Last Chapter: A storm is raging outside and Kate Beckett haven't seen Castle in two weeks. He requested to leave the 12th after their last case; the TakeOver Bombing at Boylan Plaza. Late after a hard day, Beckett gets a call to assist a breaking and entering. At the mention of "a lot of blood" she can't ignore it and rushes to the crime scene, which happens to be Castle's appartment. Meanwhile, a John Doe was admitted at the hospital for a GSW.


CHAPTER TWO

The living room felt cold. CSU had the whole lighting system up - on top of a few spot lights brought for the occasion. The living room was the first room in which one enters and it shocked like a lightning in a dark room.

It shocked her that it was his living room.

It shocked her that it wasn't as warm and welcoming as he had kept it.

It shocked her that her world somehow destroyed his.

There weren't many uniforms in the apartment because there was nobody home to question. Also, it was a Friday night; officers tend to desert the place quickly and rather not offer an extra hand. Most personnel were picking up samples of everything around. Her first impression was that they had it all wrong. At any moment, she expected him to come home and say: "What the hell is going on here?".

A CSU agent grabbed her arm before she could walk any further.

"You have to wear these ma'am."

He handed her a pair of paper slippers. "You'll also have to hand over that soaked coat and tie up your hair."

She had a look around and noticed everybody had the same treatment. It was pouring down rain outside, it didn't mean the crime scene had to be contaminated with rain water.

She did as he asked and, before handing her coat to him, she got a pair of rubber gloves out of its pocket and thanked him dryly with a forced smile.

"Ryan?" She called out without searching.

She noticed a small bullet sized hole in one of the window panes in the dinning room. Wind screeched through the small hole as the storm raged outside.

"Right here, Beckett." Detective Ryan stood up from behind the kitchen island. He apologized to the staff members as he tried to move out from behind the island without disturbing their work.

She came to meet him and looked down at the kitchen floor where he had just be kneeling. The first thing she noticed was the blood. It was as large as a medium carpet. The blood looked half-dried and it was contrasting with the kitchen's pale tiles. The sulfured odor caught her nose and made her nauseous. Two crime scene agents were in a squat position sampling it. The refrigerator's door, behind them was wide open enhancing the cold feeling in the whole loft.

"Where are Martha and Alexis?"

"We don't know, we figured they might have left for the week-end."

She nodded.

All that blood, she thought. It was diffused on the sides. Next to it, double-wheeled tracks were coming out of the pool. A stretcher maybe, to carry the body out. A few centimeters from the red puddle, was a plaid white and blue hand towel, soaked with blood as well. The thought of it being his blood made her pulse quicken, she looked away and had herself focus on Esposito's arrival instead.

"The neighbor called us, twice." Said Esposito, head nodding towards the entrance door he had just come from.

"Twice? How come?" said Beckett.

"She said she heard something heavy fall, 'like someone falling', and rushed to the apartment door. When nobody answered, she called nine-one-one."

"The door was locked? So he was – the body was still inside?"

"Yeah, what I thought too. I had Velasquez run the hospital admissions matching Castle's description." Answered Esposito.

"The noise the neighbor heard; what time was this?"

"She said around 7:30 PM, when Desperate Housewives closed into commercials."

"Isn't Desperate Housewives on Sundays at 9?" Said Ryan.

"You're watching Desperate Housewives, Ryan?"

"Say what you want, there is no way that woman was watching Desperate Housewives! It wasn't on tonight" defended Ryan.

"She said it was last week's episode, she had recorded it and decided to catch up tonight at seven, 'kay?"

"Huh, surprising that you asked her to clarify that."

"I didn't ask," Esposito replied, "She came forward with it. You want to hear what she had to say about Mr McQuinn, the neighbor's cat, and Castle's insomniac music preference too?"

"Whatever."

"Alright, what was the second reporting for?" cut in Beckett.

"After the ambulance came in and left, the neighbor said she heard noises again. She knew everybody had left with the body so she reported it again."

"How long after the first reporting?"

"Twenty or thirty minutes after, around eight."

"Okay. So he must be at the hospital and the wheels trails there, in the kitchen," Beckett pointed the kitchen island which dissimulated the blood pool, "must have been from the stretcher's."

"The detail unit then came in, had Robbery on this for a home invasion and Homicide for the blood," completed Ryan.

Beckett and Esposito looked to Ryan, allowing him to his show and tell turn as well.

"Yeah. So we have a dirty knife." Ryan pointed his finger at the floor, behind the kitchen island.

Beckett looked in the direction pointed by her fellow detective; next to the blood pool was a butcher knife stained with a reddish dry substance, looked a lot like dried blood. A wireless residential phone handset was near the knife, closer to the counter and away from sight.

"Suicide attempt?" asked Esposito.

Becket placed a hand on the counter to keep her balance as she felt a sudden weakness in the knees.

"ME didn't think so. He said the red stain looked more like sliced food juice, probably ..." Ryan stepped forward and pointed "a tomato."

Breathing then became easier.

"The knife probably fell off the counter in the middle of action," Ryan then clapped his hands together, "Okay, next. Have a look over here."

He brought them a few steps away into the dining room and drew attention to the window. As Beckett noticed earlier, there was a small hole in the glass.

"Bullet hole?"

"Ballistic will be running it, but it's a fair assumption. If it is a bullet hole, reverse trajectory would be pointing at the building across the street."

They remained silent for a second imagining that last blood chilling scenario. She imagined Castle preparing diner, completely unaware he's being held at gunpoint. He would wipe the knife on the plaid towel, quickly clean his hands on his pants - or on the towel as well. He would open the refrigerator door and seconds later, he'd be lying on the floor bleeding his life away.

She needed a distraction from this scenario.

"Unless the shot came from inside the room," said Esposito.

"In which case we should find the bullet slug inside here, still no luck so far," replied Ryan.

"Eum, back to the window, wouldn't the cracked diameter around the bullet hole be different long-range versus a short-range shooting?"

"Yeah, assuming it's a bullet hole – excuse me gentlemen, lady," interrupted a crime scene agent making his way to the window with a small step-ladder. It brought the topic of discussion to an end.

"Also, I saw a phone on the kitchen floor," she swallowed and continued "is it possible he called emergency himself, too?"

Ryan and Esposito looked at each other. As Esposito decided to verify that, he waved to a crime scene agent for assistance. "If that's true, a simple redial should do it." Esposito and the CSU agent, disappeared behind the counter where the phone was.

"Yeah," said Ryan to Beckett, "It is possible. He was alone, and he didn't think someone else would find him in time ... what's your point?"

Her phone rang at that precise moment. Esposito rose up from behind the counter, the agent followed holding the phone handset in his gloved hand. The caller ID showed Castle's home number.

"Looks like he called you last," said Esposito.

After the second ring, Beckett closed the line. She had a rapid look at her recent call list around the time of the shooting. There it was, and she had missed it.

"Ryan," she said turning to look at him, "This doesn't rule it out. See if he called the ambulance himself, I want to hear what he told them."

"Beckett? You sur-"

"Do it."

"I'll let you know in the next twenty."


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