"Jesse Cochran was a-"
"Was?" Castle interrupted.
"Yeah. He died back in 1994," Esposito replied.
"Let me guess. He was murdered?"
"No. He was eighty-three. He died of natural causes," Ryan said.
"Anyway, he was an exterminator. We didn't find any connection to Unis Corporation," Esposito continued.
"No connection? He was the president," Castle protested.
Esposito shook his head. "Not according to his wife."
"He was clean…" Ryan trailed off as Beckett walked into the break room.
Castle didn't see her. He opened his mouth to ask a question, but before he could say anything, Ryan nodded at Beckett. "Hey, Beckett." Ryan smiled.
Castle shut his mouth and glanced back at Beckett. He looked like a deer caught in headlights. She didn't know they were working on her mom's case, and he wanted to keep it that way.
"Hey," Beckett replied, moving past them to the expresso machine.
Castle breathed a sigh of relief. She wouldn't say Hey and refill her styrofoam cup if she heard them. She would ask questions. Questions he couldn't answer.
He had been working on the case for three weeks, and he had more questions than answers. Every time he turned a corner, he hit a dead end.
After Beckett accused Rod Halstead of falsifying the report on the warehouse in Union City, Castle returned to the fire station alone. An apology and an autographed copy of Heat Rise later and Halstead was more than willing to answer his questions.
Halstead didn't falsify the report, but he did remember something unusual. The warehouse didn't file insurance claims on the loss.
Castle had yet to find the owner of the warehouse. Well, the owner was Sun Corporation, but the number for Sun Corporation had been disconnected and the address was a vacant lot. Domino Corporation owned Sun Corporation, and Unis Corporation owned Domino Corporation.
He asked Ryan and Esposito to run a background check on the president of Unis Corporation, Jesse Cochran, only to find out he wasn't the president of Unis Corporation. So he was back at square one.
He needed to solve this case.
He couldn't keep Beckett away from her mom's case forever, and if she went near it, she was as good as dead. His expression was grim, his lips pressed together in a thin line.
Beckett brought the styrofoam cup to her lips and turned around. Esposito avoided her eyes and Ryan made an excuse to leave. She raised her eyebrows, narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "Okay, what was that?"
Castle tried to smile. "What?"
"That…" Beckett stared at him. His smile was too tight. Forced. She'd seen his real, easy smile too many times not to know the difference. "You okay?"
"Yeah." Damn. She wasn't buying it. "It's just…Alexis. I've never seen her like this." It was true. She would know if he was lying. He was worried about Alexis. He was just more worried about Beckett right now.
"She's still upset she didn't get into Stanford?"
"It's not just that she didn't get in. She broke up with Ashley. She said she didn't even know if they could make a long distance relationship work for a few months let alone three years."
"She'll be okay."
"I don't know that she will. We always do movie night on Sunday, but not yesterday. She was up in her room listening to break-up songs all day. She never wants to do anything with her friends anymore. She cries every night."
"He was her first love, Castle."
"Who was your first love?"
"Will Longo." Beckett smiled. "I met him freshman year of college."
"Why'd you break up?"
"We broke up after my mom died. I just…I wasn't in a place where I could be in a relationship," Beckett said softly, lifting her eyes to look at him. She still wasn't in a place where she could be in a relationship, at least not the kind of relationship she wanted to have. She hadn't been since her mom died.
He knew all this. He didn't know that she knew he wanted to be in a relationship with her, that she remembered what happened after she was shot, that she heard him. He loved her. A shadow fell on his face. She looked away and started walking back to her desk. He walked back with her.
"What about you, Castle? Who was your first love?" Beckett asked, trying to lighten the mood.
"You already know her," Castle replied. "Kyra."
Oh. Kyra. Beckett nodded. "The one that got away." She tried to sound teasing, not jealous. She was jealous. She saw the way he looked at Kyra.
"I wonder if that's how Alexis will see Ashley, the one that got away."
"Maybe," Beckett murmured.
"Hey, do you want to have dinner with us tonight? Maybe Alexis will come out of her room if you're there. She likes you."
"Okay," Beckett agreed, nodding slightly.
The lights were off and it was quiet. Castle flipped the lights on and headed towards the kitchen.
"Castle, is she even here?" Beckett asked, following him.
She heard the sad lyrics of Taylor Swift's If This Was A Movie coming from upstairs and had her answer.
Castle stood at the foot of the stairs. "Alexis? Sweetie!"
"I'll go get her," Beckett offered.
"Thanks," Castle said.
Beckett went upstairs, following the sound of the music to a closed door. She knocked on the door.
"Come in."
Beckett opened the door and walked in.
Alexis was lying on her bed. She glanced at the door, expecting her dad, and was surprised to see Beckett. "Detective Beckett," she gasped.
Alexis was wearing an oversized white t-shirt and grey yoga pants, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. Her eyes were bloodshot from crying. She blushed under Beckett's scrutiny, looking down at her clothes self-consciously.
"Hi," Beckett said, smiling slightly.
Alexis looked up again, shyly meeting Beckett's gaze. "Hi."
"How are you?" Beckett asked.
"Fine," Alexis said. It was an automatic response, polite.
Beckett's eyes raked over Alexis and an eyebrow arched. Alexis knew that Beckett knew she'd been crying. She didn't want Beckett to see her like this. Vulnerable. Weak. Beckett was strong.
Alexis sighed. "I didn't get into Stanford."
Beckett nodded. "It's a hard school to get into."
"Ashley got in. You got in!" Alexis sounded bitter and jealous, but Beckett knew she was more hurt than anything. "Why didn't I get in?" Now Alexis just sounded broken.
Beckett opened her mouth and then closed it. She didn't know what to say. What could she say to make Alexis feel better? Alexis was right. She got in. "I don't know, Alexis," she finally said.
"My grades are just as good as Ashley's," Alexis muttered, looking at her hands.
Beckett sat on the edge of Alexis' bed tentatively. "Are you jealous?"
"No," Alexis said defensively. She sighed. "Maybe…I don't know."
"Your dad said that you guys broke up."
"Yeah, but that's not why we broke up. He's all the way across the country. It was only supposed to be a few months, and then I was going to go to Stanford with him. Now it's going to be a year if I get in when I re-apply for the fall…three years if I don't."
"It's hard to make a long distance relationship work," Beckett said softly. "Actually, it's just hard to make a relationship work, even when you're in the same city."
Alexis' eyes shot to Beckett's. She bit her bottom lip, trying to decide if she could ask Beckett the question she really wanted to ask. "Did something happen between you and Josh?"
Beckett hadn't been thinking about Josh. She'd been thinking about Castle. She closed her eyes and nodded slowly.
"Did you love him?" Alexis asked quietly.
Beckett opened her eyes again. Alexis was talking about Josh. And she didn't love Josh. "I really liked him." But she loved Castle.
"I'm sorry."
Beckett furrowed her brow and frowned slightly. "Are you?" It was obvious that Alexis wasn't sorry, and Beckett wanted to know why. What did Castle say to her? Did Castle tell his daughter that he loved her?
"I miss Ashley so much it hurts. I don't want you to hurt like I do. But I really didn't like him- Josh. Not Ashley."
Alexis didn't like Josh? Alexis didn't even know Josh. Unless she didn't like him because he was her boyfriend- "Why?"
"Because of what he said in the hospital," Alexis bit out.
Beckett frowned. "What did he say?"
Alexis stared at Beckett, a hard edge in her eyes. Beckett had to know what Josh said, why she hated him, didn't she? "That it was my dad's fault."
"What?" Beckett was pissed.
Okay, maybe Beckett didn't know. Alexis wondered why Beckett was so angry. Was it just because she knew it wasn't Castle's fault? Or was there more to it than that? "I- I shouldn't have said anything. I just, I thought you knew what happened. Didn't Josh tell you?"
"No, it's okay, Alexis." Beckett managed a reassuring smile. "Come on. Your dad's making dinner."
"Hey," Castle said, looking up from the pot on the stove and smiling at his daughter.
Alexis gave him a hug. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulling her close to him. He looked over his daughter's head, locked eyes with Beckett, and his lips quirked up into a grateful smile. His daughter didn't look happy, but she was downstairs with them and acting more like herself than she had in days and he had Beckett to thank for that.
Castle returned to the stove and glanced at the clock. "Dinner's almost ready."
As Alexis set the table, Beckett noticed that there were only three plates. "Where's your mother?"
"She took her class to a play downtown," Castle replied, setting the spaghetti in the center of the table. "Alexis was going to go with them, but-"
"I didn't feel like going to Romeo and Juliet," Alexis interrupted, glaring at him.
"Yeah, but you didn't want to go shopping with your friends either."
"That's what girls do after a break up, Castle. We stay in, cry, and eat ice cream," Beckett said.
Alexis shot Beckett a small, grateful smile.
"Ice cream? That's the magic cure for a broken heart?"
"Why? What do guys do?" Beckett asked.
"Well, I always try to keep busy," Castle replied.
"So you find a distraction?" Beckett asked.
Castle nodded.
"That can't be hard considering you're easily distracted." Beckett smirked at him.
Alexis grinned. "He does have ADD."
"Hey!"
"Sorry, Dad."
"I'm not," Beckett said. "Sorry, that is."
"Well, that's because you're mean. Alexis is sweet."
"She is." Beckett agreed. She paused for a beat. "I wonder where she gets it from."
"I can be sweet," Castle said indignantly.
"He can be," Alexis said. Her tone was light, but there was something in her eyes.
Beckett studied Alexis for a moment and realized it was wariness. Alexis knew she was teasing, but she didn't know if there was an underlying seriousness. Alexis Castle was fiercely protective of her dad. Did Alexis think she needed to protect Castle from her?
"And I love my mom, but I don't think anyone would use the word sweet to describe her," Alexis continued.
Castle grinned, pride and amusement lighting his eyes.
Alexis turned to Castle. "Speaking of Mom, I don't want to go to LA for fall break."
"But you were looking forward to it," Castle protested.
"No, I was looking forward to seeing Ashley," Alexis corrected.
"But Ashley's in Northern California."
"Yeah, but his roommate's from San Diego. They were going to drive down together."
He should have known. Alexis hadn't asked if she could visit Meredith since she was eleven, and now her boyfriend was in California and she suddenly wanted to visit.
Not for the first time, he was glad she broke up with Ashley. Not because he liked seeing her like this- he hated seeing her like this. But, because it meant he could keep his little girl, even if it was only temporary. She wasn't going to leave for college eight months before she was supposed to leave. She wasn't going to live with her boyfriend in California. She wasn't going to spend fall break in LA doing God-only-knows-what with her boyfriend while Meredith was too busy with her career to be a parent.
"Now that we broke up, I don't really have a reason to go. Mom's working," Alexis continued.
"If you're sure you don't want to see your mom?"
"No." Alexis' quick response caught Beckett by surprise. She knew Meredith wasn't exactly Mother of the Year, but it made her sad that Alexis had no interest whatsoever in seeing her mother. She would give anything to see her mom again. "It's not too late to get a refund on the tickets, is it?"
"Don't worry about that."
"If you don't have anything to do, you can volunteer at the precinct again," Beckett offered, knowing Castle didn't want Alexis to spend fall break sulking in her room.
"I don't know-" Alexis started.
At the same time, Castle said, "That's a great idea!"
Beckett looked between Castle's grateful smile and Alexis' pursed lips and wondered if she should have stayed out of it. "I know it's not glamorous, but we could use the help."
"No, it's fine," Alexis finally said, flashing a forced smile at Beckett.
Alexis got up even though she'd only picked at her food and put her plate in the dishwasher, and then headed for the stairs.
"We could watch a movie," Castle said.
Alexis paused at the foot of the stairs, but shook her head. "You guys go ahead. I'm tired."
Beckett waited until she heard Alexis' bedroom door shut. "She's tired? It's not even eight o'clock."
"See? She never wants to do anything anymore."
"She misses Ashley."
"But the break-up was her idea."
"She only broke up with him because she's scared they won't make it. She thought if she was the one to make the decision it wouldn't hurt as much."
Castle stared at her, wondering if she was talking about Alexis or herself. "Did she tell you that?"
Beckett hesitated. "We talked about Ashley."
"And?"
"I'm not going to tell you what we talked about. Alexis can tell you if she wants to."
"She's my daughter."
She met his gaze, held it. "I know. And I would tell you if she told me anything you need to know. You know that."
He trusted her, so he nodded in resignation. "Well, whatever you said, she's acting more like herself than she has in days. Thank you, Kate."
Her brow furrowed. If that was Alexis acting more like herself, she didn't want to know how Alexis had been acting for the last few days. It's not that Alexis was acting bad. She wasn't. She was polite. But she was also withdrawn.
Beckett knew Castle's concern was genuine, but she thought it was exaggerated at first. Now she knew it wasn't, and she was worried about Alexis, too. Probably more than she should be. She wasn't Alexis' parent.
"You don't have to thank me."
"But I do."
"No, you don't, Castle," she insisted. "You and I…we're friends."
He winced slightly. They were friends, but he wanted to be so much more.
"I know why you looked into my mom's case."
He froze.
She took a deep breath. "And I know I was angry at first, but I want you to know that I needed to know what you found. I need to know what really happened."
He looked down, swallowed hard.
"If you hadn't found the connection to the other murders, I would have found it after the Coonan case, and I still would have re-opened my mom's case. You didn't change anything. Nothing that happened is your fault."
"It is my fault."
She saw the pain clearly reflected in his eyes and hated Josh a little bit for putting it there. "No, it's not, Castle! You didn't murder Coonan the same way my mother was murdered! You didn't shoot me! You didn't do anything wrong! All you've done is be there for me."
He knew he'd done a lot more than that. Everything that happened was because of him. He started it, and he would finish it. "I will always be there for you."