Kate looked up at the sky. It was a beautiful day and any other time she would have enjoyed being out and under the pure white clouds. However the hole in her chest and the fact that she couldn't breathe was making it hard to truly enjoy her surroundings.
A shadow fell across her face. "Castle," she whispered reaching out a hand for his cheek.
"Kate its going to be alright," Castle said. "Help!" he shouted into the chaos that was swirly around. It was Capt. Montgomery's funeral. It was supposed to be safe. It was supposed to all be over. Montgomery had said what he was doing was going to stop them. He shook his head and returned his attention back to Beckett bleeding out on the grass. Castle stroked Kate's cheek leaving a bloody trail down her face. "Kate stay with me ok. Stay with me." he whispered. The rest of the world had shrunk to a pinpoint of activity in his brain. All he he could focus on was Kate and the slowly fading light in her eyes. "Kate you have to stay with me. I love you." He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "I love you, please stay with me." Tears spilled freely down her face and dampened her shirt.
With her last ounce of strength she cupped his cheek and focused on his face. "I love you too," she whispered before her body gave out on her. Her hand slipped limply onto the grass.
~~X~~
To say August was nervous would be like saying a turtle's butt was water tight.
"You're the best and the brightest. Daddy's shining star." She whispered to herself as she rode the elevator up the the fifth floor. It was a silly little mantra her father had quipped on her first day of kindergarten when she refused to climb out of the car and venture into her new school. It had been all her mother could have done to get her into the car in the first place, and when she pulled up tp the school to had been determined not to get out. She was convinced there was nothing that could have been said that would have moved her. Her dad calling her a shining star had done it.
And here she was on her first day at the 12th as the new lead homicide detective repeating the mantra to herself on the ride up. The door slowly creaked open and she stepped into her new world. It was sad to say that the brown box she now found herself in was a step up from the single grey cinder block building she had spent the first three years of her life as a cop in.
The little lobby had two lumpy plastic benches pushed up against metal and wood pony walls that was topped off with chain link. The main part of the floor was taken up by the bullpen with neat little rows of spartan desks and chair combinations. Most of the desks were empty, but the place was buzzing with activity.
August wasn't sure what she needed to be doing. "Can I help you?" A voice asked.
August turned to see a black woman with half moon glasses perched on her nose staring her down. "I'm the new transfer from Central Park. I'm looking for Captain Gates." August said thankful that she could remember her new captain's name.
It had taken all of her brain power to dress herself and even then she had left the house with two different shoes on. If Canary, her little French bulldog, hadn't ran into the room chewing on her other shoe she wouldn't have known she didn't have on a matching pair.
"I'm Captain Gates," the woman said holding out her hand for August's transfer papers.
August blushed before reaching into her purse to dig for the papers the captain was asking for. "Yes ma'am." she said handing over the paperwork.
"My mom is a ma'am you call me sir or Captain." Gates said. August nodded like a trained puppy.
'Oh Lord, this is crazy,' August thought to herself. She was in homicide now, not Vice. And she was a detective now. She was actually a part of the food chain with her gold shield. Her voice mattered, and thankfully she didn't have to walk up and down the Ho Stroll in seven inch plastic shoes and a mini skirt that could double as a belt on a good day. "Yes sir," she said. If Capt Gates wanted to be called sir she would do it. She could giggle about it later at home over Chinese food and a cold beer.
The captain took the paperwork and motioned August to follow her. She hitched up her box and her purse to follow the captain. Behind the cages the office seemed a lot bigger and it smelled freshly cleaned. She followed her down the hallway that snaked along the wall.
The entered a large office with glass on three sides and a large window that overlooked the street. Captain Gates went around to her desk and sat down. August remained standing at the front of the desk. "They call you St. James don't they?" Gates said finally taken off her glasses to get a good look at the new detective OnePP had sent her. Since Beckett's death they had been running homicide on a tight leash being down two investigators.
August really hated that nickname, but she nodded regardless. "Yes sir." She got the moniker from her frequent attempts to rehabilitate the hookers that she regularly had to bust. She had managed to save a few. Carmel still sent her letters from Iowa State. She hadn't done it out of any sense of trying to be a savior, but simply she thought everyone deserved another shot at life. Plus hookers held a special place in her heart.
Gates took her glasses office to get a good look at August James. It was hard to believe that the pint sized cop standing before her could have done half of what her jacket said she had done. She had applied to SWAT three times in the Atlanta PD and turned down each time. She was just too small to be SWAT.
Not deterred James had did a stint in APD's gang unit before moving to narcotics. Then James moved to New York where she took step down into Vice. Whatever her reasons for doing it she had done a stellar job there as well. Gates like ambition and she liked when woman showed it and did it the right way. She hadn't been called Iron Gates in the IA office for nothing.
"Well welcome to the 12th. I run a clean house here. Do your job and do it clean and we will get along just great." August nodded. Everyone knew who Iron Gates was. You didn't work in Internal Affairs without people knowing about it and staying clear of you because of it, but August had heard nothing but good things about Gates so she didn't take it as a punishment getting assigned to the 12th like she would have for any other former IA captain. "You've got a good team out there. Use them wisely and get my close rate down. I've got pressure from One PP as if they think I can this job shorthanded. So we are glad you're here." Gates gave August a rare smile.
Gates stood up from her chair and rapped sharply on the glass overlooking the bullpen. She motioned for two detectives that had been chatting away in the bullpen. A hispanic male and a short white guy got up from their desks to walk into Gates office. "Ryan, Esposito this is August James our new detective. She's coming to us from Central Park. James, this is Ryan and Esposito." Gates said by way of introduction. It wasn't hard to guess which was Ryan and which was Esposito.
"Nice to meet you," August held out her hand for them to shake. She could feel Ryan and Esposito eyeing her and wondering if someone that short could actually do police work without a step ladder.
"Well get back to work," Gates said with a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. They needed some new blood in the place.
Everyone scrambled out of her office and back into the bullpen. Now that she was in it she could see that the other side of the room was dominated by a expansive white board that was current clean.
"So August huh," Ryan said eyeing August up and down. Which would have been a feat if August stood any taller than her 4 foot 7 inches.
"Got two sisters name January and September if you care," she said with a shrug. She was used to taking crap about her name. Ryan wasn't exactly being original on that front.
Ryan maintained eye contact for a few more seconds before dropping his eyes and finding something interesting on his desk.
"So Central Park," Esposito said trying to ease the tension his partner had caused.
August nodded, "Yeah. Started at Atlanta PD on patrol worked my way up the chain to gangs and then narcotics. When it was clear to my mom that I was more focused on my job and not making babies and baking Red Velvet cupcakes she became unbearable. She I needed to get away from my mother and my sisters so I applied to the NYPD. Been working Vice in the park since I got here. I stayed longer than most. I liked the work and I liked my girls." August told him truthfully. Not many woman on Vice liked the gig. It was usually the ho stroll for women working Vice. Or posing as immigrants to get into the trafficking world. It was degrading but to August her job had been just as important as the guys on SWAT.
August sat down at an empty desk and looked up at Javier and Kevin. She had read their jackets when she got the promotion. "So let's talk about the elephant in the room." she said softly. Ryan flinched and Esposito's eyes narrowed. Well at least she knew who the tough guy was in the their little bromance. "I'm not here to replace Beckett. I'm not even going to try. I'm August James and I do things different, but not I'm not trying to throw dirt on her name. All I ask is that you give me a chance." She spread out her hands and gave them both space to air out their feelings.
Esposito opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by the clang of the land line on his desk. He picked up. "Esposito." His handed patted down his desk looking for a pad and a pencil. It took him to locate both and he started scribbling faster than August could track.
"Got a body in the park." He said standing up to grab his jacket. Ryan stood up as well. They strapped on their pieces and shields before heading to the door.
Ryan turned back and looked at August. "Are you riding with us." He asked. August strapped on her SIG sauser and her shield before grabbing her blazer as well. It was weird laying a gold shield across her chest. She had been staring at her silver badge for nearly five years. And now she was in the big leagues. It made her heart flutter.
~~X~~
Richard Castle was a man on the road to recovery.
It had been two years since Beckett's death. It had hurt like hell, it still hurt, but it was easier to get up and out of bed in the morning. He sat at the desk in his office staring at his computer. He hadn't touched it since her funeral. He had started on his next book, Dead Heat, in those days after the shooting thinking he was up to the task of laying Nikki Heat to rest along with Beckett. In his alcohol fueled writing sprint he had written nearly the entire book. Up to the point of Nikki dying. He never finished the scene. It had been too much to take.
If it hadn't been for Alexis, his mother, Ryan and Esposito he wasn't sure he would have made it, but today he was ready to finish his last tribute to Nikki Heat and Kate Beckett. He reached out and stroked his keyboard. "Hello old friend," he said with a sad smile on his face.
He didn't know if the words were going to come. This had been in fourth attempt and getting the words out. He could feel the grief poisoning his soul and he needed an outlet. He knew he did. He didn't want to go on feeling like this any longer. He knew Beckett would have kicked his butt up and down 5th Avenue if she knew what he was doing to himself.
At that though he smiled and reach out to grab his keyboard to plop down in his lap.
He fired up the laptop and pulled up his last manuscript. He didn't bother reading through what he had already written. He knew the words by heart. He just needed to finish the ending. He scrolled down to the last line. Her eyes began to dim.His heart started to palpitate but he pushed himself to poise his fingers above the keys. Rook's tears ran down his face freely as he begged Nikki to hold on. Castle had to blink away the tears as he started to write.
~~X~~
Alexis stood at the doorway as she watched her dad at his computer.
It had been killing her every single day to watch her dad in so much pain. It had been all she could do to keep herself from tearing out into the night to find the bastard that had ripped his heart out and taken Kate Beckett from the world.
But today her heart felt a little lighter. Her dad was writing again, and she knew what he was writing and if he felt that he could deal with that maybe, just maybe he was ready to land back on reality's runway.
She left her father alone to write and remember.
~~X~~
The team pushed through the underbrush. It was hard going for August as some of the bushes were taller than she was. Ryan and Esposito seemed to forget she was behind them, or that she was a foot shorter than ryan who seemed to be on the small side himself.
She sighed and kept moving forward. She was a cop, not a dainty housewife that needed looking after.
They finally broke through the ring of the trees and bushes into a small clearing. August knew they were on the south side of he park closer to the horse trails and away from the running trails. It was a perfect dumping ground for bodies, and it was bodies, plural.
This wasn't her first body dump, she worked Central Park for three years, but this was the first time she had to work the crime scene.
Usually her job consisted of being the grunt for the guys with the gold badges. Now this was her show and everyone was looking at her for instructions. She took a deep breath and let her eyes wonder over the scene. "Ryan canvas the witnesses, Esposito talk to the unis and the and get statements please." they only hesitated for a moment before hopping to do her bidding.
Ryan immediately went to the horse riders to question them. Esposito went to speak to the first responders. August was drawn to the bodies. She couldn't explain why, but it seemed like they were calling out for justice. There were five of them. All white and Eastern European looking. They all seemed to be in their early twenties. Her eyes took note of their clothing which marked them as hookers, but something was off about all of their outfits.
None of them fit. Not in the too tight because I am showing off my tits and ass, as johns liked to see what they were buying, but in the sense that this mini skirt is too big for me a rides down my hips. No hooker on the stroll would wear a mini skirt that was too big.
Someone was trying hard to make this look like a pimp cleaning house. August grunted.
A striking black woman in a blue ME jacket was checking the liver temp of one of the victims. She looked up at August. "Finally got a new kid on the block huh?" she asked. She pulled off one of her purple gloves, " Lanie Parish. Everyone just calls me Lanie." she offered.
August knelt down and shook the doctor's hand, "August James. Everyone called me James." August joked.
"Glad to see a little more color in the precinct if I may be so bold." Not that Lanie wouldn't have been as bold as she wanted to be, but she had to get a feel for the new girl before she let all of Lanie Parish out to play.
"I couldn't agree more." august answered. There weren't enough woman on the force if you asked her let alone woman of color in places of power. August rather got a rush bossing the men around. She knew some would call it a Napoleon complex and she would tell them to try wearing a Kevlar vest over 34 Ds sometime and then come talk to her about Napoleon.
Lanie smiled and put on a fresh glove. "So it looks like the time of death was between 7 pm and 9 pm last night." She set down her clipboard to turn the blonde's head. "Two kill shots to the back of the head execution style. The lack of blood indicates this isn't the primary scene. This is the dump site." She stood up.
"Caliber?" August asked as she took note of Lanie's assesment.
"Off the cuff I would say a 9, but I have to get them back to the lab to confirm." She motioned for her guys to start loading up the bodies.
"Any ids on the bodies?" She knew there wasn't going to be any. The girls weren't wearing their won cloths and this was the dump site, but it was prudent to ask.
"None. I might be able to pull prints once we get back to the lab." Lanie told her before moving off to help with the loading of the bodies.
August stood watching the activity around her before starting to walk the scene. She saw a set of wide placed tire tracks leading up to the dump site.
"We got some SUV tracks over here," she called to the lab geeks. They nodded and started over to do whatever it was they did. August had never had a head for science. She had been the volleyball and track star. She night have been short, but she made up for it in her bite.
"So the riders said they ride this trail every morning starting at 6 am. They ride all the way to the east side entrance then loop back around. They didn't see anything coming in. They found they bodies as they were riding out." Ryan said flipping through his little notebook.
"Ok so that ride would have taken them just about an hour if they weren't galloping. Its the middle of November so they aren't many joggers that early." August answered. "They were brought in by car. The gate doesn't open till 8am." August bit her bottom lip. Something wasn't adding it up.
"Ryan can you go check the west side gates at the park and see what's going on. They aren't supposed to be open yet. See if you can get some camera footage. Thank you." Ryan nodded and jogged off. "Let's head back and see if we got any missing person reports for them." Without any id that was the only thing they cold do at this point as they waited for all the reports to pour in.
Thanks to shows like NCIS and CSI the public thinks that the police department had state of the art equipment that could do 3D renders of faces and then race through the entire database of drivers licenses till one pinged. Maybe the alphabet boys in DC had their hands on that short of equipment, but down in the trenches everything still had to be done by hand.
And after three hours of flipping through missing persons report August's eyes were starting to cross and her stomach was fighting a vicious battle in her body. "I don't know about you but I could use a burger and something cold." she told Esposito before climbing out of her chair she was going to need a grappling hook to get back into if she couldn't figure out how to lower it closer to the ground.
She had felt like a gargoyle perched on the edge of the New York Public Library sitting on that thing, but the other chairs were all spoken for. And if there was one thing a cop loved outside of his gun and his badge it was his chair that had molded to fit his butt over the years.
"Come with me I know the perfect place." Espo grabbed his coat and August followed suit. He knocked on the glass in the tech room to get Ryan's attention. It only took him a few minutes to stop the video he was watching and join them on their way to the elevator.
~~X~~
It had taken Castle the entire morning of straight writing to get the last three chapters done. He felt it was his best work. He didn't bother reading it before sending it off to Gina. He might have written the words, but he couldn't bring himself to read them again. He was healing he wasn't ready to rip the bandage off just yet.
His mother was at rehearsal and Alexis was in class so he was on his own for lunch, and he felt it was time to rejoin the world. Though he loved take out there was only so much he could stomach and his mother's cooking left a lot to be desired. Like the desire to not die a slow, agonizing death by food poisonings.
He took a long soul scrubbing shower. It felt good to be treating himself again. He pulled on a pair or black slacks and a deep blue shirt. He grabbed a blazer before sliding on a pair of black shades. It was overkill and wholly unnecessary, but it felt good and he looked like his old self.
He left his car keys at home and didn't bother with a cab. It was good to be back outside so he opted to walk downtown to his favorite pub. The Old Haunt. He did own it after all and what was the use of owning a pub if you couldn't drop in and grab a pint of something.
Though it was the middle of November and the air was chilly the streets were as packed as ever. Castle didn't mind. He didn't realize how much he had been craving human interaction till he was in the middle of the living pavement moving in both directions. He felt himself for the first time smiling and actually enjoying the sensation of his lips stretching over his mouth. He felt it in his heart right down to his toes.
"Bellvue is that way pal," Someone snapped as he pushed past the grinning Castle. Castle hadn't realized he was grinning like a fool.
He just shook his head and kept walking.
It took him nearly an hour to walk to the 42 blocks to the Old Haunt. He saw the unmarked car parked on the curb at the reserved stop. Only two people would have parked in that spot and Castle felt his smile brighten.
He practically skipped down the stairs.
The Old Haunt was a classic pub. Dark, brown and cavelike. The interior was done in a rich chocolate brown that covered the walls as well as the floors. The bar that ran down the far wall was in a lighter wood with brass accents. Many of the bar stools were occupied and all of the booths were filled with munching and drinking patrons. Castle felt good that he had been in a position to save the place, but his eyes were drawn the the booth on the back right hand side.
He spotted Ryan and Esposito laughing and eating. "Well if I knew you guys were going to be eating up my profits I would have rescinded the NYPD eat for free policy." He joked. It felt good that the joke flowed freely from his lips.
"Castle," Ryan said cheerfully. He slide from the booth to embrace his friend.
"Welcome back man," Esposito said once it was his turn for a hug. Things just hadn't felt right around the precinct without Castle around to joke with ans spin conspiracy yarns for them to shoot down.
"And who is this?" He asked spying August still sitting in the booth looking at everyone. "Lanie's little sister?" Ryan chocked on the mouthful of coke he had just swallowed.
August's face blanched. "Um Richard Castle. This is Detective August James. She's with us." Javier told him.
"She's like four feet tall," Castle said as he took in Detective James who was looking like she was debating how much paperwork it would be if she shot him.