The Meeting
The small round wooden dining table in Lanie's apartment was crowded with people.
Sitting in its four matching chairs were Captain Montgomery, Martha, Lanie and James
Patterson. Alexis was sitting on a short footstool pulled up to the table, her head poised
above its edge. Detective Ryan stood, arms folded across his chest; while Esposito
leaned casually against a wall behind Lanie.
"You really think we can pull this off?" Ryan asked, looking down at Martha.
"Yes, I believe we can." she replied, "Especially with James' help."
Everyone looked over at James Patterson, renowned author and Rick Castle's poker
buddy. He had been the last to arrive at Lanie's place, and he was still unsure as to why
he had been asked to come. Martha had called him, rambling on about Castle being
in some sort of trouble and needing his help. The pleading in her voice and his
friendship with Castle had him agreeing to meet her here, but for what?
All eyes were on him. Uneasily, he looked over at Martha. "I don't even know why I'm here!"
"Sorry James," she apologized, "We need someone with the imagination and the
attention to detail to help orchestrate a plan."
"A plan for what?" He inquired, still not knowing what they wanted from him.
"We need your help to come up with a plan to bring Richard and Kate together."
Everyone around the table erupted at once.
"They're driving us nuts!" Esposito was the first to speak out.
"Yeah" Ryan agreed. "…the way they sit at her desk and finish each others sentences and
share each others food…"
"…..and he brings her coffee every day and follows her around like a puppy dog…" Esposito rejoined.
"…they act like they don't even have a clue….the whole precinct knows, but do they…nooo!" Ryan continued.
"And my dad wonders around the house every evening like he's looking for something he lost."
Alexis hurriedly added to the mix.
"And I'm tired of her coming into my lab and sayin' "NO" whenever I ask her if she wants to talk about it.
She can't go on keeping it bottled up inside her, ain't natural. Womans gonna keel over dead before she's forty."
Lanie said, slapping the table for emphasis.
Captain Montgomery broke in last.
"And I can't stand the tension between them in the office. His reasons for staying and hers for letting him
are getting pretty thin. Lately I've been thinking of ways for the department to hire Castle so they won't
have to keep making things up."
James sat there, marveling at the intensity of their "situation". The only thing he could do after listening to
them was laugh.
They all looked at him, mortified! He realized this was not the reaction they expected.
"I'm sorry," he said. "It's just that, it wasn't clear as to why I was here. I thought something was seriously wrong."
"This is serious!" Martha insisted. "You don't have to live with this on a daily basis; you don't know what it's like for us."
"Oh, I think I have a clue….the way he always goes on about her at our weekly poker games..she made me
wait in the car…she won't give me a gun…she about pulled my ear off. Ladies and gentlemen, I think he doth
protest too much."
This being said, everyone relaxed.
"So," he asked. "Do you have any ideas for me to work with or should I just start from scratch?"
The captain spoke up. "Well, we asked ourselves what situation at work would put the two of them together for
a long amount of time, and all we could come up with was a stake out."
"A stake out...hmmm." the author pondered aloud. "Not very romantic, too much of a 'Buddy Cop' situation to ever
amount to anything.
"Yeah," Ryan agreed. "We couldn't see it going anywhere either."
"Here's what I propose." James put forth as he leaned onto the table. "Give me a week to come up with a plan,
flesh out the scenario, write the parts, and then we'll meet back here next Sunday. Agreed?" Everyone nodded
in agreement.
"Well then," said James, quoting a well known fictional character "The games afoot!"
