Fear Itself

Season 9, episode 4.

Written by whatifellinlovewith

This is a work of fiction by writers with no professional connection to ABC network's Castle. Recognizable characters are the property of Andrew Marlowe and ABC. Names, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Lora jerked awake, eyes wide and wrists flexing against the restraints, feet pressing hard against the floor as she tugged at the ties at her ankles. Fear, panic. Perfection.

Questions filled the air, stuttered and shaky and wonderful. What do you want? and Where am I? and Who are you? bleeding together through gasped, panting breaths. Her eyes darted around the room, traced the walls, the floor, rows of tiles and the rim of the basin sitting before her.

Water rippled at the surface. Fear flashed in her eyes.

A hand wrapped tightly around locks of her hair. She barely managed to hold her breath the first time - struggled and jerked and tried not to breathe under the pressure of the water. Fingers dug into the rope binding her wrists together, toes curling against the tile for seconds, long seconds. Maybe a minute.

And she gasped when she came back up. Tried to catch a breath that wouldn't come. Swallowing gulps of air between stuttered words, broken requests, her begging lost in the rise and fall of her chest, bleeding with the panic in her eyes.

Memories came, went. Anger welled. Her head was shoved beneath the water again.

And again. And again. And again.

She struggled until she couldn't anymore, until the panic stole her strength and her eyes no longer opened and she didn't ask any more questions, forgot to beg for her freedom.

It wouldn't have helped.

Her attacker's hand still locked in her hair, her strength gone, she sank beneath the water again, forgetting to hold her breath, to fight, to live.

Lora died, underwater and scared, and it was amazing.

The restraints were cut from her wrists, from her ankles. Her body, soaking wet and limp, was dragged to the floor, along the tiles to the door, and into a car. She was lighter, the easiest to carry, to disguise. A parked car, a struggle with dead weight, a walk laced with determination.

Her limp feet dragged across the ground, arms locked around her dead body, a masked face pressed against wet locks of her hair as she was carried through the shadows. Obscured by the evening, the darkness, the city.

She was dropped into a fountain, and the killer drifted into the crowd, lost in the night.

Dinner had been wonderful, the evening freeing Kate from the clutches of morning sickness and allowing her to enjoy time with her friends. Ryan and Lanie were in the kitchen, Castle and Jenny's conversation resumed, and she stood, turned towards the living room to find the source of excited squealing.

Esposito was sitting on the couch, Sarah Grace sitting next to him, squirming away from her Uncle Javi's incessant tickling as Nicholas watched, bouncing with beautiful baby laughter at his sister.

It stilled when Kate walked in, dropped onto the empty couch cushion by Sarah Grace's head, the young girl breathing "thank you"s for the rescue from Espo, She watched Sarah Grace bounce up from the couch, run to get whatever book she thought Uncle Javi needed to see, leaving him with the baby in his arms, a smile on his face.

"You're great with them," she told him. "Definitely Uncle Javi."

He just glanced at her and offered a smile, before Nicholas stole his attention again, had Esposito, of all people, making silly faces in an attempt to keep the baby happy and laughing.

"Who would have thought," she continued, "all those years ago, that you, Esposito, would be such a great uncle?"

He shrugged at that, turning back towards her as Nicholas amused himself with tugging at his uncle's ear. His smile returned as Sarah Grace came running back into the room, her book clutched between her hands. She crawled back onto the couch, set the book on Kate's lap.

"You're great with them, too," said Espo. "A great auntie Katie. Who would've thought?"

She opened her mouth, ready to argue her point when it dawned on her that the dining room had fallen silent, Castle and Jenny watching the exchange with smiles on their faces, her husband's gaze drifting across where Sarah Grace had nestled her small body against Kate's side.

"You really are, Kate," said Jenny, her eyes dancing with humor as she continued. "So, are you guys planning on having one, some day?"

Kate tried to tamp down the burn of her cheeks, eyes drifting to Castle to catch his smile and mirror it with her own.

A purposefully vague response almost came, but was cut off by the vibrating of her phone in her pocket. She smiled her apology, brought the device to her ear to answer the call.

"Beckett."

The victim was perched against the edge of a fountain, arms draped across the edges, neck limp and head fallen back. Lanie didn't bother moving her, not yet, opting to simply do what work she could with the body still in its position as CSU milled around the scene.

Kate had sent Ryan and Espo to speak with the person who had called it in and other witnesses who had been standing nearby at the time. Uniforms were already off to canvas local businesses for possible information and security tapes. Castle stood by her side, his eyes locked on her face, smile lingering and words unspoken until Lanie called them over.

"What do we have?" asked Kate.

Lanie motioned to the victim. "An ID," she answered, continuing when Castle muttered about how that was fast. "Vic's name is Lora Burton. Her prints were in the system. She was arrested last week on a robbery charge."

Kate nodded. "Do you think it's related?"

"Could be," said Lanie. "Cause of death is drowning, looks like it could have been torture to me, but–"

"Torture?"

"Yes, Castle," answered Kate, rolling her eyes. "Why?"

He shrugged. "Could be the mob. She crossed them, robbed the wrong place, they tried to get information from her and killed her to keep her quiet."

"The mob doesn't pose dead bodies in fountains."

Lanie motioned to the victim once more, her gloved hand curling around Lora's wrist and twisting it so they could see what was there. Ligature marks and fingerprints. "The mob also doesn't leave obvious prints on their victims."

Castle deflated at that, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Fine, not the mob then," he conceded. "But whoever did it dumped the body here for a reason."

"Any idea what that may be?"

His hand flew into the air, lips parting with mock excitement and Kate was rolling her eyes before he said a word, knew her husband too well not to see his response coming.

"No idea."

"That's what I thought," she said, turning back to watch Lanie get help in finally hauling the body from the water.

He always hated seeing the way her shoulders tensed the moment the victim's family walked onto the floor, the flash of memories in her eyes of having been that person, awaiting some of the worst news of her life. From between the blinds in her office, they watched a uniform escort Lora's parents to the break room.

From right next to her, he watched Kate square her shoulders before turning towards her door, inviting him to follow with a soft smile thrown over her shoulder.

When they stepped into the break room, Mr. and Mrs. Burton were already sitting on the couch, nestled close together, their faces already creased with worry, anticipation of bad news yet to come.

Beckett forced a smile as she introduced herself, a feeble attempt at comfort, as she sat down across from Mr. and Mrs. Burton. He stood by her side, watching as she leaned forward, rested her elbows on her knees.

"I'm sorry to have to call you guys in so late," she told them, "especially under such circumstances." She paused, watching as Mrs. Burton pressed herself against her husband, Mr. Burton nodding his head in solemn acceptance of the inevitability of Kate's news. "You're Lora's parents?"

Mr. Burton nodded. "Please, Captain, just…"

Beckett nodded. "I'm so sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Burton, but your daughter was found dead this evening."

The quiet, interrupted by the cries of grieving parents that cleaved at his heart, had him turning to see Kate staring at her hands, dipping her head farther to catch a glance at the still-flat plane of her stomach before looking back up.

She waited, knew too well the need to balance police work with sympathy, empathy. She waited until Mrs. Burton was wiping at her tears and Mr. Burton was once again nodding for Kate to continue.

"In order to find out who did this, Mr. and Mrs. Burton, we need more insight into your daughter's life," she says. "Do you know of anyone who may have wanted to hurt Lora?"

Mrs. Burton whimpered, shaking her head against her husband's shoulder. But Mr. Burton tensed, his jaw clenched as he nodded.

"Her boyfriend. It wasn't a…healthy relationship. He was hurting her," he said, tense, words cracking. "I should have tried harder to get her to see how bad he was for her."

Kate smiled again, another half-hearted attempt at comfort he knew she assumed wouldn't work. "I'm sure you did your best by your daughter, Mr. Burton," she said, paused. "Can I have her boyfriend's name?"

"Garrett," said Mr. Burton. "Garrett Brewer."

"Got anything?" she asked, stepping from her office into the bullpen as Ryan slapped the file of information they'd gathered on Brewer onto his desk. He gathered it between his hands, reaching over to hand it to her as Esposito finished setting up their mostly-bare murder board with a picture of their victim, an empty timeline and another picture, that one of their best suspect,

"Garrett Brewer's been picked up on multiple drug charges, was a suspect in a robbery and accused of sexual assault by his ex-girlfriend," says Ryan, scowling at the surface of his desk when she glanced over the edge of the file to look at him. "Between that and the parents saying he was abusing the vic, murder wouldn't be that far of a stretch."

She nodded, closed the file, and reached forward to set it on the corner of Ryan's desk before turning towards Castle, catching the oh so predictable frown that drew at his features.

"Not entertaining enough for you?" she asked.

He shrugged. "It's not that," he said. "It's just…why would he drown her? That doesn't sound like a crime of passion."

She mirrored his shrug with her own, turning to face him. "Maybe it wasn't," she said. "If he was abusing her–"

"Most abusive relationships end with a beating gone too far," he reminded her, and she nodded her reluctant agreement. "Not with a pre-meditated drowning."

"So, you don't think it was the boyfriend?" she asked.

He shrugged. "It might have been," he relented. "He is violent. And her parents did say that Brewer didn't appreciate it when Lora botched a job." He paused, and she watched the thoughts rushing through his head, the scenarios playing out until he decided on one he deemed plausible. "She probably knew that, managed to avoid him since her arrest."

"But he found out," she picked up. "And since they lived together, she couldn't avoid him forever."

He nodded. "As usual, he was upset over a botched job, decided to punish her."

"Which is where the ligature marks came from," she continued the scenario, nodding her head at the way it played out, the pieces falling into place. "She washed off afterwards, but he still hadn't gotten his anger out."

"One thing led to another and…"

He didn't need to finish, had her nodding her head before he could, and Ryan bounced from his seat, reaching back to swipe his jacket off the back of his chair.

"You guys go pick him up," she told Ryan. "I want to talk to Garrett Brewer."

"You got it," said Ryan, turning to leave, stopping only when Espo didn't follow, but rather slammed his phone onto its receiver, drawing the attention of the whole precinct with his booming voice telling Ryan to stop.

She turned towards him, too, arms crossed tightly over her chest until she saw the look on his face, his notepad still perched between his fingers.

"We got a problem, boss," said Espo. "That print found on the vic's wrists? There was a match in the system. Not an ID, but the print was ran for another case, just last week." He paused. "Another homicide."

"You don't think…"

Her heart sank at Ryan's half-whispered words, and she heard Castle's breath catch in his throat. "No," she insisted, her voice stronger than she felt. "A matching print doesn't mean that. All it means is that the killer has done this before. I'll get the case file from the other case, but until we know more, we treat it like any other homicide."