Free Heat Rises by Richard Castle Page A

looked at them, knowing that even in this group of smart mouths, there was no amount of cop humor that would overcome the compassion they felt for another human’s suffering.
    Mindful of the collective mood, Nikki resumed quietly. “Like any assault, perps use pattern behavior. I’m already looking into other assaults like this, especially involving electrical means.”
    “Detective Heat.” All heads turned to the voice at the back of the room. For many, it was the first they had actually heard that voice in a week.
    “Captain?” she said.
    “I’d like to see you in my office.” And before he stepped inside it, he added, “Right now.”
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    Nikki wheeled her leg around, caught him on the back of his upper calf, and he went down. Don landed hard on the blue wrestling mat in the gym and said, “Jeez, Nikki, what’s eating you tonight?” She extended a hand to hoist him up, and midway through the lift, Don thought he’d get cute and flip her. But he telegraphed his move with his eyes and she cartwheeled to his weak side, still holding his hand, twisted his thumb, rolled him on his stomach, and parked a knee on his back.
    That afternoon, when she had gotten the text from her onetime personal combat trainer and now regular sparring partner, Nikki declined Don’s offer. Her day had been a meat grinder, and all she wanted to do was get home and sink into a bath, hoping an early bed would let her escape the burden of the case, and of Rook, in sleep. But then came that last meeting with Montrose. Heat came out of there feeling caged, frustrated, and above all, conflicted. First thing she did was grab her cell phone and text the ex-Navy SEAL that she wanted a workout after all.
    Poor Don was on his feet about two seconds before Heat dropped him again.
    The meeting had been with a Montrose Nikki didn’t know. He closed his door, and by the time he had walked around behind her to his desk, he had accused her of losing focus on the case. She listened but couldn’t take her eyes off the Band-Aid on his finger, wondering whose blood was on that priest’s collar if it wasn’t the priest’s.
    Don went to the corner of the gym and toweled the sweat off his face. Nikki hopped on the balls of her feet in the center of the mat, energized, eager to resume.
    Her captain had said, “We agreed this afternoon that you’d keep working the bondage line on this case. What happened? Did you eat some funny mushrooms for lunch and get it in your head to change it up?”
    Who was this man, she wondered, talking to her like that? Her mentor, advisor, and protector all these years. Not so much the father she never had but certainly the uncle.
    Don tried to fake her out. He shook his arms loose, going all rubbery, working on the tightness to catch her sleeping. But then he lunged, going low with his left shoulder to her waist, trying to straight-out tackle her. She sidestepped and laughed when he caught nothing but air and landed on his face.
    “I started getting information that opened my thinking, Captain,” she had told him, all the while wondering what to tell him and what to hold back—something that had never occurred to her to do with this man.
    “Like what? Talking to all his parishioners to see who thought his sermons lacked humor? Interviewing the members of his Knights of Columbus? Going to the archdiocese?”
    “There’s that money we found,” she said.
    “There’s the agreement we had,” he said. Then Montrose had calmed a little, and a glimpse of the old the skip came to visit. “Nikki, I’m accountable for supervision here and I see you spinning your wheels on side shows. You are a great detective. I’ve told you before. You’re smart, intuitive, you work hard . . . I have never seen anyone better than you at finding the odd sock. If there’s one aspect of a case or a crime scene that doesn’t ring true, seems slightly out of whack, you see it.” And then that phase was over. “But I don’t know what the