The first thing Nikki did when she entered Rook’s room in ICU was to check the screen for activity. Heartened to see regular green spikes, she stood over him and took his hand. She squeezed lightly and waited, hoping, but her only feedback was his warmth, which was something, anyway. Leaning carefully over his breathing tubes, she kissed his forehead, which felt dry to her lips. His eyes were closed, but when the lids fluttered, she took his fingers in hers again. Nothing. One of them must have been dreaming.
Exhausted from the day, she pulled the plastic guest chair bedside and sat, resting her eyes. She awoke with a start an hour later when her cell phone vibrated. It was a text from Ochoa, who had just gotten confirmation from Ballistics that the bullet he had recovered from the water tower checked out as Montrose’s, matching the reloads from the belt mag. She had just texted back to congratulate him when the nurse came in to hang a fresh bag on the IV tree. The nurse stepped out, only to return a moment later. She placed a container of orange juice and a chewy granola bar on the tray for Nikki and left again.
Heat sat there for another hour, simply watching the rise and fall of Rook’s chest, glad for that miracle and knowing that she would so never hear the end of this.
If he pulled through.
During the eleven o’clock news she ate her snack, and when it ended, she muted the TV. With the report that steam service had been fully restored to all of Manhattan by now, she could finally go back to her apartment. Nikki thought of her own bed . . . of the bubble bath that awaited her. She got up and picked up her coat, but didn’t put it on. Instead, she pulled out the paperback from the side pocket and sat back down.
“Are you ready for some cultural stimulation, Mr. Rook?” Heat glanced up at him and then back to the cover of the novel. ” ‘Castle of Her Endless Longing, by Victoria St. Clair.’ Like the title. . . .” She turned to the first chapter and began to read aloud, ” ‘Lady Kate Sackett stared forlornly out of the carriage as it bounced along the muddy, rutted byway outside her ancestral village in the northland. She was contemplating the brooding form of the castle built into the cliffs when a young man on horseback cantered up to her window and kept pace. He was handsome in a roguish way, the sort of rascal who would charm a more na?ve woman for his own sport and be gone. “Pleasant, morning, m’ lady,” he said. “These are dangerous woods just ahead. Could I offer to ride along?” ’ ”
Heat reached out and gently laced her fingers between Rook’s, watched his breathing once more, and then returned to the book. Happy to read to him endlessly.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A chef never makes a meal alone. I learned this the hard way as a latchkey kid, bored and hungry with a craving for cherries flambé. Who knew cognac could take off like that? Or that my mother wouldn’t appreciate the irony of coming home from her triumphant Broadway performance in Burn This to charred walls and a disapproving hook-and-ladder crew?
Much like cuisine, you need help making a book (although there’s less risk of fire—unless you count the unfortunate book burning of one of my early Derrick Storm novels). So these pages are reserved for me to tip my big, tall, chef’s toque to the many cooks who actually improved the broth.
As ever, I am in the debt of the top professionals at the 12th Precinct who tolerate me still. Detective Kate Beckett has shown me the ropes of homicide investigation, not to mention how to make sense of songs. Her colleagues, Javier Esposito and Kevin Ryan, have welcomed me like the brothers I never had. And the late Captain Roy Montgomery, to whom this book is dedicated, was a great mentor to all who worked under him and an even greater man to all who knew him.
Dr. Lanie Parish at the Office of Chief Medical Examiner has given me almost as many insights as she has eye rolls. I may be a pain in the ass sometimes, but I do like to think I break up a day when you work in a refrigerated environment.