“Is something wrong? You sound strange.”
Nikki closed her eyes into a tight squint of concentration, wanting only to hear. With headphones on, the fidelity was iPod-?quality. She clocked every nuance. The air hiss of the office chair Noah was sitting in. The hard swallow that came from Kimberly.
Now Nikki waited. Now she wanted words.
“I need your help with something. I know you always did things for Matthew, and now I want you to do the same for me.”
“Things?” His tone was still guarded.
“Come on, Noah, cut the shit. We both know Matt pulled a lot of crap that was shady and you handled it. I need some of that from you now.”
“I’m listening,” he said.
“I have the paintings.”
Nikki caught herself making tension fists and loosened her grip.
Paxton’s office chair creaked. “Excuse me?”
“Am I not speaking English? Noah, the art collection. It wasn’t stolen. I took it. I hid it.”
“You?”
“Not me personally. I had some guys do it while I went out of town. Forget all that. The thing is, I have them and I want you to help me sell them.”
“Kimberly, are you nuts?”
“They’re mine. I didn’t get insurance. I deserve something out of all those years with that son of a bitch.”
Now it was Heat’s turn to swallow hard. It was starting to come together. Her heart was punching to get out.
“What makes you think I’d know how to sell them?”
“Noah, I need help. You were Matthew’s fixer, now I want you to be mine. And if you’re not going to help me, I’ll find someone who will.”
“Whoa, whoa, Kimberly, slow down.” Another pneumatic hiss, and Heat pictured Noah Paxton rising up behind his horseshoe-?shaped desk. “Don’t call anybody. Are you listening to me?”
“I’m listening,” she said.
“We should talk this out. There’s a solution to all this, you just need to keep your head.” He paused and asked, “Where are these paintings?”
A swell of anticipation gathered up Nikki and carried her until she felt suddenly weightless at its crest. A trickle of sweat curved around the vinyl ear seal of one of her headphones.
“The paintings are here,” said Kimberly.
“And where’s here?”
Say it, thought Nikki, say it.
“At the Guilford. Pretty cool, huh? All the searching they’ve been doing and they never left the building.”
“All right, listen to me. Don’t call anybody, just relax. We need to work this out face-?to-?face, OK?”
“OK.”
“Good. Stay there. I’ll be right over.” And then he hung up.
Nikki took off her headphones. When Rook removed his, he said, “I called it. I was right. It was Kimberly. Ha-?ha, where’s my five?” He held up his palm to her.
“Uh, we don’t do fives.”
Rook stood. “Listen, we’d better get over there before Noah. If this woman killed her husband, who knows what she’ll do next.”
Nikki rose. “Thanks for the pointer, Detective Rook.” He held the door for her and they strode out.
Heat Wave
NINETEEN
Heat, Raley, Ochoa, and Rook crossed through the lobby of the Guilford to the elevators. When the doors opened, Nikki put the palm of her hand on Rook’s chest. “Whoa, whoa, where do you think you’re going?”
“With you.”
She shook her head. “No way. You stay down here.”
The automatic doors kept trying to close. Ochoa braced them open with his shoulder to keep them from bouncing.
“Come on, I did what you said. I thought like a detective and I deserve to be there when you take her down. I’ve earned that.” When all three of the detectives broke into laughter, Rook walked it back a hair. “How about I just wait in the hall?”
“You told me you’d wait in the hall when I arrested Buckley.”
“OK, I got impatient once.”
“And on our raid in Long Island City, what did you do after I told you to stay behind?”