Heat Storm (Castle) Read online

  “Uhh . . . no.”

  “Keep it that way. Trust me, you’ll feel better when you’re getting dressed in the morning.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “The Gotham Voyeurs are a network of high-tech Peeping Toms. Normal pornography just doesn’t do it for them. They get off on knowing they’re watching someone who wasn’t aware they were being watched. You know what I mean?”

  “Uhh . . .” Heat said again.

  “Oh, trust me, it gets worse. The Gotham Voyeurs aren’t just ordinary run-of-the-mill perverts who are happy to spy on their neighbors and keep it to themselves. They interface with each other on message boards and in chat rooms and brag about who can get the best footage. They’re constantly trying to outdo each other. They compete on who can upload the best, most graphic, most unusual stuff. The freakier the better. They also do what they call challenges.”

  “Challenges?”

  “It’s not enough for some of these guys to get random strangers. They go after specific targets. So, say one of the GVs—that’s what they call themselves—really wants to see his coworker go at it with her boyfriend. He puts out the call to other GVs: ‘Sally Smith lives on the fourth floor of a co-op on Eighty-Sixth Street, with a south-facing window. Who can get her?’ And then another GVer will say, ‘You’re in luck. I’m at Eighty-Sixth Street, seventh floor, with a north-facing window. I’ll get you Sally.’ They assign points based on the difficulty of the assignment and the quality of what’s returned, keep leaderboards and everything. It’s really quite involved.”

  “It’s depraved. Has vice ever tried to shut these guys down?”

  “Nope. What they’re doing is not actually illegal. You can film anything you want from the window of your apartment, or from anywhere you have legally accessed, or from a public street for that matter. That’s the narrow moral and legal ledge the GVers stand on. If people don’t have the good sense to shut their blinds, they’re really making themselves fair game. And some of these guys are so good, they might still be able to find a way to—”

  “Okay, stop. Just stop. I get it. There are degenerates everywhere in this world. I’m changing in my closet from now on. Please say you’ve told me all this for a reason.”

  “I have,” Raley said. “Except now we get to the good-news-slash-bad-news part of this presentation. The bad news is, one of the more active GVers lives across the street from your building.”

  “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “The good news is he had a very powerful, very expensive camera trained on your building all day.”

  “That’s the good news?”

  “You’ll start thinking so when you see the footage he got. He was doing what they call ‘fishing,’ or sometimes ‘trolling.’ The camera is wide-angle but also high resolution. So you set it on an entire building, like a fisher setting a net, then you go back later and see if you caught anything. If you did, you isolate it, then enlarge it. It comes across like a lower-quality camera that was zoomed in on the right place.”

  “Okay. So one of these jerks was fishing on my building today?”

  “Yeah, that’s about the size of it.”

  “And you got him to send you his material . . . how, exactly?” Heat asked, with some mixture of amazement and disgust.

  “Remember how you said ‘any means necessary’?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “Okay,” Heat said. “I think I need that hand sanitizer now.”

  “Yeah, I need whole-body sanitizer,” he said. “Anyway, here goes.”

  Raley’s screen, which had been black, was now in living color, showing the street outside Heat’s apartment.

  “I asked the guy to give me the entire stretch of footage between four-thirty and five, just so I had a little bit of a buffer on either side,” Raley said. “At 4:36 you see a lady going in.”

  “That’s the resident who told the detective Aaronson was alive.”

  “Sure is. And at 4:51, you see another woman entering.”

  “That’s the resident who called 911.”

  “Right. But at 4:42, a man enters. Unless the killer was already hiding in the building, this would have to be our guy. He’ll be coming shortly. We never do see him leave. I’m assuming he found some other means of exit.”

  Yeah, my fire escape, Heat thought.

  She studied the screen. The footage was being shot from above— roughly the level of a fourth-floor apartment, perhaps a quarter of a block east of her mother’s place. It was an angle that didn’t afford any viewpoint into the lobby itself, which was fine with Heat. She didn’t need to watch her doorman get slaughtered. Seeing him afterward was bad enough.

  The foot traffic on the street looked like any other day in Gramercy Park, a Manhattan neighborhood that was well-to-do, but not too well-to-do. That meant unlike, say, Central Park West, the people who owned the apartments, co-ops, and condos actually lived there.

  They were ordinary people, and they were strolling along, coming and going, blissfully unaware they were being filmed or that something so very violent was going to happen nearby.

  Heat actually recognized some of the folks—mainly the ones who came from the west, due to the camera angle. To newcomers, Manhattan seems like an endless succession of strangers. But to those who have lived there long enough, the island becomes a series of small towns stitched together into a city of eight million. You start to see the same people all the time.

  And so Heat was, in some ways, unsurprised when she saw a familiar face coming from the direction of the setting sun. The man had done his best to obscure his features with a black baseball cap and dark glasses.

  But Heat knew him immediately. She knew his walk, which was athletic and precise. It propelled him through space like the leading edge of blade, full of dangerous purpose.

  He was wearing a black long-sleeve shirt, black jeans, and, most ominously, black gloves. He had a black satchel slung casually over one shoulder. It was just the right size for a hunting knife and some lock tools, with some room left over to carry out whatever he felt like taking from Heat’s apartment.

  It had been a few years since Heat had seen him. He had never been anything close to fat, but he had clearly slimmed down. Yet he was not only leaner. He was also harder.

  Time in prison will do that to a man.

  And it had clearly done it to Bart Callan.

  * * *

  Raley waited until Heat finished watching the segment he had selected. It was, on its own, not terribly instructive. All it showed was a man in dark clothing walking into an apartment building.

  It was only when you understood what came next that it became chilling.

  “That’s Bart Callan, isn’t it?” Raley asked.

  “Yeah,” Heat said.

  “Should I tell the Thirteenth? They could never use this video in court—because there’s just no way I could explain on the record how I got it—but knowing it was Callan would let them narrow their investigation on him. I’m sure they’d be able to get other evidence once they knew who to look at.”

  “Might as well,” she said. “You should also put in a call to our friends at the US Marshals Service. They’ve had their fugitive apprehension team turning the state of Maryland inside out looking for him. They’d probably like to know he’s been seen here.”

  For what little good it would do them. There were basically two kinds of fugitives: those with means, smarts, and friends in high places, and those without.

  The latter, which was most of them, were relatively easy to catch. They were inevitably found in some local flophouse, at their former girlfriend’s place, or thumbing a ride on the interstate. The former—and Callan was not only in that class, he was basically the valedictorian—were far more difficult. They had a tendency to become one with the wind.

  Especially given what Storm had relayed to her about Callan being aided and abetted by Jedediah Jones and the Shanghai Sev
en. Between Callan’s skill set, Jones’s endless intelligence resources, and the depth of the Shanghai Seven’s pockets, Callan could remain at large indefinitely.

  Until he decided to strike again.

  Which he could do at basically any time.

  “You okay, Captain?” Raley said. “You look a little spooked.”

  “Yeah, I am,” she admitted. There was no point trying to deny it.

  “Do you think . . . I mean, I don’t mean to get you even more spooked, but do you think Callan is coming after you?”

  “Callan is too much of a coward for that,” Heat said. “He couldn’t take me out four years ago, and he won’t be able to do it now.”

  Raley looked unconvinced. “Okay, Captain. But . . . I mean, you know we’ve got your back, right? Any time. Any place. You get a bad feeling about something, you call us, right? No hesitation. No second thoughts.”

  “Right,” Heat said. “Anyway, I’ve got some stuff to do here. But great work, Rales. Really, really great work. You’ve outdone yourself. You’ve earned a shower.”

  “Yeah, but if it’s all the same to you, I’m going to take it with my swim trunks on.”

  She offered him a weary smile. He gave her a loose salute that only momentarily hid the concern on his face.

  Heat returned to her office, closing the door and dialing the blinds to the closed position. She sat in her desk chair, whose pneumatic piston sighed at the same time she did.

  She peered out the dark window and ordered her thoughts. She had been convinced The Serpent, who made threats about evincing his power, had killed Bob Aaronson. She now had clear and convincing evidence Bart Callan had been the man behind the knife.

  Did that mean Callan was The Serpent?

  It certainly made sense. The Shanghai Seven had Callan sprung from prison because he was more qualified than anyone to suss out where Cynthia Heat would have hid her counterfeit bills. Callan had ransacked Cynthia’s former apartment as part of that effort.

  But he also probably had been tasked with keeping Nikki Heat off the case—all the better to prevent her from finding the bills or other damning evidence against the Shanghai Seven. And so Callan had come up with a pseudonym behind which he could attempt to harass and intimidate her.

  And this particular pseudonym was laden with meaning. The Serpent was a harkening to the code name Cynthia Heat had once given Callan: The Dragon. Callan was practically taunting her with it, trying to add to the psychological warfare.

  And it wasn’t going to work. Heat was more determined than ever about that now. And she wanted The Serpent, aka Callan, to know it.

  She pulled out her phone, brought up The Serpent’s last text, then hit REPLY and started typing.

  HEY, CALLAN, NICE WORK AT MY MOTHER’S APARTMENT. KILLING AN UNARMED DOORMAN. YOU’RE BRAVE. BUT YOU’RE ALSO STUPID. WE GOT YOU ON CAMERA, GENIUS.

  She hit SEND, feeling some mild satisfaction about being on the offensive for once. She could imagine the smug look on Callan’s face disappearing as he read the text and realized he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was.

  Two minutes later, her phone notified her of an incoming message.

  THIS IS NOT BART CALLAN. AND I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR MOTHER’S APARTMENT. YOU’VE GOT ME ALL WRONG. AND YOU’RE NOT LISTENING. I AM OUT OF PATIENCE. NO MORE WARNINGS. THIS IS NOW WAR. YOU EITHER CEASE ALL ACTIVITIES REGARDING YOUR MOTHER OR YOU DIE.

  Heat was shaking her head as she angrily tapped out her reply, bristling at the man’s arrogance.

  HOW DUMB DO YOU THINK I AM, CALLAN? I’M NOT SCARED OF YOU. I WASN’T WHEN I PUT YOU IN JAIL FOUR YEARS AGO AND I WON’T BE WHEN I PUT YOU BACK THERE THIS TIME.

  She fired off the message with a testy jab of her finger, then considered the piles of paperwork in front of her. It was now after eight o’clock. There was just no way she could summon the willpower to concentrate on it.

  There was also the small logistical issue that she had no place to sleep. Her thoroughly violated apartment was clearly not an option. She couldn’t face the mess and heartache. She also—if she was being perfectly honest with herself—didn’t feel safe there.

  At the same time, she couldn’t crawl back to Rook’s place. Not only would it be putting him in the crosshairs, but it would send mixed messages.

  And so, with another sigh, Heat booked a room for one night at The Lucerne, a hotel three blocks south of the precinct. She splurged for a deluxe room with a king bed, but sadly clicked “one” on the slider that asked her to signify the number of total guests. Then she gathered her duffel bag, turned off her desk lamp, and walked out of her office.

  The bull pen was empty. Raley was now gone. Ochoa had preceded his exit by several hours. They were still tired from the Legs Kline case.

  The detectives on night duty were out responding to calls. She took the stairs to the first floor and bid good night to the desk sergeant, then walked out into the night.

  The front door of the Twentieth Precinct opened onto a sidewalk alongside 82nd Street with little fanfare. The sidewalk itself was narrow, no more than about six feet wide, which was why Heat had to juke to the side when a party of well-dressed thirtysomething restaurant-goers—semi-oblivious and fully drunk—practically ran her over.

  And that, in turn, was why Heat’s head wasn’t quite where it should have been when three bullets crashed into the glass door behind her.

  FOURTEEN

  STORM

  They didn’t bother turning on the lights. Nor did they speak.

  Though decades apart in age, and schooled in different tactics by very different parts of the government, the men were united by something universal about waiting for someone who hadn’t let you into their place, didn’t know you were there—and might not appreciate you being there. Announcing one’s presence under those conditions offered no tactical advantage.

  And so the Storm boys sat in darkened silence. Carl was lying on a couch that faced the man-sized hole in the living room window. Derrick was watching the front door while seated on a stool that fronted the island between the living room and kitchen. They were waiting for the rasping of a key, the sliding of a lock, the turning of a door handle.

  It was 8:32 when they finally heard those sounds. And soon the smallish form of Agent Kevin Bryan, backlit by the overhead lights in the hallway, was filling the doorway. He closed the door, set his keys in a bowl, and hung up his jacket. His actions were nonchalant, unhurried, seemingly unaware of his visitors.

  Then he whirled and, in one remarkably quick movement, withdrew his Sig Sauer and trained it on Derrick Storm.

  “Whoa! Take it easy,” Derrick said quickly, sticking his hands in the air.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Storm!” Bryan said. “What the hell is wrong with you? I was just about to pull the trigger. What are you doing here?”

  Bryan flicked a switch, and light flooded from the pendant lights that dangled from the ceiling. His small living area was fashionably and minimally decorated: The couch Carl was lying on had a matching love seat with a coffee table in front of it and a tasteful area rug underneath, all of which sat atop well-polished hardwood floors. On the other side of the island, the wood gave way to the tile of the kitchen. The granite countertops shone softly.

  Carl sat up as Bryan entered the room.

  “Oh. Hello, Mr. Storm,” he said. “I didn’t see you there.”

  “Fer Chrissakes, son, how many times do I have to tell you to call me Carl?”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “That’s no better.”

  “Sorry, uh, Carl,” Bryan said. But he still hadn’t shaken all of his rage at the intrusion. “So, seriously, Storm. What are you doing here? I mean, I could have killed you if I—”

  And then his gaze fell on the window.

  “That’s it. I’m going to kill you,” he said.

  “Sorry,” Storm said.

  “No, no. Sorry doesn’t cut it. ‘Sorry’ is for when you accidentally spill a drink on the ru
g. ‘Sorry’ is fine when you break the handle on the toilet. You don’t carve a hole in someone’s living room window and just say, ‘Sorry.’ What did you do? You have some kind of problem with using the door?”

  “I thought this place needed a little fresh air. You know these buildings can get very unhealthy when not properly ventilated.”

  “Stop screwing around,” Bryan said, staring at the window furiously.

  “Stop looking so pissed,” Derrick said. “I’ll pay for the new window. You know that.”

  Bryan’s mouth hadn’t moved.

  “And tickets to a Nationals game,” Derrick added. “First base side. Down low. You’ll be practically right next to Bryce Harper.”

  “I don’t care if Bryce Harper is sitting in my damn lap whispering sweet nothings in my ear. That’s not going to fix my window.”

  “Come on. I’ll talk to him about hitting a foul pop-up your way,” Derrick said.

  “Is there any other damage I should know about? You didn’t take down a wall or something, did you?”

  “No. I was going to wait until we left to do that. Unless you’d rather we used the door.”

  “Don’t tell me you made your dad come through the window, too.”

  “I did it the old-fashioned way,” Carl said, holding up his bag of lock-pick tools.

  “But didn’t you set off the . . . Oh, never mind,” Bryan said, shaking his head. “Look, what do you want? Because I can tell you, all I want is for you to get the hell out of here right now.”

  “We had a little dinner party this evening. Five friends of ours. They came with automatic weapons, even though we told them they didn’t have to bring anything,” Derrick said, removing the Polaroid pictures from the climbing vest and holding them out for Bryan. “Can you run these guys through Jones’s rogue gallery and give us a rundown on them?”

  The Irishman accepted them, then recoiled as soon as he parsed what they depicted.

  “Good lord, Storm. Your friends aren’t in very good health,” he said.

  “We’ll tell them to take it up with their family physician.”

  “Their family mortician might be better,” Bryan said. “But, look, that doesn’t excuse what you did to my window. Why didn’t you just e-mail these to me?”