Then it got messy. She tried to pull the gun away, but his broken finger was hung up in the guard, and when it finally jerked free the gun had such momentum it slipped out of her hand and across the rug. Pochenko grabbed her by the hair and threw her toward the foyer. Nikki tried to gain her feet and get to the front door, but he lunged for her. He grabbed one of her forearms but it didn’t hold. His hands were sweaty and she was slick from the bubble bath. Nikki slid out of his grip and twirled, shooting the heel of her other hand up into his nose. She heard a crack and he swore in Russian. Torquing herself, she raised her foot to chest-kick him back into the living room, but he had his hands up to the twin trails of blood coming from his broken nose, and her kick glanced off his forearm. When he reached for her, she fired two rapid lefts to his nose, and while he dealt with that, she turned to flip the deadbolts on her front door and screamed, “Help, fire! Fire!”—sadly the surest way to motivate citizens to make a 911 call.
The boxer in Pochenko came alive. He landed a hard left to her back that smacked her flat against the door. Her advantage was speed and movement, and Nikki used it, dropping so that his next shot, a left to her head, missed and he smashed his fist into the wood. While she was down, she rolled right through his ankles, sweeping his legs from under him and sending him face-first into the door.
While he was down, she broke for the living room, looking for the fallen gun. It had taken a bounce under the desk, and the time it took her to find it was too much time. Just as Nikki bent for it Pochenko bear hugged her from behind and picked her up off the floor, kicking and punching air. He put his mouth to her ear and said, “You’re mine now, bitch.”
Pochenko carried her to the hallway leading to the bedroom, but Nikki wasn’t done. At the passage to the kitchen, she splayed out her arms and legs and hooked them on the corners. It was like hitting the brakes, and as his head whiplashed forward, she shot hers back and felt a sharp pain when his front teeth broke against the back of her skull.
He cursed again and flung her onto the kitchen floor, where he pounced on top of her, pinning her with his body. This was the nightmare outcome, letting him get his full weight on her. Nikki jerked and twisted, but he had gravity working for him now. He let go her left wrist, but it was only to free the hand without the broken finger to clamp around her throat. With one hand free, she pushed at his chin, but he didn’t budge. And his grip tightened on her neck. Blood dripped off his nose and chin onto her face, waterboarding her. She flailed her head side to side and took swipes at him with her right hand, but his choke was sapping her strength.
Fog crept into the edges of her vision. Above her, Pochenko’s determined face became dappled by a shower of tiny shooting stars. He was taking his time, watching her lungs slowly lose oxygen, feeling her weaken, seeing her head flails become less rapid.
Nikki rolled her face to the side so she wouldn’t have to look at him. She thought of her mother, murdered three feet away on this very floor, calling her name. And as blackness drew over her, Nikki thought how sad that she had no name to call for.
And that is when she saw the cord.
Lungs searing, strength draining, Nikki fumbled for the dangling wire. After two failed swipes, she snagged it and the iron crashed down off the board. If Pochenko cared, he didn’t show it, and probably took it as the last thrashing of the bitch.
But then he felt the hot sear of the iron on the side of his face.
His scream was like no animal Nikki had heard. As his hand came off her neck, the air she gulped tasted of his burning flesh. She brought the iron up again, this time in a hard swing. The hot edge of it hit his left eye. He screamed again, and his scream mixed with the sirens pulling up to her building.
Pochenko struggled to his feet and stumbled toward the kitchen door, holding his face, bouncing off the corner of the entryway. He recovered and lumbered out. By the time she pulled herself up and made it to the living room, Nikki could hear his heavy footsteps clanging up the fire escape toward the roof.
Heat grabbed her Sig and climbed the metal steps to the roof, but he was long gone. Emergency lights strobed off the brick fronts on her street, and another approaching siren triple-burped through the intersection at Third Avenue. She remembered she had no clothes on and decided she had better go back down and put something on.
When Nikki came into her bull pen the next morning, after her meeting with the captain, Rook and Roach were waiting there for her. Ochoa was leaning back in his chair with his ankles crossed on his desk and said, “So. Last night I watched the Yankees win and had sex with the wife. Can anybody top that?”
“Beats my night,” said Raley. “What about you, Detective Heat?”
She shrugged, playing along. “Just some poker and a little workout at home. Not as exciting as you, Ochoa. Your wife actually had sex with you?” Cop humor, dark and laced with sideways affection only.
“Oh, I see,” said Rook. “This is how you people deal. ‘Attempt on my life? No biggie, too cool for school.’ ”
“No, we pretty much don’t give a shit. She’s a big girl,” Ochoa said. And the cops laughed. “Put that in your research, writer boy.”
Rook approached Heat. “I’m surprised you came in this morning.”
“Why? This is where I work. Not going to catch any bad guys at home.”
“Clearly,” said Ochoa.
“Nailed it,” Raley said to his partner.
“Thank you for not high-fiving,” she said. Even though the precinct, and by now most of the cop shops in five boroughs, knew about her home invasion, Nikki recapped her firsthand highlights for them and they listened intently, with sober expressions.
“Bold,” said Rook, “going after a cop. And in her own home. Guy must be psycho. I thought so yesterday.”
“Or…,” said Heat, deciding to share the feeling she’d been harboring since she saw Pochenko in her living room holding her gun. “Or maybe somebody sent him to get me out of the way. Who knows?”
“We’ll bag this bastard,” said Raley. “Spoil his day.”
“Damn straight,” from Ochoa. “On top of the all-points, we’ve notified hospitals to be on alert for anybody whose face is only half-pressed.”
“Cap said you guys already gave Miric an early wake-up call.”
Ochoa nodded. “At oh-dark-thirty. Dude sleeps in a nightshirt.” He shook his head at the vision, and continued. “Anyway, Miric claims no contact with Pochenko since they got sprung yesterday. We’ve got surveillance on him and a warrant for his phone records.”
“And a tap on his incomings,” added Raley. “Plus we have some blue jeans from both Miric’s and Pochenko’s apartments in the lab now. Your Russian pal had a couple of promising rips on the knees, but it’s hard to know what’s fashion and what’s wear and tear. Forensics will know.”
Nikki smiled. “And on the upside, I may have a match for those grip marks on Starr’s upper arms.” She opened her collar and showed the red marks on her neck.
“I knew it. I knew it was Pochenko who threw him off that balcony.”
“For once, Rook, I’d take that guess, but let’s not jump there yet. The minute you start closing doors this early in an investigation is the minute you start missing something,” said the detective. “Roach, go run a check on overnight retail robberies. If Pochenko’s on the run and can’t go to his apartment, he’ll be improvising. Pay special attention to pharmacies and medical supply stores. He didn’t go to an ER, so he might be doing some self-care.”