Heat Gauge

Chapter Nine

Nikki was frustrated. The murder board was telling her nothing. She sat cross legged on her desk and stared at the white surface, looking for discrepancies, mistakes, something that didn't add up in the timeline. But nothing popped. Every now and then she would get up and pace, one hand clutching her ribs, the other trailing two fingers lightly on her chin. At regular half hour intervals she made a lonesome pilgrimage to the break room for coffee. Once or twice she convinced herself she was getting nowhere and made to leave, but by the time she got to the elevator she would remember something and go back to check.

The case didn't even matter. It was a convenient excuse. Something to distract her from the horrible feeling in her chest, the vice that was closing around her heart with icy talons. Nikki knew she needed to sleep, she needed rest to recover from the injuries she'd sustained earlier in the week. But she also knew that if she returned to her empty apartment she would see Jameson Rook everywhere. In her kitchen, laughing as he unloaded Chinese food cartons from a plastic bag. On the couch, where they'd improvised with hand martinis that sweet night back in the heat wave when everything about their relationship had changed. In her bedroom, where he had made her feel warm and complete and simply alive for the first time since her mother's death.

Even the precinct was fraught with Rook. His empty desk, a sentinel shadow just outside the reach of the golden light pooling from Nikki's desk lamp. The looping swirls of his ostentatious handwriting where he had somehow commandeered the marker before anyone else and added notes to the Natasha Herskovitz case. Even the coffee machine, Nikki's solitary friend during her lonely night long vigil, was product of Rook, or at least his wallet.

In the end Nikki fell asleep on one of the couches in a side room used to speak to victims' families. She didn't notice the careful creeping of soft dawn light across the wall, or the arrival of Ochoa and Raley, equally as silent, the latter of whom found a blanket and draped it gently over her. The pair paused by the door.

“She's not going to be able to function on this case, bro,” Ochoa said, watching their sleeping partner. Raley nodded, shoving his hands deep into his pockets.

“I know,” he replied, taking a deep breath and exhaling through his nose.

“It's all on us,” Ochoa went on. “You up for it?”

Raley turned and grinned at him, blue eyes sparkling in the new day. “Hell yes, I'm up for it. Are you up for it, old man?”

Ochoa shoved him. Laughing quietly, they closed the door behind them.

Two hours later the noise of the precinct coming to life woke Nikki. She blinked in the bright light, raising a hand in an attempt to shade her eyes. Sunlight filtered in through the half-down blinds, rebounding off the sandstone coloured wall opposite where she lay. A zebra pattern of shadows danced across the paint. There was a sharp, jabbing pain in her side. She winced and shifted, reaching under and groping for the object. It was her phone. She thumbed the touch screen and saw that it was eight ack emma.

Eight o'clock! Nikki swung her legs over and stood up abruptly. A sudden wave of vertigo almost pushed her back down again. The room swam before her eyes, her stomach lurched. Nikki took one disorientated, staggering step forwards and nearly fell over. Only by catching her weight on a table was she able to stay upright.

Damn Rook for giving her a concussion.

Rook …

Damn him altogether.

Nikki gritted her teeth and made it out the door without any further mishaps. Once at her desk she collapsed into her chair, gulping air to try repress the sick feeling in her gut. She hung her head, letting her eyes slip closed while she concentrated on her rebelling body. It took a few minutes, but when she felt controlled enough to open her eyes Nikki noticed an array of Post-It messages on her desk. She reached out and ripped the first one off the scarred wood.

“5:15am. Call from Jameson Rook regarding last night. Please call back asap,” Nikki read aloud, then she groaned, imagining the smug grin on the desk officer's face as he or she had scribbled the note. She crunched the Post-It into a tiny ball and lobbed it into her wastepaper basket.

5:48am. 6:28am. 6:53am. 7:13am. 7:43am. The others were much the same, bar for the 7:43 one which carried a hint of a desperate plea in it. Something about a breakthrough in the case. Nikki ignored it and reached for the last piece of bright pink paper. It was from the desk officer.

For crying out loud, call the poor bastard back.

Uniforms. Nikki shook her head in mild displeasure. She was just about to call Esposito when she noticed Captain Montrose heading her way.

“Detective Heat, a word, please,” he called across the bullpen. Nikki hesitated, he never called her 'Detective' unless he had bad news. Reluctantly she straightened, pushing her chair back with her calves and striding towards him. Montrose held the door of his office open with one large hand, watching her with an unreadable expression. Nikki paused the space of a heartbeat, trying to glean some sort of clue from his face, then she forced herself to step into the little room.

Montrose closed the door behind him and reached to twiddle the blinds closed. Nikki felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. For some reason she wanted to run. Instinctively she knew that this wasn't going to be good.

Montrose crossed the small room and sat behind his desk, folding his hands neatly on its polished surface.

“Please, Detective, sit,” he said, voice level and emotionless.

Nikki's eyes slipped warily to the chair before him. “If you don't mind, sir,” she replied, “I'd rather stand.”

Montrose watched her for a moment, his deep brown eyes betraying nothing. Nikki splayed her legs and hooked her hands behind her back, adopting a no-nonsense pose, telling him that she wouldn't change her mind. She kept her chin up, but deep inside she quivered.

Her captain reached for his desk drawer and removed a plain hip flask, offering it to her. “Hair of the dog?” he asked.

Alcohol. Shit. Any hope Nikki had of this being painless just sank as low as her heart. “Sir, just tell me what you need to tell me.” No point in delaying the inevitable.

Montrose sighed and carefully replaced the hip flask, making sure it was sitting just right in the drawer before he gently pushed it closed. He laced the fingers of his hands together once more, examining them for what felt like centuries while Nikki waited, jaw clenched so tight that she felt the muscles twitch. When her captain looked up Nikki was alarmed to see tears swimming in his eyes.

“I'm so sorry, Nikki,” he said, voice breaking.