What is your name?" The doctor asked her shining a light into her eyes.
She blinked "it's... Oh it's... Um..." The doctor glanced at the nurse, and looked back at the woman.
"I know it.. It's there..." She tried fishing back into her mind.
The doctor noted this and looked back at the beautiful woman that sat on the table. "Ma'am do you know what year it is?" He looked up from his notes at her.
"2014." She said confidently.
The doctor wrote that down and asked more questions as her went down the list.
"What is your birthday?"
"July 14."
"Are you married?" he looked at her over to rims o his glasses.
"Um... I... I think? Maybe not... I don't know" she was frustrated. She felt her head and realized she had a giant goose egg and what felt like a gash. "What happened to me?"
The doctor paused wondering if it was a good idea to tell her. "Well, you tell me what you know."
She paused, "well I was on a beach... Um then that couple came up to me and took me here." Before that there was nothing. nothing? there couldn't be nothing… she had a life! she was… oh god what was her name?!
"Well miss, here is the deal. You washed up on this beach, no identification, beat bloody, and you were babbling about a castle. You don't know your name, and you can't tell us anything about yourself. We need to figure out who you are, and you are not giving us anything to go by." He folded his hands on his lap and leaned back.
She suddenly found herself going into detective mode "do I have any tattoos? Check in the prison tattoo data base if I do. How about fingerprints? Am I in the system? Get an apb out and check with missing persons." Her eyes widened and she looked at the doctor. He looked surprised, and they both knew what they had to do.
The doctor called the L.A pd and asked if any of their cops had gone missing recently. Curiously there were none.
Richard castle had called Kate becketts cell phone more than 50 times. He got the machine every time. The next person he called was his mother.
"Hello darling, are you and Katherine enjoying your honeymoon?" She asked into the phone. She walked out on the terrace of the loft, and her face fell when she heard the news.
"Mother, Kate is gone. Did she go back to the loft?" He was desperate. The last time he saw late was when they went to bed last night. They were on a carnival cruise from Santa Barbara all the way to Victoria island and back. Up until this morning it had been the happiest trip of his life. They had been to the ships casino and to the dining room for dinner. Then after some passionate sex, went to bed. When he woke up this morning and reached out for his bride, her side of the bed was cold and unmade. At first he thought she had just gone for breakfast, she had always been an early riser. But after 11, and she hadn't returned, he called her. Then after she didn't answered her phone, he began to worry. He called the ships security but they assured him that she was probably just in the gift shop or on the deck and he had missed her. Castle was beside himself, had Kate fallen off the boat? He was walking around the ship searching for her floor by floor and calling her. It was now 5 o'clock, and castle finally found something that might hint as to where she went.
While castle was in the elevator, another man joined him. They nodded and continued to the lido deck. When the man left the elevator castle had a memory burst. "Oh my god!" He practically yelled to himself. The man that came into the elevator was senator bracken.
Karen and Leo were having an early morning stroll along the beach. Holding hands and walking along the beach they were talking about the vacation and how reluctant they were to go back to Nantucket that afternoon. "Leo do you think when we retire we can move here?" She asked as she dragged her feet in the sand.
"Well dear, only if we can live in the same suite we have now" they both looked out onto the horizon. And noticed the figure laying half in the water and half out. They thought it may be just drift wood until they got closer. "Karen is that a person?!"
She squinted "I was just wondering that!" They both ran to the figure. It was a beautiful woman, she had jeans and at shirt on, no shoes, and long brown hair. They both observed that she was gorgeous and very tall.
"Leo leaned down and said "ma'am! Are you alright?" When he saw her face he saw how beaten up she was, a large bruise and a gash on her forehead. She had a deep cut in her neck, but beneath the bruises and wounds he could tell she was beautiful.
Karen squatted and remembered her CPR training and checked the woman's breathing. "She is breathing!" Karen told her husband.
They both dragged her up the beach and out if the water. Her makeup had not smugged at all and Karen felt a pang of jealousy.
The woman slowly began to regain consciousness. "Castle!" She moaned.
"Leo call an ambulance!" Karen said as she noticed more of the woman's bruises and knife wounds.
"Castle... Tell castle..." Karen was trying to get her to talk, so she asked "which castle? There are no castles around here!"
The woman extended her arms and mimed shooting, "hands! Hands!" She mumbled with her arms extended.
Karen asked her questions "how did you get in the water?"
The woman looked up at Karen, and she moaned "hurts... Cold..." Karen felt bad for this woman. She had obviously been beaten and left for dead in the ocean, frankly she was surprised this woman was still alive.
Just the the woman passed out on the ground.
"Castle... Rick... B- b- bracken..." She mumbled.
Karen stood up and saw the paramedics running down the beach.
"Mrs. Doe?" The police officer asked as he walked in the room?
"Please do not call me that." She said from her bed as the man walked into the room.
"I'm here to take information so we can figure out who you are!" He said as he walked in. "May I?" He asked as he pulled up a a chair.
The woman nodded and motioned for him to sit. "My name is officer Brown, I have spoken to the dr about your injuries and he has deduced that you were assaulted. Do you know who did this? Do you have any enemies?" He asked looking up from his clipboard.
"I don't even know my own name! How am I supposed to know if I have any enemies?" She was impatient.
"Let's skip the bullshit and do fingerprints, get out an apb and contact missing persons!" Once again she surprised herself.
"I'm sorry ma'am... Ok I'll take your fingerprints..." He thought about what she just said. "How do you know what an apb is?" He asked as he took her thumb prints.
The woman looked up "I don't know! Maybe I was a police officer or something..."
They both laughed but officer brown still wondered... It could be possible that she was a cop, maybe not in this city!. Lots of people come to la on vacation. "How do you think you ended up in the ocean?" He wondered what she thought.
"Maybe I was diving, or on a boat or something." Officer brown took her fingerprints and left.
He went to meet with her doctor and his partner. "Inspector Davis, dr. Everett" he introduced them.
"Dr. Everett, we need to figure out who this woman is, and we need you to tell us what her injuries were, and what they could mean." Inspector Davis said.
"Ok" dr Everett began. "As you have seen, she has multiple stab wounds and knife wounds. This is most often from an attack. She also had gun powder residue on her hands and clothes, which indicates she was holding a gun, and fired it while wearing her clothes. She has a large bruise on her forehead, which is coherent with the attack. She was completely sober, but the rape kit indicated she had had intercourse in the last 12 hours."
Officer brown spoke up "why would she get a bruise from a knife fight?"
The doctor continued "it could also be from a big fall, either way the bump is the way she lost her memory. She also has a bullet wound in her chest, looks about 3 years old."
Officer brown looked up "she's definitely a cop, but not one here. Looks like she has an enemy too.
"Mother has late called you?" Rick asked desperately into the phone.
"No darling, I haven't heard anything." Rick had concluded that Kate was not on the boat. He had seen senator Bracken, followed him a bit, but he didn't talk to him. After a meeting with the boats security, they made a plan. Once the boat docked in L.A, they would contact the L.A.P.D and find out if anyone on the boat had seen Kate in the morning. They would put out a missing persons, and attempt to establish a list of suspects.
"Mother we are waiting until we dock in L.A to make a move. I'm afraid." He said fighting back his emotions.
"Richard, Katherine is a very strong woman. She can fight her way out of anything. I'm sure she will fight her way back to you. I love you." She hung up and castle looked out onto the ocean, waiting for the ship to arive in la.
Kate sat in the hospital bed, looking in the mirror. She was hoping to regain a shred of memory. "Hi! I'm..." Nope that didn't work. "You've reached..." Nope, that was not going to work. She starred in the mirror at the stitches on her face and neck. She had a million questions in her mind 'am I married? Do I have kids? Am I a teacher? A cop?' She wandered around the halls of the hospital. She ended up in the children's ward 'what if my husband did this to me!' She thought about weather or not she wanted to know who she was. 'What if I have kids? I don't know how to treat kids!' It was so frustrating, she just wanted her memory back!
It was 2pm and finally the ship had docked in la. Castle practically ran to the shuttle with the security officers to the police station.
"I'm Richard castle and my wife Katherine Beckett was not on the cruise ship when I woke up yesterday!" He practically yellowed at the secretary. The chief of the LAPD was put on the case thanks to castles connections.
Castle was right by his side as they filed a missing persons report, inserting their wedding photo as her picture on the file. Castle and a team of officers then searched the the local police stations to see if she had been arrested. The next step was to hire a search and rescue team to look on the cruise ships charter and look in the water and beaches.
"Senator bracken, you have a history with detective Beckett, is that true?"
Castle sat in the room watching one of the officers question the man he knew to be guilty.
"Yes." He replied.
"Did you know you were staying on the same cruise ship as mr. And mrs, castle?"
"No." He said plainly. It made castle want to punch him.
"So you are telling me that you being on that ship is a coincidence?" The officer said.
"As a matter of fact it is."
"Well senator, were you aware that yesterday morning mrs. Castle disappeared from the cruise ship?"
At this castle noticed brackens eyes changed, glazed over slightly.
Apparently the officer noticed this too "so you did know she was on the ship." He pryed.
"Yes, I did. But I did not make contact with her."
The officer got an idea "well did you hire someone to?"
Bracken was quiet For a long time. "No."
The officer leaned in "would you like to revise that statement? Because if we find a paper trail we both know you are done" this officer reminded him of the way Beckett interviewed.
"I did not hire anyone! A few of my friends were aware she was on the ship, but I didn't tell them to do anything." He stated and folded his hands on the desk.
Before castle knew it frank defrosio was pulled into the LAPD Headquarters. A different officer this time interviewed the suspect.
"You are friends with senator bracken?" The officer asked. Castle knew this guy from before, he had seen him talking to Kate the other night. Please be alive he prayed, there was a sad voice in the back of his head that said 'she would be with you if she was alive'.
The suspect didn't say anything.
The cop leaned in "excuse me! I asked you a question."
Frank defrosio spat on the floor, castle suspected it was an act of defiance, but the cop in the questioning room snapped.
"What did you do to her?!" He stood up as he yelled.
Frank spit on the floor again.
The cop flipped the table and yelled
"Where is she?!"
Frank defrosio smiled and said nothing.
The cop whipped out his gun and said "her husband is in there? Now where is she?!"
Frank looked at the one way window, seemingly right into castles
eyes. And said "she is with the fishes, all cut up."
That was all castle could take. He let some tears go and left the headquarters.
He booked a hotel room. Dead. Went up to the room, turned the lights out, dead, and went to bed. Cut up. Dead. Under water. Dead. The girl he chased for 6 years. The woman who he had just married. The woman that had not cried when she was standing on top if a bomb. The woman who clung to the side of a building, who found her mothers murdered. Kate Beckett. Katherine houghten Beckett castle. His wife. He realized he should cancel the missing persons, now that he knew she was... She couldn't be! Not his Beckett!
"Hello constible? Yes I'd like to cancel the missing persons report on Kate castle."
"Ms?" The doctor said as he entered the room. "Your wounds are no longer considered life threatening, and we no longer need to monitor you, so we are moving you to police custody."
"But what about who I am?" She asked
"Well there isn't anything we can do until you remember your name, so until then we will continue therapy. But you will be moved to a group home in Beverly Hills."
"Nobody claimed me?" She asked looking at the ground. Doing a good job at hiding how hurt she was.
"Unfortunately not, but there are billions of Jane does and missing persons reports, so the computer may not have found a match yet."
"How is that possible?" She was confused. How many living Jane does could there be?!
"Well it has happened before where the victim had been kidnapped at a young age, and was found as an adult, or a name change, or if you are from out of state."
She starred at the floor 'what kind of person must I be if nobody claimed me. It's been two days.
"Anyway ms. Officer brown will take you to head quarters and get you to sign the papers and finish the loose ends. "
"Ok, I have to get my things." The officers left her room and she walked out just after them. She was wearing the now clean jeans and t-shirt she had on when she was found. Officer brown and inspector Davis realized how hot she was, and couldn't believe nobody had claimed her.
On her way to the police station all she could think about was if she was leaving the place where her family would look for her. But again 'what if my husband did this to me?' She kept going back between weather she wanted her memory back or not.
After calling the police headquarters and finding out he had paper work to complete, castle drove there in his rental car. He went to the station up the elevator to the 3rd floor, and over to one of the officers asking where to go to cancel a missing persons report.
"Oh I can help you!" He said.
"Great," castle was not able to force himself to sound happy no matter how hard he tried. "It's for Katherine castle" he could barely say her name.
"Sure I'll go get her file!" The young officer said as he walked to the back.
Castle had thought over many things in the last two days. He wondered what Kate was thinking when she died. Did she call out for him and he wasn't there? He wondered how he was ever going to go back to the loft, the one he had shared with her. He wondered how he could ever write again, how he could breathe without her. He went out to get a coffee that morning, and even the coffee reminded him of her. Every time he sees a police officer his eyes will go to the face to see if it is her.
How is he going to get dressed in the morning without having her to please?
The young officer came back carrying a pale file folder. He placed it on the desk and castle looked down at the front of the folder and saw their wedding photo. He felt a tear rolling down his cheek buy wiped it away before the officer could see it.
"Just sign this one and fell out this page please sir"
Castle signed Richard Castle. When the guard said "holy shit Richard castle! Naked heat changed me life!"
Castle smiled bleakly and said "thanks"
The guard shook his hand and then left the station.
As castle was in the elevator in the way down, a jane doe and two police officers were in the other elevator on her way up. They left the elevator on the third floor and officer brown said "ok ms. Go down over to that officer, he will get your paperwork done for you."
She turned and shook officers hand, then the inspectors, and then walked over to the desk of another officer on the 3rd floor.
She sat down and waited for the officer to return with the paper work she needed to get into the group home.
Bored she looked onto the officers desk. "Missing persons 'closed'" she felt some jealousy that this person was found and she wasn't. Jane doe may never know why she felt inclined to open the file folder, but for some reason her hand extended and flipped open the file. "Oh" she was taken aback by the beauty of the couple, her wedding dress looked absolutely stunning, and the groom reminded her of home. She signed. Then almost jumped out of her seat when she saw the brides face: it was her.
Castle had walked over to his car and reached in his pocket for the keys to his rental car.
"Could anything else go wrong for me?" He yelled at the sky.
He turned around and dragged his feet back to the building. He kept picturing himself alone in the loft, Alexis at school and Martha at her acting school. He wouldn't go to the precinct because his muse would not be there. He would not get out of bed because he would never again open his eyes to see his true love. He could never write again. He rode up the elevator, thinking about how he would never again hear the pitter patter of little castle feet, he put all of the things in the loft that reminded him of her out of his mind. Thinking about her made his heart ache.
The elevator doors opened.
For a second he thought he was hallucinating.
He looked closer. He was not hallucinating, it was a dream. When had he fallen asleep? He hadn't
"KATE!" He yelled as he ran to her.
His heart was pounding a mile a minute.
The very well dressed and very good looking man yelled the name "Kate" and ran towards her. She didn't know that he was going to pick her up. He looked so happy, she was feeling happy too.
"Am I Kate?" She asked. Richard looked down at his wife in his arms. She was smiling.
"What are you talking about! Where did you go? I thought you were dead!" He let her stand on her feet and they looked at each other.
The officer who went to get the paperwork for Kate's group home had just re entered the room. "Oh my god." He stepped back.
Kate, rick, dr. Everett, officer brown and a tape recorder all sat in a meeting room in the police head quarters.
"Mrs. castle, you were found on a beach just south of rodeo dr. This morning at around 7 am this morning." Officer brown began. "The notes here say that you were babbling about a castle, and miming shooting someone. We know this to be not 'a castle' but 'mr castle'" officer brown said.
"Ok," Kate said "I remember opening my eyes in a lot of pain and seeing a beach" she said.
All of he people in the room had gotten together to figure out how Kate ended up off the boat as an amnesiac.
"Mrs. Castle remembers mr. Castle at this point," began dr. Everett "because her brain tissue had not yet swollen to the point where her memory was impaired. Her injuries included 23 knife wounds, water in the lungs, brain swelling, and a fractured skull resulting in memory loss." He concluded by saying "it is unclear whether or not the fractured skull came from the fall off of the cruise ship, or the foul play that took place before the fall."
Kate spoke up "do you think my memory will come back?" She wanted to remember her wedding, she had not even spoken to her 'husband'. She had no clue of their life together.
"It's unclear Kate. It probably will within the next 10 years, but it could come back tomorrow, or worst case never."
Castle turned to her and grabbed her hand. For some reason she didn't protest.
"It will help to return to your old routine, be with the people you are usually with, and eat the things you usually eat." Dr, Everett stated.
Officer brown spoke up "the reason we did not locate the missing person file that mr. Castle filed is complicated. Mostly because the home city of the missing persons compared to the jane does in alphabetical order. It had reached the state of North Dakota, meaning New York would have been soon. Except that mr. Castle withdrew the report before our computers could finish the scan.
"Now that leaves one question." Castle said mysteriously "how did Kate get off the boat, and why."
"Well," officer brown began. "All we got from frank defrosio was that he knew you were stabbed and thrown off the boat."
"The LAPD will look after the rest" inspector Davis said as he entered the room. "We have people drilling mr defrosio, and we are sweeping the ship for signs if foul play, or blood as we speak"
Rick looked at Kate. He looked at the stitches in her forehead, the big bruise, and the scar across her neck. It made his heart ache for her when he noticed the other wounds on her arms.
"Can we come?" He asked.
"Um, mr. Castle..." Began the inspector.
"It's ok, mrs. Castle is a detective with the NYPD. You," he pointed to dr. Everett "said she needed to get back to her old routine."
Dr. Everett nodded at the inspector.
"Well" he said "I guess it can't hurt, especially if mr. Castle mentions a cirtain group of people in the next Nikki hear novel..." The inspector winked.
Castle laughed and they shook hands.
In castles rental car, he and Kate drove to the port where the cruise ship was docked.
"So who is Nikki heat?" She asked him.
Castle looked at her "this amnesia is so cool! I could tell you anything. I want!" He laughed, but she was less than impressed.
"This isn't funny. I don't know anything about you!" She crossed her arms and looked out the window.
"Do we have kids?" She turned to him.
Rick looked confused, he had only ever talked to Kate about kids twice. Once it was when they were solving the case with Cosmo, and the other time with the guy who came from the future. "Well I have a daughter... Do you want kids?" He was curious.
"Well... I think so, I mean... Do I?" She asked.
"You and Alexis get along pretty well, and you liked Cosmo after you got used to him!" He said.
"Oh..." Who is Cosmo? she thought to herself. But she decided not to waste time on little things.
"What do I do for a living? How long have ween been married? What do you do for a living, how did we meet?" She asked, almost as if she was interrogating someone.
"That kind of all goes together. I'm a writer, you are a detective with the NYPD, and I write books about you. We got married last month." He said, he liked telling their story, so much that he did it for a living.
"Are you a good writer?" She was doubtful, pretty much every homeless loser told people they were writers.
"Well I think so! The Nikki heat books are all about you. And we live in a penthouse in the upper west side of New York."
Jackpot she said laughing to herself.
"Well why did this frank defrosio guy want to kill me?" Was she having an affair with him and he ended it? Or did she steal from him?
"It's a long story... One of the senators of New York has been after you for a while, ever since you found out he was responsible for your mothers murder." He tried to put that gently.
"Oh..." So her mother had been murdered... At least her life wasn't boring. Was that heartless? Was she heartless?
"Ok here we are," castle looked at Kate "any memories coming back?"
She looked at him "no, nothing."
They went up to inspector Davis and he told them the scene was on the empress floor.
Castle walked in the room first. It looked like it was just a regular room. But the bed was unmade and there was blood everywhere. "My god" he said, and turned around to try and stop Kate from seeing this. "Beckett, maybe you don't want to go in there."
She pushed past his arm "what are you talking about castle-" from castles point of view, it looked like she walked into a glass wall. She stopped in her tracks and turned to him. "Is all this from me?" She asked.
The medical examiner walked over and gave them the low down. "Ok, about 75% of this blood belongs to mrs Beckett here, and the rest of the 15% belongs to someone else. But since it is located in the individual corner, the splatter patterns are coherent with a gunshot wound." She turned and went back to her laptop.
Kate turned to castle "dr. Everett said that I had gunshot residue on my hands and clothes."
"That's right, but frank defrosio didn't have a gunshot wound..." He said.
"Then there must be a second attacker!" She looked excited. Rick noted that her attitude towards their murder solving duo had not changed. On their way down to the basement to interview the medical staff, castle brought up the second shooter in the JFK shooting.
"You know he said, about 50% of the population believes that lee Harvey Oswald was not the killer of JFK.." He began.
"Oh castle, common we both know that bullets are known to change directionality once the change mediums." She looked stunned that she knew that.
Rick looked over at her, "but Kate, admit that the government can't be truthful about everything or it would be complete chaos! Just like when you were working in DC!"
Suddenly Kate was lost "what was I doing there?" She asked.
"Oh jeez Beckett sorry, it's just that I keep forgetting, you look and sound the same, I forget that Kate isn't there."
"It's ok, hopefully I'll be back soon..." She said.
"So who's Alexis and Cosmo?" She asked, apparently the elevator was out of order and they were forced to take the stairs. They had to go slow so that Kate didn't bust open any of the stitches on her legs.
"Alexis is my daughter, I always say she is the smartest castle."
"Is she little?" Kate asked, wondering if Rick had been married before
"No, she is 19 now, she goes to Stanford."
"Wow you must be proud!" She tried to remember if Alexis had this beautiful mans eyes or personality.
"We. We are very proud." He corrected her.
They arrived at the medical center, and the head doctor met them at the entrance "hello mr. And mrs. Castle! Might I just say mr. Castle I am a huge fan, naked heat is the best thing I've ever read." Kate noted that he is pretty famous, and laughed at how cockey his expression was.
"Well dr." She began "has anyone come down here with a bullet hole?"
The doctor sat down at a computer and checked the logs.
"Well.." She scrolled "it looks like one man came in, he didn't receive any treatment, he just had someone look at it, payed cash and left."
"Well who treated him, what did he look like?" Castle asked.
I'll get dr. Garfalo in here, she looked after him.
"Yeah he asked me to tell him if It was life threatening and what to do to stop the infection. He payed cash and left." Castle though about this.
"Give a sketch to the other officers, thank you for your time."
The castles walked back to ricks rental car.
"So what did this other guy do anyway? If defrosio was the one stabbing, and I shot this other guy... Why wouldn't I shoot both?" She thought out loud "it just makes no sense."
Castle added "defrosio isn't talking, so out best bet is to either figure out ourselves, or to figure out who the guy you shot was." He said.
"Well I was thinking, what if defrosio got me from behind, while I had my gun on omthe other guy?"
"Yeah..." Castle said "because you would never lose a two on one battle, but if someone surprised you into shooting then got your gun."
"I was also thinking, defrosio thought I was dead right?" She looked up at castle.
"Yes..." He tried to see where this was going.
"So he he threw me overboard, which is where I hit my head, and how I ended up stabbed and with a head injury, in the water."
"Yeah that makes sense!" Castle said. "Now we just need to find the guy you shot, and why you had to do it at 6am!"
She looked at him, wow was she ever lucky.
Castle and Beckett were in the LAPD headquarters watching the tape of bracken's interview.
"So this guy killed my mother?" She asked out of know here.
"Sort of..." Castle said, not wanting her to get upset and build up a wall.
"Why isn't he in jail" she sounded kind of harsh.
"It's complicated, it took us more than 5 years to fire out it was even him, and we had no real proof. But you knew, and he knew and that's what matters. But you had him at gunpoint once, and you said that if he ever slipped, you would get him."
It was like lightbulbs went off in their heads and they turned to each other and said "I know who it was!" Simultaneously.
Castle laughed out loud and said "I love it when we do that!"
They both rewound the tape and noticed that bracken was limping on his was into the interview.
Bracken was escorted by the police to his interrogation. Everyone took note in the bullet wound on his leg.
They had sealed the deal, and Kate finally got him in jail where he belonged.