Recluse: Chapter 2
DISCLAIMER: Most of these characters are not mine at all, but they are memorable. Thank you, Mr. Marlowe. The others? Yeah, they're mine
Tuesday Afternoon - June 3, 2014, 2:04 a.m. at Richard Castle's Beach Home in the Hamptons
They sit on the sofa in the den, closed off from the world. Both are quiet, reflective, and grateful for each other's company.
Detective Kate Beckett had rustled Castle out of his dark reverie around seven o'clock last night, after her phone call with Captain Gates.
"Kate, I need you to take a little time off," Gates had told her. "I don't believe any of what is being said, but I also know that in times like this, no one is interested in truth. Everyone is interested in blame. And right now, you and Mr. Castle are the easy targets."
Kate Beckett understood completely. And she was still completely livid.
"Even though he is sitting here, damn near in an emotional stupor, physically beaten to hell, and –"
"It doesn't matter, Kate," Gates had interrupted. "You know this. You know what happens when there is blood in the water."
"The sharks come," Kate had replied silently.
"And right now, you and Mr. Castle are the chum," Gates had continued. Her voice was all business, but with a tinge of kindness at the same time.
"I don't want my best detective dragged through the streets, hung in effigy. Get out of town. Let me know how I can reach you. But disappear. As of now, you are on paid leave of absence."
She had sat, staring at the phone after the call, and then walked over to Castle, who still sat motionless at the window. Leaning over him, she had draped her arms around his neck, peppering his cheek with slow, loving kisses.
"Let's get out of here," she had whispered. Something about her voice, her breath, had shaken him back to the present, his eyes immediately crystalizing, life returning, offering just a hint of that familiar sparkle. She had blinked away tears as she pulled him up from the chair.
A half hour later, the two were in the Ferrari, blazing a quick getaway to the Hamptons, while Kate brought Castle up to speed on the latest from the newscast, and her conversation with Gates. Castle had remained quiet, for the most part. Arriving late to the beach house, they both fell exhausted into bed, and slept in until just after eleven o'clock this morning. Miraculous for both of them.
A quiet breakfast, and some dishes washed, a few kisses and touches shared, they had taken a long walk along the beach, still in their pajamas, the small waves breaking on the shoreline icing their feet. It had been a quiet walk – no words really have been necessary. Castle had felt her smaller hand intertwined with his own, and that had been enough.
Now, they sit together, back in his den, still quiet, floating in an easy silence with one another.
Rather, he sits on the sofa, while she lays sideways, her head in his lap, her bare feet dangling off the other arm of the furniture piece. Neither has bothered to get out of their pajamas just yet.
There is no hurry, they aren't going anywhere. Or so they think.
He is being destroyed – absolutely obliterated – by the press. Many people have died during - because of - his absence.
No, he wasn't there when the deaths occurred – he was in captivity himself. But somehow that doesn't seem to matter. The deaths were too brutal.
No, these were not nice people who died – they were definitely of the criminal element. But they were absolutely innocent of anything having to do with Castle's absence. And yet they lost their lives because of that absence. Again, the deaths were just too brutal.
And then there is the death of the district attorney.
The morning news broadcast was typical of the general reaction on the eastern coast.
"One has to take a second look at Richard Castle, and ask, what exactly do we know about the man? One has to wonder just what kind of people Richard Castle knows – what kind of people this novelist associates with, what kind of people has ties to – who would resort to such brutal violence to find him."
The media is effectively casting a long and dark shadow across Castle's previously solid – and meticulously crafted – image and reputation. Suddenly, the realistic tone of his novels now beg the question: Is the source of his novels a savage world that he has personal knowledge of? Or is it just the fantastical imagination of a brilliant mind?
According to CNN, the answer, ironically, leans toward the former, because of Kate Beckett.
"Knowing that Mr. Castle has taken much of his work on the Nikki Heat novels from the life of his fiancée, a detective with the New York Police Department, we can only surmise who else the author knows, and what life this man has led that gives him such a realistic, chilling look at the seedier side of the world."
The ringing doorbell startles both, as Kate rises up, allowing Castle to stand, brush himself off, and head out of the den to the living room and the front door. Kate lays back on the sofa, closing her eyes, wondering how much worse things are going to get.
A minute later, a still surprised Castle returns to the den. He is not alone.
"Gina?" Kate exclaims in surprise. "What are you doing here?" she asks, standing. She doesn't mean the question in a derogatory manner. Fortunately, Gina Cowell doesn't take it as such.
She walks to Kate, offering her a genuine kiss on the cheek, and then takes her seat in the large leather arm chair adjacent to the sofa. Both her actions and her attire throw Kate off completely. The beautiful and always-meticulously-clothed blonde is dressed down, in jeans and a pullover shirt and . . . tennis shoes? She sits, not legs crossed in that elegant way of hers, but feet flat on the floor, her elbows resting on each knee, hands folded in front of her.
Castle sits down on the sofa, offering a hand to Kate, who joins him.
"I'm sorry," Gina begins, "I tried calling, as I told Richard," she says, glancing at her ex-husband and top novelist. "But there was no answer. And once the doorman back at Richard's loft told me that the two of you had left last night with suitcases . . . well, I figured this is where you had holed up."
"Holed up?" Castle questions, but quickly decides that her term is entirely accurate.
"We, and I mean we collectively, have a big problem," Gina continues, brushing a string of curly, golden locks away from her face.
"This . . . this situation has escalated way out of hand," she tells the couple. "I was called into a meeting at Black Pawn at six forty-five this morning. An early start for us, as you will attest, Richard."
He simply nods his head. He has a sinking feeling where this conversation is going.
"The pressure coming down on Black Pawn is incredible. It is like nothing I have ever seen," she continues. "We have already lost two key sponsorships for the Nikki Heat series, and another is threatening to pull all support for the company because of what has happened."
She places her gaze on Rick, and he involuntarily flinches from the familiar stare. There is an anger there, a fire just beginning to whisper across the embers. He has seen this anger on his ex-wife.
"I don't understand it," she continues. "But someone has a real hard-on for you, Richard, and I don't mean you, detective," she adds with a small smile, attempting to bring levity to the room. It works for a second, but it is she, herself, who then fans the flames brighter.
"They want you gone, Rick," she comments with disgust. "Believe me, I am doing everything I can, and not because you are my top seller," she continues. "You know this game, Rick. You leave, and another will take your place. They will put the full weight of the company behind him or her. No, they won't be as good as you, they won't be as fun as you. But it won't matter, because they want you out."
"This is unbelievable," Kate mutters, her head in her hands now.
"I agree, Detective," Gina replies, nodding her head. "I am fighting for him, please believe me –"
"I do," Castle says softly, drawing an appreciative smile from the publisher.
"Thank you, Rick – that means a lot," she tells him. "But it doesn't change the facts. This is short-sighted on their part at best, and unbelievably uncompassionate at worst, given what you yourself have just gone through. You look like hell, by the way."
"Feel like hell," he mutters, barely audible.
"What does this mean?" Kate asks, steering the conversation away from that road. At least for now. "Have they –"
"They want to release him, Kate," Gina tells her. Kate's wide-eyed expression is juxtaposed next to the knowing nod of the head of her companion. "They are bowing to the pressure – and hell, it's only been less than a week, dammit."
"Who is driving this, Gina?" Castle asks. "Is it Ed? Frank? I guess it really doesn't matter, but –"
"I'm not sure, Rick", she answers, interrupting. "But someone – likely one of those two – has a bone to pick with you somehow. Or . . ."
She pauses, not completing her thought. She casts a look at the detective.
"Or . . . someone is coercing them to act?" Kate says, completing the thought with a question of her own.
"Bracken?" Castle asks, glancing at Kate.
"I kind of doubt it," she replies, shaking her head. "Don't you? I mean, why, or how, would a Senator have his hands deep into a publishing company? And if it were Bracken, don't you think he would have acted long before now?"
"I'm just piecing together what the newscasts are saying," Gina comments, "but I have to ask, why would Senator Bracken have it in for Rick? I mean, it's clear as day he is gunning for you, Detective. But why Rick?"
"Hurting Rick hurts me," Kate replies evenly, her eyes now darkening, giving the publisher her first real experience with the Beckett gaze. She can't stifle a small shiver.
"So, I'm out?" Rick asks – the sudden finality of it crashing down on him.
"Not yet," Gina tells him. "I was able to buy us seventy-two hours, until Friday. I told them that you don't kill your golden goose on a whim. They are meeting again Friday afternoon."
"What does your gut tell you?" he asks.
"You're the golden goose, and that goose is cooked," she tells him evenly. It's one of the things he has always – always – loved about Gina Cowell. Her seeming inability to sugarcoat things. He has never had to wonder what she is thinking, whether what she is saying is truthful.
"It's just a reprieve," she continues. "They aren't just running scared. They're . . . shit, Rick, they're flat out angry, and I can't understand why. It's just so unfair, especially given what you have just gone through."
"You have no idea," Kate tells her, softly. The two women exchange a look – both immediately recognizing the utter irony, the sheer lunacy that somehow the two of them have become comrades – albeit temporarily – for the time being.
"Later," Kate mouths silently to Gina, who purses her lips with a subtle nod of her head.
"And believe it or not," Gina continues, 'this might not even be the worst news I can bring you."
"You're kidding, right?" Kate exhales.
"I wish I were, Kate," Gina replies. "I made a stop down the road at the local convenience store, just to pick up a fountain drink. I always forget how long a drive it is to get out here."
If there is any discomfort between the three were her statement, clearly a trip down memory lane, no one wades into that creek this moment.
"Anyway, there was a television hanging on the wall, tuned in to CNN," she tells Castle. "Seems they aren't your number one fan anymore." She turns her gaze to Kate. "Yours either. But that's not the problem."
"What is the problem?" Kate asks, and she glances over to her partner. She has felt him stiffen up, and she looks into his eyes. That sad glaze from last night is returning. She shakes his arm, bringing him back to the moment. She can't lose him. Not now.
"The natives," Gina replies. "A number of locals in there were commenting about how they are harboring a fugitive in their quaint little community," she spits. "All that was missing were pitchforks and flaming torches. Restless natives are never a good thing. I think things are going to get ugly out here, and in a hurry."
Gina saddens as she sees the downcast look paint itself across her ex-husband's face. She has always loved Richard Castle. No, she hasn't always liked the man, and for good reason. But she knows that he has never mistreated her. She knows that their fate was sealed when she realized she couldn't penetrate the barrier he surrounded his daughter with. She idly wonders, today, if the detective has had more success than she on that front. She pushes those thoughts away.
"That was another time, another life," she muses to herself.
"All to say," she continues, now focusing exclusively on Kate. She can tell that Castle has retreated, and as stunning as that is to her, she needs to make sure that at least one of them gets the full message.
"All to say," she repeats, "Rick's little Hampton home here might not be the getaway option you hoped it would be," she says, as she stands to leave.
"Where are you going?" Castle asks suddenly, snapping out of his funk as soon as Gina stands to leave.
"Back home," she replies, a bit confused. "To the city. Where else would I –"
"You just got here," he interrupts. "And that – as you mentioned – is not the shortest drive in the world. And I remember how much you love driving," he continues with a small, sarcastic smile.
"Yeah, he's still in there," Gina smiles to herself, more than a bit relieved.
"Castle's right, Gina," Kate agrees, stunning both women in the process. "You spent the last few hours getting out here. Stay awhile. Rest for a bit. We could use the company."
Kate has never seen Castle like this. It has crossed her mind that perhaps the woman sitting across from her has.
"Seriously?" Gina asks incredulously. "I mean –"
"Seriously, Gina," Castle tells her. "I have a feeling that today isn't over yet. God knows I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am."
"I don't either, Rick," Gina tells him, solemnly. "I don't either."