"Hey, having only recently discovered Castle, I have watched a lot of the later and I am not watching the first couple of series, so if the characters aren't 100% then I do apologise. As I am in the UK my America geography is rubbish so if I make any mistakes please tell me

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or any of the characters in this story

I'm not sure where I am going with this story yet, though I do have a basic idea so bear with me. The first couple of chapters might be a bit boring but it will get more exciting as we get into the story. The bits in italics are flashbacks. Any mistakes made are mine. Thanks for reading

Part 1

And there it was again, that cheeky grin waiting for her as she entered the precinct. She looked away, avoiding his eyes as she smiled to herself, just as she did everyday, pleased that he was there. It hadn't even been a week since they had shared an amazing first kiss, first night together and the novelty was yet to wear off. Hiding there romance hadn't been easy since all they wanted to do was to be with each other every single minute of every single day but had decided they wanted to keep it to themselves whilst it was all still new.

"Morning castle" she greeted as she dropped a pile of paperwork onto her desk, and picked up the coffee he brought her on a daily basis.

"Ah detective Beckett so very nice of you to join us" he replied, that grin getting even bigger. He was happy she was there, they hadn't seen each other the night before and truth be told, he'd missed her a little more than he should have done.

She smiled back at him, finally meeting his eyes as she sat down. They held each others gaze for no more than a few seconds before looking away again avoiding drawing attention to themselves. They each had their own reasons for wanting to keep their relationship a secret none more important than the rest. For castle, his main reason was a purely selfish one, he wanted her all to himself and he was enjoying all the sneaking around and trying not to get caught, it added more excitement to the relationship. Then he had to think about Alexis and his mother. He new they deserved to know what was going on, especially Alexis but he wanted to make sure it was serious and he new where it was going before he brought her into it. Kate on the other hand had more personal reasons, and the main one was simply the fact that she wanted to keep her personal life personal. It had taken her years to admit to herself that she liked Castle, even longer to admit it to him and she wasn't sure if she was ready to admit it to anyone else yet. Talking about things, especially her feelings wasn't her strong point, and apart from in her therapy sessions she rarely did ever talk to anyone else about them so you could say it was a new experience for her. What she actually felt for Castle scared her, she had had serious boyfriends before and never felt like this yet here she was barely a week into their relationship and she was pretty sure she was more in love than she should be at this stage.

"Any updates?" she asked Ryan and Esposito as they walked past, laughing about something.

Nothing yet" Ryan replied, breaking off whatever conversation him and Espo were having.

"There's nothing in her phone records or financials to indicate that anything was wrong."

"And when I spoke to the family they didn't know anything either, said they thought everything was normal, she'd been acting ok and getting in touch as much as usual."

"Ok guys, good work, lets keep digging, figure out what our victim was up to in the few hours leading up to her death. Me and Castle will go back to her apartment, see if we missed anything." Beckett replied standing up from her recently occupied chair, ready to head off again, Castle right behind her secretly hoping for a cheeky kiss in the elevator.

The day before they'd been called out to the murder of a young girl, who by all accounts didn't have a bad bone in her body and would never have made anyone hate her enough to do this. She'd been found in her apartment will a bullet wound to her chest which looked like it had been made by a 30 calibre. The crime scene had been wiped clean and there was only her fingerprints throughout the rest of the apartment. The killer had been careful to cover his tracks, clearly knowing what he was doing, and knowing he'd have enough time to clean up after himself without being disturbed. She must have known her killer as there was no signs of forced entry, yet her family didn't seem to think she had any friends apparently she was always by herself either working or studying. She was studying phycology and was hoping to become a councillor one day, whilst working as a waitress to pay off her tuition fee's. As far as they could see she was just a normal girl with a normal life, well maybe a little odd since she didn't seem to have any friends but Kate was the first to understand why she might not have wanted to get too close to other people. It didn't add up though that she trusted the killer enough to let him or her into her apartment when they couldn't find any evidence that she even talked to anyone outside of work and school. This however is what they were hoping to get some answers about in the next few hours of their investigation.

...

"Hey Lanie" Kate greeted as they walked into the morgue. They had decided to stop off and see her on the way to the vic's apartment.

"Kate, Castle" she replied not looking up from the papers she was reading. Silence then filled the room for a moment before she started filling them in on what she had found. "It was definitely a 30 calibre that killed her and she definitely new her killer as there were no indications of a struggle on her body and all the tests came back clean. I can tell you though that she had sex not long before she died."

""Rape?" Kate asked, not really wanting to know the answer

"I doubt it, there were no bruises on the body, and no signs of tearing or bleeding down there. I can tell you though that either our girl had a very high sex drive or she was a prostitute, and I've never met anyone that gets as much as she has in the past few days.

"So our sensible college student seems to have a secret life in which she sells herself for sex. A few more twists and turns and this could be the start of a great story" Castle interrupted, losing himself in his imagination thinking of all the possibilities of where he could go with something like this. He'd never written about a prostitute or the sex industry, and it seemed a good move for the next book in the Nikki Heat series.

"Can you get any DNA off her or anything to tell us who she might have been with in the few days before her death?" Kate asked, choosing to ignore Castles comment and carry on with their conversation.

"Nothing, they all used a condom, and there wasn't anything on her body. I'm guessing she washed away any evidence when she had a shower, but whoever she was with just before she died was careful not to leave any trace of him behind, though I did find this" she indicated she wanted to show Kate something. "Castle look away, I'd like to think I at least helped keep this girls dignity, at least what she has left of it anyway.

"Lanie lifted the sheet up to show Kate a fairly recent tattoo she had found on the girl just below her bikini line. It was of a little tribal butterfly, just a black outline and it was only small but Kate didn't even need to see it all before she tensed up which didn't go unnoticed by the other two people in the room. Kate had recognised that tattoo, and she was glad Castle hadn't seen it as he would have recognised it too for it was the same tattoo as she had, the one she had gotten when she was 19, just after her mothers death, and it was in the same place too.

"Kate?" Lanie asked slowly, looking over at her friend. All Kate could do was look up at her friend and try compose herself.

"Thanks Lanie" she replied, avoiding her eye as she walked out of the morgue, leaving Castle and Lanie who caught each others eye, both wondering what the hell was going on.

"Kate waited outside for Castle, knowing full well he would want an explanation for what had just happened, and she couldn't give him a truthful one, not yet, not ever. She had never told anybody what she had done as a reckless 19 year old who had just lost her mother. Going off the rails had been an understatement when it came to her but that was in the past and nobody needed to know that. It was her personal business and that's the way she wanted it to stay.

She looked at herself in the mirror, disgusted at what she saw staring back at her. Pushing her feelings aside she pulled her hair into a loose bun on top of her head, and pulled her makeup bag towards her. A single tear slid down her face as she started applying too much make-up to her naturally beautiful face. The more make up she applied the less she looked like herself, the less she felt like herself and created a mask to hide behind. Zipping her makeup bag shut she looked at the layers of foundation she had applied, the over the top pink blush she had added to her cheeks and the black smokey eye shadow she had lined her clumped up eyelashes with. Pulling the bobble out of her hair, she let the long locks of brunette fall down way past her shoulders curling slightly as they fell. She left her hair like that, leaving it different to when she would be Kate Beckett, the Kate that wouldn't be seen dead with curly hair, the Kate she wanted to be, not this messed up version. Discarding the slacks she had on, she pulled a simple short black dress over her head, it fitted her perfectly showing off her slim figure. Her slender tanned legs on show, the deep V neck showing off her breasts, she new she looked good. She slid her feet into a pair of 6 inch red stiletto's before squirting herself with some of her favourite perfume, one of the only things she ever treated herself to. It had been her mums favourite and now it was hers. She looked at herself in the mirror, pulled a few strands of hair back into place, checked her teeth were clean before pouting her lips and putting some red lipstick on. Finally ready she grabbed her bag off the bed and left, ready for the night ahead