But then he felt the hot sear of the iron on the side of his face.

His scream was like no animal Nikki had heard. As his hand came off her neck, the air she gulped tasted of his burning flesh. She brought the iron up again, this time in a hard swing. The hot edge of it hit his left eye. He screamed again, and his scream mixed with the sirens pulling up to her building.

Pochenko struggled to his feet and stumbled toward the kitchen door, holding his face, bouncing off the corner of the entryway. He recovered and lumbered out. By the time she pulled herself up and made it to the living room, Nikki could hear his heavy footsteps clanging up the fire escape toward the roof.

Heat grabbed her Sig and climbed the metal steps to the roof, but he was long gone. Emergency lights strobed off the brick fronts on her street, and another approaching siren triple-burped through the intersection at Third Avenue. She remembered she had no clothes on and decided she had better go back down and put something on.

When Nikki came into her bull pen the next morning, after her meeting with the captain, Rook and Roach were waiting there for her. Ochoa was leaning back in his chair with his ankles crossed on his desk and said, “So. Last night I watched the Yankees win and had sex with the wife. Can anybody top that?”

“Beats my night,” said Raley. “What about you, Detective Heat?”

She shrugged, playing along. “Just some poker and a little workout at home. Not as exciting as you, Ochoa. Your wife actually had sex with you?” Cop humor, dark and laced with sideways affection only.

“Oh, I see,” said Rook. “This is how you people deal. ‘Attempt on my life? No biggie, too cool for school.’ ”

“No, we pretty much don’t give a shit. She’s a big girl,” Ochoa said. And the cops laughed. “Put that in your research, writer boy.”

Rook approached Heat. “I’m surprised you came in this morning.”

“Why? This is where I work. Not going to catch any bad guys at home.”

“Clearly,” said Ochoa.

“Nailed it,” Raley said to his partner.

“Thank you for not high-fiving,” she said. Even though the precinct, and by now most of the cop shops in five boroughs, knew about her home invasion, Nikki recapped her firsthand highlights for them and they listened intently, with sober expressions.

“Bold,” said Rook, “going after a cop. And in her own home. Guy must be psycho. I thought so yesterday.”

“Or…,” said Heat, deciding to share the feeling she’d been harboring since she saw Pochenko in her living room holding her gun. “Or maybe somebody sent him to get me out of the way. Who knows?”

“We’ll bag this bastard,” said Raley. “Spoil his day.”

“Damn straight,” from Ochoa. “On top of the all-points, we’ve notified hospitals to be on alert for anybody whose face is only half-pressed.”

“Cap said you guys already gave Miric an early wake-up call.”

Ochoa nodded. “At oh-dark-thirty. Dude sleeps in a nightshirt.” He shook his head at the vision, and continued. “Anyway, Miric claims no contact with Pochenko since they got sprung yesterday. We’ve got surveillance on him and a warrant for his phone records.”

“And a tap on his incomings,” added Raley. “Plus we have some blue jeans from both Miric’s and Pochenko’s apartments in the lab now. Your Russian pal had a couple of promising rips on the knees, but it’s hard to know what’s fashion and what’s wear and tear. Forensics will know.”

Nikki smiled. “And on the upside, I may have a match for those grip marks on Starr’s upper arms.” She opened her collar and showed the red marks on her neck.

“I knew it. I knew it was Pochenko who threw him off that balcony.”

“For once, Rook, I’d take that guess, but let’s not jump there yet. The minute you start closing doors this early in an investigation is the minute you start missing something,” said the detective. “Roach, go run a check on overnight retail robberies. If Pochenko’s on the run and can’t go to his apartment, he’ll be improvising. Pay special attention to pharmacies and medical supply stores. He didn’t go to an ER, so he might be doing some self-care.”

After Roach left for their assignment and as Nikki was downloading a report from the forensic accountants, the desk sergeant brought in a package that had been delivered to her, a flat box the size and weight of a hallway mirror.

“I’m not expecting anything,” said Nikki.

“Maybe it’s from an admirer,” said the sergeant. “Maybe it’s Russian caviar,” he added with a deadpan look and then left.

“Not the most sentimental crowd,” said Rook.

“Thank God.” She looked at the shipping label. “It’s from the Met Museum Store.” She got scissors from her desk, opened the box, and peeked inside. “It’s a framed something.”

Nikki drew the framed something out of the box and discovered what it was, and when she did, whatever darkness she had carried into that morning-after gave way to soft, golden sunlight, breaking across her face in the reflected glow of two girls in white play dresses lighting Chinese lanterns in the gloaming of Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose.

She stared at the print and then turned herself to Rook, who stood frowning beside her. “There should be a card somewhere. It says, ‘Guess who?’ By the way, you’d better guess me, or I’ll be massively pissed I sprung for next-day delivery.”

She looked back at the print. “It’s…just so…”

“I know, I saw it on your face yesterday in Starr’s living room. Little did I know when I called in my order it would be a get well gift…. Well, actually more like a glad-you-didn’t-get-killed-last-night gift.”

She laughed so he wouldn’t notice the small quiver that had come to her lower lip. Then Nikki turned away from him. “I’m getting a little glare right under this light,” she said, and all he saw was her back.

At noon she shouldered her bag, and when Rook stood to go with her she told him to get himself some lunch, she needed to go on this one by herself. He told her she should have some protection.

“I’m a cop, I am the protection.”

He read her determination to go solo and for once didn’t argue. On her drive to Midtown Nikki felt guilty for ditching him. Hadn’t he welcomed her to his poker table and given her that gift? Sure he bugged her sometimes on the ride-alongs, but this was different. It could have been the ordeal of her night and the aching fatigue she was carrying, but it wasn’t. Whatever the hell Nikki Heat was feeling, what the feeling needed was space.

“Sorry about the mess,” said Noah Paxton. He threw the remains of his deli tossed salad into the trash can and wiped off his blotter with a napkin. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I was in the neighborhood,” said Detective Heat. She didn’t care if he knew she was lying. In her experience, dropping in on witnesses unexpectedly brought unexpected results. People with their guard down were less careful and she learned more. That afternoon she wanted a couple of things out of Noah, the first being his unguarded reaction to seeing the photo array from the Guilford again.

“Are there new pictures in here?”

“No,” she said as she dealt the last one in front of him. “You’re sure you don’t recognize any of them?” Nikki made it sound casual, but asking if he was sure put pressure on. This was about cross-checking Kimberly’s reason he hadn’t identified Miric. As he had the day before, Paxton gave a slow and methodical pass over each shot and said he still didn’t recognize any of them.

She took away all the photos but two: Miric and Pochenko. “What about these. Anything?”

He shrugged and shook no. “Sorry. Who are they?”

“These two are interesting, that’s all.” Detective Heat was in the business of getting answers, not giving them, unless there was an advantage. “I also wanted to ask you about Matthew’s gambling. How did he pay for that?”