"I can't… I…" Soleil's face went ashen.
"We're talking two people connected to you who were killed that night, Soleil. You think good and hard and tell me what's going on. Was Cassidy Towne writing something about you? And I want the truth, no more lying."
"I have nothing more to say to you."
The crew was coming back onto the set. Soleil Gray pushed through them as she ran out. Rook said, "Aren't you going to try to hold her?"
"For what? I can charge her with lying to a police officer? Go back in time and hit her with illegal discharge of a firearm? That's not getting me anywhere. The record company lawyers would have her out in time to sing on tonight's show. I'd rather save that card for when it would do me some good. Right now, what I want to do is keep pressure on her and let her freak."
"All right. But if she blows that cartwheel tonight, it's on you." They waited around in their back row seats for rehearsal to resume. In Nikki's experience, sometimes difficult people had changes of heart after she jammed them, and she wanted to give Soleil a breather to reflect and, perhaps, return in a more cooperative mode. But after they'd spent fifteen minutes in the freezing studio, the stage manager called a one-hour meal break and Soleil didn't come forward, so they left.
As they turned the corner into the hallway leading to the elevators, someone called out behind them, "Oh, my God. Is that Nikki Heat?"
She whispered, "I don't need this right now."
Rook said, "Maybe we can outrun this one."
"Nikki?" said the man.
Hearing his voice again, she stopped walking, and Rook watched a look cross over her, the annoyance transforming into dawning surprise. Then Nikki turned and her face lit up into a radiant smile. "Oh, my God!"
Rook twisted to look behind him at the lanky, sandy-haired guy in the V-neck and jeans approaching with his arms spread wide. Nikki ran to him, colliding with him, and they hugged. She squealed with glee and he laughed. And then they rocked each other back and forth, still hugging. Not sure what to do with himself, Rook shoved his hands in his pockets and looked on as the two pulled apart to hold each other at arm's length, beaming.
"Look at you," said Nikki. "With no beard."
"You look the same," he said. "No, better." Rook noticed his "r" had a guttural sound, not a burr like he was Scottish, but definitely an accent.
Then Nikki gave him a kiss. Brief, but-as Rook made note-full on the lips. Finally, still holding him by one arm, she turned to Rook and said, "This is Petar. My old boyfriend from college."
"No kidding." Rook put a hand out and they shook. "I'm Jameson."
"James?" he said.
"Jameson. And you're… Peter?" Rook was a man who could be proud of a cheap shot.
"No, Petar. Rhymes with 'guitar.' People make that mistake all the time."
"I can't get over this." Nikki gave Petar a shake with the arm she had around his waist. "I didn't even know you were in New York."
"Yes, I work here as one of the segment producers."
"Petar, that's great. So you're the producer?" she asked.
He looked sheepishly around the hall. "Shh, you'll get me fired. Not the producer, I'm a segment producer."
Rook made himself known. "You book the guests and do the pre-interviews."
"Very good. Jim knows his stuff."
Heat looked at Rook and smiled. "Jim. Love it."
Petar explained, "The pre-interviews are to help Kirby know what to ask his guests. They get about six minutes with him once they hit the chair, so I talk to them before the show and give him a list of suggested topics, maybe some funny story that happened to them."
"Sort of like being a ghost writer," said Rook.
Petar frowned. "Well, better than that. I do get my name in the credits. Listen, I have some time, do you want to come to the green room for something to eat or drink? We could catch up."
Rook tried to get Nikki's eye. "We'd love to but-"
"We'd love to," said Nikki. "We can spare a few minutes."
The show was a live broadcast, so it wasn't on for hours; therefore the green room was all theirs. Rook began to feel, what…? Sullen. He had hoped to take Nikki out to dinner, but there they sat, filling up on Thai chicken skewers and smoked salmon wraps.
"This has turned into a day of good omens. First, five minutes ago, Soleil Gray suddenly canceled for some unknown reason." Heat turned to catch Rook's eye, but he was already doing the same with her. "So with her taking a powder that means one of my backup guests is coming in to take her segment, a feather for me. And now you, Nikki. How many years has it been?"
Nikki swallowed a tiny bite of salmon roll-up and said, "No, no. Let's not start counting years."
"No, let's," said Rook.
She dabbed her mouth with a napkin and said, "I met Petar when I took a semester abroad. I was in Venice studying opera production at the Gran Teatro La Fenice when I met this gorgeous film student from Croatia."
The accent, thought Rook. Rrr.
"We had this mad fling. Or at least I thought it was a fling. But when I came back to the States to resume my classes at Northeastern, who shows up in Boston?"
"Pete?" answered Rook.
Nikki laughed. "I couldn't send him back, could I?"
"No, you couldn't." And Petar laughed, too. Rook just kept himself busy twirling his satay in some peanut sauce.
Nikki and her old flame exchanged phone numbers and promised to get together and catch up. "You know," said Petar, "when I saw your article in that magazine, I thought of looking you up."
"But why didn't you?"
"I don't know, I wasn't sure what your life was. You know."
Rook chimed in. "It's pretty busy. In fact, Detective, we should get going."
"You are working on a big case?"
She looked around to make sure the room was clear and said, "Cassidy Towne."
Petar nodded and shook his head at the same time. Rook started trying to figure out how he did that and then decided not to.
"It was a shock. And then it also wasn't. She didn't have many friends, but I liked her."
"You knew her?" asked Nikki.
"Sure. Hard not to. In my job here I am constantly barraged by columnists, PR folks, book people. Some want to get authors on the show, some want to know who's on or, in Cassidy's case, how they behaved, who they were with, stories I might have heard that didn't make it on the air…"
"So you and Cassidy had some sort of relationship?" Rook tried to put just enough stink on it for Nikki to absorb with the most unsavory connotation.
"We had a great relationship," said Petar without equivocation. "Was she the warmest person in the world? No. Did she deal in human weakness? Yes. But I have to tell you, when I started this job, I almost didn't make the cut. Cassidy saw I was foundering and took me under her wing. Took me to boot camp on getting myself organized, hitting deadlines, how to manipulate PR flaks into getting their stars to come on our show first, ways to talk to the celebrities so they would let their guard down for the host interview… She saved my ass."
Nikki said, "I'm sorry, Petar, I stopped listening when you said she taught you to be organized."
"And hit deadlines, Nikki, can you believe it?"
While they laughed about some private memory, Rook could picture Petar ten years ago, a bewildered Croatian shuffling around her dorm, wearing her bathrobe, going "Nee-kee, no can find shoose."
When the laughter faded, Petar lowered his voice and moved closer to Nikki, his knee touching hers, Rook noticed. He also noticed she didn't move away. "I heard she was working on something."
"I knew that," said Rook. "Something big, too."