Dreams of Future Past

Chapter 3

Kate had no idea why Castle was sitting there commenting about the coffee, He wasn't complaining exactly, just curious about how it could taste like a monkey peed in battery acid. Even without accepting the sip he offered, Kate knew he was right. It was awful. But there was nothing to keep him from leaving and picking up the good stuff at the Java Hut a block away. Then it hit her, and she turned on him triumphantly. "You have a book coming out today, and you're hiding!" He tried unconvincingly to deny it. She might have pushed harder, but a case saved him from his embarrassment and her from her paperwork.

Ryan explained that when the body was found rolled up in a rug that had been rescued from a dumpster, he and Espo thought of her. Ryan said it with a smile, but it was a dig at her love of weird cases, the love that had gotten her entangled with Castle in the first place.

It wasn't as if her unwelcome shadow didn't make himself useful. The victim had no ID, and his face was nothing to write home about, but Castle recognized him as Councilman Jeffrey Horn. She'd expected him to make one of his half-assed comments when she broke the news to Laurie Horn, Jeffrey's wife, but he didn't. The man was peeking out from the brat again.

She took advantage of what was probably a brief display of adulthood in the car to ask about what had been nagging at her. She needed to know what her alter ego would be like. Castle insisted that she would have nothing to be embarrassed about. Kate's character would be smart and savvy. Then the spoiled middle-schooler reappeared as he added that her fictional cop would be a little slutty.

Even as her jaw clenched she couldn't help wondering if the portrayal might be more accurate than she was willing to admit. She'd had her sexual adventures. There was the guy from the grunge band and then - Oh God! - there was Rogan O'Leary! She'd been stupid enough to hook up with a pathological liar! There had been others, like Will, who was serious about her. But she had never been able to return the intensity of their feelings. When Will had been transferred, she'd never even considered following him.

Some of the girls she knew from Stuy had met someone at college and gotten married. A few of them even had kids. She couldn't see herself doing the same anytime soon, and she had no idea why. So, she never got too involved. She couldn't get too involved. Maybe that did make her a little slutty, but it also kept her from being vulnerable.

Castle was vulnerable. She could see the pain and fear in his eyes when Martha called. She wanted to reach out and make it better, but she kept her hands on the wheel.

They questioned Calvin Creason at his hotel, it was clear that Castle didn't like him. That was strange. The two spoiled rich men should have bonded as birds of a feather, but apparently, Castle didn't think so. Councilman Horn had killed a multimillion-dollar project Creason was planning, in committee. That gave him a motive. And his alibi sucked.

Walking down the hall, Castle wanted to know why she didn't come down on Creason harder. It was maddening to realize that he still didn't get that unlike the characters in his books, she didn't turn the screws on someone without evidence.

Her anger rose when he announced unabashedly that he had emailed pictures of the rug Horn had been wrapped in to his interior decorator. It got worse. He confided that sleeping with the decorator, someone he worked with, made things awkward. He called it a cautionary tale.

It stung to think that even if she gave in and admitted that she wanted to go to bed with him, he might reject her. But his gambit had worked. His ex-bedpartner had recognized the rug. The Creason hotel was full of identical ones. He'd managed to find evidence when she couldn't. That made the pain even worse.

Castle opined that she was very good at bossing men around. It was true with Ryan and Esposito, but she wasn't sure she'd enjoy it if Castle started to obey her orders. As annoying as it was, she had a grudging respect for the fact that he stood his ground. Sparring was no good with a partner who couldn't hit back.

Creason didn't have to kill Horn; he just had to wait. The pictures of Horn getting it off with a woman who was definitely not Laurie proved that. The family values candidate would have lost his bid for re-election.

She expected Castle to enjoy looking at the salacious photographs. She hadn't expected him to defend the woman. And she hadn't expected his disgust when he insisted that most people were hypocrites. He continued to surprise her, and she was at a loss how to handle it.

The path to Horn's hooker led out of state. Kate was resigned to wading through the morass it would take to find her. When Castle decided to call the beautiful and sexy Tiffany for a date, Kate's anger at his violation of police procedure was tinged with jealousy. She'd wanted to hit him. She would have grabbed his ear if he'd been close enough.

Kate grimaced as Castle politely seated Tiffany at a restaurant table. Why the hell did he have to look so good, with a blue shirt bringing out the blue of his eyes that had so fascinated her from their first meeting? Castle apologized to the working girl for the deception. Kate wouldn't have. The woman was breaking the law! The man she tried so hard to think of as a jerk, was even gracious to a prostitute. When Tiffany explained that men were lonely and used sex as a connection, Kate couldn't help wondering if Castle fell into that category. And it wasn't just men. Maybe she fell into the category too.

Castle grinned as an upscale espresso machine was wheeled into for the break room. Ryan and Esposito were enthusiastic, but she refused to admit that she could appreciate foamy richness, in any way he meant it. She wasn't about to give Castle the opening.

He caught her using the machine, but he didn't even tease her. What? He just gave her the solution to the case.

Castle stood at the podium in the bookstore, reading the final words of Storm Fall to a rapt and weepy audience, mostly of women. She chose her short hot pink dress because she knew it would distract him. She justified herself by proclaiming that if he were going to bother her at work, she would do the same to him. But it had just been an excuse to hear the words on the page coming from his lips. And she needed to know something she had forgotten to ask. What would Castle be calling her character, the replacement for the now late Derrick Storm?

Nikki Heat? It was a freaking stripper name! He reminded her that he'd said her character was kind of slutty and refused to change his mind. He was more on target than he knew. The flush of anger in her cheeks was not the only part of her body that was feeling the heat.