Disclaimer: I do not own any of the phenomenal characters from Castle but I do own this shameful tid bit of story.

Chapter 3


"Spider-man, Spider-man, does whatever a spider can. Spins a web, any size; catches thieves just lik-"

"While it's cute and all, could you stop it? This is the-what?-fifth time I've had to hear that verse because it's the only part you know." The brunette detective's hands were firmly planted on the steering wheel. They were almost at their destination and Castle had been singing the same verse over and over for nearly the entire ride.

Intrigued, Castle whirled his eyes in her direction, with a strong, examining expression, "why, Detective, did you just call me cute?" Beckett curled her lips in a smile, eyeing him from her peripherals, "I don't know, did I?" She played.

"Woah, car!" Castle exclaimed, barely catching a speeding van that came from one of the side streets by the luxury high rises they were headed for. Beckett slammed on the brakes just in time to miss them as the speeding car fled, causing Esposito, driving behind them, to do the same. Ryan cursed as his, fortunately lukewarm, coffee spilled onto his jacket, "this was not my fault," he yelled, lifting his hands and, now, half empty mug up to survey the mess.

Beckett looked up; her hair had spilled over her face, so she pulled it away. "Are you alright," she asked her passenger. He grunted while bringing a hand to rub the back of his neck and followed with an answer, "my neck's back in place." He offered a smile, but Beckett was looking through the rear-view mirror to catch a glimpse of Esposito giving a thumb's up.

Luckily, they arrived in one piece with no idea who had nearly collided with them, for no one had caught the plates.

They checked in at the security desk with a flash of a badge and headed for the elevator which was over the top on its own. A mirrored ceiling reflected the light from the sun, pouring through the back, glass elevator wall that provided a tremendous view of the city below.

After many floors in silence, the doors opened to reveal their destination. The first door was propped open, and Castle took the liberty to peek inside as he walked by. "Looking for a retirement home already?" Beckett joked, noticing his wandering eyes. Castle smirked in return, seeing a rather supple and enticing young maid walk out of another room, "only if you work here and wear one of those." His eyes caught the girl's every move in the short uniform, but he was abruptly halted by a quick slap to the back of the head.

"Focus, Castle." She famously stated with a slight blush to her cheeks.

Javier and Kevin led the way down the richly colored, tasteful corridor; they were bickering about the coffee spill for some time, but they managed to put it aside. "What's the number again?" Ryan asked with searching eyes. "242. We should be coming up on it," the Latino responded after passing room 233. The doors were all a dark walnut with small lights above the golden numbers that gave each room an identity.

As they approached the door, the pair allowed Beckett to pass by them. She was about to knock, but she heard rustling, scuffing, and finally something fragile breaking with a crash. Quietly, she ordered a stack up on the barely cracked door. Ryan and Esposito had the left side, guns drawn, while Castle and Beckett took the right. Castle put his hands together to simulate a gun as he leaned against the wall behind her. "Not cute," she muttered along with a look that said 'stay behind me'.

She motioned for Esposito to enter, so he burst through yelling, "NYPD! Mr. O'Connor?" The others followed him, pointing their guns while they searched the first, empty room. It was a neatly designed room, very clean and very modern. White carpet adorned the floors, while white fabric hugged the furniture along with red pillows of varying shapes and sizes. Nothing was out of place aside from a broken red vase that had fallen from a mirrored coffee table. On the strikingly red walls were rows upon rows of comic books, encased in glass boxes, but at the very start of those rows, one was missing. However, more noise ushered them towards one of the bedrooms.

Beckett rushed in, Castle in tow, to find a man trying to escape from the balcony. He stood on the high wall of the overhang, over looking the street which was quite a ways down. Unless he was super human, he would die from the fall. Beckett slowly walked towards him, holstering her gun. The air blew the drapes away from the large sliding door before the balcony.

"You don't want to take that jump from this height," she calmly spoke to the man's back as it was all she could see, hoping to reach him. Slowly he turned, realizing there were limited options. Held tightly in his hands was a book of some kind.

"Come on down from the ledge," Beckett smoothly moved forward, towards the scrawny man. His greasy, slightly long hair heavily dragged with the breeze and his puffy hunter-green jacket got even puffier, thanks to the gusts. Castle stayed back, hoping to not intimidate the man or hurt what Beckett was trying to do. The man was shaking, trying hard not to cry, the writer noticed.

Cautiously, the female detective finally made her way to the man and he started to climb down, no resistance or words. She grabbed his arms through the puffed up sleeves and put them slowly behind his back, taking an encased copy of Marvel #1 from his grasp as she cuffed him. As they walked out of the room, she handed the comic to Castle.

Assured that Beckett had caught the escapee, Kevin and his partner began scoping the area and checking the expansive, mansion-like apartment over, room by room. Aside from the obvious evidence of breaking and entering, they noticed that, what could only be, Greg O'Connor's bedroom was sealed away by a locked door. They knocked and asked again for Greg, but there was no answer. Fearing that something was wrong, they kicked the door open. To their horror, it revealed Greg O'Connor in a tailored grey suit, hanging by his neck. A black bag was around his head, tied at the neck, just like their original victim. A large pool of blood, beneath the gently swaying body, added color to the immaculately white carpet. A Polaroid was stuck behind the rope which showed Greg's smiling face, yet had the name Peter Parker scribbled beneath it.

Hearing their commotion, Rick, Kate, and the unnamed man happened upon the scene. The cuffed man, stumbled back in a frightened manner, but Beckett restrained him.

"You're under arrest for the murder of Greg O'Connor."

It hadn't taken long for the M.E. Lainie Parish to arrive. They had taken Greg's body down, and found too many similarities between his murder and the murder of Cassandra Grey, to be coincidence. His face had been chiseled away, but in a more haphazard fashion than in the first crime. "This was done quickly," the coroner remarked to the three detectives and one writer standing over the body. She pointed with her pinky to the jagged edges of skin around the wound opening, and wound was an understatement. "This looks more torn off than cut off. But my guess is the same blade that they took to the first victim's face was used here too."

"Cause of death?" Esposito questioned.

"No gunshot wound like the other, looks like he actually died from being strangled. However, these rope marks around his neck are inconsistent with hanging like he was, so the killer came up behind him first. Killed him the old fashioned way." She stood up to match the height of the others. "If you wanna know more, I'll have to get him to the lab."

Beckett nodded, "Alright. I've got the suspect waiting in the living room, so I'm going to take him down for questioning. Let's go, Castle." She dismissed herself and her partner, but realized he wasn't moving. She knew this meant he was thinking again.

"He didn't do it." Castle stared down at the comic in his hands.

"Don't you think it's a bit early to start second guessing?" She shifted her weight while standing in the door way.

"This door locks from the inside," he gestured towards the bedroom door. "And there's a fire escape outside of that window," this time he pointed towards an open window on the back wall of the large bedroom, "but it only goes down. Not around the building where we found him on the balcony." His partner crossed her arms over her chest, listening. "So rationally, wouldn't you have climbed down the fire escape if you wanted to escape?"

"Maybe he did climb down, but he came back for the comic," Beckett reasoned.

Castle walked up to her, motioning for her to look towards the man they had caught less than an hour ago. He was bobbing, shaking, and wriggling with an agonized expression, "I guarantee that if you hadn't cuffed him, he would be in the fetal position."

"Well, let's say he didn't do it," she looked away from the man on the couch, "why was he here for that?" She pointed towards the comic. "This is Marvel issue number one, one of the single most coveted pieces of comic lore by any mega fan. In near mint condition, it would be worth millions," he reported.

Beckett sighed, giving the comic a good look over, then glancing back at the wreck of a man on the couch. "We'll have to consider it, I guess. But, we still have to take him in."

Esposito and Ryan had stayed back at the crime scene to scope out the details, but in the bright lights of the interrogation room, Beckett and Castle sat across from the skinny man known as Cedric Lawson.

"I didn't kill that guy!" Cedric spoke passionately, but he was visibly shaken. His voice was tense, weak, and pitchy. And while his voice wasn't very deep to begin with, the situation made him seem all the more fragile.

Files were neatly set in front of Detective Beckett's arms on the cold, steely table along with the million dollar comic. "Mr. Lawson, you need to understand that you were found trying to flee the scene of a murder and that makes you look very suspicious," she stated strictly. "We need you tell us why you were at Greg's apartment? Do you know him, or were you just there for this?" Her lean hands pushed the glass case holding the comic along the table to his side.

"I…," Cedric started weakly, hesitant to speak, "I was at home on the computer, role playing with my friends on this site, and then…I get this message," he recalled.

"Was this website called Web of Fate?" Castle asked.

Lawson looked towards him in a surprised manner and nodded, "yeah…why?"

"We believe it has something to do with the recent murders." Beckett informed. "But, what did the message say? And do you remember who it was from?"

"My father's father had owned a copy of Marvel issue one that was given to me when I was nine, but it was stolen from me at my twelfth birthday party," he paused, but looked more comfortable, "the person who messaged me somehow knew that, so they gave me that address and the time to show up. They said they had my copy, and told me where it would be and everything. The door was even cracked when I got there. The message was sent by a guest though, so I don't know who it was." Cedric shrugged and looked down, "I had no idea it was Greg's apartment though."

"Is the message still on your computer?" Beckett questioned.

He nodded positively. "If it checks out, you shouldn't be bothered by this anymore, but until we confirm what you've said, don't leave town."

The duo left the room quietly and walked back towards Beckett's desk. Castle took his rightful seat beside it, but Beckett's phone rang before he could start up conversation.

"Beckett," she answered. She went through the motions of the call, before ending it. She sat down and turned towards Castle. "That was Esposito. He said that in addition to scandalous pictures of Cassandra, they found more naked pictures of Jennifer Spectre on his computer. What's more, they found several e-mails from her detailing how much he meant to her. And that van that almost hit us on the way there, was apparently the killer's getaway car, but the building's security cameras weren't at the right angles to catch the driver."

"So jealous girl kills the competition, and then the prize?" Castle sat up in interest.

"I'm not sure, but I think we need to pay her a visit."

A/N: So there wasn't a lot of breathing time in this chapter. Hopefully you all like it as well as the small twist at the end, but there's more where that came from.

As always, let me know what you think and how I'm doing. I'd like to thank all of my reviewers so far for giving me your input and critiquing some of my errors. :D You're all awesome!