665. Chapter 665

After Dial M for Mayor

Episode 4.12

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Dial N for, No, I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: See above.

"Big Cheese!" Rick walked towards his friend with his hand out.

Bob Weldon took his hand, shook it, and slapped Castle on the back. "Good to see you again, Rick. We haven't seen each other since the election." Weldon shook his head, smiling. "How the time flies. That's eight months ago." He looked over Rick's shoulder and his smile widened. "And Kate is here, too." He held out his hand and she shook it.

"Good to see you again, sir."

Weldon frowned at her. "Sir? Who are you calling sir? I'm Bob to my friends and you and Rick are my very best friends." He turned back to Rick. "So what brings you here?"

"I donated a tiger to the National Zoo. We came down to see her."

Weldon smirked. "Her? Even with a beautiful wife like Kate, you still can't stay away from the females?"

All three laughed. "We know Toni a little too well for my taste." Kate said.

"I remember Rick telling me about that case. I can see your point."

Rick stepped back to look at Weldon's new office. "Cool! I thought your office at Gracie Mansion in New York was nice, but they do things up right now that you're in the Senate."

"And, I have a little something for the lady who was the most helpful in getting me here." Bob walked over to a very expensive coffee maker and poured a cup. "Here you are, Kate. And that's two pumps of sugar free vanilla?" When Kate nodded, he added the vanilla, and handed her the cup.

Kate took a sip of the coffee. "It's delicious. However, I don't know why you'd say I was the most helpful in getting you here. My investigation of the Laura Cambridge murder derailed your political career for several years."

Bob shook his head. "Your investigation kept me from going to prison for murder and embezzlement. That would have been a lot worse than having my career derailed for a while."

"That was mostly Rick's doing. He was convinced you were the victim of a conspiracy. He had to go find evidence of the conspiracy before I believed him."

"And most NYPD detectives wouldn't have bothered once they had the evidence that Bracken's people so thoughtfully laid out for you to find. Besides, you created the vacancy in the US Senate that I now occupy. And with Bracken and his allies and cronies out of the way, there was hardly anyone in New York politics left to oppose me when I ran. It's really frightening how many people he had under his control, one way or another. "

Kate thought for a moment. "Perhaps we can just agree to disagree?"

Weldon nodded, then pulled a blue paper bag out from behind his desk. "This is a pound of the coffee you're drinking. It's a mix of Ethiopian and Yemeni coffees. I have a friend in the State Department who gets it for me. But, it's for sale in New York, so I'm sure Rick can get it for you." He turned to Rick. "I hope you don't mind, Rick?"

"I love spoiling Kate. She used to hate it when I spoiled her, but I'm wearing her down." He hugged his wife and she gave him a very small glare, before smiling at him.

Before they could say anything else, they heard loud voices in the Senator's outer office. A woman stuck her head inside. "Sir, Mr. Reed is here demanding to see you."

"Let him demand all he wants, he's not seeing me, ever. And call security."

"They're here already, sir." The woman grimaced. "If he runs true to form, he'll leave quietly just before they arrest him and he'll leave yelling about the arrogance of power. Then he'll go home and write an article showing him as the brave hero confronting the politician too afraid of the righteous wrath of the people to face him." She shook her head sadly and closed the door.

"Who's Reed?" Castle asked.

"A political blogger. I'm surprised you haven't heard of him. He writes the Reed Report."

Castle looked at Kate and they both shook their heads. "Never heard of him."

"Then you're lucky. He's a conspiracy theorist who believes that everything that happened in the world since Kennedy's assassination is the result of a deep, dark government plot. His most recent crusade is to restore the reputation of that martyred American hero, William H. Bracken."

Kate almost spilled her coffee. "Bracken! How could anyone possibly think Bracken was anything but a murderous sociopath?"

"It's surprisingly easy for Reed." Weldon replied sadly.

"Can we see his blog on your computer?" Rick asked. He glanced at Kate. "If that's okay with you?"

Kate just nodded.

Bob turned on his computer and went to the blog. He let Kate sit at his desk to read it.

Kate was disgusted and angry at what she read. "He says my mom's murder was proved by the police to be random gang violence." She read further. "I used my "womanly wiles" to lure both Castle and Coonan to the precinct so I could murder an….American patriot and generous benefactor of children and…" She glared at the screen. "This is asinine." She kept reading. "Roy Montgomery is alive and living on the West Coast, courtesy of the unindicted co-conspirator Richard Castle's secret political slush fund!" She was close to completely losing her temper. "This is libel. I'll sue him." She looked at Rick. "We'll sue him."

Weldon shook his head. "He knows the libel laws too well. He says that he has evidence that you lured Coonan to the precinct. All he has to do is produce a bunch of anonymous letters from his crackpot readers and that's evidence. It's idiotic evidence and he doesn't say anywhere he actually believes it, he's just reporting what he's been sent. He's very, very careful, and if you do sue him, that'll just give him more publicity. He badly wants more publicity. He's a pain in the ass to a lot of people here in Washington, but he really only has a few thousand followers for his blog."

Rick tried to lighten the atmosphere. "Besides, you did lure me to the precinct with your womanly wiles. You've been luring me with your womanly wiles since the night you walked into the book release party."

He could tell from Kate's look that he hadn't lightened the atmosphere. "Enough, Castle." She said.

Bob and Kate tried to distract Kate by telling stories about Rick before he ever met Kate and after a while she was laughing at Castle's antics then.

After a few hours, the Castles had to leave. Senator Weldon took them to an elevator that would take them directly to the garage so they could avoid Reed if he was still hanging around.

But, as they walked through the lobby of their hotel, they found out that Reed was hanging out there.

"Mr. and Mrs. Castle! Stop where you are."

Rick stopped, but Kate dragged him toward the elevator. Reed put his hand on Rick's shoulder and stopped him. They both turned to face Reed.

"What do you want?" Kate demanded.

"I want justice for a martyred American hero. I also want…"

They never found out what else Reed wanted. A gunshot cut short his sentence and his life. As Reed pitched forward, Rick saw a young woman standing behind him with a gun. He shoved Kate aside as hard as he could and she fell to the floor. He advanced on the woman and he could see her finger tightening on the trigger, but nothing happened. He took another step and grabbed her gun hand.

"Let me go!" She screamed. "Let me go, damn you! I have to do this."

Before anything else happened, Kate hit her hard, knocking her to the floor and allowing Rick to grab her gun as she fell.

Since Kate was a New York cop, the DC police were a bit more forthcoming with what had happened.

A Captain Barnes talked to them in his office. "Captain Castle, the woman is Karen Nolan. She was Reed's secretary and mistress. She got pregnant and Reed refused to divorce his wife. He also told her that if she told anyone the child was his, he'd bury her. I don't think he meant that literally, but it looks like she's trying to base her defense on that."

"What happened with the gun?" Castle asked, still coming down from an adrenaline rush.

"It was an old Beretta that her grandfather had brought back from Europe after World War Two. It hadn't been cleaned since 1945, I'd guess. It's all rusted up. The first round fired, but the thing was so rusty the slide wouldn't go back and eject the empty shell casing. You were lucky, Mr. Castle."

Castle silently agreed.

That night at the hotel, Kate rested in Rick's arms. "Don't ever do that again."

"What?"

"Push me aside and make yourself the target."

"Ever since you got shot, I've been blaming myself for not pushing you out of the way. I saw the glint of the sniper's scope, you know. I will always push you out of the way of danger. There's no way I won't."

Kate ran her hand over his chest. "You do remember that we're much better together than alone, don't you? And if you had pushed me out of the way and gotten killed, my life would have been over, one way or another."

"We can't stand the thought of losing the other one, can we?" Rick said.

"So we're better off together. We both live or we both die."

Neither one said anything further about this, but both knew that if it came down to it, they'd push the other one out of danger and face danger alone.