“Still descending,” he said. “Looks like it’s going to land.”
An ambulette shuttle full of seniors lurched out from the curb, and Nikki had to brake hard not to hit it. Rook moaned lowly and pursed his lips in pain at the sudden stop. Gray heads all in a row like a roll of postage stamps scowled out the van windows at them. Heat made a mirror check and shot around the front of the ambulette just in time to see the drone, now descended to street level, slowly drift inside the yawning back hatch of a small SUV, soundlessly, elegantly, as if in a scene from the future. The hatch automatically closed and the SUV drove on, turning the corner, heading west.
Heat palmed her mic. “Read me the plate, I can’t see it.”
“That’s not your vision. It’s got one of those tinted plastic covers.”
She called in a description of the crossover and her twenty. They had just passed under the elevated tracks of the N and Q trains when Rook said, “Blinker.”
“Good. Then he doesn’t know he’s being followed.”
The SUV signaled a right, then eased down the sloping driveway of a brick duplex and pulled inside the open garage under the house.
There were no street spaces, so Heat double-parked. “Stay in the car,” she said, and started up the sidewalk. Her legs felt weak from trauma and blood loss. She blinked to clear her vision and, when that didn’t work, she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. The cloth came away wet with fresh blood, and her brow felt as if it were on fire. Without turning, she said, “Does ‘Stay in the car’ mean anything to you?”
“Pretty much no,” said Rook, who was hurrying up behind her. “You should really catch on.”
“Go back. You’ve been shot.”
“So have you.”
“Grazed.”
“Let me look.”
“Yeah, let’s stop out here and do that.” She increased her pace, drew her Sig, and stepped into the garage behind the driver’s side of the vehicle. “NYPD, show me both hands—now!” After only a few seconds the door opened a fraction. “Hands!” Heat cupped her palm into a brace under the grip. Her weapon felt unusually heavy, and she had to press her elbows against her ribs to steady her shaking. “Now.”
Both of the driver’s hands emerged, empty, through the narrow opening at the top of the car door. “Good,” she said. “Now keep them high like that and step out. Slowly. Nice and easy.” A chill fluttered through Nikki and her shoulder bumped clumsily against the garage wall as she struggled with her equilibrium. She remained upright, though, and succeeded in stabilizing herself, but wished some backup would get there. Heat knew the undeniable symptoms of shock.
He did as he was told and squeezed slowly out the small space between the car and wall of the garage. And when he stood to his full six-two to face her with his hands raised, Timothy Maloney was actually smiling. It was the same grin she had seen during his interrogation and when he had peered through the restaurant window to taunt her.
Given Heat’s condition and the vulnerable position she would put herself in if she tried to cuff him in that confined gap, she took a step back and indicated the wider space behind the rear bumper. “Come out here and go prone.”
The ex-cop kept his hands up. He kept smiling, too. But he didn’t move. “No,” he said as pleasantly as if he’d been asked if he cared for any dessert. Nikki blinked and saw in Maloney’s eyes a six-second Vine video of paranoid personality disorder symptoms: masking; dissociation; passive aggressiveness; and the one she preferred not to see acted out, chaos manufacture. Lon King’s diagnosis had damned Maloney succinctly: high-functioning and dangerous.
Heat didn’t back down, but demonstrated her control without directly challenging him, which might inflame the confrontation. “Come on, help me out here, Tim. You know how this goes.”