“He must have taken the stairs,” said Officer Tew when Heat arrived on the scene.
Her partner, Officer Townsend, made a hooking gesture around an imaginary corner. “Or the service elevator.” A few days before, these cops had given Nikki a supportive fist clench from the front seat of the radio car outside Hudson U. Now they were upstairs in Wilton Backhouse’s office feeling embarrassed that the man they had been tasked to protect had not only got shot at but had slipped his surveillance on their watch. “To be honest, we were all about getting up here to disarm a perp.”
“I understand,” said Heat. “And meanwhile, your perp could have been a mile away.”
“And who knew a drone could fly down that air shaft, right?” Townsend searched Heat’s expression, a patrolman wanting to be let off the hook by a captain.
“Right,” Heat said and watched both unis relax. “I never would have figured it.”
Over at the window, the Forensics technician peered around the bullet hole and said, “There’s more clearance than you think between these buildings. No crosswinds? A straight-down descent? Especially with video assist and if the operator has skills? Cake.”
Heat indicated toward the punctured glass. “Looks like small-caliber. You find the slug?”
“Just did.” He walked her over to the shelf above the professor’s desk. “It landed in this bookend.”
Rook groaned. “Ooh, shot in the TARDIS!” The tech gave him a blank stare. “Dr. Who? The seemingly innocent-looking police call box that disguises a vehicle that travels Time and Relative Dimensions in Space? That bullet could have ended up anywhere from the first settlement of New Amsterdam to the next millennium.” The Forensics man reached into the miniature phone booth, tweezed out a slug, and held it up to Rook. “Well. You got lucky today, my friend.”
While CSU did its job, Heat and the officers sought out witnesses. Two students and a custodian on the twenty-second floor said they had seen Backhouse on the move. “Like he was running for his life,” said the maintenance man. “His backpack flew right off his shoulder, he was hauling it so fast to the stairwell.” None of the eyewits had seen any sign of injury. That assuaged Nikki that he didn’t seem to have been hit. On the downside, it closed options for tracking him through ERs, which are legally required to report gunshot victims.
But Backhouse found her. No sooner had Heat and Rook stepped out onto Thompson than Nikki’s cell rang with no caller ID. “It’s me.”
“Wilton, where are you?” Out of habit, she three-sixtied the block, but without sighting him.
“On a pay phone, but not for long.”
“Where?”
“No chance. I’m thinking somebody did more than hack the NYPD. I think they’re listening in on your phone.”
Heat could hear the paranoia rising in his voice. She could also understand why. A second drone attack in the space of a week would do that to anyone. “Come to my precinct. I’ll arrange more protection for you.”
“I don’t think you can. I trust you—personally, I mean—but I have nil faith in police protection. So I’m going to get as far away from needing you guys as possible until you figure this whole thing out. Taking myself off the grid’s the only way I’m going to live.” Before she could protest, he hung up.
Weeks before, Rook had committed the two of them to dinner with his literary agent at La Esquina but, given the volatility of the case, he canceled. So instead of hip Mexican among the A-listers, they settled into his loft, where he cooked while she balanced CompStat reports with status checks on Wilton Backhouse. “Still not picking up his calls.” Nikki lobbed her iPhone onto the sofa cushion beside her and ran a yellow highlighter across a line of figures comparing weekly Drunk and Disorderly arrests during the past quarter.