At 81st and Columbus Heat stopped and turned a circle. A sheen of perspiration glistened on her chest and fed a darkened V-pattern down the front of her top. The detective showed no sign of fatigue, only alertness, seeing near and far at the same time, knowing all she needed was a glimpse of any piece of him to put her back on the run.

“He wasn’t in that good a shape.” Rook sounded a little winded. “He couldn’t have gotten far.”

She turned to him, a little impressed he had kept up. And a little annoyed that he had. “What the hell are you doing here, Rook?”

“Extra set of eyes, Detective.”

“Raley, I’ll cover Central Park West and circle the museum. You take 81st to Amsterdam and loop back on 79th.”

“Got it.” He cut against the grain of the downtown flow on Columbus.

“What about me?”

“Have you noticed I might be too busy to babysit you right now? If you want to be helpful, take that extra set of eyes and see how Kimberly Starr is doing.”

She left him there on the corner without looking back. Heat needed her concentration and didn’t want her focus pulled, not by him. This ride-along was getting tired enough. And what was with that business back there on the balcony? Pulling up next to her face like some perfume ad in Vanity Fair, those ads that promise the kind of love that life just never seems to deliver. Lucky she shook herself out of that little tableau. Still, she wondered, maybe she had just bitch-slapped the guy a little too hard.

When she turned to check on Rook, she didn’t see him at first. Then she spotted him halfway down Columbus. What the hell was he doing crouching behind that planter? He looked like he was spying on something.