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

by Claire, Nicola

  He stared at it as if it might jump out and bite him.

  It wouldn’t, but the gun I unholstered, and cleared of the magazine and extra round, could have. I placed all the relevant pieces on the table beside my badge and turned on my heel and walked out.

  Pierce followed me to the door but stopped on the threshold.

  “Keen,” he called.

  I stupidly let my guard down and turned to look at the detective sergeant.

  “Take care of yourself.”

  The general hubbub of the bullpen petered off to almost nothing and a sense of gobsmacked detective invaded the large room. I knew every eye in the place was on Pierce and me. Probably homing in on my minute facial twitches and the fisted state of my hands.

  It was hard to fool a seasoned detective.

  That’s why Pierce had done it.

  Knowledge of that didn’t make it easier to accept.

  “Whatever, Sarge,” I muttered and stomped across the room, glaring at whoever got in my way, to empty my desk.

  I considered not bothering. What did I have on my desk that I couldn’t live without? Not a damn thing, that’s what. But this was a show, and Pierce had set the stage, and I was a mere actor reading my lines and following the direction of my inspector.

  I stared down at my desk and almost froze. Taking my stapler would have set the wrong tone. I didn’t much care for the pathetic and struggling pot plant. Instead, I reached for the only thing left to me: a pen holder with the permanent marker written words ‘Superstar Cop’ scrawled across it.

  I shoved it in my handbag. Picked up my jacket and shrugged into it, well aware that everyone had noted the absence of my gun. And then I made my way out of the bullpen with as much decorum as I could manage.

  Which wasn’t much when Cawfield cornered me in the hallway leading to the elevators.

  I’d heard Pierce shout out a warning to him, which in turn had warned me, but Cawfield being Cawfield had ignored him.

  He whistled softly as he came to rest, shoulder to wall, beside the lift as I waited for my exit.

  “Let me guess,” he said. “You sucked the wrong dick, and it came back to haunt you?”

  “Fuck off, Joe,” I said.

  “Joe is it? Shit, it must be bad. You need a shoulder to cry on, Keen? A new dick to suck perhaps?”

  “Jesus, you’re a pig,” I muttered, hitting the elevator call button repeatedly.

  “All jokes aside,” he said.

  “I can’t overlook the size of your penis, sorry. It’s the best joke out there.”

  “Funny. You’re a laugh a minute. How do you do it when you’ve hit rock bottom?”

  “Who says I’ve hit rock bottom, arsehole?”

  He laughed; it was knowing and judgemental and designed to fuck me up as much as possible.

  It was working. I clenched my fists and stared the recalcitrant elevator door down.

  Open up already.

  “Listen,” he said just as the elevator gods heard my prayers. I slipped in before the doors had finished opening. Cawfield just placed a boot beside the closest door, to stop it from shutting him out again.

  I could be grateful for small mercies, like the fact he hadn’t followed me onto the damn thing.

  “It isn’t right you being sidelined,” he surprised me by saying. “If you need anything; you know, anything work-related, just drop me a line. Call Robbie if you can’t face me. But you’re not alone, Keen. Even if it feels like it.”

  “Cawfield!” Ryan Pierce’s harsh voice broke my stunned-mullet look.

  “All right, Sarge,” Joe said, stepping back and raising his hands as if he were about to be arrested. “Just trying to kiss Keen’s booboo better.”

  I blinked at the man. Fuck him. Mercurial mood swings aside, the man was a bastard.

  “Go screw yourself, Cawfield,” I growled.

  “Like I said,” he drawled as the lift doors slowly crawled closed again, “any time you want to, baby.”

  I shuddered and leaned back against the metallic wall as soon as the doors closed tightly between us.

  Joe Cawfield was as much a psychopath as Rhys Weston. They suited each other. I just had to figure out how they connected.

  Sure, we knew Cawfield had been approached and manipulated by Weston to enter the Irreverent Inferno part of Sweet Hell. He’d convinced him that Damon was a bad egg and needed further investigating. Just like Weston had manipulated the fragile mental state of Nathaniel Marcroft, the owner of Sweet Hell, to kill Samantha Hayes and then try to have me killed.

  Weston wasn’t above manipulating people to do his bidding. I was expecting to find just such a case locked up in Mt Eden Prison.

  But how Weston was getting Cawfield to turn on CIB, I didn’t know. There had to be skeletons in Cawfield’s closest. I intended to dig them out and dust them off and parade them in front of every detective who had just looked at me with disappointment and judgement in their eyes.

  The lift door opened and I just stood there. Stepping out of it, meant stepping out of CIB proper.

  News would travel fast. And then I realised as I finally forced my numb legs to move, that I couldn’t even take my police-issued sedan from the parking lot.

  I stood in the underground part of Central Police and stared at my car across the smooth concrete. And then I turned and made my way to an emergency exit to the side of the automatic garage doors.

  I pushed through into mid-morning sunlight. Twenty-four hours and I was suspended from CIB.

  Hennessey had tried to keep up his end of the bargain. But for whatever reason, he’d been forced to speed things up; but only marginally. Twenty-four hours had passed, and I was out on the street; naked, empty. As though this was real.

  An errant thought had me thinking of comfort food which in turn had me thinking of Angelo’s down in the Viaduct Basin.

  I couldn’t go there.

  I swiped a hand through my hair and started to walk towards Greys Ave; the fastest route up to HEAT.

  My thoughts tumbled and turned for a bit, as I slogged up the incline, passing the refurbished council flats where I’d broken in to find a bound but not necessarily imprisoned Carole Michaels. Over my shoulder was a job I’d gone to in my first year off the beat; the victim had jumped, and I’d watched on as my senior officer failed to talk him down off the ledge of the building. To the east was another callout that had left its mark on me; blood and broken bottles and beat to shit bums trying to sleep on the streets. Up ahead was the ambulance station and an interview I’d conducted there with a paramedic who had been first on the scene of a horrific murder.

  The cases and callouts tumbled and twisted and turned inside my mind, and left me breathing too quickly. I tried to count. I couldn’t remember the speed I was meant to say the numbers at. Sweat coated my brow when I realised I couldn’t talk this all out with Hennessey.

  I’d let Hennessey in when I’d been determined not to. This was a man’s world I walked, and you didn’t show emotions or feelings. Attachments to anyone other than your partner, the club, could get you killed. Distractions of the heart were frowned upon. Unless it was a quick release post a bad job. Then it was simply ignored or celebrated at the police bar over a drink. I understood then, why so many turned to alcohol.

  It wasn’t being suspended, even fake suspended, from CIB.

  Even if it was a little bit.

  It was everything.

  The jumper. The bum. The ambo who brushed it off as though it were nothing and then quit the service a month or two later. The car crash on Queen Street. The shooting on Parnell Rise. The gang-related death on Fort Street. The 1X in his girlfriend’s garage in Ponsonby. The 1J at the cinema on Queen. The 2M in Albert Park by the dolphin fountain. The 2C at a protest march down on Customs Street.

  Faces and names and places and codes. They swirled around and twisted up, until I couldn’t see a foot in front of me, let alone see through the quagmire of my thoughts.

  This is the
price we pay for the good we do, Sport. This is what happens when good cops don’t save themselves first. Save yourself, Lara.

  Lara, save yourself!

  I stopped just before I walked out in front of a speeding taxi as it careened down Greys Ave. It honked its horn angrily at me, and my heart rate didn’t even spike; not even a little.

  I was too numb, and it was already going way too fast as it was.

  Damn it, Carl. How am I supposed to save myself if I have no one to catch me when I fall?

  An ambulance tore out of the station across Pitt Street. A fire engine lumbered out behind it from directly opposite; lights and sirens blazing. A cop car would be responding from Cook Street. Lights on, siren off, because we had to be stealthy even when racing to save somebody.

  Save yourself, Lara.

  OK.

  I straightened my jacket, brushed a hand over the empty holster under my arm, and then pressed a palm to my belt where my badge should have been.

  Just because I was suspended didn’t mean I wasn’t still a cop.

  The daughter of a cop. The granddaughter of a cop.

  Weston would have to try harder than this to stop me.

  I walked onto the Pitt Street Fire Station’s property with purpose and rounded the back of the building to the door to HEAT.

  I didn’t hesitate to bound up them.

  I had more than just Carole Michaels to free.

  Chapter Nine

  “If It Looks Like A Duck And Quacks Like A Duck Then You Can Bet Your Highly Trained Detective’s Arse It’s A Fucking Duck.”

  Rescue, Prevention and Investigation were all on station at HEAT. It made for a packed lunch room and a noise level that threatened the eardrums. Several heads turned towards me when I entered. I received chin-lifts and raised cups of coffee and the odd greeting. I returned most of them but made quick work of crossing the common area and heading down the hallway that led to Damon’s office.

  I could hear raised voices behind his closed door. The fact the door was actually closed sent warning signals to my fight or flight receptors; Damon usually had an open door policy. To close himself away with what sounded like an irate Flack, an uptight Marc and an equally vocal Horse meant something serious had happened.

  I didn’t waste time, just knocked on the door and then opened it.

  Four pairs of eyes turned toward me with varying looks of incredulity. Damon may not have closed his door often, but when he did, his men knew not to barge on in there.

  I wasn’t one of his men even if they more often than not made me feel welcome.

  Not so much of a welcome now.

  “Keen,” Marc snapped.

  Flack shook his head and scowled at nothing.

  Horse offered an uncharacteristic glare. The man was built like a brick outhouse even if he was normally a teddy bear. The head of Rescue was a jokester. But not today it seemed.

  “Gentlemen,” I said in greeting, closing the door behind me.

  “We were having a private meeting,” Marc said. So far he’d been the only one to talk.

  “The door’s closed,” I told him and leaned back against it to make my point.

  My eyes met Damon’s. Something had definitely happened.

  I looked at Flack. He shook his head minutely and purposely looked across the room at Horse.

  My eyes tracked to the big man, and I saw it. Weston had struck again.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Are you asking as a CIB detective?” Marc demanded. “Or as a friend to HEAT?”

  I’m not sure why they insisted on dealing with this in-house. Maybe it was machoism. But they knew, though, that CIB was working as hard as we could to solve this case and get to Weston before he could strike again. The fact he obviously had struck again was unfortunate. But we’d already established that Damon and I were a team. And they trusted Damon. So why not trust CIB?

  I offered a frosty glare to Marc; one I was sure could freeze any testosterone-fuelled male’s balls off in an instant. I liked Marc. Marc usually liked me. But tempers were frayed, and emotions were high. I wouldn’t hold his behaviour right now against him. But I also would not be kowtowed by a fireman.

  “As I am no longer a detective in CIB,” I icily told him, “then this is strictly a personal visit.”

  Silence. Then Damon was around the desk and approaching me.

  “Lara,” he murmured, reaching out and wrapping me up in his arms. “I’m sorry, love.”

  I let him hug me for a moment, returning the gesture briefly, and then I pushed free of his grasp and took several steps away from everybody.

  “It’s temporary,” I said, but even I could hear the doubt in my voice.

  You’re close to breaking, Lara.

  Nobody wanted a broken cop on the police force.

  “Shit,” Flack murmured.

  Horse grunted something along the lines of sympathy. Marc just looked guilty and was struggling to come up with a suitable reply that wouldn’t paint him in a bad - or worse - light.

  “What happened?” I repeated, saving him the trouble and getting us back on track again.

  “During my start of shift checks,” Horse said, “I found sabotage to all but one of my rescue lines and abseiling gear.”

  I turned and faced him.

  “Just yours?”

  “Yep.”

  “How was it sabotaged?” I already thought I might have an idea.

  “The ropes were burned enough to be noticeable on a full inspection only and to weaken their structure should they be used. The gear had been doused in a slow-acting acid.”

  Acid. That was new but also fit with the whole ‘fire theme’ Weston had going on. Acid did burn.

  “All but one,” I said, playing what Horse had carefully said over in my mind.

  “The one rope not affected,” Damon offered, “was the rope used in the rescue that blew up.”

  The rescue that blew up was a false callout to get to HEAT Rescue. They were dispatched to a trapped rock climber, only to abseil down the cliff and find a bomb instead. They barely got out before it exploded.

  “Nice message,” I said, taking a seat beside Horse on the couch.

  He grunted at my understatement and correct assessment of the situation; Weston wanted there to be no doubt as to who had got to them. Even as he played his cards with a type of patience and deliberateness that astounded me.

  The gear could have been overlooked by anyone not focused. Thank God Horse was focused when he wasn’t joking around.

  “Where was your gear?” I asked.

  They shared a look, and then Marc said, “On station.”

  “Here at Pitt Street,” I said. They nodded. “Any CCTV footage?”

  “We don’t have any,” Damon admitted reluctantly. CCTV footage was expensive, and the Fire Service was a government funded department.

  I pulled my cellphone out and dialled a number I hadn’t planned on dialling for some time yet. Hart had given me orders, and I would eventually have followed them. But I’d had no intention of following them the minute I got suspended from CIB.

  The situation had changed though. HEAT was an extension of Damon and Damon was mine to protect. Even if he’d baulk at that and say I was his to protect instead. We constantly butted heads over who looked out for whom.

  It was kind of amusing.

  I wasn’t amused right now.

  Carmel answered on the fourth ring; couldn’t rush to answer the telephone, she might chip a nail or something.

  “Anscombe Securities and Investigations,” she said in her harpy’s voice down the line.

  The ASI receptionist and I weren’t friendly.

  “This is Lara Keen.” Not Detective. I wasn’t right now and claiming such only reminded me of how cut off from my life I had become. “May I please speak with Nick Anscombe?”

  The men in Damon’s office all looked at me as if I’d grown two heads. I purposely avoided eye contact.

  Carmel d
idn’t even reply. But she thankfully didn’t hang up on me either, so I was calling that progress.

  The line hummed and then clicked, and then Nick Anscombe said, “So polite, Detective. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  I gripped my cellphone tighter and forced myself not to react to Nick’s greeting. Not much got past Nick Anscombe. He would have known already that I was no longer a detective and he still chose to use my former rank to throw me off balance.

  “I’d like to hire your services,” I said, which all things considered was rather grown up of me.

  “And what particular services would those be? You need a case solved?”

  Still button pushing. Screw him.

  “Electronic surveillance of Pitt Street Fire Station.”

  Silence.

  “That is unexpected,” he finally said.

  It was also akin to closing the barn door after the horse had bolted. I wasn’t sure if Weston would even try to get at HEAT on station again. But HEAT was Damon and Damon was who he was ultimately after. I was a little annoyed at myself for not thinking of setting up a trap here earlier. But I pushed that superfluous emotion aside and concentrated on protecting the men I had come to call family.

  HEAT was also where I would be setting up the base of my excommunicated operations.

  I could have set it up at ASI in Newmarket. But the thought of dealing with both Carmel and Anscombe in person on a daily basis didn’t thrill me. We’d work from here or from my home as a backup.

  “Can you do it?” I asked Nick.

  “I can, but you’re talking about placing sensitive equipment in a government building. Do you have permission for this?”

  Since when did Nick Anscombe need permission?

  I looked at Damon. He nodded his head to me.

  “I have permission,” I said succinctly.

  “And who’s paying?” Nick asked.

  I didn’t exactly earn a fortune as a detective. And now I was suspended, no doubt suspended-on-pay for the time being, I had to consider my future. I was also cut off from CIB’s operational fund, so any on-going costs would be coming from my own pocket. I’d get reimbursed if I were reinstated. But even though this was a charade, I had Hennessey’s words floating around inside my head, my self-doubt growing exponentially with every thud of my heartbeat, and Carl constantly jabbering away in the background.