Raging Heat Read Online Free PDF Page B

be the NYPD point person working directly with Interpol, New Scotland Yard, the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group, and a slew of others. And I hope you know where your passport is, because you’re going to be spending a lot of time in London, Hamburg, Tel Aviv, Lyons, Mexico City, Rio…” The implications resonated immediately and Hamner’s words fuzzed while she watched Rook fiddling with the espresso maker across the squad room. Something cold and melancholy poked her gut.
    “…You there? Hello?”
    “Uh, yeah.” She gathered herself and tried to reset the course of the call. “Listen, you still haven’t explained why you spied on me.”
    “Due diligence is not spying, Detective Heat.” The Hammer was not only back in his wheelhouse but strutting the deck. “This is proper vetting for a key position. We needed to see who you are associating with to make sure we don’t have any surprises. Like gym rats turning up naked and dead on your parlor floor.”
    Heat wished Zach was there so she could throttle his face to a bloody pulp with the phone. Don—a hero and ex-Navy SEAL—had no longer been her no-strings sex partner that night he came over to shower after a combat-training workout. Instead of rising to the bait, though, she calmly replied, “My personal life is my own. But we both know that man took a shotgun blast instead of me, and I’m here now because of him.”
    “Un-fucking-flappable. See, this is why we need you, Heat.” Maybe it would be worth the drive to headquarters to give him a beatdown there. “And so you know, I’ve taken the step of confidentially clearing your transfer with your precinct commander.”
    “What? Irons knows?”
    “Transparency. We’re your NYPD.” And then, proving the fine-tuning of his antenna, Hamner said, “I’m vibing hesitation. You are aboard for this, right?”
    He broke her pause with, “I’ve been down this road with you once already. You only get so many of these. This is last call, Heat.”
    She swiveled her chair from her view of Rook. “I get it. Tell me when you want to meet.”
    “Excellent,” he said.
    The moment she hung up, Rook came up behind her and startled her. “Who the hell ground decaf in this when I was gone? Smell.” He held out his coffee grinder. “What did The Hammer say about your IAB tail?”
    Nikki mulled their conversation of the night before about Rook’s travel absences—then thought about the ring receipt—and punted. No sense making waves right then. “You know him. Double-talk. He says it was just some Internal Affairs zealots getting out of hand. You know how those men in black are.” Before Rook could question her further, she gave the grinder a cursory sniff. “Want me to dust it for prints?”
    “‘Unity Makes Strength,’” translated Rook to the squad as Heat posted a hard copy of the tattoo JPEG on the Murder Board. Hearing him say those words made it difficult for her to meet his face when she turned to continue her briefing. But she did, and the corners of his eyes crinkled from that smile that made her heart skip again. And then flutter once more from the pair of secrets she held: the job offer that threatened to make her the globe-trotter for a change and finding the engagement ring receipt in his Simple Human trash can. Neither was so simple to Nikki.
    Just before the meeting, Rook had cornered her in the break room, telling her that they needed some Us Time and asking how she felt about canoodling in their favorite booth at Bouley that night at nine o’clock. Her bobblehead nodding felt stupid and inadequate, so she’d said yes loud enough to turn heads in the hallway. “I’ll take that as a yes!” he’d bellowed back, then inhaled deeply. “Mm, Bouley. I can already smell the wall of apples in the vestibule.”
    Randall Feller got a text, jogged out of the meeting, and returned in less than a minute holding a cellophane evidence bag. “Look what CSU found.” He lofted it like an