Richard Castle's fingers sped over the keys of his laptop. To the casual observer it would seem that he was just an author hard at work with his creation. Pounding out the keys with a passion. Lost in the words and the rhythm. Never stopping, never deleting, never second guessing. However, Richard Castle was not crafting witty dialogue for Nicki Heat. He was not describing in detail a gruesome murder scene. He wasn't even emailing his ever-demanding publisher.
Richard Castle was writing Fan Fiction. Yes, he was indulging in someone else's characters, he was lost in a world of another's making and oh was he ashamed! If his editor, publisher, hell if anyone found out about this he would never live it down. As a New York Times bestselling author it was completely ludicrous to be spending so much time and effort on the brainchild of someone else. It was Alexis' fault. She was the one who had suggested they sit down for a Firefly marathon. Of course it was a show he loved: he'd seen it dozens of times. But he hadn't expected it to hit him quite like this time around. Sure, he had a great time dressed as Mal for Halloween. What wasn't there to love about space cowboys and star crossed love? But this was something unexpected. Every time he sat down to put down this story and write the next chapter of Nicki Heat he hit a dead end. He kept repeating the same things again and again. Castle pushed away from his desk disgusted. He now had almost 100 pages of Mal and Inara fanfic. It was seriously disturbing because he had a feeling that about 85 of those pages were spent on sex. Every kind of sex you could think of. On every surface. On every planet. It was hot and it was sweaty and it was going to drive him insane.
Sitting back and looking around for the first time in 24 hours he saw the disaster that was his office. Rick rubbed his hands over his face. Only now was he noticing the scruffy beard that was growing and the grit that was forming behind his eyes. Coffee cups and glasses were littered across his desk. There was a half a bowl of what he believed was cocoa puffs, though he only slightly remembered pouring it. Usually the waste field that was his desk after a writing spells was amusing and only vaguely annoying. This time however it only served to kick his self-loathing in overdrive. Beating himself up for his silly indulgences, Rick began to pick up the glasses and other debris left in the wake of Serenity's path. The light of the very early morning was beginning to wash over the apartment and it suddenly caused such a bone deep sense of weariness that he simply dumped the glasses and such into the sink. He could handle Mother and Alexis' nagging. He couldn't handle even one more moment without his head on a pillow. Rick stumbled to the bed, shedding his clothes as he went. He threw back the covers and climbed naked into the cool pocket of the sheets.
What seemed like moments later, the iPhone on Rick's nightstand began playing the annoying sound of Inner Circle's Bad Boys. He woke from his coma-like sleep and, groping wildly for the phone, he finally grabbed it and pulled it through the maze of pillows his head was under. Through the haze of cobwebs Rick painfully croaked, "Hello?"
Over an hour later Rick found himself standing outside of one of New York's many hotels. This one however boasted an enormous banner welcoming the Romance Writers of America. A grin spread over his face as he spotted Kate: this was going to be fun.
"Well! Look who decided to join us! Have a rough night last night Castle?" Kate smirked as she accepted the grande skinny vanilla latte that Rick offered her.
"Oh yes, it was wonderful. Hours and hours with the sexiest woman on two legs." Castle paused to pass coffees to Ryan and Esposito. Grinning at them all, he continued: "Eleven hours of pure word processing genius. I write one hell of a woman!"
Ryan and Esposito snorted and began walking around the large hotel building. Ryan looked down at his notepad and began filling the group in since he had been the first on the scene. "So this big convention is going on this weekend and the owners of the hotel and the convention organizers have asked us to try our best to keep a low profile. Seems they think a hotel full of hysterical romance writers would be bad for business." The group headed into the back entrance of the hotel and into the service elevator. Ryan took control pressing the elevator button and continuing to give them all the information that he had so far.
"This morning at approximately 9:30 a maid by the name of Alma Gonzales entered room 319 for the normally scheduled change of sheets and towels. When she entered she found our victim dead on the floor." Ryan finished his briefing and turned to Castle and Esposito as he added, "From the looks of the state of the room our victim died, if not happy, at the very least a satisfied man. Lannie is here wrapping things up with the body."
Stepping off the elevator Kate took the lead and started off down the hallway toward the murder scene, while Castle kept step with her and Ryan and Esposito broke off to speak with one of the uniformed officers. Walking through the door both Kate and Rick scanned the room. Lannie was kneeling over the form of a man. A completely naked man.
"Oh god!" Castle bellowed and covered his eyes. "Can't we give the poor dead man some privacy?"
Lanie looked up with a grin, pulling the gloves off of her hands and stepping towards Rick and Kate. "Meet Mr. Eliot Whitman."
Castle looked up instantly, his eyes wide. "Wait, Eliot Whitman? The romantic literary agent?"
Lannie huffed a bit as she walked over to the pair, then turned from Castle to Becket. "I don't know about that. But what I can tell you is that his time of death looks to be between ten and eleven last night. I've found evidence of sexual contact with at least two women, and our friend here appears to have been strangled. I'll be able to tell you more after I get him back to the lab." Lannie stepped away and began arranging for the transport of the body.
Kate and Rick stepped aside to let Lannie and CSU wrap up the details of transporting the body and evidence. Kate immediately turned to Rick. "Alright Castle, spill it. What do you know about Eliot Whitman?"
"From what I hear he's a total genius. Robin Publications is one of the largest publishers of romance novels in the country, and he's the agent that they assign all of the big novelists to. My... um, old friend Laura worked with him. The word around word town is that he will do anything to get the book done."
Kate snorted slightly as they walked from the hotel room back into the hallway. "That doesn't seem that odd; you told me yourself that your agent rented you a vineyard in the south of France because you told her that you felt most inspired by the earth and its fruits?"
"Hey now! I wasn't lying, I wrote a huge amount of one of my most successful books from the terrace of that vineyard! But Whitman, well it seems that he uses a completely different sort of motivation for these women. He becomes the romantic inspiration that gets them out of writer's block."
Kate stopped abruptly and turned to Castle with a look mixed between shock and disgust. "So are you telling me that this man becomes romantically and sexually involved with these women so they'll write more?"
Rick held up his hands and shook his head with innocence. "That's just what I heard," he declared.
Kate folded her arms and leaned back against the patterned wallpaper that ran the length of the hall. "So how many authors on average does a literary agent represent?
"Anywhere from forty to fifty I think."
Kate heaved a sigh and turned to where Ryan stood taking statements from witnesses. She made a motion to keep her updated. Turning back around and headed to the elevator. "It looks like we know where to start. How can I get in touch with this this Laura friend of yours? We can start with her."