A/N: Here we are with a new installment of the Crazy Eyes series. This time we turn to everyone's favorite insurance investigator, Serena Kaye.
I have to say a huge thank you to He's-Her-Lobster41319 for both providing the prompt and the impetus for creating this story. It was solely due to their persuasion and support that I was able to get this one going. Look at that, Lobster – two full days earlier than I promised.
CRAZY EYES DISCLAIMER: This story is a parody, and should not be read by anyone who will take it seriously. Or, you know, anyone with a sense of decency.
I claim no ownership of the show, characters, settings, plot, or dialog. Just borrowing it for a little bit of craziness.
Enjoy!
"…and in sadder news, the body of an insurance investigator was found in her hotel suite this morning. While police aren't saying exactly how Serena Kaye died, a source within the department who asked to remain anonymous due to the ongoing investigation tells WHNY action news that she was found bolted to the wall with a rappelling piton shot through her stomach and numerous other piton wounds. The piton was most likely fired from her own compressed-air powered piton gun, found in a hidden compartment of her luggage. Ms. Kaye, a former art thief turned insurance investigator, apparently left a suicide note in the form of a written confession for not only the recent murder of Brian Hayes and theft of the 'Fist of Capitalism' statue valued at $50 million, but also all the pieces of art she seemingly stole before her most recent career.
When asked how someone could fire a rappelling piton through their own stomach, our source tells us that Ms. Kaye was also a former dominatrix and apparently 'incredibly flexible'.
Turning to entertainment news, Kristina Coterra has a story about the upcoming Nikki Heat novel by renowned author Richard Castle…"
Kate flipped the TV off with the remote and snuggled her nude form into Rick, enjoying the pleasant afterglow of a particularly vigorous session between the sheets. Full-body skin-on-skin contact was always her favorite part of the after-sex, aside from anticipation of their next romp. Next romp…hmmm…she thought, moving her hand down Rick's chest. "I never liked that entertainment bitch," she murmured.
"What in the world do you have against a random TV reporter?" he responded in a slightly weak voice as he tried to regain his strength, hands drawing slow circles around her upper back.
"She's a total skank. You're never allowed to do an interview with her," Kate said in a sleepy voice that picked up steam the farther south her hand traveled.
"Mmm…
Forty-eight hours before….
Detective Kate Beckett was fuming.
It was a sadly common state of being for her of late. Actually, it had been almost her default setting since she started dating her favorite author. It wasn't because he did anything to annoy her. Since they started bumping uglies on a twice-daily basis, very little he did riled her up – except for when he wanted to rile her up. Then it was quite literally a case of 'Katie bar the door' as she'd had a bar installed across his bedroom door so they couldn't be interrupted. Alexis was so traumatized after she accidentally walked in. The redhead had shrieked and ran out muttering something about never being able to look at a wheelbarrow the same way again.
When they were other places besides his loft, she'd made a habit of getting very creative with ways to block access to her choice of boinking location.
No, the source of her current pique was not her boyfriend, but on the second-order effects of his incredible masculinity. Namely, it was the seeming hordes of other women who were drawn to his ruggedly handsome good looks, piercing blue eyes, and stunning physique. Objectively, she could understand why other women would find him attractive, but short of tattooing 'Taken, bitch!' across his forehead – a plan Castle himself had shot down immediately, much to her dismay – she had to resort to more…inventive…ways to scare off rivals.
Right then there was one potential rival on her consciousness.
Serena Kaye. Gorgeous. Sophisticated. Well-traveled. Articulate. Intelligent. Blonde, she ground her teeth together at the thought. Somehow it was almost always blondes that fell on their backs for her boyfriend. Gina. Serena. The damned fangirls. Blondes! She gave an audible growl that had Castle looking over in concern before skittering out the door after Serena. Poor innocent Castle. He really had no idea how Serena was throwing herself at him.
She thought back to how she got stuck in this position. Grudging though it was, she had to admire Gates's Revenge, as she was coming to call it. Still smarting over the mayor forcing Castle on her precinct, Gates had taken glee in forcing Serena onto Kate's team for the investigation into the related crimes they were looking into; Brian Hayes's murder and the theft of a $50 million statue ironically named 'The Fist of Capitalism'. Kate promised herself to never cross the Captain when she could avoid it in the future.
"Damn it all anyway," she muttered, looking back to her desk. Picking up a pencil, she started to make some notes on a pad of paper for how to start looking into the mysterious art thief Falco. She had actual police work to do while the two civilian consultants went out meeting some secret informant Serena swore wouldn't talk to cops. It wasn't like she was worried about her boyfriend. Not at all.
The blonde, on the other hand…
She had to consciously force her muscles to relax after the pencil snapped in her hand. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Ryan and Esposito exchanging looks. They knew when to disappear.
Things didn't get any better from there, either. At least Castle had the decency to tell her that Serena was flirting with him the whole time. The boy had learned his lesson.
Then they got the case's big break, which oddly ended up being Kate's personal big break, too. After finding out about Serena's past life as an art thief, she had been caught on video meeting with the victim just days before the crimes. Got you now, you skank! She exulted. Everything clicked into place after that. They just needed to see her hotel room to find actual concrete evidence.
"We press our one advantage. She doesn't know we're onto her. So we make a run at her without her finding out," she declared, looking at her team.
Empty stares greeted her. "How're we going to do that?" Ryan finally ventured.
"Simple."
"Castle asks her out on a date."
"I do?"
"It's what she wanted, isn't it? All you have to do is keep her out of her room. And take her to the restaurant at the hotel. Then, just show her a good time. And while you keep her occupied…"
Castle looked around the restaurant, trying to hide his nerves. So far the evening had gone just as planned. Serena had bitten down on the lure of the date just as hard as Kate thought she would. He tried to suppress a shiver at the feral expression that overtook his girlfriend's face when she talked about reeling in Serena.
He'd been provided with a new ear microphone the department was testing out, hoping to use this sting as a test case for the equipment. Knowing that Kate was listening in via an app on her phone the whole time put him even more on edge, not sure what his occasionally overprotective girlfriend had planned. Hopefully everyone would survive the evening in one piece. A noise in the background intruded on his thoughts. Shaking his head, he realized that Serena was talking. Wait, what the hell did she just say?
"Seriously?"
"Absolutely. I was going to give you one more day and then ask you out myself," she affirmed.
Oh dear God, please don't say that out loud. It was only a one-way mike in his hear but he could almost hear Kate's growl hitting 'rabid Rottweiler' on the charts.
He wasn't wrong.
Esposito was looking at his boss out of the corner of his eye, wondering if his life was in danger if they didn't find anything incriminating. He decided to risk it. "Nothing so far. You find anything?"
Across the room, Kate opened a drawer filled with…well, drawers. An entire drawer of expensive lingerie greeted her. With a snarl and a mutter that may or may not have rhymed with 'sank', she slammed it shut. "No."
"Hm. You really want to nail this chick, don't you?" Esposito asked as he walked over to her.
Trust him to cut to the heart of the matter. "Yeah, well, it's what we do, isn't it? Catch bad guys?"
"Yeah, but…seems like it might be about more than that," he ventured, uneasy about possibly poking the bear. Everyone knew the blonde had been making doe eyes at Castle, a dangerous prospect under normal circumstances, but doing it directly in front of Kate was damn near suicidal. He had to see where his boss's head was.
"Just keep looking, 'kay?" she barked.
He knew when to back off. Leaving the room with a shake of the head, Esposito let Kate finish her check of the dresser. Moving to the closet, he started searching the mountain of suitcases. After a few minutes, he could hear Beckett moving around in the room. Cracking open one suitcase, he exhaled in the strangest mixture of satisfaction and dread.
At the same moment, Kate came in holding a tablet. "I think I found something. It's a message between Serena and a bunch of fences. Guess who's trying to sell D flawless diamonds?" Her voice held no dread, purely satisfaction at getting a crack at the insurance investigator.
"I think I found something too. The tools of the trade, as well as an ISI," Esposito confirmed.
As luck would have it, at that very moment, Kate's phone cracked with another bit of the conversation between Castle and Serena.
"So you were kind of like the, uh, female Indiana Jones, only without the hat and whip." They could tell Castle was trying as hard as possible not to be impressed and intrigued. Kate rolled her eyes at the admiration in his voice.
"Well, without the hat," Serena flirted.
Esposito dropped his face into his hands, listening to Serena sign her own death warrant. Maybe if he left now, he and Ryan could go out for drinks and forget the whole case….
Incredibly, things got worse from there. While Kate was not-so-silently fuming, Serena kept not-so-silently flirting.
"I have an idea. Why don't we skip dessert?"
The Latino detective had to hand it to Castle; he was trying as hard as he possibly could to keep her downstairs and, more importantly, in public. The situation was getting crazier by the minute and he was having trouble choking back his laughter.
"Oh, well…what's the rush? I hear the strawberry shortcake here is excellent."
"Really, Castle? Strawberry shortcake?" Kate hissed.
"Wouldn't you rather come up to my room for a drink?" the blonde purred, pulling out every cheesy line in the book. Esposito couldn't hide it any longer, shoulders shaking with silent laughter.
"The, uh, strawberries are supposed to be really fresh," Castle was really putting his all into it, but no man could resist the blonde practically stripping on the table for much longer without pretending to not like women, and Castle wasn't that good of an actor.
"Well great. We can order them from room service. With extra whipped cream."
Castle gulped.
Javier Esposito had seen a lot of crazy things in his time, from cases involving body snatchers to hit men and everything in between. Had he not seen it with his own eyes, he would not have believed it possible that a woman, especially one as thin as Beckett, could have snapped a tablet in half with her bare hands. Despite the loud cracking noise, Kate appeared to not even notice what she'd done, with the manic way her left eye was twitching.
She wasn't really in the room anymore, so when Esposito realized that Castle and Serena were on their way back up to the room, he had to fly around, hiding the evidence of their search. Kate still stood immobile – except for a growing twitch that threatened to encompass her entire body.
He gave her a shove toward the door, but just then they saw it fly open followed by Serena and Castle stumbling inside. Ordinarily, that would be an intensely awkward situation, what with Esposito and Kate sitting ducks in the blonde's hotel room, but Serena's eyes were fixed on Castle. Grabbing his face, she crushed their lips together. Castle gasped in surprise, but that only had the effect of opening his mouth for her entrance.
Esposito groaned. She didn't just sign her death warrant; she friggin' put the noose on herself and flipped the executioner the bird.
Kate's growl hit levels measurable on the Richter scale. She started moving toward Serena, growl turning into a shriek that finally had the blonde breaking the kiss. Turning to look at the incoming threat Serena's eyes had time for one brief flash of recognition before Kate's driving fist closed them for good.
Castle, still catching his breath – not from the kiss but from trying not to freak out over what his girlfriend would do to a blonde who dared to stick her tongue down his throat in front of her – was finally able to crack a small grin. "Well, at least she's still alive."
"For now," Kate growled, cracking her knuckles. "You boys head on back. I need to talk to this insurance agent about my newest policy."
Esposito and Castle shared a glance before nodding and hurrying out of the room. Neither of them wanted to know exactly what would happen.
A/N: Crazy Kate is so much fun to write. Every time I'm in a block with another project, her particular brand of demented fun always gets me out of it.
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing.
