Chapter 2

Beckett was seated on a long wooden bench in the reception area of the jail. Sitting beside and handcuffed to her was Bouchet. Beckett had only cuffed Bouchet when they had arrived in jail's car park.

At this time of the night the reception area was relatively quiet. A prison trustee was lazily mopping the floor. The smell of antiseptic hung heavily in the air. Several prisoners were huddled with their lawyers under the watchful gaze of a pair of silent guards. Another pair of prisoners were being led from the reception area into the main body of the prison.

Beckett recognised one of the passing prisoners. She had arrested him sometime in the past when she wore a badge. The prisoner looked at Beckett as he shuffled past and recognised her. He was about to flash her a smile but thought better of it and gave her a nod of greeting recognition before moving on.

Beckett started to check the time on her watch and found Bouchet's hand rising as well. She glanced at the time and let out a frustrated sigh. They had been sitting here far longer than she would have liked and her irritation levels were rising. She had been sitting here for well over an hour. Beckett dropped her hand and looked across to glassed off counter. There was no one behind the counter still. A group of prisoners were being processed when she and Bouchet had arrived. The guard behind the counter had disappeared into a office behind the counter after the group of prisoners had been processed sometime ago and had yet to make a reappearance.

Beckett tried to remain calm despite her growing irritation. There were plenty of things she could have been doing at this time of the night instead of sitting on a bench handcuffed to a prisoner. Top her list was being fast asleep in her bed, she thought to herself.

Bouchet had been staring silently into the distance ever since they had sat down. The giggling of his arm had brought him out of his reveries.

"Beckett, all I did was come home." Bouchet said. " I came home and he was sleepin' with my old lady. And I shot him."

Beckett glanced at Bouchet. It had taken Bouchet all the way to the prison car park to recognise her.

"Then I heard on the TV that the dude was 'lucid'. I didn't do that to him. I swear."

Beckett's expression softened a little. She was trying not to feel sorry for him. "Lucid means he was coherent. Making sense when he talked." She explained.

"Shit." Bouchet exclaimed. "He wasn't lucid before I shot him."

Beckett rolled her eyes.

They sat in silence for a little while. Again Bouchet broke the silence.

"I'm sorry about shooting at you." Bouchet said.

"No, you just shoot at anyone who comes to your front door right?"

"Hey I didn't know it was you, okay?" Bouchet retorted. "It was dark, man okay?"

"Forget about it, Cy."

A guard made an appearance from the office behind the counter. Beckett recognised the guard and her face brightened. She got to her feet and hauled Bouchet with her and they walked up to the counter.

"Hey, Gooch, didn't drag you away from something important, like your third lunch break or something?" Beckett said with a smirk.

"Very funny Beckett." Officer Gooch retorted with a sour look on his face.

"I've got a delivery." Beckett announced. She reached into the inside pocket of her jacket and produced the papers. She slapped the papers on the counter and slid them through the small hole in the window. "Cy Bouchet."

Officer Gooch read the offered papers and then cast his attention to the prisoner standing beside Beckett and studied him for a moment. He noted the cuts and bruises on Bouchet's face and the blood that stained Bouchet's t-shirt but decided not remark on them. He had seen prisoners brought in by other bounty hunters who looked in far worse condition. He looked back to Beckett.

"Did he give you any trouble?"

"Nah, he was cooperative." Beckett informed him. She looked at Bouchet with a small smile on her lips."A real pussy cat."

Bouchet looked at Beckett with some surprise. He gave her a nod of gratitude.

A guard approached them. Beckett unlocked the handcuffs and handed the prisoner over to the guard.

"Take care of yourself, Cy." She said.

"You too." Bouchet replied before he was lead away by the guard.

"Here you go, Beckett." Gooch said pushing over the booking slip.

Beckett took the booking slip, glanced at it before she folded and shoved into her jacket pocket.

"See you next time Beckett."

"Yeah, be seeing you Gooch."

Beckett emerged from the jail. She looked up to the sky and saw that dawn was fast approaching. It had been a rough night for her and she was feeling more than a little exhausted. Being shot at by an escaping fugitive, then almost falling off a roof top and then running into Demming would do that to a girl. It was not her idea of a fun night and it was not yet over she realised.

She strode to where she had left Demming's car and got in. She started up the car and gunned the engine. There was a loud metallic screeching as she shifted the stick into gear. With a grin on her face she reversed out of the parking spot with a little too much speed and hit the wall hard. The car shuddered at the impact and she was jostled about but the smile remained on her face. She crunched the gears again as she shifted the car into drive. As she swung the car around sharply she steered it toward the wall. There was more loud metallic screeching as the side of the car scraped against the wall. Steadying the car up she drove out of the car park.

Beckett was not the forgiving type to those people who wanted to steal bail jumpers from her. It was not the first time Demming had tried that trick. Well if he wanted to do that he had to be prepared for the consequences, she thought to herself. Demming's car would suffer a few more speed induced modifications before she was finished with it.

XXX

Beckett stood out the front of a dilapidated looking shop front. She glanced at the rapidly fading sign painted across the front window. Royce Bail Bonds. She pushed open the door and walked in.

She approached the front counter of the office. Sitting behind the counter amongst mountains of paper was a weasel looking man aged in his mid thirties. His name was Jerry and his attention was focused on the newspaper that was open before him.

"Is Royce in?" Beckett demanded.

Jerry looked up from his newspaper and gave Beckett an oily leering smile. It made her shudder. Jerry had tried to ask her out a few times. Each and every time he tried she shot him down in flames but the man was persistent. He finally got the message when she threatened to geld him if he did not stop.

"Hey Beckett."

"Is Royce in? I just dropped off Bouchet."

"You finally caught somebody, Beckett?"

Beckett gritted her teeth as she stared at Jerry. She could have easily reached over to grab Jerry and pound his head into the counter until there was nothing but a pulpy bloodied mess. She managed to restrain herself from doing that even though it might have brought her some pleasure. Jerry always managed to induce a need to have a long hot shower.

"Jerry, is he in?"

"It says here that eleven percent of people in the course of dreaming are aware of that fact while they're in the dream state." Jerry said as he waved a hand to the article he had been reading.

Beckett was fast losing patience with the man. The thought of reaching over and pounding his head on the counter was growing ever more appealing with each passing minute. She would call it justifiable homicide and there would not be a jury in all of the country who would convict her.

"Jerry, where is he?" Beckett hissed dangerously.

"That ever happen to you, Beckett?" Jerry replied, oblivious to Beckett's growing irritation.

A side door opened and out stepped Mike Royce. He was a tall gangly man with a craggy well lived in face with short sandy hair. He was dressed in jeans and shirt and a leather jacket that had seen better days. On seeing Beckett standing there his face broke into a smile.

"Hey Kid." he said in his gravelly voice.

"Royce."

Beckett tried hard not to let the small smile reach her face but it was a losing battle. When she had graduated from the NYPD academy Royce had been her training officer. He had taught her about the mean streets of New York and in his own way had taught her how to be a good cop. Along the way they had become friends. Back then she always looked up to him, perhaps was a little in awe of him and though she had never admitted it to anyone, especially to the man himself, she had been more than a little in love with him. Things had changed since then.

Royce had put in his twenty-five years before he left the force and set himself up as a bounty hunter and then a bail bondsman. Beckett had lost touch with him when he left the force and she had become a detective. When she had been forced to leave the force it had been Royce who called out of the blue and offered her a job as a bounty hunter. It had not been her first choice as a new career move but she had needed the money.

"Hey Jerry this ain't a library, you know." Royce growled noticing Jerry reading the newspaper.

Beckett walked up to Royce and handed him the booking slip. Royce glanced at it and then at Beckett.

"Bouchet was twelve hundred, right?"

"No, fifteen." Beckett corrected him.

"Yeah, right Kid," Royce chuckled. He looked at Beckett. "I was just going over to Denny's to catch the 'grand slam breakfast'. They start serving at six-thirty."

Beckett rolled her eyes. "Do you have my fifteen hundred, Royce?"

"Sure I do." Royce said hurriedly. "Do you think I would stiff you kid?"

"You? Never." Beckett said sarcastically.

There had been a couple of times when Royce had done just that, given her a little less than what had been agreed to for bringing in bail jumpers. She had been accepting of that in the past but not these days.

Royce laughed his loud gravelly laugh and smiled. "Kid, you really are the best at what you do. Let me buy you breakfast."

"I don't eat breakfast, Royce."

"Coffee then?"

Beckett consented with a nod of her head. She had not had any coffee for many hours. She desperately needed coffee, several cups to be exact. She needed her early morning fix of caffeine.

"Hey Jerry look after the phones, will ya?" Royce called out as he and Beckett left the office.

Beckett and Royce walked along the street. At this time of the morning there weren't many people out an about yet.

"You'd never guess who I ran into while I was taking Bouchet in." Beckett said.

"Who'd that be?" Royce replied glancing at Beckett.

"Tom Demming."

Royce kept a straight face. "Really? Funny how that guy keeps popping up."

"Yeah, hysterical." Beckett said in a deadpan voice.

"Kid, I'm not gonna bullshit you but I got a little problem."

Beckett stopped walking and frowned. Royce continued walking a few steps before he realised that Beckett was not beside him. He stopped and looked back.

"I got a feeling I'm about to be jerked around." Beckett said with a tinge of disappointment in her voice.

"What are you talking about, Kid?"

"We've been through this before. You're about to tell me you don't have my money, the fifteen hundred."

She could not hide her disappointment. Royce was going to stiff her over the fifteen hundred. He was going to pay less than what had been agreed to. As much as she hated to do it she was going to stand her ground this time. Fifteen hundred was the agreed fee and fifteen hundred was what she was going to get.

"Kid, I've got something better than fifteen hundred." Royce informed her.

Royce did not wait for a reaction from Beckett. He simply turned and resumed walking in the direction of the Deny's restaurant and expecting Beckett to follow him. Beckett glared at the departing Royce, shook her head and then quickly moved to catch up with him.

Beckett took a big sip from her coffee cup and closed her eyes a moment savouring the caffeine hit that quickly came. It had been some many hours since she last had a cup of coffee. Opening her eyes she looked across the table to see Royce wolfing down his grand slam breakfast. The plate was filled to overflowing with eggs, bacon, sausages and fries. She had to stop herself from shaking her head at him.

"Do you know who Richard Castle is?" Royce announced suddenly.

Beckett stilled. Did she know Richard Castle? He was her favourite author. She stared at Royce as he continued to shovel food into his mouth.

"Castle?" Beckett replied. "Yeah I know who he is."

"What do you know?" Royce demanded before he shoved another fork full of bacon and eggs into his mouth and chewed loudly.

Beckett brought her coffee cup up to her lips and took another sip of the coffee. Slowly she set the cup down on the table.

"Castle's that author and part time accountant who embezzled a couple of million from some wiseguy, and then gave it to charity." Beckett informed him.

Royce looked up from his breakfast and nodded his head.

"That's pretty good kid." He said. A smile came to his grease covered lips. "Only it wasn't a couple of million. It was in the region of around twenty million and it wasn't just some wiseguy. It was Victor Racine."

Beckett tensed noticeably. She barely blinked at the mention of the name. Inside her emotions churned violently.

"Yeah I can read the newspaper, Royce." Beckett said carefully.

"Well, I don't want to drag up the past Kid but isn't Racine the guy who had you kicked from the force?" Royce said.

"He didn't have me kicked off the force." Beckett said coldly.

Royce looked across to Beckett and saw her cold demeanour. He grinned.

"Yeah right, you left being a cop to do this shit."

"What's your point, Royce?"

Royce jabbed his fork into the remaining egg on his plate and shoved it into his mouth. He chewed for several moments before he spoke.

"My point, kid is twenty thousand."

Beckett raised her eyebrows as she stared at the man sitting on the other side of the table.

"I bailed the accountant out. Only I didn't know who he was at the time. If I knew who he was I would never put up the bond." Royce explained as he turned his attention to the remaining rashers of bacon on his plate. "Seriously it's only a matter of time before Victor Racine removes him from the face of the earth, and I'm out four hundred and fifty grand."

Beckett's eyes widened. "You're out four hundred and fifty grand on this guy?"

"No." Royce shook his head.

"No?"

"No." Royce emphasised. He pointed to Beckett with his knife. "Because I got you. And you're gonna go and find him and bring him back."

Beckett could not believe what Royce had said. He wanted her to go and find Castle.

"Yeah, right." Beckett scoffed. "How do you even know that Castle is still alive?"

Royce finished his breakfast and he put down his knife and fork and reached for his own cup of coffee. He took a sip from the cup and then looked across to Beckett. A small smile played on his lips.

"He's still alive Kid." He said.

"How do you know?"

"Because he sends Victor postcards from everywhere, telling him what a great time he's having with his money."

Beckett smiled at that revelation. Tweaking the nose of a mob boss was not the smartest of moves but she liked Castle's style.

"So how long have you got?"

Royce suddenly looked sick.

"Friday midnight I default and I have to eat four hundred and fifty." He said.

"That's five days!" Beckett exclaimed. She shook her head. "Forget it. You go and find him, Royce."

"Kid, hear me out. I'll give you fifty grand, I'm in jam city here." Royce pleaded.

"I got to chase you down just to collect fifteen hundred. No dice."

"Beckett..."

"Beckett nothing." Beckett said angrily. "What else you got?"

Royce frowned, his displaying the deep creases and lines of years on the streets as a New York police officer and a bounty hunter.

"If you don't get this guy I'm as good as out of business, kid." He said in a low tone. "I can't absorb a hit that big."

Beckett looked at her former mentor. Usually Royce could hide behind a mask of carefree cockiness and brashness. She knew that look well enough but the look on his face now was something she had never seen before. He was showing his vulnerability. For the first time she came to realise the very big hole he had dug for himself.

A little voice in the back of her mind was telling her not to take the job. That the man was not to be trusted.

"I'll do it for a hundred thousand." Beckett announced finally.

"A hundred grand!" Royce exclaimed spluttering into his coffee. "Are you out of your mind, kid?"

"A hundred grand, Royce." Beckett insisted.

"Beckett this is an easy gig. It's a midnight run, for Christ sakes."

Beckett drained her coffee cup and set it on the table. The next moment she got to her feet and started to leave.

"Wait, kid, come on...sit down." Royce pleaded.

Beckett looked down at Royce.

"If you want me for a job this big, you pay me what's right." Beckett said. "maybe you haven't noticed but I'm tired of getting shot at."

"The guy's an accountant! A Writer! He's not going to shoot you, kid." Royce replied. "Just put a bag over his head, hit him with a rubber hose and stick him on a plane."

"I'll do it for a hundred grand, Royce." Beckett insisted. "After that I'm out of this business. And I want a contract. I want it in writing. A hundred grand and I'll have Castle here by Friday night."

Beckett stared down at Royce. His face twitched noticeably as he weighed up the proposition. Resignation finally came to settle there. He looked up at his former pupil. He forced a smile to his lips and nodded his head. Beckett smiled back and then held out her hand.

"Now do you think I could have my fifteen hundred, Royce?"

Royce growled as he reached into the pocket of his jacket. He ignored the triumphant smile on Beckett's face.

XXX