Naked heat nh-2

by Richard Castle

  When Nikki reached the counter, which was even with her jawline, seated as she was, she began to rubbing her cheek sideways along its edge. On one of her strokes, her face actually squeaked along the polished granite. The friction made her cheek burn. But it was also causing the ragged edge of the duct tape to catch where it met her skin and curl slightly with each pass. To shut out the pain of the abrasion she thought about the prize that waited on the countertop, inches away: the cordless drill and a half dozen picks and dental tools.

  The tape started to give on the left side where she had been working it. Nikki used her tongue, her jaw, and her face muscles to work at it between strokes until she had created a small opening at the corner of her mouth. When she had freed enough tape to create a loose flap, she extended her neck and twisted until her cheek was just above the countertop. Angling slowly, carefully, Nikki lowered her cheek onto the counter and pressed. The tack on the sticky side of the fold of duct tape held to the granite. Keeping her face pressed down hard on the cold surface, Heat swiveled her head left to right, and when she came up, the entire strip of her gag had peeled off and was stuck to the counter.

  Her arms and ankles were bound to the chair, but she was not belted down so she was able to rise up and chin her way across the cool granite to the tools. The nearest was a small pick. The drill was farther away, but that was the one she wanted. That was the time saver. She made a lunge for it and slammed her shoulder into the edge of the counter and bounced back into her seat. She torqued herself in the chair until it squared more to the counter and rose up again, not lunging this time but yoga-stretching herself over the smaller tools to the drill.

  The handle was cylindrical but had small rubber feet so that the power button presented itself on top. Nikki rested the tip of her chin on the button and pressed once, twice, three times. On the fourth try the drill started to whirr. Her back muscles were crying out, protesting against the strain of holding herself up, contorted, over the counter, but she held steady, concentrating on the handle of the drill as she grabbed it in her lips and then clenched it between her molars.

  Evenly distributing her weight between her elbows, she sat herself down gently so she wouldn't knock the drill from her mouth and then leaned over to cut away at the tape that bound her right wrist to the wooden arm of the chair.

  Nikki worked fast. By curling her wrist upward, she created tension on the cutting surface, and the fabric peeled apart where the bit of the drill met the tape. Once her right wrist was free, she transferred the drill from her mouth to that hand and was able to cut the bonds on her left wrist even faster. She wanted to get her ankles free so she could move if he came back, but with her upper arms still strapped to the armrests, she couldn't reach down that far, so she began cutting at the right upper. When that came free, she heard something and turned the drill off.

  The hum of the rising elevator.

  Heat leaned over and, first, cut her right ankle loose, then went to her left. In her rush, she poked herself on the lower shin under her pant leg and winced. But she pushed the pain aside and did her job. She had less than a minute to get loose and had to keep cutting. Her left ankle came free and she stood up just as she heard the elevator's muffled squeal, signaling its stop at Rook's floor.

  Nikki was still attached to the chair at her left elbow when the accordion gate opened. She made the decision to turn off the drill so the Texan couldn't hear its whine through the door and be warned.

  She couldn't find the seam of the duct tape with her nails to peel it back and the dental tools were all precision points, no good for cutting. The front door key chunked into the lock. In the kitchen there would be knives. The deadbolt shot open. She picked up the chair and carried it with her around the counter. The wooden knife holder was too far to get to. But there. Beside the sink right in front of her: a bottle opener beside a bent bottle cap. Heat grabbed it as the knob turned and she heard the front door creak open around the corner in the foyer.

  She backed herself and the chair into the great room, crouched down below the counter to buy a few seconds and some cover, and started to cut herself free with the sharp point of the opener. The boots stepped onto the slate kitchen floor and stopped.

  Nikki was still cutting at the tape when the Texan bounded over the counter and landed on top of her.

  The force of his tackle knocked Heat sideways under the dining table. His hands clutched her throat in a choke from behind and she couldn't do anything about it. Her right arm was pinned under her side, trapping her hand and the bottle opener under her own weight, and her left was strapped to the chair, which had been dragged along like a slipped boat anchor.

  She tipped her body backward and rolled on top of him, pinning him under her back. He responded by strengthening his choke grip on her throat, but with her right hand now free, she plunged the bottle opener down. He yelled when the point sunk into his upper thigh, and his grip loosened. Nikki rolled off him and sprung to her feet, frantically cutting away at the duct tape to free herself. He was on his feet quickly, out from under the table, lunging at her.

  Heat used the damned chair to her advantage, swinging her left arm outward as he approached. He put up his arms to deflect, but the wood still smacked him enough to drive him off center. He shot past her, his near arm getting hooked in the stretcher bar between the chair legs, and as he flew by, the last strip of duct tape ripped, and the chair went with him. Nikki was free to move.

  She didn't wait for him to recover from his fall. Heat lunged for him, but his reflexes were quick. He spun, using the chair to deflect her. Nikki's church key flew out of her hand and across the room, clanging into the radiator before it fell. She thought of going for it, but the Texan was already up and coming at her. Heat sidestepped a few inches, clamping his throat with her right hand as he arrived, jerking his chin up while she palmed the top of his forehead with her left to push down and backward. Her Krav Maga move buckled his knees, and he toppled onto his ass.

  Nikki spotted her blazer on the floor under a window and, sticking out from under it, the butt of her gun. She turned to rush for the weapon, but the Texan had obviously also had personal combat training. He spun on his hips and scissored Heat at the knees, locking up her legs and flipping her down hard, face-first onto the floor. From her workouts with Don, she anticipated a grapple from him to tie her up, so she flailed an elbow at his approaching face, caught him in the cheek, and when he recoiled, she broke free, delivering a rib kick on her rise.

  The Texan came to his feet, reaching into his sport coat and pulling out a knife. It was a scary piece of business, one of those military-issue combat blades with a knuckle guard and twin fullers, or blood grooves, running along each side. Nikki's unhappy thought was how comfortable it looked in his hand. He looked at her and actually smiled. Like he knew something. Like he was holding The Game Changer.

  Training and experience told Nikki that the only fight you want to be in is the one you win-and fast. Don had drilled her on the mantra just that morning, as he had every session: Defend and attack at the same time. And now, here she was, empty-handed in a fight against an experienced assailant with a combat knife.

  The Texan didn't give her much time to reflect on strategy. This man was also trained to end fights quickly, and he came for her right away. Having height on Nikki, he lunged at her from above, bringing the point down at her as he stepped in. Defend and attack, she thought, and jumped right in to meet him, slapping his wrist away to the outside while moving in close to deliver a knee to his groin. It doesn't always go like in training, though. He anticipated the knee and countered his body to the side. Not only did Heat miss, he used his free hand to shove her, taking advantage of her momentum to whisk her right past him.

  Nikki stumbled but didn't let herself fall. Instead, she spun to brace for his attack, which she knew would be immediate. It was.

  This round he came in low and up, going for her belly. Nikki didn't try to slap the arm to the side. It was time to g
et the knife away from this asshole and now. As he came in, she clutched his wrist, pulling his arm to the outside and not letting go. At the same time, she brought down a hammer fist on the weak spot she had exposed by pulling his arm to the side: his collarbone. Heat felt and heard it crack under the force of her blow, and he cried out.

  But his knife had that knuckle guard, so it did not fall even though his grip was weakened. While he was overcome with pain, she reached with both hands to pry it from him, but he brought his fist down on the back of her neck and knocked her to the floor, dazed. She was on her knees on all fours, her vision tunneling to black, when she heard him scramble across the slate of the kitchen. Nikki shook her head and drew a deep breath. The stars started to clear and she got to her feet. Feeling slightly nauseous, the detective stumbled to the wall, felt under her blazer, and got her gun.

  He would be out the front door by the time she made it through the kitchen. Counterintuitively, Nikki rushed to the other side of the great room, where there was a portion of the foyer visible through the kitchen entry. She knew that from her poker night the summer before, when she kept eyeing that door, longing for a chance to leave.

  When she saw him, the Texan was just opening the door, but pausing to pick something up off the hutch, a large manila envelope. The same one she'd had locked in her trunk. Heat braced on the counter and called, "Police, freeze." He didn't freeze, but slid quickly into the doorway. Nikki fired off one shot in the narrowing sliver of the opening as the door shut behind him. Detective Heat kicked open the door to the stairwell off Rook's penthouse floor and entered with her gun up in an isosceles brace. When she had made sure the Texan wasn't hiding on the landing, she considered his options: up one flight to the rooftop or down seven to the street. Then below her, Nikki heard the bark of a big dog and boots descending the painted concrete steps.

  As she flew down the stairwell, two steps at a time, and past the third floor, the dog barked again from inside his apartment. Good work, Buster, she thought, as she raced by. That was when Nikki heard the echo of the door slam come up from street level beneath her.

  Heat paused briefly with her hand on the door before she jerked it open and made her defensive exit, gun ready, out onto the sidewalk. The Texan was not there, but he had left something behind. A spatter of blood on the sidewalk, visible in the pool of light shining down from the sodium lamp above the service door.

  The sidewalks in Tribeca were busy with the cocktail and pre-dinner crowd. Heat made a quick survey and couldn't see her cowboy, and there were no nearby blood droplets to track. And then the detective heard a woman talking to the man she was walking with. She was saying, "I swear, honey, that looked like blood on his shoulder."

  Nikki said, "Police. Which way did he go?"

  The pair looked at Nikki. The woman said, "Do you have some kind of ID or a badge?"

  Time was wasting. Nikki looked down, but her badge wasn't on her hip. "He's a killer," she said and then she showed them her gun, pointed upward, unthreatening. They both immediately pointed across the street. Nikki told them to call 911 and ran.

  "Up Varick toward the subway," called the woman.

  Heat ran full-bore north on Varick, dodging pedestrians, looking at both sides of the street and in every vestibule and open storefront she passed. At the triangle intersection where Franklin and Varick met up with Finn Park, she stopped at the corner and scanned the windows of a coffeehouse to see if her man had mixed in with the customers. A diesel pickup truck clattered by, and when it had passed, Nikki jogged across the crosswalk to the concrete island surrounding the Franklin Street stop for the southbound 1 train. Beside a bank of newsstands and plastic boxes full of free handouts for singles clubs and the Learning Annex she saw more blood. Nikki turned across the square, toward the steps leading to the subway. She saw the Texan illuminated by the light coming from underground. He made her just as his head disappeared down the stairs.

  A train must have been due, because the station was full of people waiting to go downtown. Nikki vaulted the turnstile and followed the commotion. People were getting shoved aside along the platform to her left, and that's where she went. She wove her way through the commuters, many of whom were swearing or asking one another, "What's with that guy?"

  But when Nikki reached the end of the platform, he wasn't there. Then she heard someone behind her say, "He's going to get killed," and she looked on the track. The Texan was down there in the darkness, climbing across to the northbound side. His right shoulder was tilted lower on the side where she had broken his clavicle, and a line of rusty red traced down the arm of his tan sport coat from the same shoulder, where it looked like he was also carrying her 9mm slug. His free hand clutched her manila envelope, which was now finger-painted with his blood. She braced against the wall, hoping for a shot, but bright light filled the platform, a horn blasted, and a 1 train screeched into the station, blocking her.

  Heat raced back to the exit, to beat the passengers getting off the train, and ran up the stairs and across Varick to the northbound station, almost getting creamed by a taxi. The blood drops at the head of the stairs told her she was too late. She went down into the station just to make sure he hadn't doubled back on her as a feint, but the Texan was long gone.

  Detective Heat had one consolation prize for her efforts. As she turned to come back up the stairs, something caught her eye on the dirty tiles at the foot of the bottom step. A single typewriter ribbon cartridge. The couple she had encountered must have made that 911 call, because the street was filled with blue-and-whites and plain wraps when Nikki got back to Rook's block. Detective Heat pressed her way through the onlookers, found a sergeant, and identified herself.

  "You were in pursuit?" he asked.

  "Yes. But I lost him." Heat gave a description of the Texan and his last-seen to put out on the air, and while one of the sergeant's men did that, she started for the front door, telling him that Rook might be up there. The notion released a strong primal wave of worry coursing through her gut and her vision fluttered.

  "You OK? Do you want a medic?" asked the sergeant. "You look like you're going to faint."

  "No," she said, pulling herself back together.

  Moving through the front door of Rook's loft with a half dozen cops behind her, Nikki pointed out the spray of the cowboy's blood on the jamb as she passed. She led them through the kitchen and past the toppled chair where she had fought her captor and strode to the back of the apartment, retracing the steps the Texan had made before he left the first time. She clung to the hope that his reason for that trip to the back of the apartment was to check on Rook, which could mean he was all right.

  When she reached the hall leading to his office, Heat immediately saw the shambles through the open door at the end of it. The cops behind her had their weapons drawn, just in case. Not Nikki. She forgot all about hers and just rushed ahead, calling out, "Rook?" When she got to the door of his office, her breath caught.

  Rook was facedown under the chair he was duct-taped to. He had a black pillowcase over his head, just like the one she had been wearing. There was a small puddle of blood collected on the floor under his face.

  She got on one knee beside him. "Rook, it's Heat. Can you hear me?"

  And then he moaned. It was muffled, as if he had been gagged, too.

  "Let's get him up," said one of the cops.

  A pair of EMTs came into the room. "Easy," said one of them, "in case his neck's broken." And Nikki felt another twinge in her gut.

  They brought Jameson Rook upright slow and easy, by the numbers, and cut him loose. Fortunately, the pooled blood was only from hitting his nose on the floor when he toppled over trying to escape. The EMTs did a check to make sure it wasn't broken, and Nikki came in from the bathroom with a warm facecloth. Rook used it to swab himself clean while he told Detective Nguyen from the First Precinct what had happened.

  After he'd left the OCME, Rook had come straight there to his loft so he could type up the day's
notes for his article. He grabbed a beer, walked up the hall, and as soon as he arrived at his office, he saw that the whole place had been ransacked. He turned to Nikki. "It was like Cassidy Towne's crime scene, except with electronics from this century. I was just getting my cell phone to call you when it rang, and it was actually you on the caller ID. But as I went to answer, he came up behind me and put that pillowcase over my head."

  "Did you struggle?" asked the detective.

  "You kidding? Like crazy," said Rook. "But he had the pillowcase around my head real tight and had me in a choke hold."

  "Did he have a weapon?" asked the detective.

  "A knife. Yes. He said he had a knife."

  "Did you see it?"

  "I had a pillowcase blindfolding me. Plus, last year I got taken hostage in Chechnya by some rebels. I found that you live longer if you don't ask to see the knife."

  "Good call," said Nguyen. "What next?"

  "Well, he sat me in this side chair, told me not to move, and started to tape me down."

  "Did you ever see him? Even through the pillowcase?"

  "No."

  "What did his voice sound like?"

  Rook thought a moment. "Southern. Like Wilford Brimley." And then he added, "Oh! But not the look-at-that-Wilford-Brimley's-doing-TV-commercials-now Wilford Brimley. Younger. Like from Absence of Malice or The Natural."

  "So… Southern." Nguyen made the note.

  "I guess that would be easier to fit on the APB than Wilford Brimley's IMDb credits, yes," said Rook. "Southern, it is."

  Nikki turned to Nguyen and said with simple authority, "The accent was North Texas."

  Nguyen turned an amused side glance to Heat, who smiled and shrugged. He turned his attention back to Rook. "Did he say anything else to you, say what he wanted?"