Frozen Heat - 4º libro

Aquí el tercer capítulo
http://a.abc.com/m/pdf/shows/castle/Frozen-Heat/FrozenHeatchaptTHREE.pdf

Chapter three


Rook disappeared to the battered desk in the corner where he used to perch during his old ride-along days, dragging along the same orphaned chair with the loco wheel he always ended up with. Heat immediately got on her computer to make her manpower grabs before Captain Irons realized he had just gotten his pocket picked. Detective Rhymer made a good fit from Burglary, so she put in her bid for him. As partners, Malcolm and Reynolds—also from the Burglary Unit—were nearly as formidable as Roach. She had heard the duo was already out on loan working undercover for Surveillance and Apprehension, but she sent an e-mail to their skipper anyway, asking for their use and nesting her personal IOU between the lines.
Randall Feller returned to Heat‘s desk showing no hint of bother over basically getting hip checked by Rook minutes before. The detective, like everyone else in that room, had his head solidly on task. He gave her the photocopy he had scored of the truck driver‘s route sheet for her to examine. .I‘m going to hit the bricks with this and get interviewing at his stops before shifts change and people‘s memories go south. So you know, I‘m tearing Raley away from his work wife so he can come with me and eyeball security cams..
.Ochoa will understand for one day. Their bond goes deeper than that,. she said with a dry smile before he left.
One of the administrative aides called across the chatter of the bull pen that Lauren Parry was on hold from the coroner‘s office. Heat snatched up her phone before she finished her sentence. .Your e-mail said not to worry about being a pest,. said the medical examiner.
.You, Lauren? Never. Especially if it‘s good news..
.It is..
.You have an ID on my Jane Doe?.
.Not yet..
.Then it‘s not good news to me, girlfriend.. Nikki gave her jab a light touch, but the truth lived inside the soft wrapper.
.What if I told you I‘m already starting to get some pliability in the joints?.
Heat picked up a pen and sat at her desk. .We‘re upgrading to pretty good news, Laur. Keep going..
.First off, this tells us our Doe is not frozen solid.. The detective pictured a Thanksgiving turkey coming rock-hard from the freezer and nudged the thought aside. .The significance of this is helpful in multiples, Nikki. I put her in front of oscillating fans to bring her gradually to ambient temp so I wouldn‘t destroy tissue, and the joint movement means we should be able to test sooner than later..
.How soon?.
.This afternoon.. And then the ME added, .But beyond that, her semifrozen state tells us she did not get put aboard that truck at midnight at the food packer. That many hours inside an insulated container at subzero would have solidified her pretty good, so you can hypothesize—at least for now—that she was loaded somewhere along the route after the truck left early this morning.. Heat considered pulling Detective Hinesburg off her assignment at the loading dock and then rejected it. Better Sharon do a little wheel spinning there than a lot of damage elsewhere. .This also means there‘s a shot I can give you a more accurate time of death since there may not be any rupturing of cell walls by ice crystals. If we‘re lucky there, I can get a decent measurement of melatonin from the pineal gland and urine for an accurate TOD window..
Detective Heat had worked enough autopsies to grab hold of all the indicators and form the right questions. .Are you seeing any hypothermia?.
.Negative..
.So we also can assume she was already dead when she became exposed to the frigid temps?.
.I‘d definitely make that bet,. said Dr. Parry. .One more thing. I should have enough digital flexibility to get some fingerprints for you soon. I know you need these yesterday, but I‘m being patient so I don‘t tear tissue by being hasty..
.How soon?.
.Hasty girl..
.How soon?.
.Within the hour, for sure..
.Hey, Lauren?.
.Yeah?.
.This is good news,. said Nikki. .Thanks for being a pest..
After she hung up, Rook came over to join her and said, .You do know that if we weren‘t in your workplace, I‘d give you a shoulder rub or a hug or both..
.Thank you for not..
.You‘re my hero, seriously. I don‘t even know how you are coping..
.Don‘t,. she said. .Please, not here, not now..
.‘Nuff said.. He raised both hands in a surrender gesture. Rook knew her well enough to know that, in spite of all the passion that boiled inside, Nikki came factory-equipped with a firewall that kept it locked up. Her feelings ran deep and hot, which made it a life‘s work for her
to compartmentalize. Jameson Rook unexpectedly held some keys to those locks and wisely let the subject drop. He switched gears with a survey of the room, which buzzed with a level of activity he‘d never seen before. .Looks like you‘ve got the taskmaster thing down, Detective Heat. Or is it taskmistress? So hard to know these days..
.It‘s a start. was all she allowed.
.And what are you planning to do?.
.Me? Keep riding herd. Beg, borrow, and steal a bunch of uniforms to get out and canvass with the Jane Doe photo, as soon as I have a clue where to show it. Maybe I‘ll take a drive down to Thirtieth Street to surf the autopsy when she thaws..
.I think you and I have more important work to do..
Nikki gave him the wary squint he‘d seen so often. .Why am I not liking this already?.
.Cute,. he said. .Always your first reaction. Until what? Sweet vindication.. He left for the Murder Boards, and, after hesitating, she surrendered and followed. When Nikki got there, he faced the two boards, balancing his hands like scales. .Is it I, or does there seem to be a bit of an imbalance?.
.First off, plus ten for grammar..
.All part of the writer‘s toolbox,. said Rook.
.And, secondly, yes, I focused my briefing on the new murder. The details of my mother‘s case are too vast to post on one board.. She tapped her temple. .But trust me, it‘s all in here..
.Which is why,. he said, matching her move by tapping the nearly blank board, .we need to concentrate our efforts here..
.Rook, I have been there. I have lived it for a decade..
.Not with me, you haven‘t..
.But I cannot lose traction on the new case..
.Come on, you yourself said solve one, solve the other.. He swept his arm to the bustling squad room. .You‘ve already got one plate spinning beautifully. What‘s to lose by sorting through the cold case with your experience and my fresh eyes?.
.But that means going backward. Ten years..
He smiled and nodded. .With apologies to Prince, we‘re going to partner like it‘s 1999..
.Prince may forgive you but rule me out.. Rook held his ground, affirming the logic of his idea by letting brash silence and flickering eyebrows do the work. At last, she said, .We don‘t have time to go through the whole case..
.Well, how about we start by talking to the lead detective on it?.
.He retired,. she said, the quickness of her reply designed to tell him she not only kept up on the details but that this would be no small undertaking. .Who knows where he is now?.
.I don‘t know about right this minute, but at noon today Carter Damon, NYPD, retired, will be at P.J. Clarke‘s on West Sixty-third having lunch with us..
.Rook, you are incorrigible..
.I know. I tried being corrigible once. Lasted a summer right before puberty. Corrigible was kinda dull. Incorrigible was not only more fun, it got me laid a lot. Which is also fun.. He checked his watch. .Oo, quarter to twelve. Subway, or are you driving us to our appointment?.


Rook didn‘t say much on the short walk to the 79th Street station. He kept the walk brisk to thwart Nikki from changing her mind and staying at the precinct to probe the new lead rather
than travel back in time with him. Standing in the aisle of the subway car for the two-stop ride south, she did say, .You actually knew the name of the lead investigator and where to find him?.
.Let‘s just say I needed a hobby during my recuperation. A guy can only watch so many telenovelas.. The doors parted and she followed him out onto the platform.
The subway station at West 66th Street was always busy around lunchtime; however, damage from the earthquake made the pack of humanity extra dense that day. The rails and underground structure had been OK‘d by MTA engineers, but superficial damage still needed a cleanup and the platforms there were halved by caution tape to keep riders away from all tile that had broken off the walls. Many subway stops in the city had public art installations themed for their neighborhood, and their stop; the one for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts had an impressive wall mosaic stretching the length of the station. Whole chunks of the masterpiece had fractured in the morning shake, sending glass bits of costumed warriors, opera singers, and back-flipping gymnasts to the floor. The elevator up to the sidewalk had also been tagged out of service, and Heat and Rook found themselves blockaded by an elderly woman struggling her walker up the steps. They introduced themselves to her by first names and each offered Sylvia an arm to grip for the remaining five steps. A stranger behind them, a hard-looking gangsta from Uptown with a neck and arms full of scary ink poked Heat‘s shoulder. Then he volunteered to carry the old woman‘s walker. Welcome to New York City in an emergency.
Up top, Sylvia left them for the Barnes & Noble, singsonging her thank-yous to Heat, Rook, and the gangsta, who had quietly gone his way in the opposite direction, toward Juilliard. Nikki noticed he had a clarinet case over his shoulder.
Walking through Dante Park where Broadway crosses Columbus, they saw a small band of demonstrators ralliying under the Phillip Johnson Timesculpture shouting warnings of doom
to them about the omen of the quake. One shook a homemade sign at Nikki as she passed. It read, .The End Is Near!. Crossing the street to the restaurant, she paused to look back at the words on the sign and hoped so. Then Jameson Rook took her elbow and escorted her back to the beginning.
The P.J. Clarke‘s at Lincoln Square had only opened for business two years before but already vibed old New York saloon, the sort of joint where you could get a great burger and a brew or order something icy fresh from the raw bar without a health care card. The original P.J.‘s, which opened on the East Side more than a century ago, was where Don Draper and his fellow mad men hung out, as did real-life throwbacks like Sinatra, Jackie-O, and Buddy Holly, who proposed to his wife there on their first date. When Nikki Heat followed Rook across the distressed wood plank floor to their table, she only spotted one familiar face. He wasn‘t a celebrity but he made her knees go weak.
Carter Damon may have retired from the NYPD, but a cop‘s habits run deep, and he sat with his back to the wall so he could monitor the room over his Bloody Mary. He stood to shake both their hands but kept his gaze on Nikki, even as he gripped Rook‘s. Something broken lurked in that look; something that, for her, read sadness or awkwardness or, maybe, vodka. Perhaps all of the above.
.You grew up,. Damon said as they all sat. .I just got older.. Sure, he had more salt in with the pepper of his brush cut and cop-stache, and some pouches had begun to swell his eyes, but Damon, at fifty, still had the lean body of a guy who kept himself in shape. He fit perfectly into the image frozen in her head from the first time she saw him on the worst night of her life.
.I‘m sorry for your loss. had been his first words. Nikki, nineteen years old then, looked up at the floating head from where she sat in the living room chair beside the piano. She hadn‘t
even noticed him approach. Lost in a fog, she had been transfixed by her mother‘s blood, still damp but cooled on the thighs of her jeans from when Nikki had cradled her body on the kitchen floor until the paramedics and the policewoman finally coaxed her away. As Detective Damon had introduced himself, camera flashes from the kitchen strobed behind him, each one making her flinch. When he had told her he would be the detective investigating this crime, the defining word—.crime.—came punctuated, like chain lightning, by a double strobe that jolted her, ripping away her haze, and hurtled her into an alertness, a hyper-clarity, that had made every minute detail store itself like digital video. She had noticed his gold shield clipped to the breast pocket of his sport coat, but instead of a dress shirt underneath, he had worn an old, stained Jets tee with a threadbare collar, as if he had rushed there from home, his Thanksgiving eve turned upside-down by a phone call from Dispatch at the Thirteenth Precinct. Nine-one-one from a Gramercy Park apartment. Units responding. Report probable homicide. Suspect or suspects fled before discovery.
Nikki had been two blocks away, in the spice aisle of the Morton Williams supermarket, when it happened. In hindsight, it always seemed so trivial, so banal, to be running her fingertip along the alphabetical row of jars, her biggest problem in the world trying to find cinnamon sticks—sticks, not ground—while her mother was drawing her last breaths. Elated to find them, she had cell-phoned to do a victory dance and to ask if she needed anything else. After six rings the answering machine grabbed the call. .Hello, this is Cynthia Heat. I‘m unable to come to—. and then a squeal of feedback as her mother picked up. She‘d been kneading crust for the pies they were baking and had to wipe the butter off her hands before she could get to the phone. And, as usual, she didn‘t now how to turn off the answering machine without disconnecting, so she let it roll, recording everything while Nikki listened.
.I may need evaporated milk. I have an open can in the fridge, let me see how much is left.. Then a crash of glass followed by her mother‘s scream. Nikki had called out to her loud enough to turn heads in the market. Her mother hadn‘t answered her, only screamed again, and the phone dropped, smacking onto the floor. By then Nikki had bolted from the market, forcing open the in door with all her strength, dodging cars across Park Avenue South, calling to her mother, begging her to speak to her. In the background, she had heard the muffled voice of a man and a brief scuffle. Then her mother had whimpered, and her body dropped hard beside the phone, followed by the clang of a knife also hitting the floor. Then Nikki heard suction, as the refrigerator door opened. The wine bottles, chilling on the door for their Thanksgiving feast, had tinkled. Then she heard the snap and hiss of a soda can popping open. A pause, then footsteps walking away, followed by silence. She still had a block to go when she heard her mother‘s weak moan, and her last word. .Nikki . . ..
.Thank you for coming on short notice,. said Rook.
.You kidding? Whatever I can do?. He glanced at Nikki again. .I will admit, though, this is tough for me.. He drank down another swallow of his cocktail, observing her over the rim. Nikki wondered if Carter Damon was tasting failure.
.Me, too,. she said.
Damon set down his glass. .Sure, I bet it‘s ten times worse for you. But as a cop yourself now, you‘ve got to know how it gnaws at you. The ones you never solved. They keep you awake..
Nikki gave him the best smile she could muster and said, .They do,. letting her neutral reply politely acknowledge a fellow detective‘s pain over justice left unserved, without letting him off too easy for not getting the job done.
Her response had an effect. His face ashed and his attention went to Rook. .Is this meeting about an article? You going to write a story about this case? Because I think you pretty much covered it in the one you did a couple months ago.. There it was again. How Nikki hated that article. Favorably as it portrayed her, as one of the city‘s top homicide investigators, CRIME WAVE MEETS HEAT WAVE, Jameson Rook‘s cover profile for a major national magazine, gave Heat fifteen minutes she wanted back. Damon must have clocked the disdain in Nikki‘s expression, and he lobbied her, saying, .It‘s not like there‘s anything new to bring to the party..
.Actually, there is,. said Rook.
The ex-cop‘s shoulders drew back, and he raised his head a little taller as he took the writer‘s measure, too experienced, too wary to buy some journalist at face value. But when he saw Detective Heat‘s nod of affirmation, he said, .Well, hot damn. Seriously?. He smiled to himself. .You know, they say don‘t cash out, never give up hope . . ..
Carter Damon‘s words rang hollow to Nikki because he had done exactly both. But she hadn‘t come there to cast blame. Rook‘s strategy to revisit history with fresh eyes held enough merit for her to play it out. So she briefed the ex-lead on the developments of the morning: the Jane Doe knife vic in her mom‘s suitcase. He perked up with every detail, nodding with his full body. When she finished, he said, .You know, I remember logging that stolen luggage.. He paused while the waiter took drink orders. Nikki asked for a Pellegrino and Rook a Diet Coke. Damon pushed his unfinished Bloody Mary across the red and white checked tablecloth and said, .Coffee, black,. and the instant the waiter cleared earshot, he inclined his head back to stare at the ceiling and recite from memory. .Large American Tourister, late seventies vintage. Blue-gray hardside with a chrome T-bar pull handle and two wheels.. He tilted back to Rook, since he knew Nikki knew the rest. .We figured it for carrying the haul from the burglary..
Rook asked, .Is that where you left it, as a homicide to cover an apartment burglary?.
Damon shrugged. .Only thing that made sense.. But then, when Rook peeled the elastic band from around his black Moleskine to take notes, the ex-detective bristled and said, .This isn‘t for an article.. When they both shook no, he cleared his throat, no doubt relieved he wouldn‘t appear in print as the cop who couldn‘t bring it home. .There had been a burglary along with it..
.When?. asked Rook. .Nikki got back to the apartment within minutes of the murder..
.Whoever did the burglary did it before. The theft came from the back of the apartment, the master bedroom and the second bedroom–slash–home office. Could have even been done while the two ladies were in the kitchen. They had the mixer going, the TV on, busy talking and whatnot. But my money is it came down during the substantial time gap after she left for the market..
Rook turned to Nikki, having heard this for the first time. .I took a walk.. The muscles tightened in her neck. .That‘s all. It was a nice night. The weather was mild for then, and so I just walked for about a half hour.. She crossed her arms and turned profile to him, clearly shutting down that subject.
.What got stolen?.
.It‘s all in the report,. said Damon. .She has a copy..
.Broad strokes,. said Rook.
.Some jewelry and small decorative pieces, you know, antique silver and gold. Cash. And the desk and files got a good cleaning out..
Rook asked, .How common is that? Jewelry, gold, and papers from a desk?.
.It‘s different. But not unheard of. Could have been an identity thief going for socials, passports, and like that. Or just an amateur doing a quick grab to sort later.. He picked up on the skeptical glance Rook gave Nikki and said, .Hey, we‘d ruled out everything else..
.Take me through it,. said Rook.
Carter Damon said to Nikki, .You have all this..
The ex-detective had a point. But the value of this began and ended with Rook hearing the first-person take from the official investigator, not his girlfriend and victim. .He‘s new,. she said. .Humor him..
The drinks came and they waved off ordering. Damon blew across his coffee, took a sip, and started counting on fingers. .One, we ruled out Nikki. Obviously not on premises, we have her alibi on the phone machine married to the time code on the supermarket security cam, end of that story. Two, no sexual assault..
.But that doesn‘t mean it couldn‘t have been a motive, even if it never happened, right?. asked Rook.
The ex-cop made a face and bobbed his head side to side. .I don‘t like it. That‘s not to say you don‘t get both a burglary and an assault, because you do see that. But in a tight time frame like this one—and I‘m assuming it came down in the half hour she took her walk—experience tells me it‘s going to be one or the other. I think Mrs. Heat spotted the burglar and that was that..
.Three,. said Rook, waiting.
.Three. We cleared her dad. Touchy subject, but always the top of the list is husbands and, especially, ex-husbands. The Heats‘ divorce had been recent but, by all accounts, amicable. And just to dot the i‘s, Jeffrey Heat alibied clean. He was away on a golf vacation in Bermuda,
where we had local authorities notify him of the murder.. Rook side-glanced to Nikki, who remained stoic, giving him her profile, as before. At least until Damon asked her, .So how‘s your dad doing now?. and some unseen string pulled her face taut. .You in touch with him lately?.
.Can we move this along?. Heat checked her watch. .I need to be getting back to the squad..
.Sorry. Sore subject?. She didn‘t respond so he‘d ticked off another finger for Rook. .Four. Her mother hadn‘t reentered the dating pool yet, so there were no suitors to shake down.. Nikki made an impatient sigh and took a long pull of her mineral water. .Workplace conflicts,. he marked with his pinky finger, .none. Cynthia Heat tutored piano and everyone was very happy with her. Except, maybe, for a couple of eleven-year-olds who hated doing scales.. He went back to counting on his forefinger. .Enemies? Check the box that says =none apparent‘: no neighbor disputes in the apartment building; no legal disputes pending..
Nikki jumped in, questioning him for the first time. .Did you ever get any trace on that speeding blue Cherokee that had the fender bender at the end of our block that night?.
.Hm. No, I put the word out, but you know how they are. They never got back to me. It‘s a crapshoot, no plates and all in a city this size..
Then she said, .Mind if I ask when the last time was you checked Property to see if any of the stolen jewelry or antique pieces got fenced or pawned?.
.Hello. I retired three years ago.. A family at the next table turned to stare. He softened his voice and leaned forward to her. .Look, we all did our best with this. I gave it my shot. So did your old skipper..
.Montrose?. The family looked again, and it was Nikki‘s turn to tone it down. .You talking about Captain Montrose?.
.You didn‘t know? Your skip reached out to me right after you joined his squad. He asked me to take him through my investigation, and he didn‘t find anything, either. But he must have thought a hell of a lot of you to do that..
.Captain Montrose was a special man,. she said simply as she absorbed this news.
.Guess you gave back.. He took a sip of his coffee. .I know all about what you did to clear his name..
.It‘s what you do..
Damon made a side nod referring to Nikki as he spoke to Rook. .And I saw on the news how you took a nine in the chest saving this one..
.It‘s what you do,. said Rook.
.I took a bullet my rookie year in uniform.. He tapped the tips of two fingers to his right shoulder. .Getting shot was a picnic compared to the rehab, am I right?.
.Torture,. said Rook.
.Hell on a daily schedule.. Damon laughed.
.With brief moments of purgatory. I have a visiting sadist named Gitmo Joe..
.Your therapist calls himself Gitmo Joe?.
.No, I do. Actually it‘s Joe Gittman..
.Love that,. said Damon. .Gitmo Joe. Any waterboarding?.
.Might as well be. He comes over every day and makes me wish I had some sleeper cell to throw in just to make him stop.. That made Damon laugh again, until he caught Nikki staring at him and it withered.
.2003,. she said. .The last time you checked Property for those fenced items was 2003. Seven years ago..
.How do you know that?.
.Four years before you retired..
.If you say so..
.February 13, 2003, was your last Property check..
When the waiter returned and read the tension, the silence that hung there sent him away without a word.
At last, Carter Damon leaned forward with something resembling a plea deep inside the red rims of his eyes. .Nikki . . . Detective . . . Sometimes the trail runs cold, you know that. It‘s nobody‘s fault. You move on.. When she didn‘t reply, he continued, lowering into a hoarse rasp. .I worked your case. I. Worked. It..
.Until you stopped working it..
.Do I need to tell you how many people get murdered in this city?.
.And just how many of my mothers have been murdered?.
He shook his head and retrenched. His moment of vulnerability hardened into defensiveness. .Nuh-uh, no you don‘t. That‘s too easy. See, to you it‘s one case. To me, it ended up being one case on my list. I couldn‘t help that. The job swamps you..
.Mr. Damon,. she said, shunning the respect of using his former rank. .You‘re talking as if you actually did the job. Seems to me you stopped working about four years before you retired..
.That‘s not fair..
.Funny,. she said, .I‘ve been thinking the same thing..
.Hey, bitch, if you think you can solve this, then do better..
Heat rose. .Watch me..
Rook tossed some cash on the table and left with her.


They splurged on a cab for the twenty-block ride uptown to the precinct so Heat could work her cell phone on the way instead of losing signal underground. After Rook gave the driver the address, he said to her, .You know the doctor said I had to get some weight back on me, and may I point out you are not helping me meet my goal?.
She scrolled through her messages and said, .What are you babbling about, Rook?.
.This morning we skipped breakfast, but I suppose that‘s OK because it was to have wild sex.. Rook caught a flash of eyebrows in the rearview mirror and leaned forward, framing his head in the plexi window for the cabbie, .It‘s all right, she‘s my cousin, but my second cousin.. Nikki slouched down in the seat, trying not to laugh, because that‘s what Rook did—especially when the grim darkness reached for her—make her laugh and keep on. He turned back to her and continued, .And now what happens? We have lunch with Mr.—not Detective—Carter Damon . . . and don‘t think I didn‘t catch the nuance of the omission . . . and my total nutritional intake from that repast came from a diet soft drink..
.Who says repast?. she said, finishing a voice mail and pressing call back.
.A wordsmith delirious from low blood sucre..
Nikki held up her palm. .I‘m calling Lauren Parry..
.Perfect, the coroner. If I don‘t eat, I‘ll be seeing her soon enough..
Rook dropped her at the precinct and held on to the cab to take him back to his loft in Tribeca so he could do some independent research and read the case file Nikki had promised to e-mail him. After she sent it off, Heat assembled her squad for a midday update around the
Murder Boards beginning with the news from Lauren. .I just got word from the ME that our Jane Doe now has a preliminary time of death, which would have been the night before last, in a window of ten p.m. to two a.m.. She paused to let them keep up with their notes, then continued, .They were also able to lift some clean prints that Detective Ochoa has already circulated on the database. So far, no hits, but let‘s hope. Forensics news. They found residue on her skin of a cleaning solvent generally used in labs.. Nikki used a capped marker to point to the grime smudge on the knee of the victim‘s pants. .Also, early results of this dirt, as well as similar material on her shoes, contained elements linked to train environments..
She took a moment to survey her group. .Nice to see Detective Rhymer in the big kids part of the building again..
Detective Ochoa led the traditional chorus of .Welcome to Homicide, Opie,. using the Southern transplant‘s house nickname.
.Rhymes, you‘ll be partnering with Feller when he gets back from screening security video with Raley. Why don‘t you get a head start running a check for missing pharmacists, lab techs, medical professionals, and so forth? Any other profession you can think of that would need to use industrial strength lab solvent, hit them, too..
.Like, maybe, Ochoa‘s dry cleaner,. said Detective Reynolds, kicking off a string of catcalls aimed at Oach.
.Ah, yes,. said Heat, .the irrepressible Detectives Malcolm and Reynolds, in the house. Going to put you two right to work checking out the rails and subways to see if she worked for any of them. So, flash her picture around the MTA offices, the Long Island Railroad, Path, and MetroNorth. As you can see,. said Nikki, gesturing to the overhead shot of the victim in the
suitcase, .she is dressed like a manager or an executive, so start there with HR, but don‘t rule out conductors or yard workers..
.Got it,. said Detective Malcolm.
.And ask railroad security to screen their cams for you. Jane Doe may not be an employee but a commuter who tried to escape her killer on the tracks..
In the back of the bull pen, Raley and Feller burst in and then stopped short, seeing the briefing still in progress. She read their excitement and said, .Meeting adjourned..
As Heat closed the door to the glorified closet up the hall where Raley tirelessly screened security video, Feller said, .You were right to have us check cams near the delivery drops.. He picked up the truck driver‘s route sheet and showed Nikki where he had made ticks in order down the page leading up to a deli address with a Sharpie circle around it. .This footage comes three doors from the driver‘s last stop, at a gyro place in Queens, before he left for Manhattan..
.Northern Boulevard near Francis Lewis and Forty-fourth Ave,. added Raley while he keyed some commands on his computer. .We lucked out. I pulled this from a jewelry store that‘s had so many smash and grabs, they recently upgraded their video to HD. You won‘t be unhappy.. He made sure she was ready and hit play.
The video showed blue velvet in the store‘s empty window display, which had been cleared out at closing for overnight security. The time stamp read just before five-thirty that morning and registered only light traffic with just the occasional taillight rolling by in the darkness. The sidewalk remained empty until a figure appeared from the parking lot behind the P.C. Richard‘s electronics store across the street. He had his head down, and a drape of hair fell across his face, obscuring it. But Heat‘s attention focused on the blue-gray American Tourister he rolled behind him by the T-bar through the crosswalk toward the jewelry store. The man
turned his back to the camera as he used both hands to tug the heavy luggage up the access incline from the gutter to the sidewalk. The case lost balance on its way up. It would have toppled over, but he flung an arm out to trap it before it could fall, and the shadows defined some major arm muscles pressing the sleeves of his T-shirt. With the suitcase steady now on its two wheels, he continued on, passing directly by the store window, where the bright light inside must have caught his attention because he turned to look in the window. Raley froze the frame and grabbed a crisp, high-def, full-face shot of their man. His deep-set eyes almost looked right into the lens. The frozen glance left Nikki momentarily speechless as she realized she could be looking into the face of her mother‘s killer.
.You OK?. asked Feller.
She only said, .What do we gather from this shot?.
Raley looked at notes he had already made. .I make him about forty-five, give or take. I‘ll go with five-eleven to six feet, and two hundred, maybe two-ten considering those guns. Some kind of tattoo peeking out the neck of the shirt. Nose broken years ago, and all around a pretty hard look to him..
.I‘m betting he‘s done time,. Feller said. .I know a yard face when I see one..
.Wonder if that‘s where he‘s been for ten years,. added Detective Raley.
.Let‘s not get ahead of ourselves,. Heat cautioned, saying it as much for herself to hear as the other two. .Write up your physical description to accompany the APB. Make a close-up of the tatt, and get it to the ink and scar database at RTCC. Even though it‘s a partial, they‘ve worked wonders finding matches with less. And, yes, let‘s do make sure we get this still frame checked against prison records when we circulate it. Which should be immediately, or sooner..
.Already created the JPEG,. said Raley. .Anything else?.
.Yes. You truly are King of All Security Media..


An herbal scent greeted Heat when she opened the door to Rook‘s apartment. The entry and kitchen were dark, and she caught the ambient dance of candlelight against the walls and the brushed metal appliances. The flickers came from the great room on the other side of the counter, along with dreamy New Age music. Nikki quietly slipped her keys on the hook, hoping he wouldn‘t be disappointed when she asked for a rain check on the romantic evening. After the wrenching day she‘d just experienced, pizza, CNN, bath, and bed held all the allure she needed. Hell, she might even skip the food and TV.
.I‘m in here,. came his voice, sounding a little throaty and disconnected, as if he‘d gotten a head start on the Sancerre. Nikki stepped into the kitchen and peered across the counter to discover Rook in the dusky light, prone on a massage table. He had a towel across his ass and a strikingly gorgeous woman in nurse‘s scrubs kneaded one of his hamstrings, her long fingers just a little too close to that perfectly rounded cheek. Rook made introductions without lifting his head from the foam donut. .Nikki this is Salena. Salena, Nikki..
Salena looked up briefly at her, only long enough to show perfect teeth through her smile. She whispered a hello then resumed her interest in the spot where the upper thigh met the hem of his towel. .Mmm,. said Rook.
Salena said, .This is very tight..
.Mm-hm,. he answered.
.Excuse me,. said Nikki. She left them and found her way up the dark hallway of his loft to the bedroom and closed the door.
When he came to her afterward in his robe, he found Nikki cross-legged on the bed working her laptop. .You didn‘t have to hide in here..
.Well, I wasn‘t going to stand out there while you were having your =me time‘ with your masseuse..
.Actually, licensed physical therapist. The agency sent Salena over to replace Gitmo Joe. How cool is that?.
She closed the lid of her MacBook. .He still sick?.
.No, he quit. So it‘s Nurse Salena for the rest of my rehab. It‘s only a few more sessions, but I can live with that.. He did a few twists and bends. .I‘m feeling better already..
.He just quit?.
.I think he knew I never liked him. Sadist. Dude probably didn‘t like it that I talked back and offered too much resistance..
.That wasn‘t a problem with Salena. Not from what I saw..
.Are you jealous? Seriously? That was a therapeutic session from a licensed professional..
She laughed. .Complete with tea tree oil and Enya. Jeez, Rook, I felt like I walked into a porn video..
.There is no Enya in porn video..
The door buzzer sounded. .I‘ll get that,. she said. .I ordered us a pizza..
He followed her out of the room. .Oo, pizza delivery. Now we are talking porn video..
They ate camp-style, right out of the box, while she filled him in on the surveillance HD Raley pulled from the jewelry store cam and the forensic news about the lab solvent and train residue on Jane Doe. When they were finished eating, he said he‘d do the dishes and did so by
dropping the pizza carton in the recycling. .Good call on the pie,. he said. .Although I can‘t decide whose I like best. Original Ray‘s, Famous Original Ray‘s, or Swear to God, Folks, This Really, Really Is Ray‘s..
They adjourned from the counter to the dining table, where that afternoon he had spread the printouts he‘d made of the PDF case file she sent him alongside his typed-up notes from their meeting with Carter Damon. .In case you‘re wondering, Detective Heat, that was a very useful exercise for me to be able to sit down with that guy..
.I‘m glad somebody got something out of it. All I got was pissed..
.I hadn‘t noticed..
She scanned his notes and said, .But I can‘t see anything new that you got. Damon was right, it‘s all information already in the case file..
.What I got is a sense of his laxness. Maybe he wasn‘t when he started the case, but this is a detective who dropped the ball when it got hard and the investigation called for some old-fashioned doggedness. To me, Carter Damon is Sharon Hinesburg without the nail extensions and push-up bra. The headline for me is that we have to go back ourselves and dig deeper..
.I disagree. Much as I don‘t like Damon‘s slacker mentality—.
.—more cop-out than cop—.
.—these are dead ends. Captain Montrose always drilled us to follow the hot lead. And that means we focus on the fresh trail off that suitcase..
.We can do both..
Nikki ignored him, plowing onward. .And when we ID our Jane Doe, we‘ll be even closer..
.Why are you resisting this?.
.Beer?. she said, and left him for the fridge. Nikki had just finished pouring them each a perfectly cloudy Widmer Hefeweizen when her cell phone rang. After she listened briefly, Heat said, .Got it. Meet you downstairs from Rook‘s in five. and hung up. .That was Roach. If you want to come, you‘d better wear more than a robe..
.Where are we going?.
.Queens. They found our guy with the suitcase..

Gracias qwerty !!
Esto está cada vez mejor..

Hola chicos. Como ya voy terminando la traduccion de "Rises Heat". ¿Os parece si cuando saquen por completo el libro de "Frozen Heat" continuo con este?
Ya que estoy puesta me da igual y como ya os he dicho en el tema de traduccion del primer libro prefiero practicar ingles con estos libros que con cualquier otro.

lastral escribió:Hola chicos. Como ya voy terminando la traduccion de "Rises Heat". ¿Os parece si cuando saquen por completo el libro de "Frozen Heat" continuo con este?
Ya que estoy puesta me da igual y como ya os he dicho en el tema de traduccion del primer libro prefiero practicar ingles con estos libros que con cualquier otro.

Como quieras. Pero también me da apuro que te cargues todo el libro. Si de aquí a cuando lo saquen aún estoy libre me ofrezco a ayudar un poco

qwerty escribió:

lastral escribió:Hola chicos. Como ya voy terminando la traduccion de "Rises Heat". ¿Os parece si cuando saquen por completo el libro de "Frozen Heat" continuo con este?
Ya que estoy puesta me da igual y como ya os he dicho en el tema de traduccion del primer libro prefiero practicar ingles con estos libros que con cualquier otro.

Como quieras. Pero también me da apuro que te cargues todo el libro. Si de aquí a cuando lo saquen aún estoy libre me ofrezco a ayudar un poco

No te preocupes qwerty y muchas gracias por ofrecerte. Si me gusta hacerlo, y tengo tiempo. Estar en el paro es lo que tiene, jajaja.
¿Lo sacaban en EEUU el dia 11 de Septiembre? ¿no? Pues cuando alguien lo tengo subido a internet o me lo pueda pasar empiezo con ello. Como he dicho me sirve mucho para mi ingles y lo complemento con la escuela de idiomas.

Esto es genial lo de el 4 libro ya me he leido el primer capitulo y es AMAZING ¡¡
Pero no me voy a leer todavia el tercero porque estoy esperando al 5 de septiembre que lo saquen para bajarlo al e-book.

Y puede que sea verdad sobre el titulo del libro , que nos de pistas sobre que podemos llegar a ver en esta 5 temporada

Graciasssss ¡¡¡

http://a.abc.com/m/pdf/shows/castle/Frozen-Heat/FrozenHeatchaptFOUR.pdf

Ya ha salido el capítulo 4

La dedicatoria os acordáis?

http://a.abc.com/m/pdf/shows/castle/Frozen-Heat/5.pdf

CHAPTER 5

As the Acela Express sped toward New York’s Penn Station, Rook stared out his window at a snowy egret fishing the bank of a salt marsh on the Connecticut shoreline. “God, I wish you’d say something,” said Heat.
“What do you mean, ‘say something’?” His eyes rose to the archipelago dotting the horizon, where several hulking mansions jutted up, each stately home rooted fast to one of the tiny rock islands scattered offshore. Over a century ago, millionaires from New York and Philadelphia looking for isolation and privacy built what they whimsically called their summer cottages on those mounds of granite, appropriating Long Island Sound as a castle moat. Their perfect seclusion made Rook reflect on Petar’s comment the night before about Nikki’s defensive wall. He turned to face her across the table from him. “I think I’ve been a total chatterbox since Providence. Do you really want to hear more about my theory on why Ravel’s Boléro is such a surefire, panties on the floor, bedroom seducer?”
“Rook.”
“Hands down, the most hauntingly erotic piece of music ever. Except, maybe ‘Don’t Mess with My Toot Toot.’”
“You’re driving me crazy, so just say it. If you hadn’t pushed me to go to Boston, we never would have popped this lead.” Nikki’s cell phone vibrated and she took a call from Detective Ochoa. “That’s great,” she said and made a few notes. She hung up and said, “Case in point. In the time since we ID’d Nicole Bernardin as our Jane Doe this morning, Roach has located her apartment. It’s on Payson Avenue near Inwood Park. They’re rolling there now.”
“No such thing as Sunday off for Roach.”
“Or Malcolm and Reynolds. They volunteered to pick us up at Penn so we can Code Two up there.” She checked her watch for the tenth time in as many minutes. “We’ll still get there sooner than if we had waited for a flight.”
Rook smiled. “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something I like about Malcolm and Reynolds.”
Heat went back to looking over the photocopies Professor Shimizu had made for her of the student file and 1971 yearbook photos of Nicole Aimée Bernardin. As Nikki studied the French violin student’s young face in one picture, snapped in a candid moment laughing with Nikki’s mother and Seiji Ozawa at Tanglewood, she felt Rook’s stare.
“Know what I can’t wrap my brain around?” he said. “That your mom never mentioned her to you. Let’s look past the obvious stunner that the lady in your mom’s suitcase was a classmate of your mom’s. They weren’t just classmates. The professor said your mom and Nicole were inseparable back then. Friends, roommates—hell, they even formed their own chamber ensemble. Why do you think she never told you about her?”
She turned the page to another yearbook shot of her mother and Nicole. This time they were at the 1970 French Cultural Festival at the Hatch Shell on the Charles River Esplanade. The picture captured them eyeing each other peripherally as they played. The caption read, “Trope and Bernardin, Keeping Time,” but to Nikki the look carried more. If it were present day, the caption would simply say, “BFFs.”
Rook asked, “Do you think they had some big falling out?”
“How would I know if I didn’t even know about her?”
“Hey, here’s a theory.”
“I was waiting. Are you sure you don’t want to put on your foil cap?”
“Nicole Bernardin killed your mother.”
She just stared at him. “And?”
“Hang on, I’m formulating thoughts. . . . And that is how Nicole had your mom’s suitcase.”
“And then, ten years later, someone else killed her, same MO, and just happened to stuff her in it?”
“Oh,” he said wiggling in his seat. “What if . . . What if Nicole’s husband was your mom’s killer? That’s how she ended up in his suitcase.”
“You know, at least that has possibilities.”
“Really?”
“Yes. So quit while you’re ahead.” She closed the file and stared at the passing marshes and woodlands, seeing none of it, really. Less than a minute passed, and Rook was back, as if he’d hit reset. “There must be some reason your own mother never mentioned such a good friend.”
“Rook?” she said. “Don’t make me shoot you.”
“Shut up?”
“Thank you.”
He concentrated on the view again, glimpsing the last of the solitary islands of rock just before the train entered an underpass and the concrete wall blocked it from sight.


Even though they had to detour around a frozen zone set up on Dyckman due to a gas leak caused by the earthquake, they still made record time getting to Nicole Bernardin’s apartment in the northernmost section of Manhattan. Her building, a slender two-story town house facing Inwood Hill Park across the avenue would be Realtor listed as a charming Tudor. The neighborhood felt safe and looked well maintained, the sort of quiet street where people used canvas car covers and the half walls surrounding porches gleamed with fresh coats of paint. Heat and Rook entered the town house to find a different picture entirely.
From the downstairs foyer, in every direction they looked, the disarray was alarming. Cabinets and closets stood ajar. Paintings and pictures ripped from hooks sat askew, with busted frames tipping against wainscoting and doorjambs. An antique china cabinet in the dining room lay split open on its side with shattered crystal glassware surrounding it like ice chips. Strewn decorative objects covered all the floors as if the whole place had been shaken. “Tell me this wasn’t from the earthquake,” said Rook.
Detective Heat put on a pair of blue gloves. Raley handed him a pair and said, “Not unless the earthquake walked around crushing everything under size eleven work boots.”
Touring the ransacked town house shrouded Nikki in yet another suffocating cloud of déjà vu. Her own apartment—once the scene of her mother’s murder—had also been tossed back then, although not so thoroughly violated. Detective Damon had called that an interrupted search. This one clearly went on nonstop until the perp either found what he was looking for or was satisfied he never would.
Ochoa met her in the doorway as she entered the upstairs master bedroom. As they stepped around the fingerprint technician who was dusting the cut glass knob, she asked her detective, “Any sign of blood anywhere?”
He shook no and said, “No obvious sign of struggle, either. Although I don’t know how you’d ever be able to sort that out a hundred percent in all this mess.”
“I can give you about ninety-nine-point-nine percent, if that’s helpful,” said the lead for the Evidence Collection Unit, Benigno DeJesus, as he rose up from kneeling on the rug behind a tossed mattress. Nikki’s shoulders immediately relaxed when she saw him. The crime scene was in excellent hands.
“Detective DeJesus,” she said. “To what do we owe this honor on a Sunday?”
He pulled down his surgical mask and smiled. “I don’t know. I had an uneventful day planned when Detective Ochoa called to tell me about this case of . . . ,” he paused and then, in his typically understated fashion, continued, “some interest. So here I am.” She gave Ochoa a quick study, wondering what favor Miguel had traded for pulling in the best evidence man in the department on a day off, but Oach’s stoic face gave nothing away.
DeJesus gave her and Rook an overview tour of the town house, with his preliminary assessment being that the disarray constituted a property search without an assault associated with it. He pointed to the second bedroom, which Nicole Bernardin had set up as a home office. That had received the brunt of the rummaging. He used a penlight to indicate four tiny circular marks where the rubber feet of her laptop had lived before it got taken. The charger cord as well as the USB cable to her missing external hard drive all remained where they had once connected to the computer. Desk drawers and files all sat open and empty, except for stationery odds and ends. “The level of meticulousness here tells me whoever searched the residence focused most of his attention and care in here,” he said.
Back in the bedroom, the ECU detective said the owner of this place wasn’t sharing it with a spouse. All the toiletries, clothing, foods in the kitchen, and other tells suggested a mature woman living alone, although she had kept a supply of condoms in the nightstand and a new toothbrush, shaving cream, and a package of disposable razors in a bathroom cabinet. Hearing that, Nikki and Rook side-glanced each other, each tentatively ticking one unspoken thought off a mental list about Cynthia Trope Heat and Nicole Aimée Bernardin. The prescriptions in the medicine cabinet all matched Nicole’s name, and the few pictures in broken frames on the floor showed the victim in Europe at various ages with people resembling parents and siblings. Nikki crouched over, curious to see if her mother appeared in any of them, but she did not. She stood up and observed Rook doing the same thing in the next room.
Roach had already briefed Detective DeJesus about the traces of lab solvent and the railroad grime found on her body, and he promised to be on the lookout, as well as to coordinate with Lauren Parry at OCME on Nicole Bernardin’s toxicology to match prescription use and any other findings she learned in her postmortem. Heat was content to leave it in the capable hands of ECU, but she indulged herself in a solitary, sense-of-the-house tour before she drove back to the Twentieth Precinct. One thing she wanted to see satisfied a big piece of curiosity for her when she found it. In the downstairs closet she discovered a complete set of luggage, including the exact size of her mother’s stolen piece. All were empty, and there was no space left in the closet for the suitcase the victim’s body had been found in. That was not definitive information, but it did lessen the likelihood that Nicole Bernardin had been in possession of that American Tourister, and therefore it moved her one step down the roster of her mother’s potential killers. A bittersweet thought for Heat since, ten years later, that roster was still empty.
The silence that fell over the bull pen while Detective Heat updated the pair of Murder Boards was so complete the only sound was the squeak of her marker on the white surface as she printed in red block letters: “1. WHY KILL NICOLE BERNARDIN? 2. WHY KILL NICOLE BERNARDIN NOW?” As she wrote, she said, “As the connections between the old murder and this new one deepen, we need to be thinking about not just the why but the timing, the ten-year lag between the two.”
She turned to the room, where Rook and her squad formed a semicircle around her. Even though she had called them in on a Sunday afternoon, the detectives had turned out without complaint. In fact, beyond just showing commitment, they seemed energized by the mission sense of working this one all-out for her. Some had even brought the group snacks that they had stopped for on the way in from their homes or from the town house up in Inwood. The take-out containers of bagels, cookies, and salads sat behind them on the desktop of the lone no-show, Sharon Hinesburg, who had her phone turned off, a violation of policy. Heat tapped the board with the marker cap. “Keep coming back to these, OK? When this falls together for us, it will be because, above all else, we found the answers to these two questions.”
Their attention was on her, but their eyes were riveted on the new photos Nikki had posted, and the profound—literally graphic—story they told. On the left whiteboard, the familiar death pose of Jane Doe, now Nicole Bernardin. Inches away on the right-hand board, Nikki’s mom’s suitcase, bearing Nikki’s girlish initials, and the new addition, the blowup of Nicole and Cynthia in performance forty years ago at the Esplanade. Not only did the connection between the two victims drawn by the photo impact on the group, but the striking resemblance of young Cynthia Trope Heat to their squad leader dramatically underscored the stakes they already felt.
“By now, you all know about the lead we picked up in Boston,” she began. “And that her apartment has been tossed and, most likely, scrubbed of evidence. That includes, paperwork, laptop, even her mail. Now, these two apartment searches—my mother’s and now Nicole Bernardin’s—tell us that this one,” she said pointing to her mom’s Murder Board, “was not likely a simple burglary gone bad. Someone was searching hard for something in both places.”
Feller’s hand went up. “Do we assume it’s the same person?”
“We don’t assume. And we sure don’t know. Yet. We also don’t know if the hunt was for the same object. All we have is the common MO. Just like the killings.”
Rook said, “Here’s a notion. Nicole was French. What about international jewel thieves looking for two halves of a treasure map?”
Malcolm kept his face deadpan and said, “Oh. Like The Pink Panther.”
Rook was about to say yes, but he felt their stares. “Well. One possibility.”
Nikki continued, “Of note, all Nicole’s suitcases are apparently accounted for, as are all knives, which are in the wooden holder. I’ve assigned a group of uniforms to canvass neighbors and Parks PD for unusual activity or strange vehicles. We have some of our own work to do.”
On the Nicole Murder Board, she began a list of new assignments, placing the initials of detectives beside each. “Detective Ochoa, I’d like you to look into her personal life. Hit all the usuals: boyfriends past and present; stalker complaints; restraining orders; family feuds. If you have trouble finding anything official, check with her hairdresser. You’d be amazed what you can learn.”
“Like maybe doing something about that bald spot,” said Reynolds. “You’re blinding me, homes.”
“Detective Reynolds, you’ll contact the local sports and running clubs again now that we have a name to go with the face. And also check out Internet dating services. See if she was registered and if she had any hookups that might have gone bad. Do the upscale matchmakers, too. A professional woman might have gone to them.”
“And what do we know about the profession?” asked Detective Malcolm.
“Letterhead and business cards that turned up at the town house indicate the victim worked as the owner of her own business as a corporate headhunter.” Heat read from one of the cards. “‘The NAB Group. Discreet and confidential executive searches for industry and institutions, worldwide.’ NAB being her initials.”
Rhymer asked, “Address?”
“Mail drop. No offices evident. Phone is an eight-eight-eight. I’ve put in for a check on that number and any other phone accounts she had. Landline, if she even had one, got taken. And, as you recall, she had no cell phone on her.”
Rook said, “No cell phone? That’s like one step away from cave paintings and medicinal leeches.”
Heat posted the business card. “She had a Web site, but it’s one page stating all of the above plus an added line, ‘References and testimonials on request.’”
Raley said, “Sounds like a front or a home business.”
“Rales, you work that thread. Put on your media crown and surf for any hits on executive placements, business testimonials, you know what I’m after.” He nodded as he jotted his note. “Detective Feller, you do a search for her state and federal tax ID. That will also tell us if she used an accountant.”
“And if so, I follow the proverbial money,” Feller said.
“Like the bloodhound you are. That includes all bank accounts, safe deposit boxes, credit cards, credit check—the works. Detective Malcolm, do you own a suit?”
“Birthday,” his partner, Reynolds, heckled him.
“Whatevs,” said Heat. “Nicole Bernardin was a French national. Take a jaunt across Central Park and visit their consulate when they open. See if she’s known to them. Also put in a call to the French consulate in Boston.” She indicated the Esplanade photo. “This was for a cultural program they sponsored. Maybe she kept in contact. Find out.”
Rook had his hand up. “A thought?”
“Let’s hear it,” said Nikki.
“Her laptop is missing, right?”
“And her external drive and memory keys.”
“Right,” he continued, “but in my own travel experience with a notebook computer, I always do compulsive backing up, either by e-mail attachments I send to myself or, the new fail-safe, syncing everything to a remote internet storage cloud service like Dropbox.”
Heat said, “That’s actually a good idea.”
“Second one today,” said Rook.
Ochoa said, “I tell ya, the man’s got the power. The power of Roach Blood.”
“Detective Rhymer,” she said. “Soon as we adjourn, bust down some geek doors at the Computer and Information Technology Unit to see if they have any Big Bangers who can work a trace on whether she used a Web cloud for data backup.”
The soft-spoken detective formerly from the South lived up to his nickname of Opie by politely asking, “And it’s cool if I kick some butt, even if it’s a Sunday?”
“Even better,” said Detective Heat. “That way, they’ll know how important this is.”


After dinner they arrived at Heat’s apartment building to find the elevator still had the out of order seal on its doors. On the second landing of the stairs, Rook paused momentarily to swap grips on his Boston overnight bag. “Now I know why these are called carry-ons and not carry-ups.”
“Want me to take yours?”
“Ah-ah,” he said, shooing her hand away. “I’ll just consider this my rehab for the day.”
“Let me see if I can write the story, Pulitzer boy. Rehab today, naughty nurse massage tomorrow?”
“Now, there’s a story with a happy ending,” he said as he resumed his ascent.
Rook found an ’07 Hautes-Côtes de Nuits in the back of the fridge that he accused her of hiding from him, and then he settled beside her on the couch to look through the photo albums with her. “This is all I have left,” she said, indicating the banker’s box of family keepsakes on the floor beside her. “I don’t even know what’s missing. Whoever searched this apartment the night of the murder got the rest and must have left before he got to these.”
“Nikki, if this is hard for you . . .”
“Of course it’s hard for me. How could it not be?” Then she rested her palm on his thigh. “That’s why I’m glad to have you here with me to do this.”
They kissed, each tasting Burgundy on the other’s tongue. Then he surveyed the room and gave her a thoughtful look. “I’ve always wanted to ask, and I never quite knew how.”
“You mean, ask how I could live here after her murder?” When he reacted, she said, “Come on, Rook, the way you just scoped out this place was the most ridiculous tell I’ve seen. Well, since the last time I beat you at poker.” He didn’t respond, but just watched her.
She swiveled her knees to the coffee table and traced her fingers around the edges of a photo album. “It’s hard to say why. People encouraged me to move, back then. But leaving here felt like I would be leaving her. Maybe I will want to move out sometime. But it’s always seemed right to be here. This was always home; this is our connection.” She sat up straight and clapped her hands twice to bring a mood change. “Ready to look at some boring pictures?”
They began slowly at first, turning pages that led off with her parents’ individual grammar and high school portraits along with serious and goofy poses with family, mostly elderly. Her dad’s college photos from George Washington University included a few action shots of him playing basketball for the Colonials and cradling his business school diploma at commencement on the DC Capitol Mall. There were numerous pictures of her mother at the New England Conservatory, mostly at a Steinway or standing in front of one. There was even a picture of Professor Shimizu handing her a bouquet and a trophy, but no chamber duo shots, except for one with Leonard Frick. No glimpses of BFF Nicole Bernardin. When Nikki closed the back cover on the first album, Rook said, “It’s like a mash-up Syfy Channel meets Lifetime movie where a rip in the space-time continuum removes all traces of the best friend.”
She stared at him and said flatly, “That’s right. That’s exactly what it’s like.”
But that did coax a smile out of her, and he said, “Know what we should do? No-brainer. Ask your father.”
“No.”
“But of all people, wouldn’t your dad—”
“Not going to happen, OK? So drop it.”
Her sharpness left him nothing to say but “Moving on?”
The second album of the pair chronicled the courtship of Jeff and Cynthia Heat, a young trophy couple about Europe, including Paris, but still without Nicole. When Rook asked if she might be in the wedding party, Nikki told him there hadn’t been one. Products of the seventies, her mom and dad had succumbed to a bout of post-hippie rebellion and eloped. The ensuing series of photographs were taken of baby Nikki in New York, including a hilarious snapshot of her when she was barely walking, holding on to the wrought iron bars of Gramercy Park, peering through them angrily at the lens. “I’ve seen that expression from most of the prisoners you put in the holding cell.” She laughed at that but then closed the album. “That’s it? Come on, it’s just getting to the good stuff.”
“We’re done. The rest is mostly me at my gawky worst and we’re not doing this for your entertainment or my humiliation. I got enough of that in seventh grade. I know for a fact there’s no sign of Nicole in these.”
“I have another crazy thought.”
“You, Rook? Imagine that,” she said, refilling their glasses.
“Actually, it’s not so out there. Has it occurred to you since we found out her name this morning that you might actually be Nicole’s namesake?” He watched the impact of that play across her brow. “Ah, not so crazy now, is it?”
She tossed it around and said, “Except my legal name isn’t Nicole.”
“So? Nikki, Nicole. Not so far off. Makes sense, especially if they were such close friends. . . . Although, from this,” he said, indicating the photo albums, “Nicole’s looking more like she turned into an imaginary friend.”
Nikki went to her desk in the second bedroom to make her cell phone and e-mail rounds on the case progress, and when she returned, she found Rook cross-legged in the middle of the living room floor. “What do you think you are doing?”
“Being incorrigible, what else? It’s my job.” He pressed the play button on the old VHS player and the TV screen resolved into a video recording of Nikki, seated beside her mother at the piano. The date stamp read: “16 July 1985.”
“OK, Rook, that’s fine, you can turn it off.”
“How old were you then?”
“Five. We’ve seen enough. We’re good.”
A man’s deep voice came from off camera. “What are you going to play, Nikki?”
“Your dad?” asked Rook. She shrugged as if she didn’t know who and just stood in place, watching.
On the twenty-five-year-old video, young Nikki Heat, decked out in a yellow jumper, swung her feet to and fro under the bench and smiled. She talk-shouted to the camera, “I am going to play Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.” Rook expect to start hearing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Instead, the girl looked to whoever held the camera and confidently announced, “I would like to play his Sonata Number Fifteen.” Cynthia gave her a nod to begin, and Nikki poised her hands over the keyboard, counted silently to herself, and began the piece, which was immediately familiar to Rook. He moved closer to the TV, impressed to say the least. The piece was challenging but doable for small hands, and she struck all the notes without a miscue, although her cadence felt rote, but hell, the kid was only five. As the little girl continued to play, her mother leaned close to her and said, “Beautiful, Nikki. But don’t rush. Like Mozart said, ‘The space between the notes is music, too.’”
Heat indulged Rook his voyeurism but hit the stop button as soon as the song ended. Rook applauded, and meant it. He turned to the piano across the room: The same one, situated exactly as it had been in the video. “Do you still know the song?”
“Forget it.”
“Come on, command performance.”
“No, show’s over.”
“Please?”
Nikki sat on the couch and positioned herself turned away from the piano. Her pose gave off the vibe he got from the Sargent painting she had avoided in Boston. “You need to understand. I haven’t even opened the lid since her murder.” Her features tightened and her complexion took on a slight pallor. “I can’t bring myself to play it. I just can’t.”


A pair of sirens screamed by, wailing beneath her window in the middle of the night, and Nikki stirred. Somebody heading to emergency or jail, as that old Eagles song about New York had gotten so right. The alarm on the nightstand read 3:26 A.M. She flopped an arm to Rook’s side of the bed and found nothing but cool sheets.
“Please tell me you’re not surfing porn,” she said, tying a bow on the front of her robe. He sat in his undershorts at her dining table in the darkened room, his face cast in creepy lunar light from his laptop screen.
“In my own way, I am. Writer’s porn.” He looked up at her. The spiky bed head didn’t make him look any less crazy. “What is it that is so darn satisfying about a Google search? It is kinda like forbidden sex. You wonder, should I/shouldn’t I? But you can’t get it out of your head, so you say the hell with it, and, next thing you know, you’re sweaty and panting with excitement as you get exactly what you need.”
“Look, if you’d rather be alone . . .”
He spun his MacBook toward her so she could see the search results. “Leonard Frick. Remember the cello guy in your mom’s video?”
“Otherwise known as the cellist.”
“Who also played the clarinet in her chamber trio with Nicole. Multitalented.” Rook hitched a thumb to the screen. “Leonard Frick, graduate of the New England Conservatory, is currently employed as principal clarinetist for the Queens Symphony Orchestra.”
“Otherwise known as the principal clarinet.”
“This is why I gave up the bassoon. Too many rules.” He stood. “This guy had to know both of your mom and Nicole as well as anyone. We need to go see him.”
“Now?”
“Of course not. I need to get dressed first.”
She pressed herself against him and caressed his ass with each hand, then jerked him to her by his cheeks. “Now?”
He untied her robe and felt her skin spread warmth across his chest. “I suppose we could go back to bed. You know, for a bit. There’d still be time to see him on our way to the precinct.”
At seven-thirty that morning, Heat and Rook waited at the crosswalk outside her neighborhood Starbucks, holding three coffees: one for each of them and the other for Rook’s car service driver, who waited leaning against the fender of the black Lincoln across East 23rd. Traffic stopped and they got the walk signal, but halfway across their driver called, “Heads up!” They heard the roar of an engine and turned to face the grill of a maroon van mere feet from mowing them both down. They jumped back just in time, and it charged through the intersection and raced on. Shaken, they hurried across while they still had the right of way.
“Holy fuck, scared the hell out of me. You guys OK?”
Nikki saw that she had a case of latte leg, nothing unusual for her, and blotted it with a napkin. “What was that guy doing,” she asked, “texting?”
“No, must have been drunk or high,” said their driver. “He was looking right at you.” Nikki stopped cleaning the stain and took a step to the curb to see if she could get a plate on the van. It was long gone.


“Am I a suspect?” asked Leonard Frick. The once-skinny kid in the tux with the cloud of steel wool hair had filled out over the decades. Now, sitting across from her in the rehearsal hall at the Aaron Copeland School of Music at Queens College, Heat put him at two-seventy, and the only hair on his head was a silver goatee framed by the dimples that appeared like parentheses when he smiled.
“No, sir,” said Nikki, “this is purely for background.”
Rook asked, “You didn’t kill them, did you?”
“Of course not.” Then he said to Nikki, “He’s not a cop, is he?”
“What gave him away?” That brought out the dimples as Mr. Frick laughed. He seemed happy for the company and told them how his career in music had ebbed and flowed since the seventies. First came fill-in work as a substitute for some of the smaller symphony orchestras in the Northeast. Then a bit of commitment-testing unemployment until he landed steady work in a few Broadway orchestra pits, including Phantom, Cats, and Thoroughly Modern Millie before he settled into the QSO.
“OK, it’s not the New York Phil, but it’s a great bunch, union benefits, plus, once a year I get to play that solo clarinet opening in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Worth the whole trip just to lay out that great ascending note and see every face in the orchestra break into a grin. Even the bassoon players, and they’re all nuts.” Rook smiled and nodded in agreement. Leonard offered Nikki his condolences. “I loved your mom. I loved them both, but trust me, your mother outshined all of us. And I’m not saying that because I had a crush on her. All the guys did. She was pretty like you. And had this special gift, this . . . force that made her competitive and driven to excel, but also very kind to her fellow students. Nurturing, even. And music conservatories are notoriously cutthroat at that level.”
“Let me ask you about that,” said Rook. “Were there any ugly rivalries that might have lasted over the years?”
“None that I know of. Plus, Cindy was too into her music to make enemies or get involved in the petty stuff. That girl worked. She studied every great piano recording—Horowitz, Gould, the lot. She was the first one in the rehearsal studio in the morning and the last one out at night.” He chuckled. “I spotted her at Cappy’s Pizza one Sunday and was going to go to her table and kid her, asking her how she could live with herself, not rehearsing, and with a Chopin recital the next day. Then I look over and see she’s moving her fingers along her placemat like it’s a freakin’ keyboard!”
“Mr. Frick,” said Nikki, “do you know anyone from back then who would have a reason to kill them? My mother or Nicole, or both?” His answer was the same no. “Has anyone contacted you looking for either of them?” Again, it was a no.
It fell to Rook to steer the interview back to the Odd Sock. “You’re just one of many to talk about Cynthia’s drive and determination.”
“And talent,” said Leonard.
“What happened?”
“Beats me. It turned like that.” He snapped his fingers. “The change came when Nicole invited Cindy to come stay with her folks in Paris for a couple of weeks after graduation.” He turned to Nikki, explaining, “The Bernardin family, they were wealthy. Nicole’s parents offered to pay for the whole trip, and the plan was for your mom to come back in time to do her tryouts for all of the symphony orchestras that had been talent scouting her. She was supposed to be away for two or three weeks. That would have been June 1971. She didn’t come back until 1979.”
“Maybe she had opportunities with orchestras over there in Europe,” Nikki suggested.
He shook no. “Nah. Cindy never auditioned for an orchestra here or there. Never got a recording contract. She just kissed it all off.”
“What do you suppose changed her?” Rook asked. “Was it Nicole?”
“Maybe. But not like a relationship thing. They were too into men.” He paused. “Except one, and you’re looking at him.” He smiled, then the dimples faded. “Something happened over there that summer. Cindy went away a ball of fire and let it all go cold.” His fellow orchestra members began to file in for rehearsal. Leonard stood and picked up his Members Only jacket off the back of his chair. “What I’d still give to have one ounce of your mom’s talent.”
Rook dialed the car service driver he had hired for the morning to let him know they were finished, and the black town car pulled up to Gate Three of the campus just as he and Nikki finished their short hike from the Copeland School. “Tell you one thing I’ve learned,” he said when they had merged onto the LIE for the ride to the precinct. “The way he described your mom . . . driven, competitive, but nurturing? Professor Shimizu was wrong. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”
“Rook, would you mind if we not?” Nikki lowered her window and closed her eyes, putting her face to the wind while she thought.
After a mile of silence, the driver said, “Mr. Rook? Since you were kind enough to get me a coffee, I picked up a paper, if you’d like to read it.”
“Sure, why not?
The driver backhanded the Ledger to him. Rook had hoped for the New York Times, but a little sensationalism never hurt anybody. At least that’s what he thought until he saw the headline on the front page of the tabloid. “Holy . . .”
Heat half turned from the window. “What?” Then she saw the headline herself and grabbed the newspaper out of his hands and read it, speechless with anger.

¿Pero una duda, en que capítulo nombra "Frozen Heat"?

Skyscraper escribió:¿Pero una duda, en que capítulo nombra "Frozen Heat"?

La presentación la hicieron en el paley-fest. Y si preguntas por un capítulo.... he encontrado una mención en el 4x21, el episodio de Slaugther.

Al principio de todo se ve a Castle jugando con una Barby y una especie de Godzilla con cuerno simulando a Nikky Heat y a Dragón en ese diálogo con Martha dice que debe unos capítulos de Frozen Heat a su editor.

Me estoy descargando los capitulos y salen cada lunes en ABC a si que ya sabeis.
Se que esto es del cuarto libro, pero si alguien supiera donde me puedo descargar o si me lo pueden pasar los otros 3 libros en ingles se lo agradeceria si me mandaran un privado estoy desesperada.

qwerty escribió:

Skyscraper escribió:¿Pero una duda, en que capítulo nombra "Frozen Heat"?

La presentación la hicieron en el paley-fest. Y si preguntas por un capítulo.... he encontrado una mención en el 4x21, el episodio de Slaugther.

Al principio de todo se ve a Castle jugando con una Barby y una especie de Godzilla con cuerno simulando a Nikky Heat y a Dragón en ese diálogo con Martha dice que debe unos capítulos de Frozen Heat a su editor.

Muchas gracias me ha servido de gran ayuda

Kylum Casckett escribió:Me estoy descargando los capitulos y salen cada lunes en ABC a si que ya sabeis.
Se que esto es del cuarto libro, pero si alguien supiera donde me puedo descargar o si me lo pueden pasar los otros 3 libros en ingles se lo agradeceria si me mandaran un privado estoy desesperada.

Tengo los 3 en inglés en formato epub (te lo puedo pasar a otro formato, como en PDF si quieres) pero también los dos primeros en español. ¿No los quieres leer en español?

Beckett escribió:

Kylum Casckett escribió:Me estoy descargando los capitulos y salen cada lunes en ABC a si que ya sabeis.
Se que esto es del cuarto libro, pero si alguien supiera donde me puedo descargar o si me lo pueden pasar los otros 3 libros en ingles se lo agradeceria si me mandaran un privado estoy desesperada.

Tengo los 3 en inglés en formato epub (te lo puedo pasar a otro formato, como en PDF si quieres) pero también los dos primeros en español. ¿No los quieres leer en español?

Si gracias!! Aunque los dos primeros en ingles ya los tengo a si que el tercero me vendria bien! Y tambien me pordrias pasar los de español que tambien me los quiero leer jejejej lo que no sabia era quien los tenia.

Como mola. Yo aún no me he leído el tercero tampoco. Si quiera lo tengo. y lo quiero t.t

Los agradecimientos

It all starts and ends with Detective Kate Beckett, who has shown me that luck is a lady cop, and has a little experience herself waking up with a Bengal tiger.

Todo empieza y acaba con la Detective Kate Beckett, quién me ha demostrado que la suerte es una mujer policía y tiene un poco de experiencia despertándose con un tigre de bengala.

Aquí tenéis el capítulo 6 del libro en pdf

http://a.abc.com/m/pdf/shows/castle/Frozen-Heat/FrozenheatchaptSIX.pdf

¡A este paso cuando me llegue el libro ya me habré leído la mitad!

El libro sale a la venta mañana, día 11. Probablemente sea el último capítulo que salga público por parte de ABC.

6 capítulos free, no está nada mal.

Aunque salga mañana hasta principios de octubre no me llegará el libro T_T ¡He hecho pedidos a Japón que me han tardado menos de una semana! Bueno, el correo ordinario es lo que tiene.

saben cuando sale en español el libro?? o en ingles para descargar gratis?

En español cuenta un año/ año y medio. En inglés para descargar a partir de hoy cuando alguien lo cuelgue en internet.

ok gracias beckett