“I had a big love there. At least I told myself it was. When that ended, I wasn’t focused on my career so much.”

“I’d be angry as hell,” said the detective. Sometimes the best way to ask a question was not to ask it.

“Hurt and fragile, yes. Angry?” Morgan smiled. “It ended up for the better. A relationship like that, you know, the fun-and-convenient, going-nowhere kind? I realized I was using that relationship to stay out of relationships, just as I was with my work. Do you know what I mean?”

Nikki shifted uncomfortably in her chair and managed a neutral “Uh-huh.”

“At best it was a place holder. And I wasn’t getting any younger.” Nikki shifted again, wondering how she had ended up as the one feeling uncomfortable. “Matthew was good to me, though. He offered me a huge chunk of money.”

Nikki snapped out of herself and back to the interview and made a note to check that out with Paxton. “How much did he give you?”

“Nothing. I wouldn’t accept it.”

“It’s not like he would have missed it,” said Rook.

“But don’t you see?” she said to him, as if he never would. “If I took his money, then that would be what it was all about. It wasn’t like people said. It wasn’t about rising to the top on my back with my legs in the air.”

Rook persisted. “Still, nobody would have to know you took his money.”

“I would,” she said.

And with those two words, Detective Heat closed her notebook. A carrot cupcake was screaming at her from that plate and it had to be silenced. As Nikki peeled at the ruffles of the bottom wrapper, she nodded her head to the trendy bake shop and asked, “What about all this? Not where I expected to find the infamous M.B.A. on Red Bull.”

Morgan laughed. “Oh, that Morgan Donnelly. She’s around somewhere. Makes an appearance once in a while and turns my life nuts.” She leaned forward over the table, toward Nikki. “The end of that affair three years ago turned out to be an epiphany. Before it came, I was getting hints, but I ignored them. For instance, some nights I’d stand there in my big old corner office up on the penthouse floor of the Starr Pointe, one phone going, two lines on hold, and a dozen e-mails to answer. And I’d look below on the street and say to myself, ‘Look at all those people down there. Going home to somebody.’ ”

Nikki was licking some buttercream frosting from her fingertip and stopped. “But come on, a career woman at the top of your game, that must have been very satisfying, right?”

“After Matthew, all I could think of was, What was I left with? And all the stuff that had passed me by while I was putting on the power suits and doing the career. You know, life? Well, here was the epiphany. One day I’m watching Good Morning America, and Emeril’s on, and he was making pies, and it got me remembering when I was a kid, how much I loved to bake. So there I was, in my pajamas and Uggs, creeping up on thirty, no job, no relationship, and let’s face it, not getting much out of either one when I had them anyway, thinking, ‘Time to reboot.’ ”

Nikki found her heart racing. She took a sip of her Americano and asked, “So you just took the jump? No net, no regrets, no looking back?”

“At what? I decided to follow my bliss. Of course, the price of bliss is a loan to the eyeballs, but it’s working out. I started small…hell, look around, I still am small…but I’m loving it. I’m even engaged.” She held out her hand, which had no ring on it.

“It’s lovely,” said Rook.

Morgan made a whoops face and blushed a little. “I never wear it when I’m baking, but the guy who does my Web site? He and I are tying the knot this fall. I guess you never know where life’s taking you, huh?”

Nikki reflected and unfortunately had to agree.

As they headed uptown, Rook balanced a huge box of two dozen cupcakes on his lap. Heat brought the car to a gentle stop at a red light so his gift to the precinct break room wouldn’t turn into a box of crumbs. “So, Officer Rook,” she asked, “I haven’t heard you tell me to slap Morgan Donnelly in jail. What gives?”

“Oh, she’s got to be off the list.”

“Because?”

“Too happy.”

Heat nodded. “Agreed.”

“But,” said Rook, “you’ll still check her alibi and whether Paxton cut her a fat good-bye check.”

“That’s right.”

“And we have a surprise mystery guest to check out, the Nordic Nanny.”

“You’re learning.”

“Oh, yeah, learning a lot. Those were very revealing questions.” She watched him, knowing something was coming. “Especially when you finished asking about the case and started getting personal.”

“…Yeah? She had an interesting story and I wanted to hear it.”

“Huh. You sure didn’t look like it.” Rook waited until he saw the color come to her cheeks, and then he just stared straight ahead out the windshield with that stupid grin again. All he said was, “Green.”

“Hey, man, it’s the thought that counts,” said Raley. Rook, Roach, and a number of detectives and uniforms were crowded in the precinct break room, around the open Fire and Icing box Rook had lovingly cradled on the drive. The assortment of buttercream icings, whipped creams, and ganache had melted and run together into what would charitably be described as cupcake roadkill.

“No, it’s not,” from Ochoa. “Man promised cupcakes, I don’t want thought, I want a cupcake.”

“I tell you these were perfect when they left the bakery,” said Rook, but the room was emptying around his good deed. “It’s the heat, it’s melting everything.”

“Leave ’em outside a little longer. I’ll come back with a straw,” said Ochoa. He and Raley moved on to the bull pen. When they arrived, Detective Heat was updating the whiteboard.

“Filling up,” said Raley. It was always a mixed feeling at this point on an open homicide, when the satisfaction of seeing the board becoming populated with data was offset by the most salient fact: Nothing up there had brought a solve. But they all knew it was a process, and every bit they posted was a step closer to clearing the case.

“So,” Nikki said to her squad, “Morgan Donnelly’s alibi checks with the Tribeca Film commish.” As Rook entered the room eating a cupcake out of a paper cup with a spoon, she added, “For the sake of her cupcakes, I hope the heat wave breaks by April. Roach, you saw Kimberly Starr’s cosmetic surgeon?”

“Yeah, and I’m thinking of getting something ugly removed that’s been bothering me for the past two years.” Raley paused and added, “Ochoa.”

“See, Detective Heat?” said his partner. “I give and I give, and this is what I put up with all day.” Then Ochoa went to his notes. “The widow’s alibi checks. She had a last-minute booking for a ‘consultation,’ and showed up at one-fifteen. That squares with her departure from the ice cream parlor on Amsterdam at one.”

Heat said, “Over to the East Side in fifteen minutes? She got there in a hurry.”

“Ain’t no mountain high enough,” said Rook.

“All right,” continued Nikki, “Mrs. Starr managed to tell us the truth about cheating on both her husband and Barry Gable with Dr. Boytox. But that’s just her whereabouts. Check phone records from her or the doc for any calls to Miric or Pochenko just to button it all down.”

“Right,” said Roach in unison and they laughed.

“See? I can’t stay mad at you,” said Ochoa.

That evening, darkness was trying to push through the soggy air outside the precinct on West 82nd when Nikki Heat stepped out carrying the Met Store box containing her John Singer Sargent print. Rook was standing at the curb. “I’ve got a car service coming. Why don’t you let me give you a lift?”

“That’s all right, I’m fine. And thanks again for this, you shouldn’t have.” She started off toward Columbus, on her way to the subway near the planetarium. “But you’ll notice I’m keeping it. Night.”