All Nikki said was “Be right back,” and she left. But she kept it short, returning in less than a minute with two uniforms. “That one there,” she said, indicating Shawn. “Take him to Interrogation 2 and hold him until the DA guy gets here.”
“Hey, what are you doing?” said Shawn as they led him out. “You don’t have anything on me. Nothing.”
The officers held him at the door and Nikki smiled. “Interrogation 2,” she said, and they left. Nikki let the quiet do its talking. At last she said, “Your pal always this jumpy?”
He remained stoic, disconnected.
“It doesn’t take much to see he’s not as together as you, Boyd. But see, here’s what you need to be thinking about. Your friend with the neck tat? He’s boned. And he knows it. And know what’s too bad for you? We want this. We want the name of whoever hired you. And we are in a dealing mood. And you know and I know that Shawn is going to take it. Because the deal will be sweet. And he’s . . . well, he’s Shawn, isn’t he?”
Boyd sat there, a statue breathing.
“And where does that leave you, Boyd?” She flipped open his file. “Pedigree like yours, you’re looking at some long time in Ossining. But you know that can be done. Time passes. And besides, your pal Shawn will be able to visit you. Because he’ll be out.”
Nikki waited. She had to be stoic herself because she was starting to think she’d cut the wrong one from the herd. She worried he was too smart to see Ochoa’s tattoo ID as anything but what it was, a ruse. She worried that Boyd might just be a sociopath, and she was, therefore, the boned one in this transaction. Nikki thought about scrapping her strategy and offering him a deal. But it would mean she’d blinked. Her heart fluttered, feeling like a bird against her neck. She was so close, she hated to let it slip away. So she went the other way. Heat got tough and decided to push her game to the brink.
Without another word, she rose and closed the file. Then squared the pages by tapping it on the tabletop. She turned and took measured steps to the door, hoping to hear something on each footfall. She put her hand on the knob, paused as long as she could get away with, and pulled the door open.
Damn, nothing.
Feeling the awful sensation of her strength leeching out of her, she let the door close behind her.
In the Observation Room, she breathed a sigh and met the disappointed gazes of Rook, Raley, and Ochoa. And then she heard, “Hey!” All four of them turned to the window. Inside, Boyd was standing at a crouch at the table, restrained by his manacles.
“Hey!” he shouted again. “What kind of deal?”
Chapter Six
Detective Heat stood on the sidewalk getting her squad ready for their second raid of the day, hoping upon hope that her streak would extend and that, in the next few minutes, she’d claim possession of Cassidy Towne’s stolen corpse.
According to Rook, it didn’t seem like their suspect had much of a motive. Cassidy Towne had dragged him to Richmond Vergennes’s new restaurant the week before for its soft opening. Rook said it felt at the time like it was a payback stroke, like she was getting a freebie meal from a TV celebrity chef in exchange for some mentions in her column. Rook said that while he was there he heard the two of them in a shouting match in Vergennes’s office. She came out a few minutes later and told Rook to catch up with her the next day. “It didn’t stick with me,” he told Nikki, “because she argued with everybody, so it didn’t seem like a major deal.”
Now, just feet from the front door of that very Upper East Side restaurant, a small army of NYPD was deployed. Translation: It did seem like a major deal.
Heat brought up her two-way. “Roach, you in position yet?”
“Good to go,” came back Raley’s voice over the radio.