streak of white zoomed down the pedestrian path of the park that ran along the river. Nikki waited for an SUV to pass and then steered herself on a diagonal across the intersection, rode the handicap ramp up onto the sidewalk, and followed them into Riverside Park. Riding past the neighborhood dog run, she got yelled at by some of the pet owners. One of them threatened to call the police and she hoped they would. She sensed movement in her side mirror and knew without looking that Rook was following.
Nikki kept it slow on the paved pathway that ran north along the river. Even though it was mid-afternoon on a chilly day, there were enough joggers, cyclists, and dog walkers to pop out of nowhere, and she felt as long as she could see the motorcycle ahead, she could bide her time and make her move farther upriver, where there was less access to the greenway.
Her break came after the Boat Basin and before the sewage treatment plant in Harlem that had been converted into a state park. The stretch of pathway between the two landmarks ran parallel to train tracks that were fenced in and therefore formed a barrier to pedestrian access. Nikki gunned it. The cycle ahead also took advantage of the open path, but Nikki had the faster machine and was gaining on them. Soleil, looking surreal in the distance, like an apparition in white sequins, kept back-checking and gesturing for her driver to go faster. He shouldn’t have.
Just before the state park, the path took a jog to the right, curving sharply away from the river. It was a turn engineered for pedestrians, not speeding motorcycles. Nikki knew the terrain from her weekend runs along this part of the Hudson and slowed before she got to the curve. When she came around it, Heat saw the bike on its side. The paparazzo was sliding his leg from underneath, his forearm bleeding from road rash. Soleil Gray was a short distance off trying to run away, hobbling on one of her legs.