Whoa! Two chapters in one day! I am on a roll! As for the previous reviews I received, I was going to reply to them, but Fanfiction is not letting me access them! It won't show me any of the reviews I have, even the ones before chapter 2.
Hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own a damn thing.
The thing about fall in New York was the outrageous temperature changes. Some days it was cold enough to be winter, other days it was hot enough to be summer. Either way, she had to deal with it alone. She didn't mean to get him kicked off the case, but she was told to do her best to profile her partner, to get a feel. She was honest. He wasn't fit for the case.
There was a difference when the problems were her own, and it would be different if it was his problem, but it wasn't. It was someone's daughter that resembled his own. Had it been his daughter, had he had an actual connection to the victim, she would have let him work. Similar hair color and features weren't enough. She remembered the first time she'd been pulled from a case.
It had been one of the first cases she worked as a homicide detective, and she had a hard time not getting close when a woman was murdered in an alley. It had reminded her of her mother. The only difference was appearance and location. She thought she could handle it, thought she'd be fine. However, she wasn't. Emotionally, it chipped away at her and Roy wasn't letting her fall back into a never ending loop. They want her out of that, she wanted out of that.
She wasn't reprimanding him or telling the writer it was wrong to feel. She wasn't trying to take that right away from him. She just needed to know that he would have her back in the case that something went wrong. It was like one of his book. There was no nice, easy end to it like Heat got or what Storm had. Real homicide work involved results that left some people unhappy. There were times where even the strongest NYPD detectives crumbled, blowing a case.
She had learned years ago that if she wanted results, she had to be careful. In children cases, especially. There were too many things that could get blown over if he went off and, while they'd been working together for about three years, she wasn't sure she could trust him to be that cool, calm partner she needed. As opposed to the regular murders they dealt with, children tended to leave a mark on the hearts of all people involved.
Her teeth chattered as she moved through the crowd, making her way to nearest playground of where they found the body. The body. It felt awful to refer to a little girl as a victim and as just the body in the morgue, but what else was she supposed to distance herself? Her eyes scanned around from the mothers who seemed to flock in a corner, chatting away. About what? She didn't know.
"Excuse me," she called out, making her way through playground. Her hand brushing her coat out of the way, grabbing her badge, she flashed it at the women. All stared in amusement, one whispering to the other about how she had seen the woman on the front of some magazine some odd number of years ago. "Kate Beckett, N-"
"NYPD," one of the woman squealed. "You work for Richard Castle. Is he here with you?"
Her facial expression fell, her teeth sinking into her tongue. Rick worked with her. She didn't work for him. Clipping her badge back onto her pants, she shook her head. "Look, can you just tell me if you've seen this little girl?" She grabbed the photo from her pocket, flashing it at the woman in front of her.
The women each took a look a turn, looking over the photo before one of the spoke up. "Oh, Robbie plays with her sometime on our way home!" She lowered the photo, quick to explain. "Robbie's my eight year old son. Great kid, loves soccer, and he even made honors this quarter."
"Ma'am, the girl," Kate pressed, wanting nothing more than to hear what this woman had to say on her case.
"Oh, right," she nodded. "Robbie!" She yelled, her son's head poking out of two bars on the slide. "Get down here right now, and how many times do I have to tell you! Your head is going to get stuck!"
The boy only rolled his eyes, easily removing his head from the bars and sliding down the slide. Running over to his mom, he looked between his mother and the detective, brows knit together. "Yeah?"
"Tell the nice detective what you know about that girl you play with on your way home."
He seemed genuinely confused before realizing who she was talking about. "Oh, you mean Amelia?" He asked, blinking. "I don't know much about her, but she likes my toy trucks and dinosaurs," he told her. A sudden look of worry did cross his face as he looked up. "Is she okay? Did she do something bad?"
"She didn't do anything wrong," Kate tried to assure him. It wasn't her place to break the news to him, or his mother. "Can you tell me about her parents?" She asked, crouching down to look at him.
"Well," he let his lips tug into a frown. "I…. I think her dad has brown eyes and dark hair. He sometimes smokes around us when we stop to play on the softball field," he told her. "I didn't like him. He blew smoke at his and he always smelled bad…. I didn't see Amelia yesterday… and she wasn't there today when we walked by. Is she okay?" He asked again, teary eyed. Why else would a cop be asking about her? "Did she do something bad? Is that why he looked angry today?"
Their suspect was there? "Do you think you could point him out for me?" She asked and the little boy nodded with confidence. "Mrs…." She paused, waiting or woman to give her name.
"Sarah Murphy," she stated. "Is everything alright? Why do you need my son to," she trailed off. Then the woman looked back down at the photo still held in her hand.
"Mrs. Murphy, you do not have to approach him, nor does your son, I just need him to simply point out who her dad is. I only have a few questions," she explained. However, the woman only paled. The little girl wasn't sleeping in the photo. She was dead.
Ryan and Esposito had been perched in their chairs after a long day running around the city. They had taken the blocks from 81st to 96th street with two other teams. Columbus Ave was buzzing with late lunch goers and then they had hit the crowds around 4. They figured that since their girl had been found between where 86th street ran into West drive in Central Park, their area location had been spread out.
Ryan had tons of footage to go through, Espo had thousands of people to call, and both knew they weren't going home anytime soon. It was worse that Castle wasn't there to make thing better for them, to tease them or make immature bets. Though, Espo had started to worry when Kate wasn't back.
"You think Mom and Dad will make up?" Ryan asked, referring to his colleagues.
Espo snorted. "When don't they? If she let him come back after the summer they had before, she'll always keep him by her side."
"Well, it's nice to know you two talk about us when we're not here."
They both jumped, turning to find Castle with two coffees. The writer wasn't supposed to be there, sure, but did anyone really expect him to just go home? He had paced around his loft for a couple hours, slamming doors and throwing papers around until he'd fallen asleep on his couch, body needing a break from his anger. By the time he had woken up, it was later in the afternoon.
He figured that talking to her would work. Maybe he could work something out that would allow Montgomery to grant him access to the case to help. Of course, she was nowhere to be seen or found. Go figure. The one time he brings her coffee and she'll end up drinking it cold. Well, there was a first time for everything he guessed.
He sat around, happily chatting away with the boys for an hour before anyone voice their concern. "Do you think Kate's okay?" Ryan finally asked, looking at his watch. Espo glanced at his watch before plucking his cellphone of the desk. Dialing her number, he almost had hit the call button when Montgomery stepped out of his office, a look of concern flashing over his face. He didn't even comment on Castle being there. Rather, he just looked around for Beckett. Where the hell was she?