Frozen Heat nh-4

by Richard Castle

  Nikki stepped out onto the sidewalk from her session bearing more questions than solutions, but one thing in life looked brighter. The yellow Wafels amp; Dinges gourmet food truck had parked for its lunchtime business that day a block up York Avenue. She waited in line, vacillating between sweet and savory and went for a mashup: de Bacon-Syrup wafel, and ate it on a bench under the Roosevelt Island Tram. When Nikki finished, she sat a while to watch the red gondolas of passengers float overhead and ride out over the East River, and wished the weight of her cares could be packed into a sealed capsule and borne away into the sky on steel cables. It didn’t work. That became clear when Agent Bart Callan, Department of Homeland Security, sat beside her.

  “You should try de Throwdown,” he said. “It’s the wafel that beat out Bobby Flay’s.”

  “Don’t you guys have e-mail? Instead of ambushing me, how about a nice OpenTable invitation next time?”

  “Like you would respond.”

  “Try me, Agent Callan. As I said last meeting, come in through the front door, I’m very cooperative by nature.”

  “Unless cornered.”

  “Who isn’t?”

  “I need to know everything you learned from Tyler Wynn and Petar Matic. If you can tell me what was in that drop box, that would be helpful, too.”

  Heat took her eyes off the tugboat churning upriver under the Queensboro Bridge and regarded the agent. Peel away the military zeal and the aggravating habit of surprise appearances, he seemed like an OK guy. Then self doubt about her trust instincts raised a caution flag. “You must have One PP on speed dial. Use it.”

  He shook no. “Not optimal. This is too sensitive, too big. If this goes into the bureaucracy chain, there’s no containment.”

  “Then why involve me?”

  “Because you are already involved. And you don’t have a big mouth.” He grinned. “I learned that the other night in the warehouse.” She returned his smile and he held out his hand. At first, Nikki thought he wanted to hold hers, but he took her lunch garbage, and she blushed at her misunderstanding. He tossed her plate and fork in the can beside him and then pivoted on the bench to face her. “Detective Heat, I can assure you of one thing. The case we are working is developing into a matter of the highest national security. Maybe if I disclose to you, it will make you feel better about sharing with us.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “It’s a short story. Nicole Bernardin, who was once CIA, reached out to us about a month and a half ago to say that she had come upon highly sensitive documentation of something urgent she needed to share. We did thorough checks on her background with Central Intelligence as well as her more recent history working with Tyler Wynn in his new-let’s call it, independent-capacity. We made arrangements for her to get the information to us, but someone killed her before she could tell us where to find it.”

  Heat said, “If you want to know about the drop box, I found it, but I never saw what she had stashed.”

  “What did it look like?”

  “A tan leather pouch with a zipper on top. The kind merchants use to take their cash to the bank.”

  He squinted, envisioning it, and said, “Thank you for that.”

  “You can thank me by answering this. If you knew Tyler Wynn had switched sides, why didn’t you arrest him? Especially if he was into something endangering national security?”

  “Exactly for that reason. Come on, Heat, you know what it’s like to keep a suspect on a leash. We never picked up Wynn because we didn’t want to blow his cover before he led us to whatever he’s involved with.”

  “And how many people have died while you held this leash, Agent Callan?”

  He knew what she was getting at and said, “For the record, Intelligence had no information Tyler Wynn had gone rogue at the time of your mother’s death. In fact, her murder is where this investigation began. I was FBI back then, and I was the designated contact for your mother.” That made Nikki turn to face him. “That’s right, I knew her,” he said. “In a scenario that played out very close to Nicole Bernardin’s, your mother had reached out to us, voicing suspicion about a developing security threat on U.S. soil. We seeded her with two hundred thousand bucks to bribe an informant to get the proof and she was murdered the night she got it.”

  Nikki watched a tram float overhead as she digested the news. If Callan was telling the truth, that money wasn’t her mother’s Judas payoff, after all. She brought her eyes down to meet his, and he said, “So there you have it. That’s the story.”

  “Except for what sort of domestic plot she uncovered that, apparently, has been sitting on your radar all these years.”

  “That’s classified.”

  “Convenient. And meanwhile, Tyler Wynn has been roaming free. Excuse me, on your leash.”

  Agent Callan ignored the shot. Part of that double-locked military demeanor, nothing appeared to knock him off mission. “A lot of people have asked you this, but I’m going to ask again, and I hope you will be straight with me. Do you have any idea what your mother received from that informant?”

  “No.”

  “And you have no thoughts about where she might have hidden it?”

  “No. Wherever it is, she hid it very well.”

  “You found Nicole Bernardin’s drop.”

  “I told you, I don’t know. Don’t you think I’ve been through this on my own a million times?”

  After a crisp nod, he got to his point. “I want you to cooperate with me on this.”

  “I have been. Are you listening?”

  “I mean moving forward.”

  “I work for NYPD.”

  “I work for the American people.”

  “Then use your speed dial to call an American downtown at headquarters, then I’m all yours. Otherwise, thanks for the visit.”

  She was almost to York with her hand up for a cab when he walked toward her, trying out any leverage he could bring to bear. “Think about this. Doesn’t the fact that someone can reach one of your prisoners and kill him while he’s in custody tell you something about how serious this threat could be?”

  “I can’t help. I simply don’t have anything to give you.”

  “I could help you get Tyler Wynn.”

  Or, thought Nikki, keep me from getting him if it didn’t serve your purposes. She said, “Thanks for the tip on the wafel,” and got into her taxi.

  Heat got back to her apartment that evening and Rook got up from his MacBook at her dining room table to greet her with a deep kiss. He folded his long arms around her and they melted into each other where they stood. After they held each other a moment, he said, “You’re not falling asleep on me, are you?”

  “Standing up? Are you calling me a horse?”

  “Neigh,” he said, and she laughed for the first time that day.

  “So stupid.” She laughed again because it was stupid. And welcome. She cupped a hand on his jaw and caressed his cheek.

  When he asked her how she was managing, she told him the truth. That the day had been a struggle and that she craved a warm bath. But after he mentioned he’d made a pitcher of Caipirinhas, the bath went on hold and the glasses came out.

  They settled on the couch and she filled him in on her meeting with Bart Callan. “So that was your mysterious lunch engagement, DHS?”

  For a moment, she thought about telling him about her shrink session but felt too spent to open up that topic and let it go. But then Nikki considered what Lon King had said about her reticence to reveal herself-his version of the wall speech-and she said, “No, I saw my shrink.”

  “So you’ve gone from calling him ‘the’ shrink to ‘my’ shrink? That’s new.”

  “Let drop it, OK?” Baby steps, she thought, baby steps.

  But he persisted. “I think it’s good for you. If ever there was a time, Nikki. For the Petar baggage alone, if not for Don.”

  “Speaking of Don,” she said, seizing an alternate topic to steer the conversation elsewhere. “I’m plann
ing to fly to San Diego day after tomorrow. His family is holding a memorial at the navy base.”

  “I’d like to go with you, if that’s all right.”

  Nikki’s eyes widened in surprise. “You’d do that?” Rook’s smile said yes, and she leaned forward and kissed it, beautiful to her as it was.

  They snuggled for a moment, and after just the right amount of stillness, he said, “But if Petar has a funeral? I’m busy.” The shock and poor taste of it made her laugh the way only Rook could, making the unsayable funny because it wasn’t unthinkable.

  Then her brow darkened. He knew what that was about. She didn’t need to say anything. “I know it’s disheartening. You solve this huge case only to have it lead to another dead end. We’ll find out what’s behind this. Just not now.”

  “But suppose what both Petar and Bart Callan said is true, that something big is coming that needs to be stopped?”

  “At this point, I don’t know where to go with that. And from what you said about Agent Callan, the feds don’t either. Obviously Tyler Wynn is the key. It’s all about whoever he’s working for now. What did my friend Anatoly say that night in Paris? That it’s a new era and that when spies turn it’s not for other governments but-what did he call them-’other entities’?”

  She rubbed her face in her palms. “It all feels bigger than me right now.”

  “Nikki? That’s all right.” Rook put a hand on each of her shoulders and turned her to him. “You don’t have to be the one-person crime task force. You’ve already done a great job. Right now you could plant the flag, declare victory, and move on. Nobody would fault you.” And then he added, “I’ll be with you, either way.”

  Everything rolled up in that sentence warmed her to the core, and Nikki said, “That helps, thanks.” She set her unfinished drink on the coffee table. “Would you be terribly offended if I took that bath and just spent some alone time here tonight?”

  “You want to cocoon?”

  “Desperately. I need it.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  Rook packed up his laptop and notes into his backpack, and after they kissed at the door, he said, “Think about this tonight in your jammies.”

  “OK.”

  “One thing that’s made this worth the trip: At least you learned your mother wasn’t having an affair. And she wasn’t a traitor. In fact, your mom was a hero.”

  “Yeah, you know what F. Scott Fitzgerald said, though. ‘Show me a hero…’”

  ”’… I’ll write you a tragedy.’”

  “Plus,” she said, “noble cause or not, I still feel pissed that she shut me out of so much of her life. Intellectually, I can say I want to forgive her, but the truth is, I don’t feel it. Not yet.”

  “I understand,” said Rook. “Listen, I’m no shrink, but if I were, what I’d suggest is that maybe the best you can do in the meantime is find some way to connect with her and see where that goes.”

  She floated in the indulgent warmth of lavender-scented water until the next track loaded on her boom box: Mary J. Blige, testifying to “No More Drama.” Nikki sang along at first, belting it out, but then became an audience of one receiving the message of the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul about standing for yourself, ending the pain and the game. Nikki had heard the song many times, but-like the answering machine recording that documented her mother’s stabbing-that day, it came to new ears. Especially the part about not knowing where the story ended, only where it began.

  Sitting cross-legged on the couch with a hot cup of chamomile and wet hair dampening the terry shoulders of her robe, Nikki traced her mother’s life story into her own. She tried not to dwell on the blemishes Cynthia Heat’s secret life had created. Of course there were the absences that bred longings and fears, but more impactful were the learned traits that Nikki had so elegantly carried into her own life and selectively employed: caution, secretiveness, isolation. These could be her never-ending story, if she allowed it. The shrink had cautioned her to accept that her mother was dead, but Nikki knew her mother’s story would live on through her and that her mother still resided in her heart, as she always would.

  Still, Nikki sought the beginning of a story. One that fastened itself to the many good things received from her mother that so outweighed the rest. Or, at least, they would, if she chose no drama.

  In her living room in the solitude of the night she owned, Heat’s choice was to reflect on virtues and gifts. On the independence she’d gained from the upbringing her mother gave her. The sense of wonder, of imagination, of standards, and character, the value of hard work, of goodness itself, and the power of love. The new story she began went on like that, a tale of glasses that grew from half-full to brimming the more she composed it. It told her that laughter transcended, forgiveness healed, and music enkindled the coldest of hearts.

  Music.

  Nikki stared at the piano across the room.

  Her mother had played it beautifully and shared its wonder with her. Why had it gained so much power in silence?

  A flutter rose in her breast as she recalled Rook’s parting words about finding some way to connect with her again. The flutter became dread, but she chose courage and stood anyway. As she crossed the rug to the baby grand, her dread melted away and became something that buoyed her as she lifted the bench’s seat to take out the top booklet of sheet music. Mozart for Young Hands.

  It was the first time in ten years she had opened that bench; even longer since she had held that book. Nikki was certain it had been lost.

  She had been nineteen when she last lifted the cover on the Steinway. Nikki hesitated, not to falter but to mark the new passage.

  The hinges on the cover creaked as she opened it and exposed the keys. Her fingers trembled with the anticipation of every one of her childhood recitals as Nikki sat, opened the music book to the first page, pumped the pedals for feel, and then began to play.

  For the first time in a decade, music from that cherished instrument filled the apartment, and it came out of Nikki by way of Cynthia. Music is sense memory; however, it’s muscle memory, too, so she misstruck a few keys, but that only made her smile as she began Mozart’s Sonata Number Fifteen. Her play, which felt so rote and halting at first, slowly became more fluid and graceful. She fumbled, though, when she got to the bottom of the page and had trouble coordinating the turn with her fingering. Or maybe it was the tears that had clouded her vision. She wiped them away and prepared to resume, but stopped.

  Nikki frowned and looked at the sheet music, confused. She leaned forward to the booklet on the stand and saw strange pencil marks in her mother’s handwriting between the notes.

  Her mom had always told her that Mozart considered the space between the notes music, too, but these were not music notations that she recognized, but something else.

  But what?

  Heat snapped the light up one more notch and held the music book under its brightness to study the marks. To her eye, they appeared to be some sort of code.

  She began to rock slightly on the bench and the floor felt like it shook. Nikki thought she was experiencing another aftershock. But then she looked around her.

  The rest of the room sat perfectly still.

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