Heat Gauge

Chapter Twelve

“How many detectives does it take to keep track of one of their own?”

Ochoa had the feeling that the question was rhetorical, so he didn't open his mouth. Raley did, but quickly shut it when his partner dug an elbow into his ribs. Montrose's expression was thunderous. If looks could kill the pair of them would be throwing back cold ones with Kurt Cobain by now. As it was, they stood shamefaced before their superior officer's desk, trying to explain Nikki's disappearance off the face of the earth.

Lauren had already been up and told her side of the story. Apparently Heat had simply walked out the door and never come back. There was no trail. If anyone knew how to vanish, it was Nikki Heat. And she had done it well. Her phone had already been located hidden in the ladies bathroom of a bus station up town, but her gun and badge were nowhere to be found.

“You knew she was messed up,” Montrose accused. “You knew she couldn't handle it. Why didn't you report her?”

“You know Nikki, sir,” Ochoa began hesitantly. “She bottles this sort of stuff up. She gets mad, she wants vengeance. We didn't think she'd disappear. We thought she'd be straight back to the precinct with her nose hard up against the murder board, trying to solve this case.”

“Well you thought wrong.”

Montrose turned his back on the two detectives and folded his hands against his rear.

“We need to find her,” he said, quietly.

Ochoa took a step forward. “Sir, if you just let us --”

“No!” Montrose shouted, wheeling around. His glare could have seared paint. “You've done enough. You are both off this case.”

Raley shared a horrified look with his partner. “Sir, you can't do that, we have to find her!”

“You don't have to do anything,” Montrose replied, savagely. “After this screw up, you're lucky I don't reduce you two to traffic duty. Now get out of my sight.”

It took less than a month for the Herskovitz case to grind to a halt. The detectives assigned in place of Heat's team didn't have the skill or drive to complete it. They hit dead end after dead end and made useless arrests which gave them no new information. Soon they were turning their wheels in mud.

Eventually the case was closed without a conviction.

No trace of Jameson Rook's body was ever discovered in the fiery ruins of his penthouse apartment. The coroner declared he had mostly likely been vaporised in the initial explosion. He was given a state funeral and the First Press ran a black-bordered article about his life and exploits as a high-flying journalist.

Nikki Heat's disappearance was never mentioned.

No trace of her was ever found. The NYPD exhausted lead after lead, trading favours with criminals and high ranking officials alike in an attempt to find some sort of trail. Divers searched the Hudson. But it was almost as if she had vanished into thin air.

A month after the Herskovitz case closed Nikki Heat was declared missing, presumed dead.

Bronya Davidenko peered curiously over the edge of the pier and into the murky waters of Gravesend Bay. Although the weather was warming with spring, the bay still looked arctic, and she drew the authentic snow leopard stole tighter around her elegant shoulders before turning back to the car.

A tall, broad-shouldered man leant against the hood of the black, plateless four wheel drive. A cigarette hung from his thin lips, the tiny whisp of smoke it emitted disappearing in the breeze. His arms, thick with chorded muscle hidden beneath wiry black hair were folded in front of his barrel-like chest. Dark eyes watched Bronya with the dead expression of a shark.