A Lick Of Heat: H.E.A.T. Book Four Read online

  I blinked at the man. He didn’t usually speak in metaphor.

  “The devil’s in the details, Doc,” I said.

  He leaned forward.

  I almost leaned back.

  “How long have we been seeing each other?” From anyone else, it might have sounded salacious. From Andrew Hennessey, it just seemed… wrong.

  I cocked my head, thinking. “Six months, give or take.”

  He nodded. “Half a year.” His voice was soft and careful. I could practically see the two-by-four as it swung towards my head. “I’m worried about you,” he said.

  I stared at him, my heart thudding inside my chest. A fine sheen of sweat covered my brow; I wanted to rub at it. I remained sitting as still as my frayed nerves would allow; a deer caught in the sights of a hunter.

  Not that I’d ever thought of Hennessey as a hunter before. But right then, the two-by-four had a long spiral-grooved barrel attached to it, and it was pointed right at my head.

  What was going on here?

  “Nothing’s changed,” I said, wanting desperately to lick my lips. I almost added, “I’m fine.” But that would have been pouring fuel on Hennessey’s fire. “I’m a bit bruised and battered, Doc,” I offered, trying for a lighter tone of voice. “But I’m not down yet.”

  Hennessey sat back in his chair and stared out of the window. He’d never done that before either. His attention was always on his patient. At least, it had always been on me when I’d been in here.

  “Are you all right?” I asked when he remained silent for a good minute.

  He jerked in his seat as if I’d swung the two-by-four.

  The world crystallised. Everything but this room, this man, this moment disappeared. I knew the next sentence out of his mouth would be far-reaching.

  “I’m recommending you take a short hiatus from CIB.”

  The words were formed and spoken in a neutral tone, delivered slightly faster than Hennessey usually spoke. But his face remained impassive, and his movements remained controlled. He looked up at me; made eye contact as if it were a test of some sort he had to complete.

  “In all good conscience,” he said softly, “I can’t allow you to continue as you are.”

  “As I am?” I whispered.

  “You’re close to breaking, Lara. And if I let you walk out of here today and continue down this path you’ve chosen to take, then I’ll be directly responsible for your breakdown.”

  “Breakdown?” I said more forcefully. “Who said anything about a breakdown?”

  “I’m your doctor,” he went on as if I hadn’t even said a word. “It’s my responsibility…”

  I stood up; manila folder clutched in my hand. I was momentarily surprised to see it wasn’t my gun. That I could feel nestled in its shoulder holster under my arm. I resolutely left it there. Pulling a firearm on the Department shrink when he was just about to certify you as incapable of performing your job wasn’t a solid work plan.

  “How long have I got?” I asked. How long before he lodged his recommendation with NZ Police.

  He blinked up at me, a small smile curving his lips. So small you could almost be mistaken for thinking it not there.

  “These things usually take twenty-four to forty-eight hours to make it to the front line,” he told me.

  And in doing so, he told me everything I needed to know right then.

  I nodded my head and turned on my heel.

  “Detective,” he called out after me.

  I paused at the door, hand on the knob, and looked back at my shrink.

  “Do be careful.”

  I held his troubled gaze; saw what I’d blindly ignored for who knows how long. I had to think it hadn’t been weeks that I’d missed this change in Hennessey. I knew I was too caught up in Carl and this case and the rest of my fucked up world. But I was an observant person by nature, and I wouldn’t have missed the obvious for long.

  I nodded my head to Hennessey and walked out the door.

  Spring sunshine greeted me. The smell of new season flowers met my nose from a nearby bed of hyacinths under the old house’s bay windows. I stared across the suburban street and took stock of the vehicles parked there. Hennessey’s clinic was hidden inside an old restored villa. There was no obvious signage to say that mad people came here. It was all very discreet.

  But there was no telling who was watching it now.

  I strode across the small carpark and beeped the locks free on my police-issued sedan. With more care than I wanted to use right then, I slid into the front seat and placed the manila folder pertaining to Rhys Kyle Weston down on the passenger side. My knuckles were white when I gripped the steering wheel.

  Carl would say this was the splash of blood at the murder scene that made you suck in a startled breath of air. The drop that told you a story the victim’s body refused to speak of. Something the murderer had overlooked, but I was afraid that Weston was too clever to overlook much.

  Had he overlooked this? Andrew Hennessey speaking to me when he’d not said a thing other than condemn my career.

  You didn’t take hiatuses from CIB without consequences. Harvey Stone had taken a hiatus from CIB. He was yet to be allowed back. And the longer it took, the less likely it was that he’d make it at all.

  We all knew it. We just chose to ignore it. Pierce was the best at ignoring anything that would prove his former partner was doomed never to walk into CIB again. For an astute detective, Ryan Pierce could be pigheaded sometimes.

  I wasn’t about to fall into that category.

  I started my car, checked my mirrors and out of the window one last time, and then rolled the vehicle into late morning traffic on Greenlane East. I wasn’t followed that I could tell. But then, the damage had already been done. All Weston had to do was sit back and watch the chips fall where they may.

  I had twenty-four to forty-eight hours to find out what Weston had on Hennessey to make him baulk. The doc was a professional. I’d not once thought of him as anything else. My fear of shrinks aside, Andrew Hennessey had been a great help to me. I was still standing; a testament to his abilities. I might still be fucked in the head, but I was a functioning fuckhead.

  I took the off ramp that led into the CBD and wound my way towards Cook Street. If time wasn’t on my side, I had to use it wisely. In short order, I’d be locked out of CIB, and that meant locked out of the Wanganui computer; the NZ Police database. I needed to download as much information as I could on Weston, Hennessey and what tied them together.

  It hadn’t occurred to me to argue the point with Hennessey. I’d only have placed him in a dangerous position. Until I could determine what Weston was holding over Hennessey’s head, I couldn’t form a plan of attack. I was sure I hadn’t misread the signs in the doctor’s consultation room, but I still bit my lip nervously as I found a parking space under Central Police.

  What if I had got it wrong? What if Hennessey really did think I was close to a breakdown? It would be believable. I’d lost Carl only to find him again; killing people to protect me. I’d fallen back in love with a man I’d thought had betrayed me only to have our pasts blow up in our faces when his sister was abducted all over again. I’d been shot at, attacked, drugged, and strung up on a cross to be defiled in the ninth circle of hell. I hadn’t slept soundly in weeks.

  Anyone would crack under that.

  But I hadn’t. At least, I was pretty sure I hadn’t. Maybe this was all a hallucination, and I was comatose in a psych bed with dribble running down my chin.

  I smiled a grim smile to myself as I walked across the underground carpark. Shadows bloomed and shifted in my periphery. The scent of petrol and burned rubber engulfed me. A door slammed in the distance, and my heart skipped a beat. I shook my head, rubbed at my chest, and double-timed it to the door that led to the elevators.

  I was already jittery, and I was barely one hour into my countdown.

  My first task was to get on a computer and get what information I could before I was loc
ked out. My second was to find Pierce and feel him out. Could Weston have got to him too? To Inspector Hart? I doubted that, but coming clean to Hart was at the bottom of my list. Corrupted by Weston or not, the inspector was formidable. If he thought I was compromised, even so much as to be the target of wrath of a psychopath, then he’d sideline me for my own protection.

  I couldn’t have that.

  Carole was still missing. At the hands of Weston; said psychopath. If Weston had gone after Hennessey, who was only associated with me through therapy sessions, then who else would he target?

  My father? His new girlfriend?

  Pierce and his six-year-old daughter and wife?

  I gritted my teeth and pushed through the door into the bullpen. Shouts and harried instructions rang out on the air. A phone trilled unanswered. Someone slammed the gun safe door shut and spun the wheel. I could smell ink and cigarette smoke, sweat and cologne. I could feel the disquiet — not exactly panic but an unsettled feeling that mixed with the anticipation of a hunt.

  CIB was mobilising.

  I spotted Joe Cawfield and Robbie Simpson. The former pushing exotic looking sunglasses up his gel covered and slicked-back head of hair. The latter dusting off sugar-coated fingers as he reattached a pager to his belt.

  I automatically reached for my pager, but it hadn’t gone off.

  I rechecked the room, but couldn’t spot Pierce. My eyes did land on someone else who I wasn’t afraid to approach, though. I sidled up to Trevor Jones, who had donned his cowboy hat and was in the process of spitting out a toothpick to replace with a fresh one.

  “Keen,” he said when he saw me. “Can you believe it?” He shook his head, making his moustache flop around like a dying caterpillar. “Don’t make no sense.”

  “What doesn’t?” I asked. What the hell was going on here?

  He looked me in the eye and then sighed.

  “You don’t know,” he said.

  Clearly not. This didn’t have anything to do with my countdown, so I turned back to my desk.

  By the time I’d logged onto the computer, the room was practically bare.

  My eyes came up and scanned the bullpen again automatically, and found Trevor Jones still standing there.

  He looked sad. He looked like he was in the last place he wanted to be about to impart the last thing he wanted to say.

  Maybe this didn’t have anything to do with my countdown, but I had a sneaky suspicion it had everything to do with me.

  Chapter Two

  “Death Is Undignified And Never Pretty.”

  I stood beside a silent Trevor Jones as I watched the fire service clear the building. Soot coated the immediate area. Glass shards littered the pavers. A formerly blue and gold awning lay charred and twisted on the ground, the firemen working around it.

  Angelo’s was a police haunt. A place we all went for a quick bite to eat in between solving crimes.

  It was gone.

  Morose-looking detectives stood forlornly all around. We couldn’t get any closer until HEAT gave the all clear. I watched on as Damon emerged in full firefighting gear and crossed the short distance to us.

  The fact that he was here when he was seconded to CIB working the Weston case with me spoke volumes.

  Angelo’s might have been a police haunt, but Damon knew Angelo had been one of mine.

  I didn’t have a lot of close friends. I knew I was prickly, which made getting to know me difficult for anyone who was stupid enough to try. But Angelo Berti was as close to a friend as I could call.

  Discounting certain people. One of whom came to rest before me and took off his helmet and breathing mask.

  Sweat dotted tanned skin, dark curly hair stuck to a strong neckline, broad shoulders hunched slightly as he prepared to deliver his news. Dark brown eyes dripping emotion connected with my stoic gaze.

  We hadn’t been able to rouse Angelo on his cellphone.

  “One body,” Damon said. “In the kitchen where the explosion originated.”

  Trevor whistled. Other detectives had moved toward us to listen in and started to mutter amongst themselves — words of anger and disbelief and confusion. The heartache would come later. If at all. Ours was a harsh profession. You didn’t survive it by being emotional.

  “Can I see him?” I asked.

  “It’s still hot,” Damon said. Then when I opened my mouth to argue, he nodded toward a HEAT support truck. “You can suit up over there.”

  “This isn’t your case, Keen,” Cawfield said; a sneer twisting his handsome features into a mask I was sure the devil would wear.

  “Is it yours?” I demanded.

  He shrugged. “First on the scene and not assigned to another case, so yeah, I reckon it is. Simpson and I call dibs.”

  Great, I was surrounded by adolescents.

  “Who says you were first?” Trevor asked. “Might be that I was. And I say Keen can take a gander if she wants.”

  Territorial idiots.

  “None of you has access to a HEAT investigator willing to bend the rules and suit you up,” I told them and walked away with Damon.

  The feeling of smug superiority I would normally have felt at putting them all in their places was lost as I thought about the body lying in the charred remains of a once fine Italian restaurant.

  It was Angelo. I knew it was. But until I could confirm it with my own eyes, there was doubt. Hope. A grey area I chose to live in for as long as I could.

  “It’s not pretty,” Damon said softly beside me as he helped me into a heat resistant suit.

  “‘Death is undignified and never pretty,’” I said.

  “One of Carl’s?”

  I nodded and picked up a helmet.

  Damon led the way without another word. That’s one of the things I loved about this man. He didn’t try to dissuade me when I made up my mind. He’d offered his warning and knew I’d heard. I was a cop. The daughter of a cop. The granddaughter on one, too. He knew I was as prepared as a person could be.

  But this was Angelo’s.

  And death was never pretty.

  I stared at the scorch marks and the ever-increasing area of destruction leading out from the kitchen at the rear of the building. The explosion definitely started in the back. Some of the wait staff had been injured, along with patrons in the restaurant at the time. But only Angelo was unaccounted for.

  For a horrible moment, I resented that fact. I resented that another innocent who didn’t mean quite as much to me hadn’t been caught in the blast instead. It was a terrible thought, but I couldn’t seem to stop thinking it. And the more I thought it, the more agitated I got.

  The smell was nearly debilitating. That certainly didn’t help. Burned plastics and melted metal and charred foodstuffs.

  Pork. I always thought of pork when faced with a crispy critter.

  A sound left my lips, but the creak and groan of the building thankfully hid it. A fireman stepped out from behind the burned and broken remains of the front counter. I couldn’t identify him, but Damon nodded a greeting and shielded me from view. A watch officer then. Not part of HEAT. Flack wouldn’t have given two hoots about me being in here before the scene was declared safe for the police.

  I ducked my head and entered the kitchen. What was left of it. The roof was partially collapsed, and the back wall and window overlooking the rear alley behind the building were cracked and pock-marked. A gaping hole took up a good metre of space, allowing hazy light to filter in. Everything else was black, pitch black. As though the place had emerged from the pits of hell and crossed into the land of the living.

  But Damon and I were the only living standing here.

  He said nothing as I looked down at the broken and burned body of Angelo Berti.

  Death is undignified and never pretty. You could add to that, that sometimes it cut like a fucking knife.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  My hands fisted. My eyes welled. I couldn’t dash them away; the mask protected me from fumes and
smoke and the heat but didn’t allow me the solace of hiding my tears. I swallowed thickly and crouched down beside the body.

  Beside Angelo.

  I forgot Damon was standing there. I forgot the mass of detectives out front all clamouring for the right to investigate this mess. I forgot about Hennessey and my countdown and anything else. I stared at the charred remains of a gentle and caring man and thought about laughter and chicken sandwiches heavy on the mayo.

  My eyes tracked the blast zone to the industrial-sized ovens at the back.

  “Gas leak?“ I asked.

  “It would appear so.”

  Something in Damon’s voice had me turning around and peering up at him.

  “But..?” I left the sentence open.

  “The building was re-certified last month. Complete overhaul of the gas lines and fittings and equipment. This shouldn’t have happened.”

  “Accidents happen,” I offered, playing devil’s advocate.

  “I list only the facts, love,” he replied.

  I turned back to the scene.

  Angelo was alone in the kitchen. Not impossible, but improbable. It was just after one. Busy time for any restaurant. For a popular one down on the waterfront? I would have expected his sous-chef at least to have been here. I needed to chase him down for starters.

  My eyes tracked the broken metal bench where Angelo dressed the plates. It was some distance away, but I didn’t think that was all on the blast. Angelo hadn’t been standing at it when the gas line exploded. Had he been investigating something? Sent his staff out to clear the restaurant perhaps while he checked up on an issue out of the norm?

  I wouldn’t know until I canvassed the staff and most of those would have been taken to Auckland City Hospital already.

  I rechecked the body, careful not to disturb its resting place, but couldn’t find any clues as to what Angelo had been doing all alone in the middle of the lunch rush in a kitchen that now looked like a war zone.

  Was this war?

  I stood up.

  “I need to check on the survivors,” I told Damon. “Will you stay here?”