A Lick Of Heat: H.E.A.T. Book Four

by Claire, Nicola

  “Pierce, you sly dog. Did you want to go another round already?”

  “I need your help, Nick.”

  Nick Anscombe. Of Anscombe Securities and Investigations. I bristled at the widening of my circle of truth. I didn’t want to open up my skeleton-filled closet to anyone, but I would if it meant protecting those I cared about. Which made me think of Eagle and then, bizarrely, of my dad. Eagle was already compromised, and there wasn’t much I could do for him other than check in every now and then. And my father was an experienced cop — a superintendent in Manukau Police.

  He was also the last person I wanted to admit that I cared for.

  But Nick Know-it-All Anscombe was definitely not on the list of people I trusted and would have chosen to bring in on this nightmare that had become my life.

  I glared at Pierce, but Pierce was having his own mini-crisis and ignored the laser beams emitted from my eyeballs.

  “I have reason to believe that Marie and Daisy could be used to get to me,” Pierce was saying. “I’m at CIB. Do you have anyone closer to their location? This is time sensitive.”

  “Of course, it is,” Anscombe said with all due seriousness; not an ounce of the glib persona he so often wore. “Let me check. I’m entering Control as we speak.”

  Control was the high tech room in the centre of Anscombe’s building, surrounded by video surveillance cameras and run by two extremely competent tech geeks. It was the eyes and ears and heart of ASI. And I was secretly jealous of it.

  I scowled and crossed my arms over my chest, glaring daggers at an oblivious detective sergeant.

  “Amber,” I heard Anscombe say. “Who’s north of the bridge?”

  Pierce’s family lived up in Whangaparaoa Harbour. It would take at least an hour to get there from here off-peak. How he commuted on a daily basis was beyond me. But then, if I had a family that I adored like he did, maybe I would make some sacrifices to keep it too.

  A light female voice said something in the background which I couldn’t quite catch, but then Nick was back, and I could hear everything.

  “Jason Cain,” he said down the line. “He’s moving on them now. Is Daisy at school?”

  “Yes,” Pierce clipped; sweat beaded his brow.

  “Which first?” Nick asked with what seemed little emotion.

  Pierce said nothing. Just blinked and breathed too quickly. How do you pick your wife over your kid? How did Pierce pick when his kid was a step-kid and not biologically his? This could fuck him up forever.

  I reached out and took his cellphone from his clawed hand. He didn’t stop me.

  “The school’s closer to the turnoff to Whangaparaoa,” I told Nick.

  Silence and then, “Hello, Detective. Let me guess. This is all tied up with you.”

  “Have you only got one man up there?” I said, ignoring the judgment I so clearly heard in Anscombe’s voice.

  “Would I have sent only one man if I had more?” he snapped back.

  “I don’t know, Anscombe. Would you?”

  “Why is it,” he said through what sounded like clenched teeth, “that when the shit hits the fan, it always comes from your direction?”

  Picture an electrical switch. And flick it to off when the shit hits the fan.

  I laughed — that electrical switch front and centre inside my head.

  “Could be I’m just special, Anscombe,” I drawled.

  He sighed, and I could just imagine him closing his ice-blue eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose to still the oncoming migraine.

  My smile turned genuine at that.

  “Put Pierce back on,” he instructed.

  I switched the cellphone to speaker and laid it on the desk between us.

  “He’s on,” I said.

  Silence.

  “Nick?” Pierce asked. “I’m here. Has he got Daisy?”

  “Standby,” Anscombe said as if this was some sort of military op.

  I flicked a gaze around the bullpen to check that we were still in the clear and just about pissed myself when I spotted Inspector Hart watching from the open doorway to his office. How long had the old bugger been standing there? How much did he know?

  Had Hennessey’s recommendation come through already?

  I checked my watch — five hours and counting.

  No. Hennessey had given me at least twenty-four. This was just Hart being Hart and being good at it.

  His frosty gaze met mine, but he said nothing.

  “Daisy is safe,” Nick said a few minutes later. “Cain’s moving on Marie’s office.”

  Pierce abruptly stood up and started to pace. His eyes caught Hart, but he didn’t even flinch at the Detective Inspector being present. Pierce sometimes had a better poker face than me. Or he was too caught up in his loved-ones’ danger to care that Hart was privy to the unravelling of his sanity.

  No one said a word as time stretched uncomfortably.

  Then Nick announced. “All clear. Where do you want them?”

  Pierce slumped down in his seat and hung his head between his legs and just breathed.

  “You got a safe house?” I asked.

  “Several,” came the curt reply. Nick Anscombe and I would never be friends.

  “Take them to one, and we’ll be in touch.”

  Silence.

  “Thank you,” I forced myself to say when Anscombe remained mute.

  “I expect a full debrief, Detective,” he said levelly.

  “You don’t need one,” I said and disconnected the call.

  Pierce would either tell him or not, and Nick Anscombe knew how these things worked. He wouldn’t push. But he would guard Marie and Daisy with his life, or, at least, with the life of his men.

  The room filled up with unsaid words, and then Hart grumbled, “You best come in here before the others get back.”

  He turned on his heel and left the door to his office open. I watched as he closed the blinds on the glass wall to his domain that would keep our meeting somewhat private.

  “You gonna tell him?” Pierce asked quietly from across my desk.

  I stared at the Wanganui system up on my computer and then logged out.

  I didn’t have much choice in the matter. Inspector Hart was my boss.

  He was also not above pulling fingernails to get answers when needed.

  The next few minutes were going to suck.

  Chapter Four

  “Don’t Let The Bastards Get You Down.”

  Six hours down and I felt like I’d been pulled through an industrial meat grinder backwards.

  I still had my fingernails but not my pride. Hart knew everything I did. And probably had deduced a hell of a lot more. Pierce still looked shaken but was rallying. I sat immobile in one of Hart’s office chairs and tried to decide if I was still hallucinating or this was actually my life now.

  Part of me wished for the madness. But only a small part.

  I sighed. Hart moved from his head back, ankle to knee position of thought, and spun his chair to face me.

  “We don’t have long,” he said. “Pull yourselves together, Detectives.”

  Pierce sat up straighter in his chair. If I sat up any straighter, I’d be challenging the Sky Tower for height.

  “As of this moment,” Hart said in his gravelly voice, ”this goes no further than this room. We already know we’ve got a traitor in our midst. Now we have the potential for many more.”

  Because Weston could get to any one of our fellow detectives.

  “Are you going to warn them?” Pierce asked.

  “Not all of us have a Nick Anscombe to call on for a safe house,” Hart growled. I wasn’t sure how the inspector felt about Anscombe Securities and Investigations. ASI operated just outside the law, but often in conjunction with us.

  Anscombe was one of those anomalies that appeared in any law enforcement system; semi-autonomous and entirely outside of the detective inspector’s hands.

  But Hart would use him if he had to. He just couldn’
t justify using him for the thirty-odd detectives in CIB.

  “At least warn them,” Pierce insisted. “They can take their own precautions.”

  “And who should I warn, Detective?” Hart snapped. “The CIB traitor who would report back to Weston and we’d lose the upper hand?”

  “What upper hand?” Pierce demanded. Then added a reluctant, “Sir.”

  “He’s right,” I said softly. Both men glared at me. My eyes met Pierce’s. “Weston’s been one step ahead of us the entire way because he has someone on the inside feeding him clues. We divulge that we’re aware of his blackmail of Hennessey and that I’m the connection and he’ll take several leaps at once. Right now, we know what he’s doing and why. If we lose him, then there’s no telling when we get a bead on him again.”

  “And this helps the guys’ families out there, how?” Pierce said, waving an agitated hand toward the bullpen.

  We stared at each other for a suspended moment. A moment thick with regret and guilt and frustration.

  I was glad no one out there could see us in here, even if they could still hear a low sounding grumbling like a distant thunderstorm.

  “Which one of them does Keen care about the most?” Hart asked, breaking the standoff.

  An uncomfortable silence filled the detective inspector’s office after he’d spoken.

  “Cawfield?” the old man pressed. “His partner in crime? Trevor Jones, who she’s only worked with a handful of times? Tell me, Pierce, how long did it take you to chip away at Keen’s hardened shell? A month? Six months? A year?”

  “Six years,” Pierce said quietly.

  “Six years,” Hart repeated, nodding his head.

  No one met my eyes, which was just as well. I wasn’t sure if I would glare at them or burst into tears.

  I stared at a spot on the far wall and counted to three slowly inside my head. Then repeated it again when I let out my breath.

  “We know this has to do with Carole Michaels,” Hart went on. “In particular, with revenge on Damon Michaels for getting his sister free of Weston. That might have failed, and Weston has Carole in his possession again. But as we’ve established, that doesn’t mean he’s going to drop his need for revenge. This is a highly developed psychotic mind we’re dealing with. He fixates. He commits to the end. He’s got Carole back, but he hasn’t yet got back at Damon.”

  Hart looked at me then.

  “You’re Damon Michaels’ Achilles heel. If he can get to you, he can get to Damon.”

  “Why doesn’t he just take Lara directly?” Pierce asked in a more level tone of voice than he’d used beforehand.

  He was back in the game again. The frustration I’d seen before directed at me was gone. Pierce had an electrical switch he flicked too, I thought.

  I stopped counting my breaths and turned my mind to the question.

  “He’s tried that once, remember?” I said. “The cross. Sweet Hell.” Pierce grimaced. Hart nodded for me to continue. “It didn’t work, and he’s not in the habit of repeating the same mistake twice.”

  “Well, that doesn’t help us much,” Pierce muttered.

  “Just because he doesn’t make the same mistake twice,” I said, “doesn’t mean there’s no pattern.”

  “Go on,” Hart said, turning his chair sideways and taking up his reclined, head back, ankle to knee position.

  “It’s a game to him,” I said. “He derives satisfaction from winning it and outwitting us. He might have trouble expressing his emotions, but there has to be something in it for him to keep doing this. And he’s done it before; I’d stake my badge on it.”

  “Your badge is about to pay the piper, Keen,” Pierce said, reminding us all of the ticking clock.

  I checked my watch. Almost seven hours down now and I still hadn’t defined the pattern.

  “We know he likes to manipulate people,” I said, ignoring the clock and Pierce’s words. “Twist their perceptions and break their minds. Carole Michaels is broken. Eagle is broken.” I swallowed thickly but forced myself to go on. “Hennessey is by no means broken; he warned me; gave me enough to go on to know he’s being coerced.”

  “Which would suggest blackmail and not mind manipulation,” Pierce said.

  I nodded. Hart steepled his fingers and said nothing.

  “Manipulation and blackmail,” I repeated. ”Two parts to the pattern.”

  “Mixed with abduction and death,” Pierce added. “Carole Michaels and Angelo Berti.”

  I lowered my head and looked at my hands in my lap. At least I wasn’t wringing them.

  “Carole was already in his pocket,” I said. “Maybe there’ll be another abduction. Maybe not. But manipulation, blackmail and murder. That’s definitely the pattern,” I said.

  “He gets to challenge himself with all three. Possibly four,” Hart agreed, finally entering the discussion again. “All of them could be a compulsion. So, we look for that.”

  I already was in a manner of speaking; I just hadn’t told the inspector that.

  “Pierce,” Hart suddenly said, swinging his chair back around to face us. “I want you to discreetly look into what Weston could have over Hennessey’s head. We’ll start with the blackmail first.”

  “On it.”

  “Keen, we’ve got to be more careful with you. You, he’ll be watching. If he knows everything to date, then he knows you’re already on his case: Chasing down Carole Michaels.” He paused. “Where is your partner anyway?”

  “Hopefully interviewing Angelo Berti’s sous-chef up at the hospital before Cawfield interrupts.”

  Both men stared at me for a beat.

  Then Pierce shook his head, and Hart sighed.

  “You better hope Cawfield doesn’t get there in time to bust him,” Hart said.

  “Damon knows what he’s doing,” I replied with not just a little defensiveness.

  I cringed inside at the show of emotion but worked not to add to it.

  “Does he know about Hennessey?” Hart asked, cutting straight to the crux of the matter. Or ‘heart’ of the matter if you were that way inclined.

  His name really did suit him.

  I wasn’t sure, though, if the inspector’s question was his way of seeing how I had been handling things. If I’d opened up to Damon, did that mean I was somewhat stable, willing to take help when available? Or did it mean I was crumbling and leaning on my boyfriend like a crutch?

  Even I couldn’t work it out inside my head.

  “Yes,” I said, thinking the truth might be the only option available to me in a closed-in space with Inspector David Hart, supervising officer of CIB, in attendance.

  “Good,” was all the inspector said.

  “What about the doc’s recommendation?” Pierce asked. He glanced at me with a hint of sympathy in his eyes.

  “I can’t ignore it,” Hart declared. I doubted that. Hart knew what was what and could do whatever he damn well felt like in his own department.

  But then that would send a message we didn’t want to send to Weston.

  “So, I’m to be a sacrificial lamb again,” I said, sounding resigned.

  “At least there’s no cross this time,” Hart grumbled as Pierce said, “At least you know it’s not real, and you’ll be back.”

  Unlike Harvey, he meant.

  I offered him a small smile. Pierce missed his best friend.

  My eyes landed back on Hart.

  “So, if I’m being watched, what do you want me to do?”

  “We have to assume he thinks we haven’t connected Hennessey to him,” Hart said. “So, work the case without that. Pierce will cover the shrink. You get back on Weston. Known associates. Past haunts. Cross-reference with Carole Michaels’ history. Get your sidekick and start beating the feet. I want you both seen for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours to be doing your job doggedly. Door knock. Rough up an informant or two. Do not interfere with Cawfield and Simpson on the Berti case. We’re going dark. If he thinks he can get one over on CI
B, then let him think he has. We give this shithead nothing to go on other than what we want him to see. Got it?”

  “Got it,” I mumbled as Pierce just nodded his head. “And when the recommendation comes through?” I pressed.

  Hart sat back in his chair but didn’t turn it sideways. His fierce eyes bore into me.

  “Then you hand in your badge and gun with as much decorum as you can manage and walk out of here.”

  “That’s it?” I demanded.

  Hart looked at Pierce. “How much can you lean on your friendship with Anscombe?”

  “Oh, hell no,” I muttered.

  Pierce grimaced. “Maybe not that much,” he admitted, not making eye contact with me.

  “Then I’ll just have to remind the good private investigator that I know a thing or two about what he gets up to and where he gets his information from,” Hart said, offering up an evil smile that rivalled any movie villain in existence.

  “You want me to work with Anscombe?” I said because I just had to remove all shadow of doubt.

  As well as any hope I’d had that I’d misheard him.

  “I want you to do your job, Detective. And if that means your hands are tied, and you have to rely on someone else to hold your weapon, then you’ll bloody well do it. Understand?”

  “Understood.” A pause. “Sir.”

  “Good. Then let’s get this party started.”

  Hart turned his chair sideways and ignored us.

  Pierce’s troubled gaze met mine. We both shrugged and left Hart’s office.

  Seven hours down, and things were getting messy.

  They got messier when Cawfield stepped into my line of sight, blocking my path back to my desk.

  “Show us your arse then, Keen,” he said. “Got a chunk out of it you need kissing better?”

  “Shove off, Cawfield.”

  “Ooh,” the dickhead in question said. “Anyone would think you’re losing it a little.” He leaned forward in a blatant display of disregard for his wellbeing and whispered, “I can help you lose a bit more if you like. Or loosen up a little, take your pick.”

  I shoulder charged him as I passed and swiped up my jacket and handbag from my desk.

  “Not in a million years, arsehole,” I muttered.