“But if the ten grand was some kind of blackmail,” asked Aguinaldo, “why didn’t Beauvais expose Gilbert after he shot him?”
“Not sure.” Nikki felt comfortable enough with the other detective to speculate aloud. “What about this? He’s an immigrant, right? No standing in the community. He got his money—through an illegal blackmail. Figures he’ll survive the wound. Why put himself out there by getting into the justice system against a power broker?”
“…Who already tried to kill him.”
“And may be highly incentivized to finish the job,” said Heat. “Sure would explain how a shooting in the Hamptons leads to smashing into the planetarium in New York City.”
“If we know for sure there was a shooting here.”
A breeze stirred and Nikki turned to look at it ripple the surface of the harbor. And wondered if the Ruger was buried in the silt out there somewhere.
“That’s a lot of water,” said Aguinaldo.
“Did Gilbert keep a boat here?” asked Heat as they walked back to their cars.
“Doubtful, but I can check.”
“I’ve asked you to do a lot. I have to get back to the city. Mind another favor?” Heat gestured to the scattering of homes nestled behind evergreens and rail fences off the rural road surrounding the marina. “If you can free up the personnel, could you have somebody knock on a few doors around here, Detective Aguinaldo?”
“It’s Inez,” she said, opening her notebook.
Rook texted Heat while she was buying a cup for the road at Hampton Coffee Company. Her first reaction was a twinge of melancholy that they had devolved from personal contact to voice mail to IMs. He might as well be in Switzerland. But she cheered up when she read his invitation. STILL IN THE MOOD TO BE IN THE MOOD FOR THAT ROMANTIC ROOFTOP DINNER? Making sure to be immediate, she replied yes. He pinged her back, asking if they could do it at her place. He had his reasons, and she had a roof, too.
Nikki hit the highway with a smile. She wanted to see his face by candlelight when she told him she’d poached one of his wacko theories. She suppressed the tingle she felt about what else the night would bring. For now, she was happy things might be settling back to normal between them.
On the way out of the Hamptons she started counting the round blue metal signs posted a half-mile apart that read: COASTAL EVACUATION ROUTE. Those warnings had been there for years, but she never really noticed them. Like so many things.
What had she missed in this case? Asking herself that, as she did at some point during every investigation, Heat succumbed to the detective’s disease. To always feel something got overlooked or was lost in all the complexity and lies. But what experience had taught her was to just push forward. That there’s always more going on than you think, but the answer is usually simpler than it appears.
Nikki passed another sign indicating she was still on the evacuation route and wondered if she was leaving a hazard zone or heading toward one.
The answer to that came during her debrief of Detective Rhymer shortly after she returned to the precinct late that afternoon. Opie had spent the day with CSU combing the apartments of the known members of the hit squad that had attacked Heat. So far, they had found nothing to connect Bjorklund, Victor, or Floyd to the Port Authority commissioner. As they talked, Heat’s cell phone started to come alive with texts and e-mails from friends and colleagues. Their content only gave hints. Brief messages said things like, LOW BLOW! or DIRTY POOL! And from Lauren Parry at the ME’s office, WTF?! Lauren’s contained a hyperlink to one of the scummier Webloids, city’s-edge.com, a step down from the Ledger, if that was possible. Nikki clicked on it and it opened to the blog’s front page. WTF was right.
The headline, big and bold, screamed: