The wide belly of the boiler presented the greatest obstacle. As the carriage bounced and swayed, Rook had to climb slightly outboard to get around it. At his most vulnerable spot, Windsor lashed him with the whip. But Rook grabbed it on one of his wild thrashes, pulling it away.
Galloping across the pasture, closing in on the rear field of marchers, Windsor reached for an orange electrical cable draped over the dash rail in front of him. Rook’s heart sank when he saw the grip device dangling at the end of it. He knew that would be The Switch: the release button for the spray. He visually traced the wire to where it came out of the seat back and snaked up between the copper steam tubing to the valves on the boiler vat, then to the modern set of plastic aerosol nozzles beside his head on the chimney.
Rook yanked at it. The cord wouldn’t budge from the mechanism.
He glanced up front. Windsor had hold of the cable. The switch was nearly in his hand.
Nikki Heat fought her way out of the back of the crowd, drew her Sig, planted her left knee on the grass, and combat-braced on her right, drawing aim at the fire wagon charging toward her. She had to be careful not to hit the horse. The animal was not only an innocent, but if it dropped, it could topple the carriage and spill the virus. The same caution held for the vat. She had to wait for an angle of fire that wouldn’t risk puncturing the copper boiler if she missed Windsor or if the slug went through him.
She saw him going for the switch on the orange cable and wondered if she should just take the shot. That’s when Rook pounced on top of Windsor and clawed over his shoulders for the button. Heat holstered up and sprinted for the carriage.
Rook’s lunge knocked the cable out of Windsor’s hand. He let go of the reins and bent down into the well of the coachman’s box to retrieve it. While the undriven horse began to run a circle in the meadow, with screaming protestors diving for safety, Rook clambered to drape himself over Rainbow, reaching down past him to get the switch out of play. When Windsor came inches from getting to the end of the cable, Rook switched tactics. He balled a fist and started pounding the fresh gunshot wound. Rainbow shrieked in pain but held fast to the wire. Rook punched his calf again and again. Windsor twisted to punch Rook, and when he did, Rook snatched the cable from him and tossed the deadly end of it over the back of the seat, where it dangled out of reach.
Rainbow removed his hands from his bleeding calf and elbow-smacked Rook’s nose. As Rook fell to the side, Windsor pulled his knife from a belt sheath. Through watering eyes, Rook caught the glint of the blade and swung his forearm up. Just as he made contact with Rainbow’s wrist, the carriage double-bumped over the stone curbing of the park path and the combination flung the knife out of the killer’s hands and onto the passing ground. Unarmed and desperate, Windsor hurled himself up, bending over the back of the seat rail, groping to reach the swaying cable. But the fire carriage lurched again as Heat caught up and leaped aboard. She snatched Windsor by the back of his belt and shoved him headfirst right over the seat. He fell into the gap of air between the coachman’s box and the boiler, landing hard on the ground speeding underneath. The wagon shuddered as the rear wheels rolled over him. Nikki jumped off.
Sniffing back blood, Rook grabbed the cable and drew it safely into the coach. He called a soft “Whoa” and tugged the reins. The horse came to a docile stop amid hundreds of marchers. Across the lawn he could hear Rainbow, facedown in the grass, pleading to Heat who stood above him. “Shoot me! Aw, fuck, please, just fucking do it!”
But not all destinies are fulfilled. Nikki ended the killing right there. She cuffed him, holstered her gun, and waited for the rest of the crew to catch up while Rook neatly coiled the orange cord.
And then under the thrum of hovering airships and the urgent wail of sirens, a strange and graceful quiet enveloped her, as if mayhem’s shadow had been carried away on the spring breeze off the harbor. In her soundless world cushioned by deliverance, Nikki looked around at all the faces in the crowd, at all the people who were going to live. And looking down at Rainbow, she knew she was going to live, too.
Ten years, twenty-three weeks, and four days of agony, apprehension, and dread-all over in a single moment. She reflected on that decade-plus. Her entire adult life had been honed by loss, faith, preparation, sacrifice, and tenacity. But also by fortune. A deadly plot might have been fulfilled if it hadn’t been for a serial killer getting himself involved.
And if Detective Heat hadn’t been juggling both cases.
Monday evening Nikki came home from the federal arraignment of Carey Maggs feeling relief and agony. When Rook called from his suite at the SLS in Beverly Hills to check in on her, she said, “You know, everyone says there’s no such thing as closure. But I’m starting to learn I’m not so much interested in that as I am in a finish. I expect it’s natural that I’ll carry this hurt about my mom all my life, but I sure wouldn’t mind having the work of it end.”
“And Maggs pleading not guilty keeps it in your face.”
“Absolutely. Months and more of trial and delays. I want to be done, Rook.”
“At least the investigation part is.”
“There’s that,” she said. “You should have seen him today with his Dream Team of legal heavyweights. It looked like he was sitting there with Mount Rushmore.”
“The feds are still going to nail him, you know that.”
“But it won’t be without a long fight. His team already has petitioned to throw out the corroborative testimony from Glen Windsor’s confession. They’re calling it fruit from a tainted tree.”
“I hate that,” said Rook. “What has this country come to when you can’t trust the word of a serial killer?”
“I’d laugh if it weren’t true. I’ve been involved in enough cases to know how this will work, too. The prosecutor will trade that away if the defense doesn’t pursue DHS taking Maggs off for his extracurricular interrogation.”
“They do have a Black Barn, I know it.”
“So tell me about your meetings. Is your head swimming with fruit-basket love?”
“Truthfully, Nik, it all feels sort of empty. I mean, after single-handedly saving the world as I did.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, maybe you, Batman, and Lone Vengeance should form a support group.”
“Sure, we could call it… I dunno… Cape-Anon. Although, superheroes are generally anonymous already, so it would have to be Cape-Anon-Anon.”
“Good night, Rook.”
“Good night? But you got my Spidey sense all tingly.”
“Hold that thought.”
Home alone with no obligations after a harrowing few weeks, and a deep fatigue she thought she would never sleep off, Nikki contemplated an evening of scented candles, bubble bath, and soulful divas on the boom box. But that felt like distraction; more superficial than the inner healing she craved.
Besides, she knew she could never relax with missing pieces or loose ends.
She brought out the cardboard tube and set it on the coffee table. Puzzle Man, however unnerving a partner, had proved his worth and managed to crack the code. The message felt incomplete, but with the arrest of Carey Maggs as the leader of the conspiracy, Heat told herself to let it go.
But she couldn’t.
Back to her mom. Back to lack of closure.
Why, she wondered, would someone work so hard to construct a coded message that, essentially, didn’t reveal information? Her mother was more practical than that. No wasted effort, everything for a purpose. The apple didn’t fall far.
Nikki slid the papers out of the tube and laid them out before her. Then she stacked them and held them to the light, getting the same message as before: Unlock the Dragon.
As she had done, ad nauseam, she considered the significance of each word. Nikki focused on “Unlock” because that felt like a call to action-one she hadn’t taken. That’s what kept her persevering. Nikki had not unlocked anything.