She led Nikki across the marble-lined hallway to room 217 to show her how she was going to proceed, but as soon as they stepped into the catalog repository, Heat’s cell phone buzzed. It was Detective Ochoa. She stepped back in the hall so she wouldn’t disrupt the researchers and answered. “On my way now,” she said. Carolyn stood by the door and asked her if she was all right. She had good reason to ask. Nikki looked anything but.
“I’m sorry, I need to…Police business.” She rushed out, her footsteps echoing on the marble steps. At the lobby, her hurry became a sprint. She had to get to the East River, where someone had reported a man’s body in the water.
Two blocks into her drive east from the NYPL, Heat consciously had to tell herself to breathe. The fifteen-minute trip to the river seemed otherworldly, a soundless voyage to the very gates of Hell, insulated from all outside stimulus. Heat drove with her damp palms on the wheel; her lungs felt seared, and it seemed that because of some untimely breakdown of her cerebral cortex, evolved messages of reason and judgment were being skip-wired, while her amygdala served up high-velocity jolts of primal darkness under the banner of “Coming Attractions”—random clips from a jumpy mental snuff film that filled her with fear and hopelessness.
One of Heat’s front tires smacked the curb on the right side of the driveway that cut into the sidewalk under the Queensborough Bridge. The traffic cop manning the entry to the service lane at 60th Street winced at the impact. Nikki bounced in her seat but didn’t notice the slam or the reaction. She steered up the blacktop incline running under the bridge and then, after reaching the top of the hill, turned down the other side of the steep ramp. She left her car against the fence of a dog run without bothering to close the door. Willing air into her lungs, sucking her lips in hard over the edges of her teeth, Nikki trudged forward, passing two ambulances, a fire truck, and an FDNY Urban Search and Rescue Team van, until she came to the black iron railing, where she pushed between some first responders in time to see a pair of divers in wetsuits working to attach a flotation harness to the corpse about thirty yards out in the swirling water.
The body’s head and shoulders were still submerged, and Nikki bent forward at the waist, hands flat on the cold steel rail, as if leaning six inches closer would give her more information. She caught a glimpse of his clothing, athletic wear of some sort, and dared to believe that it wasn’t Rook’s corpse floating out there. Unless he had changed (or been changed) out of the sport coat and bloody dress shirt he had had on the night before, it must be someone else. Had to be. Please be. The current had created a rip between the concrete footings of the bridge’s piers. The back of the man’s upper body bobbed up through the surface foam, revealing brown skin and a glistening bald or clean-shaven head.
Heat’s relief that it wasn’t Rook nearly laid her flat on the paving stones, and she needed to grip the metal piping when she felt herself go faint and her knees wavering. Composing herself, Nikki said a silent thank-you as she watched the dead man getting reeled toward one of the Zodiacs working the scene. A second boat came alongside to assist with the recovery, and, as he was hauled up, the victim’s running shoes emerged from the muddy water with a bright flash of neon green. Nikki had seen shoes like that recently—New Balance Zantes—and, in the blink it took her to access her memory, she recognized the face of Sampson Stallings as his head lolled forward during the transfer into the police boat.
Twelve hours later, alone by the light of a single dwindling candle, Heat blasted “Stay” by Rihanna and refilled a shot glass resting on the rim of her tub with Patrón. Her pouring was sloppy, thanks to a combination of a less-than-optimal arm angle and her blood alcohol level. Nikki overfilled the glass, and the slosh trickled down the side until the tequila met her bath, creating the soft sizzle of bursting bubbles.