Ultimatum
Esposito shakes his head.
"Don't you dare," Castle starts, but Espo holds up a hand.
"I'm not saying she left you. I'm not that stupid," Esposito says. Ryan finishes his walk-through at that moment, comes back to them in the kitchen. "I know she didn't leave of her own free will. They made it look like she did so they could keep the cops off their trail for as long as possible."
"You're cops," he says. "Get on the trail."
"I called in forensics," Ryan interrupts. "They're on their way. Rockman was doing his job, man."
"He claimed he was a friend of yours," Castle grunts.
"Not exactly," Espo says, shaking his head. "Just. You know. A guy. Grudging respect because he wears the badge. I didn't have anyone else nearby, and-"
"This is so messed up," Castle groans. "Kate. Kate is-"
"Hey man," Esposito says quickly. "We will find her. Ryan and I are gonna go canvas the neighborhood ourselves. You stay by the phone - you know how to work the equipment."
Stay by the-
"You think they'll call? You think this is just some run of the mill kidnapping?" he says, incredulous. "You know what this is."
Ryan shifts from foot to foot, looks away from Castle. Esposito, at least, keeps his gaze. He doesn't back down.
"What is this, Castle?"
"It's him. It's the damn Dragon. He's come after her."
Espo is already shaking his head. "We have a deal with that bastard-"
"And why in the hell are we supposed to believe he'll keep it?" Castle scrapes a hand through his hair and tugs, closing his eyes. "Kate. Oh God-"
"We'll find her. Whoever, whatever - we will find her, Castle."
"We're headed for your neighbors. Do you know them?" Ryan says quietly. "Names, recent move-ins-"
"No. I - No. We haven't - shit, it's been a year and we haven't even introduced ourselves. There's a guy who leaves for work at the same time - around seven or eight at night - and we make up stories about what he might be doing, male stripping is Kate's-"
He closes his eyes, growls at himself, at the light, at the stupid story he's telling when he should be coming up with some damn pertinent information.
"We got it. We'll come back and let you know what we learn. Stay here, Castle."
He nods, opens his eyes to watch them leave. Out the front door that Kate actually took off the hinges and re-stained with her father's help one Saturday afternoon. She got stain on the floor of the entry way that they haven't covered up yet.
Castle comes forward until he finds it, sees it, that stain she made nearly six months ago.
And then, because he likes to torture himself, because he can't stand the aloneness of their house and he needs to think more clearly if he's going to find Kate, Castle takes the stairs up to the second floor, treading heavily.
Their bedroom is up here, but more than that-
He goes to the second door on the right; it's wide open. Rockman and his crew probably went through it, and then after them Ryan and Esposito. But they won't have known what this room is, what it means, what they stand to lose.
He was supposed to help her paint today.
His heart pounds as he stands in the empty room, no touches yet, no furniture, nothing. As if it didn't exist.
As if their baby is already lost.
Oh God.
Kate.
She surfaces slowly, the flash of pain like too-bright light.
She swallows through the thick taste in her mouth, keeps her eyes closed until she can smother the nausea and deal.
Tied again, but - upright. In a chair. Handcuffed to a chair. There is light - a naked bulb overhead that peels her eyes. She shuts them and then tries looking through the slits of her eyelids, but it doesn't help. She can see nothing past the intensity of that light.
She keeps her eyes shut then, listens. Her breathing is ragged; she realizes her nose is swollen, one of her eyes is puffy, and her head throbs. The nausea comes again in a wave, and she's not gagged, so she tilts to the side and lets herself vomit.
She's done enough of that recently; she's a pro. She lifts her shoulder to swipe at her mouth, get rid of the taste.
They will have to come in and clean it up, right? They will have to - something. It is something.
Shit. Food, water. Oh God. They could just-
Stop. Keep it together.
She was on the phone with Castle. It happened fast, but the 12th will have a jump at least. There is that. There is at least that.
She cannot do this to him. She can't.
Focus. Think. Act.
Small steps.
She won't do this to him.
And then a shadow forms out of the too-bright glare, comes for her.
"Time to call."
It happens only twenty minutes after the boys head outside to talk with their neighbors, only three hours since Kate-
His phone rings. His cell phone.
His caller ID says-
Kate.
Her beautiful face on his screen and he's running down the stairs and heading for the damn equipment that he ought to know how to operate - the laptop and his phone - shit, he was paying attention, he really was, but he can't-
Here it is. The stupid cord won't - there it is, okay. Damn, his hands are shaking, and he chokes even as he answers it, his body dropping like a stone to the floor of their living room in front of the laptop.
"Kate?"
"Van. Parking gara-"
"Not-uh, Kate," a snarling voice interrupts.
The computer is tracing the call. All he has to do is keep the asshole on the line.
Van. Parking garage. Van. Parking garage-
"Don't be a bitch and spoil our fun," the voice comes again. "Mr. Castle."
"Don't you hurt her-"
"Don't worry about her. She just took out two of my men, Mr. Castle. She can take care of herself-"
"I am going to find you. You hear me. I will find you and-"
"You do that. And when you find me, Mr. Castle, make sure you bring the file."
His mind goes blank.
"You bring the file - no cops, no feds - you get your wife."
"Wait. Wait, what?"
"Don't fuck with me. Bring the file. You have twelve hours."
And then he hangs up.
No trace.
"We've got the Tech guys waiting to triangulate her cell phone based on the satellites it bounced off," Espo says, pocketing his own phone as he finishes the call. "We'll have it as soon as they get the records."
"Can't I just give permission or-"
"They're in her name. We gotta go through channels."
He's putting everything in both their names, from now on. Damn it. Until then-
"He said two of his men. She took out two. Just - it sounded like it happened recently. So they took her somewhere, and she said parking garage, so-"
"Castle."
"-I'm thinking we can estimate how long a drive it might have been, usual rates of speed so they don't get pulled over, she's been gone-"
"Castle."
"-I don't know if I can do the math myself, but there's got to be a program-"
"Castle!"
He stumbles to a grinding halt, jerked back by the strident voice of Detective Ryan. He's never heard Ryan cut him off like that. Never heard Ryan-
"Castle, let us handle this."
"We have a partial on the number, but it's probably a burner phone. We don't have the resources to narrow down parking garages - they could've driven in circles for all you know - but we will have the cell phone's last-"
"There has to be something else we can do," he growls out, scraping a hand over his face. He can feel himself sway in the too-bright kitchen lights, wants to sink down to the wood floor and catch his breath.
But there's no time.
Esposito lays a hand at his back. "Castle. We will do everything-"
"What about - he said no cops, and no FBI. What if you-"
"Not going to happen. Your best shot - Beckett's best shot - is to have official help. You know that."
"I don't know that," he grunts. "I don't know that at all. This guy is serious. He-"
"What you need to do, Castle, is figure out what it is he wants from you." Ryan is turning him back to the living room. "Listen to the call again. The file. We need to-"
"I don't have any idea what he's talking about. Work files? A case or something? What-"
"If we're assuming this is him - the Dragon - then it's got to be something Dragon-related." Ryan queues up the call while Esposito presses down hard on Castle's shoulder, making his knees buckle and his ass land on the couch in front of the laptop.
"Dragon-related," Castle repeats. "I don't - we've been out of that. That was the deal. We made a deal and we've stuck to that damn deal. They were supposed to leave us alone."
Ryan presses play and there's the tremble of his voice, the clear and sure response of his wife - van, parking garage.
"She was in a van. They threw her in a van, and then transferred her in a parking garage. I bet that's where she took out two of his guys," Castle says, talking over the sound of the stranger's voice, the all-too familiar cadence of his sneer, the uncompromising demand.
"Castle," Esposito says. "Focus on the file. We need to figure this out."
He scrapes a hand through his hair, feels the frayed edge of his control slipping through his fingers with the action. He needs to get it together; he needs to help her. He can't fall apart.
She's fine. He knows, at least, that. She isn't hurt - yet - and she gave him a clue. Van and parking garage. Esposito can ignore it as unhelpful, but Kate isn't stupid.
Twelve hours. Bring the file.
Regardless, he's got twelve hours to find her, find this damn file, and he's supposed to be doing this alone. No cops.
"Hey. Why don't you guys go back to the 12th and start looking through all her cases?" he says quickly. "See if you find something that pops. And you can keep on top of forensics and the Tech guys too, you know? I'll search the office here and see if I find something."
Esposito and Ryan narrow their eyes in sync, eerily alike in their blantant mistrust of his suggestion.
"You can take the call with you, right? Have someone in Tech see if they can filter out background nosies? I recorded it on my phone too, so it's - I don't. . ."
Ryan is the first to break. "Yeah, man. Yeah, of course. We'll do that. You keep thinking about that file. That's what they want - we need to play along."
"Yes. Yeah. The office. I don't know - but I'm sure it's got to be a case, right? Some case that we just started. Or maybe you guys got the body drop recently?"
Esposito is shaking his head, but Ryan is copying the file onto a flash drive. "We'll leave the equipment here, Castle. If he calls again-"
"I know what to do."
"Stick close, man." Esposito reaches out and grips him by the shoulder. "Let us do this."
"Of course. Yes. Close."
He keeps nodding, plays up his shock, lets it unfurl around him, that sense of numb dread and confusion.
He's got to do this alone. The guy said alone. No cops, no feds. Alone.
It's not just Kate. It's not just Kate's life in the balance here.
Van. Parking garage.
She just took out two of my men.
It's not just Kate.