51. Chapter 51

Chapter 51

"Where's Castle this morning?" Esposito asked when Beckett was back at her desk.

"He's organizing some things at home, but he'll be in later," she answered. "Do we have something new? I know you closed out that last case without me. And thank you."

"You know we got your back," Ryan told her. Then with a grin, he added, "Even when you're slacking off. Are you feeling better?"

"Yeah. I felt human again for enough of yesterday that I figured I had to come back to work."

"Well, thank you for gracing us with your presence," Esposito answered dryly, and yeah. Something new. Call came in just before you and Gates got back."

"Text me the address, and I'll meet you there." On their way to the parking area, Kate stopped on the sidewalk and told Esposito quietly enough the traffic noise would cover it, "You should call Castle on the other phone when you can."

"Got it," he answered, and he and Ryan got in their car.

Beckett raised a hand to acknowledge his answer and said, "I'll call Castle," as she got in her car.

Ryan had caught enough to know not to say anything, but he raised eyebrows in question.

"Later, Bro'," his partner told him and inclined his head and eyebrows toward Beckett's car as she moved out into traffic.

"Whatever," Ryan answered, catching on.

Castle didn't join them at the crime scene. But he did come in late that morning and picked up the details of the case as they organized them on the murder board, asking questions and adding his two cents. Aliens were mentioned once, but it was with an accompanying rascally grin.

Before she and Castle left for lunch, Beckett walked to the captain's door and announced their plans, taking a slip of paper with her with the name and address of a restaurant and a time to meet. "Here's the information I promised," she said as she left the paper on Gates's desk.

Gates read it quickly before going back to her work and answered without looking up again, "Exactly what I needed. Enjoy your lunch."

After lunch, Castle went home and continued his work organizing their new information into his murder board. After well more than an hour at the computer, he leaned back, stretched, and took in a deep breath. Then he got up and paced around the loft for a few minutes to give his legs and back a break. Returning to his project, he poured himself a small glass of his best scotch and sat back down at his desk to check over what he had done. He was determined to have at least the most important elements of their new information incorporated into his murder board set-up before they met with Gates that night.

At this point he thought the murder board should have a different name. He was a writer. He should be able to come up with something, but he was temporarily unable to find a word to describe what they had…other than fear. If the senator, even at the beginning of his career, was so cold-bloodedly determined to gain power and hold on to it, it was beyond frightening to know what he could do with all the resources he had now. He took another deep breath at the thought of what they were about to undertake, dreading the possibilities if anything went wrong. But they had enough to ruin Bracken's career on convincing circumstantial evidence alone and probably enough to put him behind bars for a few years; and if they worked quietly enough, there were openings to find more solid proof to go with what they already had. Part of him wanted to take his family and move them to someplace away from it all, pretend Bracken didn't exist; but the better part of him knew they had to stop him somehow.

He thought again about the recent accusations against the mayor, and that it seemed to have something to do with Johanna Beckett's murder. But it was more likely that it had something to do with the man who ordered it. Did Bracken have a political ax to grind with the mayor, or was he simply trying to work one of his less honest cohorts into the office at the next election? Who was the well-placed pawn Smith mentioned? Could it be Kate? Could it be him? Somehow, they seemed to end up in the middle of whatever was connected to Bracken. Was that as much by chance as it looked, or was someone pulling strings to make it happen? With a deep sigh, he decided he'd have to speculate on that later. He needed to get back to work if he intended to take stick drive copies of the board for Gates that night. Something as small as a stick drive should be easy to deliver unnoticed.

xxxxx

Beckett's team met with members of the victim's family and gathered as much information as they could before lining up interviews with friends, neighbors, and work associates; and by the time they had talked to a few of them, it was past time to go home.

"Looking at her watch, she told the boys, "I need to get home right now, but I'll be here early tomorrow morning. The two of you go home and relax tonight. You were shorthanded on the last case."

"A night off? Great. I might take Jenny out for dinner," Ryan answered. "Call Lanie and come with us if you want," he said to Esposito.

"Yeah, I might do that."

"If you want to take them to The Haunt, I'll tell Castle. He'll call and tell them to take care of the bill. Consider it a thank you for taking the whole load on the last case," Beckett said, stopping at Ryan's desk on her way out. "Call me if you decide that's what you want to do."

"Thanks, Beckett. We might do that." Ryan told her.

xxxxx

"So how is it going?" Kate asked when she came home and entered the study.

"I got all the big items on the stick drive in an easy to access order. There's certainly enough there to make a good case for finding federal help.

"That's about all we can do right now. We need to have the files in their hands and the copies distributed before I call Bracken…all our safeguards in place."

"I don't mind telling you I'm scared, Kate. This is a heavy responsibility."

"He seems focused on me, not on you or our family. I have no doubt he'd use you as threats against me, but I think that would only be if I look non-compliant. But me personally…I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. Whether I take the deal and see how long it lasts this time or take the bull by the horns and try to destroy him, I could be dead either way. One decision buys time, the other offers maybes; but either way, my future is iffy. I'd rather go with the maybes and hope they become reality." She paused and ran her hands over her face. "I wouldn't hold it against you if you wanted to back out. We both need to think of Alexis and your mom, and my dad. I don't want anybody other than me to have to su…"

"Kate, are you listening to what you're saying? Do you think any of us wouldn't suffer if you were the only one hurt…or killed? None of us would recover from that. I know they'll all worry; but if they know why we're doing what we're doing, I think they'd back us. They'd hate that it's us involved, but they'd see the importance."

"You really think they'd…"

"Our parents taught us to have the sense of justice we have, and I raised my daughter the same way. So I think they would. I think they'd be afraid, but I think they'd understand why we need to do what we can. And be relieved we're calling in reinforcements and hanging back more. But we know that Senator Bracken is a serial murderer and an extortionist, and heaven knows what else, and…"

"Okay," she agreed with a sigh. "When do you want to talk to them?"

"This weekend? We could invite your dad over for dinner on Sunday."

Kate took a deep breath and let it go as she ran the fingers of both hands through her hair, looking agitated.

"I guess that's as good a time as any. I hate dumping all this on them, though. And tonight we're planning on dumping it on two more innocent bystanders."

"At least the ones tonight are sworn to uphold the law, and I think Gates intends to do just that. I wonder who she's bringing."

"All she said is IA…someone we can trust."

"Do you think she's that good a judge of character?"

"I think she's all kinds of competent, and way more perceptive than we gave her credit for at first; so yeah, probably. I think we can trust whoever she brings."

"Okay. That's what my gut tells me, too. And speaking of Gates… We need to be at the restaurant in about an hour. I've already had a shower. All I need to do is change clothes and I'm ready."

"I'll go take my shower, then. We want to be there at the table ahead of them. I guess we have to just play the getting together by ear."

"We're good. We can do that," he answered with his smirky smile, trying to lighten the mood.

"And after we've dropped this information bomb on them, can we come home and work off the stress? See if you can make me need another shower?"

"Are you trying to see just how short we can make this meeting?"

She turned and smiled flirtatiously over her shoulder as she walked through their bedroom to the shower, trailing articles of clothing behind her as she went.

Castle smiled to himself as he went to his closet for the clothes he intended to wear for dinner. On the way, he picked up a few of the pieces of clothing his wife had strewn behind her and brought them to his nose to breathe in her scent before he deposited them in the hamper. In spite of the danger they were about to deal with, he considered himself a very fortunate man. He had a wonderful family, which now included a man who treated him as a son…and to make it even better, Katherine Beckett Castle loved him unconditionally.

xxxxx

The couple arrived at the restaurant, and the owner welcomed them with warm hugs and personally escorted them to their usual table, which was in the corner of a section that was a bit more private than most. He stopped to talk for a couple of minutes before going back to making his rounds of the restaurant. The place was busy that night, those without reservations beginning to queue up to wait for tables.

Their server arrived shortly after the owner had seated them.

"Wine to start, Mr. Castle?"

"Yes, John. Thank you," he answered, accepting the menus. "Surprise us this time. We trust your judgment."

The Castles had arrived nearly half an hour before they were scheduled to meet with Captain Gates. To make the meeting look accidental, they wanted to be there ahead of the captain. When they saw her come into the restaurant, Castle thought it couldn't have worked out better. He saw the hostess take the captain's name, nod toward the group of people waiting, and then gesture toward the bar.

"This is perfect," he said to Kate. "We'll let them order at the bar, then I'll go and invite them to join us and tell Arturo to seat them with us."

"Sounds good. Would you rather I invite them?"

"No. I want to make Gates agree to sit with me in a restaurant…entirely on my own," he answered with a totally unapologetic grin.

"You have an evil streak," Kate answered, laughing and swatting his arm.

"This from the woman who switched her backside at me, sent a sultry smile over her shoulder, and proceeded to strip as she walked to the shower…knowing I didn't have time to do anything about it? That, my love, was evil."

"I'll make it up to you later," she promised, covering his hand with hers.

"I'll hold you to that."

"I'll expect more than holding."

"Not a problem."

"They've ordered," Kate reported.

"Good. I'll wait until they have their drinks, and then I'll go and invite them to join us."

They sat holding hands across the table for another moment, and then Kate told him, "You can go any time now."

He stood and walked over to the bar area where Gates sat with her colleague, a woman of Asian descent who was about Gate's size and build and probably somewhere between Kate's age and the captain's. Standing behind them, he said, "Excuse me, Captain Gates."

"Mr. Castle. This is a surprise. What can I do for you?"

"Actually, Kate and I thought we'd offer to do something for you. We saw you come in, and it looks like the wait is longer than usual tonight. My mother and daughter backed out on us a few minutes ago, and we have a table for four. If you think you can stand my company outside the precinct, we'd be glad to have you join us. We haven't ordered yet."

The captain looked at the woman who was with her, and the other woman shrugged and nodded. Then Gates answered, "Thank you, Mr. Castle. We'll take you up on that offer."

"Good. I'll tell Arturo to remove your name from the list." He waved across the room when he caught the owner's eye, and the man came to meet him.

"Do you need something, Ricky, or could you simply not be without my charming company any longer?"

"These two ladies are on your waiting list, Arturo, under the name…"

"Gates," the captain supplied.

"We just received a text," Castle continued. My daughter has to go in early tomorrow, and my mother…well, you know my mother," he explained with a look to the heavens. "She said she had a better offer."

Arturo laughed. "Let your mother enjoy her life, Ricky. A reward for putting up with you."

"And all this time I thought you were on my side," Castle quipped. "Would you have Captain Gates and her friend seated at our table, please? It would shorten your line and save them the wait."

"Certainly. Let me take those drinks for you, ladies. Follow me."

Stopping at the table again, Arturo placed the drinks on the table and signaled for a server as Kate moved to the chair next to her husband. The owner then carried on a short, flirtatious conversation with "signora Castle" in Italian as he refilled their wine glasses, and he gallantly kissed her hand before turning to the other women. "It's always nice to see new faces. Welcome to Arturo's," he told the new guests at the table and gave them a charming smile with a hint of a parting bow. "Enjoy your meal."

"Lin, this is Richard Castle and his wife, Kate, aka Katherine Beckett, an excellent homicide detective. Indicating her dinner companion, she finished, "And this is Lin Jackson, a colleague from IA. We worked together long enough to know that we see eye to eye on the importance of our work."

"Good to meet you Ms. Jackson," Kate said. Shaking the other woman's hand and speaking more quietly, she added, "Thank you for being here."

"And the same from me," Castle agreed, reaching across the table to greet her properly.

"Not a problem," she answered keeping her voice quiet as well. "The little bit your captain could tell me certainly piqued my interest, and I promise you it will be kept in confidence."

"Why don't we wait until we've ordered before we get to that part of the conversation? That way the server won't have reason to be back at the table for a while."

Out of habit, Castle rested his arm on the back of Kate's chair and traced little strokes along her arm as he spoke, and her hand automatically covered his on the table, as usually happened when they were sitting close at a restaurant.

"We already know what we want," Kate said, handing them the menus John had left them.

"Everything on the menu has the Castle family seal of approval," he assured them. "I think all of us have tried almost everything there."

The other two women decided on their orders, and they made small talk until the server returned.

"I enjoy your books, Mr. Castle," Lin admitted. "When will the next one be published?"

"I'm supposed to be working on it now, but the reason for our evening together has taken precedence for the past week or so. It's scheduled to be out in November, and my publisher will be raising Cain in another couple of weeks if I don't get back to it."

Once their orders arrived and the server was assured that everything was as it should be, Castle started telling their story as they ate.

"Kate has stick drives in her purse for each of you, and I think the information there will be pretty self-explanatory. We've tried to organize it logically," Castle told them. "Before we leave, we'll try to deliver them without anyone noticing. And we should probably try not to look like this conversation is a heavy as it will be."

"I know this seems too much like one of Castle's spy novels, Captain; but in this case, I agree that it can't hurt to be careful…Castle's little act included."

"I think you'll find the information convincing enough to make the case that we need to call in the FBI, but we don't know who to trust," Castle said. "The man we're dealing with seems to have eyes and ears everywhere, so this feels like playing with fire in a room full of explosives. We've encountered his assassins during several cases. Kate barely survived one of them, and she isn't entirely safe yet."

"Because he's still out there? I thought the man who shot her was killed earlier this week," Gates argued quietly.

"He was, but the man who hired him…and hired the man who killed Roy, and the man who killed Kate's mother and several others we know of, is still out there. It took him all of two days to replace the man who killed Roy and send his new man to shoot Kate at Roy's funeral. There could already be someone else in line to pick up where Maddox left off, but we think she's safe for the moment. The break-in at the Montgomerys' house is connected to this, too."

"Why would someone be interested in Roy's old files?" Gates asked.

Kate looked down at the table, then at Lin, then back at the table. "Captain, you may need to take my badge for this. I've withheld information; but this is so much bigger and more important than my badge. If that's what has to happen, I guess I'll just have to be Castle's kept woman until I find something else to do."

Castle grasped her shoulder with the hand that had been caressing her arm, leaned and gently kissed her head, and said, "I'd have no objections, but I know that isn't what you want."

"What have you withheld, Detective, and for how long?"

"I've withheld what Roy told me just before he was killed. It's all there with what we'll give you."

"Captain, the short version is that Roy had made a deal with this man." Castle explained. "If Roy could keep Kate from looking into her mother's murder, she wouldn't be killed. Roy also had files with incriminating evidence against the man responsible. He held them to protect his safety and his family's. Kate knew nothing about her captain's involvement until right before his death. She knew nothing about the deal he had made or the files until we got a phone call not long after she came home from the hospital. There's a long story we'll be glad to explain later, but the matter of importance right now is that two days ago we got those files from a friend of Roy's. It's a long and convoluted story, but I think it's organized in a way that will help make some things clear. This man is still killing people. He seems to know everything that's happening almost as soon as we do, which means he has access to records at the precinct and probably has contacts there as well. We know some of how he started in the early half of the nineties and some of what's happened in the present, but there's probably a lot more in the middle.

"Do you know who he is?" Lin asked.

"We'd rather not talk about any more of it here." Kate answered. "The files should tell you what you need to know. We have to worry about our family. It's frightening to us, and it's going to need to be handled with kid gloves. I think you need to see the information and then we'll have to figure out a way to talk again. You may decide you'd rather back away."

"I'm glad you finally decided to trust me, Kate," the captain said. "So how do you want to live out Mr. Castle's spy novel scene?" There was a wisp of an amused smile in Castle's direction.

"Not too cloak and dagger," he answered, returning her smile. "When she stands to leave, Kate's going to drop her purse and spill things out of it, and you'll help her pick them up. Your stick drives are the only ones there. Just keep them and hand her anything else. The long tablecloth will hide all of it."

"I'll think about this every time I pick up one of your books," Lin answered, also smiling.

"I used to think it would be exciting to live out some of my stories," Castle told them. "But I have to tell you, it's much more fun putting it on paper." He was holding his wife's hand again and lifted it to his lips to kiss it. "There's no real blood and pain on paper…no actual fear for the people you love." With that said, he asked a bit louder, "Can I interest anyone in dessert?"

There was a chorus of varying versions of "I couldn't eat another bite."

Looking at Kate, he asked, "Would you like to take some tiramisu home for later?"

"Is that you twisting my arm?"

"Could be," he answered with a smile.

"Okay. Order some for Alexis, too."

"So, may I offer you ladies a midnight snack? Going once…go…"

"Why not?" Lin answered, laughing. I haven't had tiramisu in ages."

"Captain? Could your arm be twisted, too?"

Gates gave Castle a surprisingly easy smile and said, "Might as well. A midnight snack might be in order. I have the feeling I'll be up late tonight satisfying my curiosity."

With that, Castle signaled the server, ordered the desserts in boxes, and asked for the check. They talked as they waited, the Castles again looking comfortably cozy. As they stood to leave, Kate bumped the small, open purse she had placed on the table, and it dropped to the floor. As she stooped to pick it up, she laughed and called herself klutzy. The captain immediately offered to help, smiling and making a little show of handing her a few things but holding on to the stick drives, dropping them in her own purse before standing to leave.

"I'm glad you came in when you did, Captain Gates. A nice surprise." Castle said, channeling his mother's acting genes. "We enjoyed your company. And it was nice to meet you, Ms. Jackson."

"I agree with everything he said," Kate added, shaking their hands as well.

"Thank you for sharing your table, and for dinner," Gates answered. "We had no intention of imposing on your evening out, but we appreciate the hospitality."

The Castles walked out behind the captain and her friend, stopping briefly to say goodnight to Arturo on their way.

Kate slipped an arm around Castle's waist as they walked home, and his arm went around her shoulders.

"I hope we did the right thing tonight," she said.

"Me, too," he answered, protectively pulling her closer.