For the Disney girls. Better late than never, right?
She follows him through the streets of Anandapur, fingers linked as he leads them around the families who have stopped in the middle of the walkway. He's excited, vibrating with joy and adrenaline in the early morning sunlight that filters through the leaves of the trees.
Kate fights the urge to roll her eyes at the back of his head but a heavy sigh does escape and he squeezes her fingers a little tighter in punishment.
"I heard that," he says, voice nearly lost in the cheerful shouts of children as parents try to corral them.
A boy who looks about seven pushes ahead of them to race toward the queue line. She stops Castle from jogging out in front of the kid. "Didn't say anything," she replies, pulling them aside so that the boy's father can dash for the rapidly moving body.
"You sighed. Loudly."
"Just tired."
"Liar," he mutters.
The queue moves quickly, winding through a building designed to look like a travel agent's shop to an area with a brass Buddha statue surrounded by bowls of coins. A group of teenagers ahead of them reaches up and rings the bells overhead, clangs and gongs echoing in the covered line. Two seconds later, the bell right over her ear rings out and she finds Castle grinning underneath it.
"This is so cool," he says.
"You going to do that to every bell we walk past?"
He does it to every bell that they walk past. A cacophonous symphony following them through the line until they move into a building set up as base camp.
She glances over and finds his mouth hanging open, eyes wide.
"Oh my god, Kate," he breathes out. "This is..."
She grins. "Right up your alley."
The largest building in the queue is filled with information and materials on the Yeti. Right in front of them is a board of central Asia, strings wrapped around pushpins and pulled out to cards with sightings of the mythical beast, magazine articles on Yeti, first-hand encounters from witnesses.
"Look!" He drags her over to a glass case filled with books. "If Nikki Heat every goes down the drain, I can write about my encounters with Bigfoot."
This time, she does roll her eyes. "You've never had an encounter with Bigfoot," she reminds him, giving his back a shove to get him moving when the group behind them nips at their heels.
"We totally did. Remember? We got stuck in that trap and you got super grumpy."
Kate shakes her head, hooking her fingers in the waistband of his shorts as the turn the corner in the line. "That was a guy in a suit. Not Bigfoot. And I always get grumpy when stuck in a hole in the ground with no cell service."
"But this is proof positive!"
A campsite set up along the wall. The tent is destroyed, the fabric slashed through and support beams snapped. Scattered along the platform are bits of cookware, twisted metal pans and canteens, and a pair of mangled binoculars. A lantern with shattered glass rests on a trunk with cracked leather straps. There are photos taken from a camera at the scene; clear footprints in the deep snow that dissolve into blurry, frantic captures of the attack.
"Come on," he says, leaning closer to the setup so he can read some of the plaques. "You can't deny this evidence. You thrive on evidence."
He's right but this is ridiculous. "The Yeti doesn't exist," she insists.
"Kate, this is your murder board for the Yeti. It all adds up. It's real." When she slides ahead of him in the queue, he grabs hold of her t-shirt. "Non-believers will perish on the mountain," he whispers into her ear as she holds up two fingers for the Disney World cast member assigning rows on the rollercoaster.
Her head knocks against his when she turns to glare at him, the look softening when she sees his smile. "I think I'll take the chance."