Detective Heat knew the city would be on a tactical alert and wanted to see if she should come to the station or go to a staging area. Montrose confirmed that Emergency Management had called the T.A. and that leaves and days off were temporarily suspended. “I might need you to cover a shift, but so far anyway, the city is behaving. Guess we’ve got this down from the 2003,” he said. “Considering the twenty-four hours you’ve just had, your best use for me would be to get some rest and be fresh tomorrow in case this drags on.”
“Uh, Captain, I was surprised to see I’ve got a little company out front.”
“Oh, right. Put in a call to the Thirteenth Precinct. They’re treating you right, I hope.”
“Swell, very solid. But here’s the thing. With this T.A. on, is this the best use of resources?”
“If you mean covering my best investigator to make sure she doesn’t get her sleep disturbed, I can’t think of a better use. Raley and Ochoa insisted on doing it themselves, but I put a stop to that. Now, that would be a waste of resources.”
God, she thought. That would be just what she needed, having Roach show up and catch her out there brushing buttons in the dark with Rook. As it was, she wasn’t keen on the idea of those uniforms knowing what time Rook was leaving, even if it would be soon. “It’s sweet, Cap, but I’m a big girl, I’m home safe, the door’s locked, the windows are closed, I’m armed, and I think our city will be better off if you kick that car loose.”
“All right,” he said. “But you double-lock that door. No strange men in that apartment tonight, you hear?”
She watched Rook leaning against the butcher block holding a dish towel of ice cubes to his face and said, “No worries, Captain. And Cap? Thank you.” She pressed End and said, “They don’t need me tonight.”
“So your obvious attempt to cut my visit short didn’t pan out.”
“Shut up and let me look at that.” She stepped over to him and he lowered the towel so she could examine his sore jaw. “Not swelling, that’s good. An inch closer to my foot, you’d have been drinking soup through a straw for the next two months.”
“Hold on, that was your foot you hit me with?”
She shrugged and said, “Yeah?” then rested her fingertips on his jaw. “Work it again.” Rook moved it back and forth. “That hurt?”
“Only my pride.”
She smiled and held her fingers there on him, caressing his cheek. The corners of his mouth turned up slightly, and he looked at her in a way that made her heart flutter. Nikki stepped away before the magnet pull gained real force, suddenly worried that deep down she might be some sort of freak who got turned on at crime scenes. First on Matthew Starr’s balcony and now here in her own kitchen. Not the worst thing, to be a bit of a freak, she thought, but crime scenes? That was sure the common denominator. Well, that and, um, Rook.
He shook the ice out of the towel and into the sink, and while he was occupied, her mind raced to figure out just what the hell she was thinking, asking him up there. Maybe she was loading too much meaning into this visit, projecting. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, right? And sometimes coming up for ice was just coming up for ice. Her breath was still high in her chest, though, from being close to him. And that look. No, she said to herself, and made her decision. The best course was not to force this. He had his ice, she’d kept her promise, yes, the smart thing would be to stop this now and send him on his way. “Would you like to stay for a beer?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” he said with a grave tone. “Is your iron unplugged? Oh wait, there’s no electricity so I don’t have to worry about my face getting pressed.”
“Funny man. Guess what? I don’t need no stinking iron. I’ve got a Bagel Biter over there and you don’t want to know what I can do with that.”
He took a moment and said, “I’m good with beer.”
There was only one Sam Adams in the fridge so they split it. Rook said he was fine with sharing hits off the bottle, but Nikki got them glasses, and while she got them down, she wondered what had made her ask him to stay. She felt a naughty thrill and smiled about how blackouts and hot nights brought on a certain lawlessness. Maybe she did need guarding—from herself.
Rook and his virtual lighter disappeared into the living room with their beers while she scrounged a kitchen drawer for some candles. When she came into the living room, Rook was standing at the wall adjusting the John Singer Sargent print. “This look level to you?”
“Oh…”
“I know it’s kind of forward. We know about my boundary issues, right? You can hang it somewhere else, or not, I just thought I’d swap it for your Wyeth poster so you could get the effect.”
“No, no, it’s good. I like it there. Let me get some more light going for a better look. It might have found its home.” Nikki struck a wooden match and the flare-up anointed her face with gold. She reached down into the curved glass of the hurricane lamp on the bookcase and touched the flame to the wick.
“Which one are you?” said Rook. When she looked up, he gestured to the print. “The girls, lighting the lanterns. I’m watching you do the same thing and wondering if you see yourself as one of them.”
She moved to the coffee table and set out a pair of votives. As she lit them, she said, “Neither, I just like the way it feels. What it captures. The light, the festiveness, their innocence.” She sat on the sofa. “I still can’t believe you got it for me. It was very thoughtful.”
Rook came around the other end of the coffee table and joined her on the couch, but putting himself at the far end with his back against the armrest. Allowing some space between them. “Have you seen the original?”
“No, it’s in London.”
“Yes, at the Tate,” he said.
“Then you’ve actually seen it, show off.”
“Mick and Bono and I went. In Elton John’s Bentley.”
“You know, I almost believe you.”
“Tony Blair was so pissed we invited Prince Harry instead of him.”
“Almost,” she chuckled and glanced over at the print. “I used to love to see Sargent’s paintings at the Fine Arts in Boston when I was going to Northeastern. He did some murals there, too.”
“Were you an art student?” Before she could answer, he raised his glass. “Hey, look at us. Nikki and Jamie, doin’ the social.”
She clinked his glass and took a sip. The air was so warm, the beer was already hitting room temp. “I was an English major, but I really wanted to transfer to Theater.”
“You’re going to have to help me with this. How did you go from that to becoming a police detective?”
“Not such a huge leap,” said Nikki. “Tell me what I do isn’t part acting, part storytelling.”
“True. But that’s the what. I’m curious about the why.”
The murder.
The end of innocence.
The life changer.
She thought it over and said, “It’s personal. Maybe when we know each other better.”
“Personal. Is that code for ‘because of a guy’?”
“Rook, we’ve been riding together for how many weeks? Knowing what you know about me, do you think I would make a choice like that for a guy?”
“The jury will disregard my question.”
“No, this is good, I want to know,” she said, and scooted closer to him. “Would you change what you do for a woman?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“You have to, I’m interrogating your ass. Would you change what you do for a woman?”
“In a vacuum…I can’t see it.”
“All right, then.”
“But,” he said and paused to form his thought, “for the right woman?…I’d like to think I’d do just about anything.” He seemed satisfied with what he’d said, even affirmed it to her with a nod, and when he did, he raised his eyebrows, and at that moment, Jamie Rook didn’t look like a globetrotter on the cover of a glossy magazine at all but like a kid in a Norman Rockwell, truthful and absent of guile.
“I think we need better alcohol,” she said.