The speed the car was going, it was pretty much inevitable. Not even the sprinkling of summer rain on the road could slow it, and as it hit the verge it continued up the slight slope, its momentum hardly diminished. Then it was airborne, flying out into the night as if it was trying to reach up into the sky.
Gravity, though, had other ideas. Within touching distance of the lights of Manhattan, the vehicle carved an almost graceful parabola as it headed back towards earth, hitting the water with a mighty splash. For a few moments it seemed as if it would float, then the air inside evacuated in huge bubbles that broke the surface, pulling the car under. The engine died quickly, although the headlights continued to work for a while, flooding the water with a ghostly luminescence until they too succumbed.
Finally it was quiet and dark again, only the hum of the city beyond breaking the silence.
---
The car swerved around a stationery vehicle, then took advantage of the slight straight to gain speed. Another car started across the intersection, not having heard the siren, and Detective Kate Beckett had to slam her foot on the brake.
"Shit!"
Rick Castle, holding on for dear life in the passenger seat, mentally agreed, but didn't have the breath to say anything, his lungs having been forcibly emptied by the impact of his body on the seatbelt.
Kate leaned on the horn, and the other car backed up enough to allow her to go through.
"Hold on," she said, her foot pressing the accelerator to the floor.
Rick nodded as their car leaped forward in a squeal of tyres.
"There he is."
The white SUV was ahead, slowed as much by the traffic as they were.
She grabbed the radio mike. "He's on Crenshaw, heading north. If we can box him in at 34th ..."
"On it, boss." This was Ryan.
"And if we can't?" Rick managed to gasp out.
"Then if he crosses the bridge life is going to get difficult."
"Get?" He grabbed for the dashboard as Kate swung the car to avoid a motorcyclist, feeling two of the wheels actually lose contact with the road for just a second. He had a mental picture of the car flipping, going over and over, their bodies inside like in a tumble dryer, all twisted and broken ... then it settled back and his heart began to beat again.
The SUV was closer, but maybe not close enough. Then, even at this distance, they heard tyres complain as the brake lights came on, and the white vehicle started to slide, trying to gain enough traction to get around the truck that was double-parked, instead slamming into it, side to side.
Kate stamped on their own brakes, controlling, out of the car almost before it came to a stop, her gun in her hand. Rick followed, slower, hanging back even though she hadn't taken the time to tell him to stay.
"Freeze!" she yelled, her weapon trained on the driver, who attempted to open the door to run. She kicked it closed again on his hand, and he yelled. "Just give me an excuse ..." she added.
The man whimpered, cradling the affected limb, even as Rick smiled widely. She was incredible. No wonder she was the perfect inspiration for Nikki Heat.
---
"Wow." Rick couldn't get over the adrenalin rush. He was sitting at the desk next to Kate's as she wrote up her report, a cup of espresso untouched in front of him. "That was ... wow." He grinned happily.
Kate, her concentration on the computer screen, noticed a spelling error in her typing and backed up the cursor. "Yes," she agreed absently.
He watched her, the way her brow furrowed as she considered the right words to make the report accurate. "How do you describe that?" he asked.
"What?"
"The chase. How do you describe that in your report?"
She half-turned to look at him, his hair still slightly out of place, his blue shirt, open maybe a button or two lower than it should be, complimenting his eyes perfectly. She sighed. "Just that there was a high speed chase, with no involvement with bystanders or other vehicles until at the end, and we caught him."
"That's it? That whole ... rollercoaster ride in a few words?"
"That's it." She tapped the screen. "This isn't a novel, Castle."
"It would take me four, maybe five pages. More, if I could get away with it."
"Well, real life isn't like one of your books."
"Sometimes it is." He was referring to the reason he was shadowing Kate in the first place, the murders that had been based on settings in his stories.
She resisted the temptation to stick her tongue out at him, and instead went back to her report. "Don't you have somewhere else to be?" she asked, wondering if she could use the word 'squealed' in relation to coming to a halt, and decided against it. "Some red carpet or other you should be wandering down?"
Rick glanced at his watch. "Not really. I've got an appointment in a couple of hours, but I can hang around until then."
"Lucky me." Her tone was so dry everyone in the room suddenly had the urge for a drink.
He didn't mind. For the past few weeks he'd felt they'd been coming to an understanding. Even the arrival of Will Sorenson hadn't put that much of a crimp in their relationship, and Rick was getting closer to the inevitable. Oh, not sleeping with her. At least, not yet. That was something for the future, if they ever got that far. She was much more likely to shoot him if he even suggested it – hell, thinking it was probably dangerous – but right now he was content to be her friend. He half-smiled.
"What are you smirking about?"
"Smirk?" He looked affronted. "I don't smirk."
"Yes you do."
"Well, maybe I was," he conceded. "I was just thinking about us."
"Us?"
"How we work together. Catch the bad guys. Get them locked away."
"Takes one to know one," she muttered. "And there is no 'us'."
"Oh, I don't know. We're probably famous in some circles. Like Mulder and Scully. Bonnie and Clyde."
She half-turned, leaning her elbow on the back of the chair. "The first are fictional, the second were crooks."
"Tracy and Hepburn."
"Actors, Castle. Actors. I doubt very much they ever went out solving crimes."
"Maybe they did. In their spare time." His eyes glazed a moment. "Famous thespians who take murder off the streets and put it back where it belongs, in the theatre."
Kate glanced at Ryan, who was grinning, and she rolled her eyes. "Your next plot?"
"Well, maybe I'll keep it for a while. Let it ferment."
"Good idea. Maybe your head will explode." She turned back to her screen, typing more rapidly in an effort to ignore him.
Rick looked over at Ryan. "She loves me really."
"If you say so, buddy."
It was another fifteen minutes before Kate was satisfied with her report, sending it to print and standing up to try and get the kinks out of her back. She stretched, moving her shoulders around while using her hips in counterpoint, and he just couldn't help himself.
"What are you doing?" Ryan asked, watching Rick fiddling with something.
"Shh!" Rick urged, turning away from the view and holding out his cellphone so the detective could see.
"She is so going to kill you," Ryan said, grinning nevertheless.
"Am I?" Kate was suddenly at Rick's elbow. "What about this time?"
Rick slid the phone closed. "Nothing. At least, nothing more than usual."
She held out her hand. "Show me."
"No."
"Castle ..." She flicked her fingers in the universal sign for give it to me or you won't be walking straight for three weeks.
With Ryan grinning even wider, if that was possible, Rick reluctantly handed his phone over.
She slid it open, stared at the screen. Her thumb passed across it, changing the picture, although the expression on her face didn't. Eventually she handed it back. "Delete them," she ordered.
"They're just pictures, Kate," Rick said.
"Of me. Without my permission. That's a gross invasion of my privacy, at the least. Delete them."
"They're research," he went on, trying to persuade her and knowing he was going to fail. "For Nikki Heat. So I can see how she would –"
"I don't care. Get rid of them. Now." She stood in front of him, her hands on her hips, and glared at him.
"Fine, fine," Rick said, using the touch screen to send the photos he'd taken of Kate to the great recycle bin in the sky. "There." He held up the phone, which now clearly said 'No pictures saved'. "Happy?"
"Happy would be having you off my back and out of my life." She span on her heel and went back to her desk, dropping into the seat.
"You don't mean that."
"Try me." She started flicking through her printed report.
Rick had to hide the ... yes, the smirk. It was a good job he'd already set his phone up to automatically send any photos he took to his email account. Otherwise where would a man be? Besides, he knew his muse didn't really want him out of her life. They worked too well together for that.
The phone in his hand rang, and he almost dropped it in surprise. Checking the caller ID he slid it open, holding it to his ear and saying, "Yes, mother?"
"Richard?"
He smiled. "Who else would it be? And who else answers by saying 'yes, mother'?"
She wasn't in the mood for chit-chat. "Have you seen the Herald?"
"You mean the magazine?"
"Of course. Don't be obtuse, darling, it doesn't suit you."
"I wasn't being obtuse. I've had ... an interesting day, that's all, and I'm still a bit buzzed. And no, I haven't seen it. Why would I? It's not exactly my thing."
The Herald, or to give it its full title, The Herald of Truth (bold and italics included), was a fortnightly publication only recently on the market, bridging the gap between the more upmarket, serious tomes and the so-called true life 'celebrity' rags. Plying pretty much the same areas as the latter, it used longer words in an effort to be taken seriously, and despite dire misgivings on the part of the literary world, it had become wildly popular in the few months of its somewhat seedy life.
Martha sighed heavily. "Then you'd better pick one up on your way home."
"Why?"
"You'll see. And if you don't get going you'll be late." She hung up.
Rick stared at his cell. "That was odd."
"Your mother?" Kate asked.
"No, I didn't mean that. She's odd all the time. I mean –"
"Hey, Rick," Esposito said, walking into the squad room. "You seen this?" He was holding up a magazine.
"The Herald?"
"Mmn." The detective nodded, then grinned, staring at the page in front of him. "You're going to like it. Well, maybe not you," he corrected. "But we will."
Rick got to his feet so he could look over the other man's shoulder. "Ah."
Kate, her curiosity aroused despite herself, stood up. "What?"
Rick took the magazine and laid it on the desk. "That."
She couldn't help it. Laughter rolled out of her perfect lips. "Oh, dear ..."
"It's not funny!" he insisted.
"Yes it is."
The headline was RICHARD CASTLE – JUST A NICE GUY? across a double page spread where one side was taken up by a publicity photo of the man in question. Not one of his better ones, either, he considered.
"Hey, is that the Herald?" Ryan asked, coming into the room, a negative tox screen report in his hand.
"It is," Esposito confirmed.
"What does it say about him?" The young man crossed to stand behind them, craning his neck to see past. "It's the talk of the locker room."
"Not a lot," his friend and colleague said with a disgusted sigh. He read aloud. "'Coming in our next edition ... Honor McAllister's exposé on the private life of world-renowned author and man about town, Richard Castle.'" He looked up at Rick. "Are you world-renowned?"
Rick shrugged. "I'm very big in Europe."
"That's what they all say," Ryan commented, making it a double entrendre without even trying.
"They love Derrick Storm in the Far East, too, you know."
"Lucky you."
"And why is it always 'man about town'?" Esposito wanted to know. "We're all men, we live in this town. It's a stupid phrase."
"I couldn't agree more," Rick said.
Kate ignored them and picked the magazine up, continuing where Esposito had left off. "'With an in-depth interview, she asks whether this handsome, charming man is simply a person with a fertile imagination, or if some of the more perverted aspects of the Storm novels are taken from his own, real, not so squeaky clean life.'" She shook her head. "I didn't know you'd been interviewed."
"Not by Honor McAllister, I haven't." Rick plucked the magazine from her hands. "Is this libellous?"
"Not really. At least, not so far." She looked into his face, her own smug. "It might be worth seeing if you can get a look at the article before it's published, though. Get your lawyer to go over it. But good luck getting it stopped."
Rick sighed. "I know."
"I like the way it suggests you're depraved without actually coming right out with it, though," Kate said, trying unsuccessfully to hide her own smirk. It was so rare that she had the upper hand in their relationship, and she was going to enjoy every second. "Subtle."
"As it happens, this is old news," Rick said, dropping the magazine back down on the desk. "She spoke to my agent some time back trying to dig something up on me." He flicked his fingers either side of his face. "Some kind of deep, dark, scary secret." He shook his head. "I thought they'd given up on the idea, to be honest."
"Did he give any away?" Esposito asked. "Any of your deep, dark, scary secrets?"
"Please don't encourage him," Kate implored, but the men ignored her.
"Nope," Rick said proudly. "There aren't any. My life is as transparent as an open book."
Kate stared at him. "Don't be naive," she said. "Everybody's got secrets."
"Not me," he insisted. "Open book. Want to thumb through my pages?"
She picked up the magazine and hit him with it.
---
All across the city temperature gauges were going up. The forecasters were predicting a mini heatwave over the next few days, recommending that anyone with health problems should stay indoors, keep the air-conditioning on, and drink plenty of fluids.
The water in the East River hadn't warmed up any, though. It was going to take a long time for even a degree's difference, but that didn't stop the small army of crustaceans and other bottom dwellers from making their way inside the car, getting in through the submerged vents and through the chassis, feasting on the soft tissue of the body they'd found within.