Finding Thanksgiving

Chapter 2

Castle smiled cynically at his computer screen. It was as he had expected from his own experience as a student, Kyle Thompkins the Third, a college senior frantic parents had hired him to find, had not been abducted. In fact he was no longer missing. Castle knew exactly where he was - in Atlantic City, burning up credit cards for which his parents had cosigned. Between the lap dances, booze, hotel room, and cash advances, Mr. and Mrs. Thompkins the Second would have a lot more to worry about than Castle's fee. Castle sighed. At least the kid was all right. More all right than Castle was. Usually Hayley was pretty quick. He'd expected something by last night, but her call hadn't come.

The strains of Rule Britannia emanated from Castle's pocket. Finally. He hit the speaker button on his phone and didn't bother with a hello. "Hayley, what have you got?"

"Castle, Vikram Singh is not Vikram Singh," Hayley reported.

"Then who is he?" Castle asked.

"I don't know," Haley responded. "There was a real Vikram Singh. He was the child of immigrants from India. His father was a mathematics professor, his mother a neurobiologist. His fingerprints were on file because his parents had them taken in case anything ever happened to him. He was a straight 'A' student in high school and went to MIT in computer science. He and his parents were all killed in a car crash just after he graduated. While our phony Vikram was at the Twelfth, I broke into his apartment and got his prints off his toothpaste tube. They don't match. I got some DNA off his toothbrush too. I'm having it run, but I don't expect anything. The man's a ghost, Castle. He is on record as having worked for the FBI, on the A.G."s Task Force, but his background was invented. He was planted there."

"By whom?" Castle asked.

Castle could hear Haley's sigh through the phone. "Someone with a lot of power, Castle. But whoever it was is buried deep. Do you want me to keep digging?"

The muscles on Castle's jaw bulged as he ground his teeth. "Hire a backhoe if you need to, but I need to find out what Kate has fallen into - and how to get her out of it. And send me everything you have so far."

Castle barged into Kate's office to find her in whispered discussion with Vikram. "Get out!" he ordered, glaring at the tech. "I need to talk to my wife."

Vikram looked questioningly at Kate, who stared at Castle and shuddered. The only time she had seen a look in his eyes like that had been when he tortured the driver of the van involved in Alexis' kidnapping. She nodded at Vikram to leave. "Castle what the hell?"

Castle held out a USB drive. "Kate, before you say anything else, you need to see what's on this. Please."

Kate inserted the drive into the laptop on her desk and Castle stood watching and trying to breathe. Her face whitened and, her teeth mangled her lower lip as she read. She shook her head in disbelief, the trembling words spilling from her mouth. "Castle, I don't know what's happening. I don't even know what's real now. Everything moved so fast after Vikram - or whoever he is - called me, I never had a chance to think about it. I never had a chance to question what he told me. But after, I should have."

"Kate, whoever is behind this knew how to pull your strings and didn't care how many people died in the process." Castle fisted his hands. "It reminds me of my father."

"Your father," Kate repeated. "Oh, Castle. I met someone who said she was your stepmother. She said her name was Rita and she and your father had been married for ten years, but she hadn't seen him in ten months. She rescued Vikram and me, or at least I thought she did. The whole thing could have been staged."

"It probably was," Castle concluded grimly. "I doubt that my father would marry anyone, except maybe as a cover story. When we rescued Alexis and then again when he came back to pull us into his hunt for Gemini, he made it very clear that he couldn't have relationships. His one-nighter with Mother almost got Alexis killed. He knew that. I can't see him risking anything close to a marriage. Whoever this Rita was, she must have been lying to you."

"Rick, she was the one who told me not to get anyone else involved. She told me your blood would be on my hands. And I believed her!" Tears overflowed Kate's eyes. "Oh God! I blew up our marriage because I believed her." Kate sprang from behind her desk. "Castle, I can't let this stand. I need to find out who that impostor out there is and why I've been targeted." She took his hand, drawing her thumb in circles over the warm skin of his fingers. "I am so sorry, and I need to know if you can forgive me enough to find out with me."

Castle jerked his hand away. These were the words he had wanted to hear. But they were only words. He knew he'd heard them before, every time Kate had lied to him, every time she'd let her obsession overcome her reason and run off on her own. She was always sorry. He wanted to believe the words. He wanted to believe her. Pressure built in his chest and he felt a band tightening around his head as every muscles tensed. He wasn't sure he could believe her. The relief of forgiveness he had expected to come flooding into his heart was a slow drip at best. "Kate, I'm going to try. But I can't handle the lies anymore, especially the lies of omission. If there's one person you should have been straight with in this world, it's me. Hours after you promised no more secrets, you pushed me away - again. I love you, but I can't trust you anymore. And worse, I can't believe that you trust me. I will be with you in this, but if there's any hope for us, somehow we're going to have to learn to trust each other again. And honestly, right now, I don't know how."

The salt of her tears stung Kate's abused lip. She swallowed, chilled by the ice in Castle's voice. "So where do we start?"

"Obviously, I already have," Castle pointed out. "I had Hayley dig up what you just read about our faux Vikram. She's still digging. But there's one essential relationship we need to uncover. The person who called herself Rita, she clearly knows my father and his background. That means she's either CIA or has deep ties there. We need to ask the one person who would know."

"Your father?" Kate asked. "How?"

"For whatever reason, he always seems to be minding my business, our business. There's one code we've used that he will understand. If I put an essay on the Richard Castle web site about drawing inspiration from Casino Royale and he sees it, he should get in touch. It's worth a shot."

Her words still caught in the tightness of her throat, Kate silently nodded.