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. Good night, Rook. Good night? But you gotmy Spidey sense all tingly. Hold that thought.Home alone with noobligations after a harrowingfew weeks, and a deep fatigueshe thought she would neversleep off, Nikki contemplatedan evening of scented candles,bubble bath, and soulful divason the boom box.But that feltlike distraction; moresuperficial than the innerhealing she craved.Besides, she knew shecould never relax with missingpieces or loose ends.She brought out thecardboard tube and set it onthe coffee table.Puzzle Man,however unnerving a partner,had proved his worth andmanaged to crack the code.The message felt incomplete,but with the arrest of CareyMaggs as the leader of theconspiracy, Heat told herselfto let it go.But she couldn t.Back to her mom.Back tolack of closure.Why, she wondered, wouldsomeone work so hard toconstruct a coded messagethat, essentially, didn t revealinformation? Her mother wasmore practical than that.Nowasted effort, everything for apurpose.The apple didn t fallfar.Nikki slid the papers out ofthe tube and laid them outbefore her.Then she stackedthem and held them to thelight, getting the same messageas before: Unlock the Dragon.As she had done, adnauseam, she considered thesignificance of each word.Nikki focused on  Unlockbecause that felt like a call toaction one she hadn t taken.That s what kept herpersevering.Nikki had notunlocked anything.She had spent eleven yearsgoing around that apartmentsearching for locks or secretboxes.Her father had let hergo through some of theirthings that he had brought tohis condo in Scarsdale, andshe had found nothing there.So no more house searches.Heat stared at the messageuntil her eyes glazed.Then shespread the four pages apart,kicking herself for going backto square one like that.But shedid.Why was this so difficult?What had Puzzle Man said?That the hardest code to crackwas the one that s only knownby two people? The senderand the receiver.If Nikki were the intendedreceiver, she wondered, whychoose her? When her motherwas murdered, Heat was atheater student atNortheastern, not a cop, andwith no hint of becoming one.Or maybe her mom knewmore about her nature thanshe did.Or simply trusted hercompletely. So, Mom, she said aloud, what s just between us here?She tried not to picture themother of her nightmaressprawled on the kitchen floor.Her gaze fell across the room,and the ghost of her recentdream came to her: Cynthiaplaying the piano in thecorner, saying,  You know& It began to seep through asshe laid her eyes on the fourpages again.Nikki removedher focus from the codedmarks themselves andcontemplated the sheet musicthey had been written on.Arecollection drifted to her on atrail of time s smoke.Those four piecescomprised one of Nikki spiano recitals when she wassixteen.She rushed to thepiano bench and dug out theold program.There they wereon the list.Those four songs,and no others.Why choose them for thecode?That recital lived clearly inher memory.She recalled herstage fright, and making onlyone mistake in her fingering,which (for the first time) shehad not let shake herconfidence.And what else?Oh, yes! Her mother was soproud of her that night shecelebrated by taking Nikki outfor dinner and letting herhave her very first drink.They d gone to the Players,where her mom was amember.The club sat only afew doors from their place butcarried a grand history andspecialness to Nikki.Hermother asked the bartender togo in back and unlock herprivate wine locker for aspecial bottle.When heuncorked it and left, Cynthiadrank down the water fromNikki s glass then poured herdaughter some of thecelebration wine.Her momonly allowed the sixteen-year-old a half glass.To Nikki, itwas brimming.Heat checked her watch andstood.The new warmth thatflowed through her came fromsomething more thanrevelation, more than closure.She felt a connection.Nikki put on her coat andstepped out.The bartender s hair had gonewhite over the years but hestill remembered Miss Heat,same as he recalled everyonewho ever had been a memberor honored guest at thePlayers.If George had beenworking the Grill Room whenSamuel Clemens knocked cueballs around the billiard tablethat still lived there, he wouldhave memorized every shot,quip, and bawdy curse fromMr.Twain.He got his keys off thehook above the bar sink, andas he led Nikki to the back, hesaid,  I still see your dad comein from time to time.Althoughnot so much since& George s brow fell.He left itthere.In the back of the room,past cases of hard liquor andhouse wines, built-in cabinetsfilled a wall. Here we go,said George,  the privatestock [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]