466. Chapter 466

After A Deadly Game, Part Four

Episode 2.24

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: No, not happening. Rating: K Time: See above.

In the month following Richard Castle's disappearance, Kate Beckett had become both more focused and more frantic. The brief slowdown in the murder rate that had allowed Captain Montgomery to allow her to focus on Castle had quickly gone back to normal. Montgomery had reluctantly told Beckett that she and her team would have to concentrate on murder cases.

Accordingly, Kate often worked long into the night on Castle's case after her other work was done. She was reviewing, again, all of the cases that Castle had worked on to see if anyone could possibly be involved in his disappearance. She re-read her notes from the cases.

Allison Tisdale. Killer Harrison Tisdale now in prison. Company went into bankruptcy. No longer has the funds to pay for a kidnapping/killing of Castle. No wife or girlfriend who'd want revenge. Father Jonathan Tisdale deceased during son's trial.

Sara Manning. Killer Chloe Richardson now in prison. Chloe's former lover, Ian Harris has no interest in her or their child. No one else close to Chloe with any apparent motive.

Donny Kendall and Max Heller. Killer Brandon…

"Beckett, you should go home."

Kate looked up to see Javier Esposito standing by her desk. She shook her head. "I'm okay, Javi. I just have to go over these reports again."

"You've been over them a hundred times. You're running yourself ragged. You can't keep going like this."

"Oh?" Kate snapped at him. "Then who is going to go on like this? The FBI? They think Castle's shacked up with some bimbo. They could care less. The NYPD? To them, Castle's a writer, not one of us. We're the only ones who know he is one of us. You and Ryan can't do any more because you're already buried in work because I'm not there for you to do what is my job. And I feel guilty because the extraordinary Detective Kate Beckett is cheating the murder victims, and their families, and my team, and the NYPD and Richard Castle, and his family because no matter what I do, it isn't enough. So, just let me be, Javi. Just please let me be."

As Kate looked back at the file in front of her, she saw Espo take a couple of files from her stack. "Fresh eyes, Beckett. Always a good thing."

Together they read the files.

Angela Candela. Kidnappers Theresa Candela and Nina Mendola now in prison. Father Alfred…

Kate noticed that someone was standing by her desk. She looked up to see Captain Montgomery and Martha Rodgers there.

"Katherine, I've had a little talk with Roy Montgomery here. You are simply trying to do too much. We've decided that from now on, I will come for you at a reasonable hour every night and see to it that you get a good, home cooked meal…" Martha stopped. "Well, actually, Alexis will see to that part, although I'm quite good at ordering meals over the phone. And we'll see that you get a good night's sleep."

Kate shook her head. "Sir, I can't do that. I need…"

Roy cut her off. "You will. That's an order, Beckett." Montgomery turned around. "Esposito, help Mrs. Rodgers get Beckett downstairs and into the cab. Then you go home."

As soon as Kate entered the loft, she was overwhelmed with hunger from the delicious aroma coming from the Castle's kitchen. Alexis and Martha made sure that she stayed awake long enough to eat dinner, then they guided Kate to the master bedroom.

Kate stopped at the doorway. "Martha, no. I can't sleep in his bed."

Martha gently pushed her forward. "Katherine, there's no place else you should be sleeping."

Kate was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Kate found that she liked Castle's agent, Paula Haas, far more than she liked Gina Cowell. Paula was friendly and cooperative. She told Kate that very few of Castle's fans wrote to his agent, most of them wrote to his publisher. Kate had dreaded the idea of dealing with Gina again, but Paula had called up someone at Black Pawn and arranged for Castle's fan mail to be sent over without Gina being any the wiser.

"I've divided the mail into sections. The first is what I call plain vanilla fan letters. "Dear Mr. Castle, I love your books, you're my favorite author, I love Nikki Heat." Paula pushed that box away.

"The second are the pornographic letters. They're usually from women, but he does get letters from men that are quite suggestive. Okay, not suggestive, outright pornographic." Paula held up a letter that had photos stapled to it.

Kate frowned and then gulped when she saw the photos. "She's quite attractive and very…limber." Kate finished weakly.

"We had a mail clerk who worked here very briefly. He wrote back to one of these women and pretended to be Rick. He even got a date with her. She turned out to be seventy years old and had gotten the photos off of the internet. He was disappointed and fired."

Kate pushed the pornographic box aside.

"Next are the wanna-bes. Would-be writers who think if they can just get Richard Castle to read their novel, they'll be rich and famous, too. Black Pawn sends them a form letter thanking them and telling them that Mr. Castle is a very busy man and they'll be happy to review their work if they can get an agent. Very few of them ever can interest an agent or ever write back."

Kate picked up what appeared to be a graphic novel and leafed through it. She suddenly opened to a full page spread and was shocked. "That's supposed to be Nikki Heat?"

Paula nodded.

"Her boobs are very, very big here." Kate said, suddenly not minding the covers on Castle's books.

"She's only dressed in the first couple of panels." Paula said. "That one could have gone in the porno box as well."

"You think?" Kate said.

"The last box contains the crazies. People who are threatening Rick, or someone. Not all of them could be involved with Rick's disappearance, though. For instance Mr. Adelberto Cruz, PO Box 1023668, Represa, CA, won't be a problem."

"Why not?"

Paula laughed. "Represa is where Fulsom Prison is. Mr. Cruz is doing three consecutive life sentences. I checked. Actually, Mr. Cruz has quite a way with words. Under other circumstances I might have represented him. "

"I'll take him off my list."

Kate eventually wrote about a dozen names and addresses down to check into.

"As Rick's agent, I try to keep him in the public spotlight. Up until he met you, I had no trouble getting him photographed with some attractive young lady and getting the photo onto Page Six." Paula spoke with mock severity. "You've caused me a lot of trouble, Detective Beckett."

Kate nodded. "I've caused myself a lot of trouble." She said softly.

"I've checked the women he's dated in the last few years. Most of them were happy to be seen with Rick Castle and get some publicity. Some were just happy to have said that they'd slept with the famous Rick Castle. I can't find anything that would indicate that any of them had any reason to want to get back at Rick for anything."

"There's one thing you might want to know, Kate. Rick was always careful not to get involved with married women, due to what happened with him and Meredith, I think. Of course, it's easy enough for a woman to take her wedding ring off, but Rick's pretty good at spotting them. I know he slept with a Melinda Kingston about three years ago and she's married. But if her husband decided to kill all the men she's slept with, Manhattan would be knee deep in dead bodies."

Kate had all the evidence she was going to get from Paula, but she blurted out one more question. "Did you and Castle sleep together?" She was embarrassed as soon as the question was out of her mouth. "I'm sorry. I have no right to ask that question."

Paula grinned at her. "Actually, I think you do. Rick likes you a lot. More than I've ever seen him like anyone. I think he wants a lot more with you. Lots more. But, to answer your question, yes we did sleep together after I started working with him. It really didn't mean anything to either of us. Can I ask you if you and Rick have slept together?"

Kate shook her head. "No. It's been an odd relationship. At first I resented that he had the mayor get him assigned to my team. But, he does grow on you. I was hoping that…I was hoping that things would get better."

"You've been good for him." Paula said. "He's changed. More mature. And I think Heat Wave is the best thing he's ever written. He was right to turn down the Bond books to write more about you." Paula laughed. "Although I gave him hell about it at the time."

Kate blushed." The books are about Nikki Heat."

"No, they're about you."

However, all of the leads that she got from Paula turned out to be dead ends.

With both Beckett and Ryan prepping for a trial, Javier Esposito decided to have a nice leisurely lunch at Remy's. He was checking the menu carefully when a man sat down at his table.

"How's it going, Espo?"

Javi smiled at his friend. "What? They let you SWAT animals out of your cages and out among us decent folks? What are you doing here, Tommy?"

"Headhunting. Seeing if any of your new uniforms want to work with the real men in ESU rather than sit around on their butts and push paper all day. What about you, Espo? Ever want to do some real work?"

"Homicide is real work and it requires the ability to think."

Tommy Harlan laughed. "Thinking was never your strong point, Javi."

"I do my share."

"Yeah, with Ryan, that chick and some writer. Must be tough."

"As far as tough goes, I'd put Beckett up against any of your ESU pukes any day." Then Javi remembered something. "But Castle, the writer, disappeared a month or so ago. Grabbed off the street. No one's seen him since."

Tommy frowned. "You sure? I thought I saw him the other night."

Esposito's head snapped up. "You saw him? Here in Manhattan?"

"No, on the internet. He was in a video."

"One of those TV appearances?" Espo said disappointedly.

Harlan shook his head. "It was on one of those military photo sites. They had a video taken someplace in the Middle East. I thought Castle was in it, but just for a few seconds."

"You're sure it was him?"

Harlan thought for a few seconds, "No. I thought it looked like him, but I could be wrong."

Espo got up. "Come on. You're going back to the precinct with me. Show me that video."

"Hey, I came in here for lunch."

Espo started dragging him out. "I'll buy you your damned lunch later. This is important."

On the way back to the 12th, Espo debated with himself whether to call Beckett or not. What the hell would Castle be doing in the Middle East? Well, what the hell would he be doing on a homicide team? I'd better call. But, the call went straight to voicemail. Espo told her to call as soon as she could. He might have a lead on Castle.

Kate didn't think to check her voicemail until the trial had been recessed at the end of the day. She set a new record for making it back to the precinct.

"Where's Espo?" She demanded as soon as she got to the bullpen.

"With the techs." LT replied, pointing down the hallway.

Kate ran there and burst into the room. "What do you have?"

Espo explained what he'd gotten from Tommy Harlan. Then the new tech took over. Tory Ellis. That was her name.

"This is a short video shot by Saudi Arabian TV. It's time stamped four days ago. There's a man in it for seven seconds who might be Castle." Tory pointed to a screen capture from the video. The man could well be Castle. He was the right height and size, but he had a scruffy beard and wore a ball cap which shaded the upper half of his face. "I've run facial recognition, but we only get a fifty percent chance it's Castle. That's not even close to being enough to make a positive identification."

"Can I see the whole thing?" Kate asked.

Tory ran it. It was about ten minutes long, but the man who might be Castle was only in it for seven seconds. The narration was apparently in Arabic.

"Can we get a translator?" Kate asked.

"I already asked for one." Espo said. "But I can tell you a few things from the video. Most of the people are Arabs, Saudi Special Forces from their camouflage uniforms, weapons and gear. There are three men in this, including the one we think is Castle, who don't appear to be Arabs, but there are blond haired, blue eyed Muslims. The maybe Castle and at least one other man are carrying M4 carbines, same as a lot of US Special Forces and other troops carry. Other countries use the M4 as well. Castle is wearing a ball cap, but hanging from his belt is a MICH helmet. MICH stands for modular integrated communications helmet. US forces wear it, but so do a lot of other countries, mostly issued to their special forces. And, as far as I can tell, none of the three non-Saudis have any rank, unit or branch insignia on, just like US Special Forces, or CIA paramilitaries, or a lot of other people."

Kate thought for a second. "Get the translator here ASAP. We'll need to contact the CIA, US Special Forces Command, and the Saudis. See if we can find who shot that video."

"Kate? Time to go home?" Martha had arrived.

For the first time in a long time, Kate smiled. "Martha, I think you'll let me stay up past my bedtime tonight."