36. Help me if you can

Castle smiles sympathetically at Julia. She visibly calms under his practiced charm and engaging attention.  “Julia,” he says gently, “I know this is really hard for you.  We just wanna help you.  Tell me all about it, so we can.”  He sounds – and probably is, Beckett thinks – utterly sincere.  Julia is wholly drawn in and focused on Castle.  Beckett pulls in her personality and stays completely unobtrusive.  This is Castle’s show now, and the best way to get this done is to let him run it.  She watches him create the only-focused-on-you atmosphere which, with only a minimal shift of tone from kindness to heat, would seduce anything female, and not a few males, within hearing distance.  Julia is emphatically not proof against it.

“He didn’t come home from work. When I called him” – she looks piteously at Castle – “his PA said he hadn’t been there since lunchtime.  She said he hadn’t any meetings after lunch but he was meeting a client for lunch.  But he hadn’t come back.”

“Where was lunch?” Castle asks. Beckett is caught up by the bitter familiarity of the tale, fighting back her memories.

“Le Rivage, on West 46th Street.”

“Oh,” Castle says happily. “I know it.  They do lovely salmon.”  Beckett jabs him, and he gets back on task.  “Okay.  If it was with a client, he’d have been wearing a suit, yeah?  He takes his work seriously, doesn’t he?”  Beckett suppresses a wince, and thinks cynically that he probably won’t have a job in a week.  So had her father fallen, as soon as he had started failing to return from lunch.

“Yes. Dark grey.  Charcoal stripe.  He looks so smart in it…” Castle gives an encouraging hum.  “White shirt, blue tie with a yellow pattern of tiny sunflowers.”

“That’s really good, Julia. Did he have a coat or scarf?  It’s still pretty cold out.”

Beckett bleakly admires the application of Castle’s full, focused attention, warmth, charm and personality on an unhappy, upset and overstressed woman. Certain similarities are not lost on her.  But there is a difference, and it’s in the look in his eyes.  This isn’t personal.  He’s sympathetic, but he’s not invested.  It’s probably why it’s working so well for him – for them: getting them everything they’re going to need.  In another ten minutes they have every scrap of information Julia can remember and a number of pieces that she probably hadn’t known she knew.  Castle turns his very best appreciative smile up to full, bulb-blowing wattage and directs it straight at her.

“Julia,” he says very sincerely, “Beckett – Kate – and I are going to go and get started on finding David. If he comes home before we call you, will you call us?”

“Yes,” she agrees, unhappily. “But… can’t one of you stay?  Please?”

Castle forestalls Beckett’s words. “No,” he says, somehow making it a regrettable matter.  “We can’t do what we have to from here.  It’ll need both of us to search.  Have you got a friend, or someone who’d come round to spend some time with you?”

Julia sniffs miserably, but consents to phone a friend who – they wait while she does – comes over straight away. The friend turns out to be a rather motherly type who gathers her in and shoos Castle and Beckett out the door.  It’s barely shut behind them when Castle grabs Beckett by the shoulders and glares at her.

“What are you doing? You were going to step back, not right into it.  We were going to ask your dad to talk to her, not go running after her and searching for her husband all over again.”

“He’s missing.  It’s not like I got a call from another precinct or O’Leary to say they’ve picked him up again.  He’s gone.  People die if they go to sleep drunk outside in this weather.  Are you saying I should leave him to die?”

“No! Of course not.  But why you?”

“Because I’m the one who can. You don’t know how it feels to be waiting for someone who doesn’t come home.”

“I do. I lost Alexis in a shop once, took me half an hour to find her.  I was desperate.”

“Half an hour? Try two days.  Try finding your father sprawled like a wino in the park, covered in vomit and urine, at dawn.”  So that’s what she’d have been doing in a park at 5 a.m.  He understands that hitch in her speech now.  “Try doing that for two years.  Try listening to him beg you to pick him up for the next three.”  It’s the same agonised bitterness and old, cold fury that she’d had on Tuesday.   “How can I not help her?  I’ve been there.”

“You’re still there,” Castle spits back at her.  “You’ll never not be there until you stop trying to save everyone else because you didn’t save your father.  That’s the bottom of all of this.   Nothing to do with family at all.”

There is a horrible silence. Finally Beckett breaks it. 

“You too?” She deliberately blanks her face and voice.  “I should have known.”  Acid sarcasm coats her words.  “You and Lanie.  Should I expect this from Ryan and Esposito too?  Or have you already gone tattling to Montgomery?  When did you cook this up?  Yesterday?  Or Wednesday?  Didn’t I give you the right answers on Tuesday?”  She’s backing away.  “Guess I know what you think too.”

Castle takes one stride and catches her shoulders again, only just not shaking her. “I have never discussed you with Lanie.  Nor with the boys, nor with Montgomery.  I’m quite capable of drawing my own conclusions about what’s wrong with you.”

“What’s wrong with me? Nothing’s wrong with me.”

“Yeah, right. You’re still compensating for walking away from your father and you still can’t forgive yourself for doing it.”  Her eyes dart past him, hunted, searching for an escape route.  “You can’t forgive him either.  You think you have, but you haven’t really.  You’re all closed up because you feel guilty about that and every time you see me with Alexis that bites.  It’s not your past, it’s your present.”

“Well, well,” she says sharply. “If it isn’t Herr Freud.  I hardly think this is the place for a psychiatric consultation.”  Every word is razor-edged.  “They’re usually confidential.”

“You’re right, it’s not,” Castle says, tightening his grip on her. “Which is why I’m taking you back to yours and we are going to talk.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Just try stopping me, Beckett. Just you try it.”  At this point, he’d welcome the chance to prove that whatever she thinks, he’s much bigger, much stronger, and, regardless of all her training, at close quarters weight and muscle will defeat her.

“I am going back to the precinct and starting to search for David Berowitz. You can do whatever the fuck you like as long as you’re nowhere near me.”

He stops. He’d forgotten the whole reason they were here in the first place.

“I’m searching too. You dragged me into this” –

“I dragged you? You wouldn’t stay away.” 

He ignores that.

“and I’m staying. I’m starting at Le Rivage, if you’re going back to the bullpen.”  His tone hardens.  “I’m not letting you avoid this any more.  You’re going to crash.  If you carry on without me, I will go straight to Montgomery.  You won’t help yourself, and you won’t let anyone else help, so maybe being ordered to do it will work.”

He lets go of her and steps back, no softness in face or tone or words. “With me or without me, Beckett.  It’s up to you what happens next.  Me, or Montgomery.  I’ll call you when I’ve talked to the maitre d’ at Le Rivage and we’ll decide what to do next with the Berowitzes.  But one way or another we are having this conversation tonight or I am going to Montgomery first thing on Monday morning.”

He leaves her there, staring at him, white faced. He hates what he’s just done, but he’s too angry with her really to regret it.  Something needs done, and when he analyses what she’d just said it sounds like Lanie gave her the same talk.  Maybe he should have talked to Lanie, but that simply seems like inviting absolute disaster and worse, breaching such trust as he has won, all the way round.  Although at this point there isn’t much that isn’t a disaster.

It’s not until he’s halfway to Le Rivage that he remembers that Beckett didn’t have her car, and by that time it’s too late to go back. On any of it.

As a result, when he manages to reach the restaurant and talk to the staff, he’s rather more intimidating and less socially charming than usual. Answers are rapid, but not terribly helpful.  Mr Berowitz had eaten with a companion – Castle is really not that interested in their food – shared a bottle of wine though the other man had drunk almost none of it, and when the other man had left had finished the bottle, paid, and left in relatively good order.  No, he hadn’t seemed inebriated.  No, he was perfectly steady on his feet. Yes, he had his coat and scarf.  No, he hadn’t wanted a cab.  Is Mr Castle likely to visit them any time soon?

Castle returns a pleasant, vaguely positive response, thanks them tangibly for their time and departs. That was a complete washout.  Now what?  He ought to call Beckett and tell her that there are no clues here, but he’s still annoyed with her (and with himself, but he’s not listening to that).  He finds a café, purchases a double espresso, not his usual, but he needs the hit of caffeine and he needs the bitter taste to clean that other bitter taste, induced by Beckett’s self-destructive idiocy, from his mouth.

Coffee helps. Coffee usually does help, he finds, to clear his thoughts.  He’s annoyed that Beckett ran straight off as soon as Julia Berowitz called her.  But… if Alexis or his mother went missing, no matter where it might be, he’d call Beckett, because he could… oh.  Because he could depend on her to do everything to find them, and it wouldn’t just be because she’s met them, or because he’s her partner, but because it’s who she has become.  So how’s that different from Mrs Berowitz?  He’d do exactly the same, and he’d be furious if she wouldn’t help…

But there is a discontinuity, and it’s not about whether she helps, it’s about why she helps.  It’s her avoidance technique.  Avoidance of getting a life, that would be.  Avoidance of listening to the truth.  He wonders again what Lanie had said to her.  And she really does need to hear the truth.  Not that anyone can force her to. 

Oh. He’s trying to force her to see it, and Lanie’s trying to force her to see it, and that is having exactly the effect he should have expected.  She’s slammed down the shutters and she’s backing away from both of them as fast as she can hit reverse.  Hell.  He’s let emotion – specifically, anger – overcome good sense again.  He drains his coffee, doesn’t call Beckett, retrieves his car and drives off to the Twelfth. 

Beckett is not at her desk. There is no evidence that Beckett has been at her desk.  He has no text or voicemail indicating where she is.  He looks around, briefly, sees absolutely no evidence that Beckett is or has been in the bullpen since yesterday, and returns to his car, utterly at a loss.  He can’t believe that she would abandon the search for David Berowitz, not after she’d promised Julia.  But if she’s not here, how can she be searching?  She can’t access the databases from home, and she surely won’t be randomly checking bars all over Manhattan.  She couldn’t be searching any other way: this isn’t on the books and Montgomery will not be happy if he finds out.  Ah.  That’s why she’s not in the Twelfth.  Well, that primarily.  Avoiding him, Castle, might well be a close second.

So what’s she doing, and why’s she risking serious trouble? The second is easy.  She won’t let someone die, and even Montgomery will have to cave in the face of protecting life.  He’ll do something, though, if he finds out.  This wouldn’t be consequence-free.  Beckett’s leave might be accelerated.  As might her next scheduled medical.  Neither of which tell him what she’s doing.  He leaves again: no point in sitting in the bullpen with no Beckett and no inspiration.  Reluctantly, he takes out his phone.  He’d wanted to get the drop on her: to arrive with no warning.  That’s not going to happen.

“Beckett.”

“It’s Castle. I’ve finished at the restaurant.  Nothing useful.  He went out in his coat and scarf: that’s all they could tell me.”

“Okay. You might as well go home, then.”  It’s cool and sensible.  It’s also exactly not what’s going to happen.  “Nothing more you can do.”

“Uh-uh. I said we were going to decide what to do next with the Berowitzes and that’s what’s going to happen.  So where are you?”

“I’ve got all the help I need. I don’t need you here too.”

“Where’s here?”  He can hear familiar sounds in the background, but he knows she’s not in the Twelfth.  If he hadn’t known that, he’d have thought she were.  So…

“Precinct,” she says briskly, unemotionally. He notes the extremely careful wording.  She hasn’t said which precinct.  Technically, she isn’t lying.  In which case, he knows precisely where she is, and with whom.  There’s only one person she could prevail upon to help her, and it’s the man-mountain O’Leary.  If O’Leary weren’t gay, Castle would already be furiously jealous, and even though he is gay, Castle is still having a very hard time controlling his bitter feelings that she’s partnering up with anyone else.

“I’m at the Twelfth,” he says bluntly. “You are not.”

“And?” It’s equally uncompromising. 

“And I’ll be at the Central Park Precinct shortly.” There’s an indrawn breath.  It might be surprise, or it might be annoyance, or it might be upset.  He really does not care.

“I don’t need you here. We got it.  Go home.”

“No. I’m on my way.”   He slices the call closed without compunction, and when the phone rings and Beckett’s number comes up on display, ignores it.  He’s pulling up at Central Park Precinct less than twenty minutes later – the advantage of the time of night.

The desk sergeant, a different, much younger man than Sergeant Hardon, calls Detective O’Leary on Castle’s polite request, and shortly Everest rumbles towards him.

“Mr Castle,” he says happily. “Come to pick up Beckett?”  Uh?  “She don’t look so good.  I think she’s sick.  Don’t know why she came up here to do this search, but she said since we picked him up – well, not me, I’m Homicide, but the uniforms – it was more likely we’d have something sooner.  And it’s good to see her.  She don’t come round half often enough.” 

He droops a little, reducing himself to a mere six-nine. “She never comes to see us much any more.  First time in a couple of months was when you were there too.  She wouldn’t come over on Wednesday to pick that man up again.  Just said she didn’t need him an’ to call his wife.  But now she’s here an’ asking me to run the searches to see if she can find him.  It doesn’t add up.”  He shakes his head sadly.  “She shouldn’t be here if she’s sick.  I don’t wanna catch the flu.  I got things to do.  You gonna take her home, Mr Castle?”

“Call me Castle, Detective. Or Rick.  But the Twelfth just call me Castle, and you’re a friend of Beckett’s, so…”

“Really?” The man is star-struck.  It’s insane.   Any moment now he’ll be asking for a PR shot.  It’s ridiculous.

“Shall we go and find Beckett, O’Leary?”

“Sure. C’mon up.  I left her with my computer running searches.”  He turns round, causing a small vortex in the elevator.  “D’you know why she’s looking for this guy again?”

“He went missing.”

“So? She doesn’t need him as a witness.”  The elevator doors open on the bullpen.  Beckett isn’t visible.  “Where’d she go?”

“Restroom?”

“She was right here. See, there’s her purse.”  The mountain bends over and prods it.

“What are you doing to my purse, O’Leary? Get your own.”  Beckett hasn’t yet noticed Castle, because he’s sneakily concealing himself.

“Brought your boyfriend, Beckett.”

“What?” She pales.  Castle steps out from behind O’Leary and smiles blandly, with an edge of told-you.

“I said I’d help find him. Did you forget that?”  She’s silenced.  “What have we got?”  Beckett doesn’t answer.

“Nothing,” O’Leary says. “There aren’t any hits in the system.  He’s not there.  No-one’s rung to say he’s picked up.  Our unis haven’t found him in the Park.  Yet.”

Beckett is slumped in O’Leary’s chair, looking a little like a child in an adult seat. Her feet don’t touch the floor.  Castle suspects that it had to be ordered specially, in extra-wide.  If it wasn’t for the expression of frustrated annoyance on her face, she’d look wholly childish.  And, of course, the pallid crawl of pain.  Castle can see exactly why O’Leary thinks she’s sick.

“Beckett,” O’Leary says, “you don’t look good. I think you should go home.  I’ll let you know if anything comes up.  Pete’s outta town, so I got nothing better to do tonight.”  He grins.  “ ‘Less you wanna lend me Castle.”

“Have him,” Beckett says. “If you can persuade him to stay.”  O’Leary misses the edge.  Castle doesn’t.  He subtly moves out of arm’s reach of O’Leary, which in practice means about ten feet.  She casts a bitter glance at him, and a more resigned one at O’Leary.  “I need to make a call,” she says, and slides off the chair towards the break room.  Castle follows, and whips into the room before the door can be shut. 

“I need to call Julia,” Beckett says wearily. “Tell her there’s nothing yet.”

“Then you need to stop.” He takes a step towards her.  “You won’t get anywhere if you’re too tired to think.  And if you’re still here when someone who knows you turns up, other than O’Leary, it’ll get back to Montgomery in a heartbeat and you’ll be up the creek without a canoe.”

“Paddle,” she says automatically.

“That too. Do you want suspended?”  She shakes her head.  “Then call Julia and then I’m taking you home.”  There’s rather more of an edge of threat on that than he’d really like, but he can’t stop it and truth to tell he doesn’t want to.  Shaking sense into Beckett’s idiocy would be enormously desirable if only it weren’t for the fact that he’s never laid rough hands on a woman (without some very explicit consents) and he’s not starting now whatever the provocation.

Beckett dials. The call is short and unhappy – on both ends of the line.  When she swipes off she sits down, a little hard.  She’s still pallid.

“Okay. We’re going.  C’mon.”  Castle exits the break room without bothering to check that Beckett is following and aims for O’Leary, who is occupying every last inch of his adapted chair and whistling a tune – probably – at the screen and his papers.  He looks blissfully happy. 

“O’Leary,” Castle smiles, “I’m going to take Beckett home so she doesn’t give you the flu.” O’Leary grins right back. 

“Sure, Castle. Lemme know if she’s trying not to leave.  I’ll give you a hand.”  Castle grins too.  The thought of O’Leary simply removing Beckett bodily is quite amusing.  “If anything pops, I’ll call her.”

“Don’t. Call Mrs Berowitz instead,” Castle says.  “She can come and get her own husband.”

“Okay,” O’Leary says amiably, and then goes off at a tangent. “Will you bring Beckett out for a beer or two?  Like I said, she hardly comes to see me any more.”

Castle spots a different opportunity: to wit, getting O’Leary out for much beer without Beckett.  Extracting a little more of her history from someone without emotional involvement might help.  Well, without family or romantic (huh?  Romantic?  That’s not quite the word he would use, yet) involvement.

At that point Beckett emerges and the moment to ask O’Leary is lost. He’ll do that some other time.

“Come on, Beckett. Home time.”

“Thanks, O’Leary,” she yawns. “Owe you.”

“You can buy me a beer sometime soon. Bring him with you.  I like him.”