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Chapter 3

Kate's loss

Kate pulled up in her beat up dark blue crown vic. outside of Castle's building, and started to pull a box from the back seat when the doorman came over to her with a brass luggage cart.

"Let me help you with that Ma'am." he said with a smile.

"Yeah, okay. There's four more in the trunk." with that she popped the trunk and let him put the boxes on the cart.

"your staying in Mr. Castle's unit right?" asked Mike the doorman as they walked to the elevator.

"Yeah." she said feeling self-conscious.

"Mr. Castle is just the best ain't he?" Mike said with a big smile. They reach the fourth floor and he was pushing the cart towards 4A.

"Yeah?" she asked to see what he had to say about Castle.

"Yeah, my little girl got real sick two years ago and Mr. Castle paid for the best treatments and doctors. I'm forever in his debt. But he waved it off saying that if it was his kid and I had the money I would have done the same. He's the best." Mike was now helping her stack the boxes in the living room by the couch. "Well that's the last of them. If you ever need help just call down and ask for Mike." he took the cart and left.

Kate sat on the couch and started with the first box. It had stuff from her entertainment center. It had her DVD's and CD's. She would have to buy half of her collection again, but at least she had some of it. She pushed it aside and looked in the next box. It had things she kept in the locked filing cabinet in her living room. Well there was some truth in advertising, the cabinet was fire proof after all. The box was filled with files of important papers, and her photo albums. She felt relief wash over her when she saw the album that contained all of the pictures of her mother. She didn't know how much she treasured it until she thought it was gone.

The next box had stuff from her kitchen. The box was the heaviest by far as it held her mothers dishes, and silver. Some of the china was chipped, but for the most part it was undamaged. The next to the last box had stuff from her bathroom. It had her makeup bag and her tooth brush, and things like that. She found her bottle of perfume. She opened the lid and sprayed some on her neck and took a big breath. Cherries, it was her mom's favorite perfume, and Kate hated it when she was younger. But now it was the only one she could wear. It helped her get through the day. It was the other constant reminder of what she lost, but unlike her mother's ring it gave her strength. She was happy to see that her advanced copy of Heat Wave was in the box. She kept it in her bath room so she could read it in the bath.

The last box was the lightest of them all, it held the undamaged things from her bedroom. She knew that the second explosion came from her bedroom, and knew that almost everything in the room was burnt. But pulling the lid off the box and seeing the pitifully small amount of things that survived saddened her. The only thing it the box was the stuff she kept in her safe in her closet. Thing's like her jewelry, and her ready cash. She also found her three signed Storm books. Also her gun box. She flipped it open and saw her academy issue Berretta 92fs, and her back up silver Walter ppk/s that she took on her date with Mr. July fire fighter. She put the top back on the box, and then it hit her. Where were her books? More specifically where was her collection of Castle books? She pulled out her phone and called Lanie.

"Dr. Parish.""Lanie where are my books?" Kate asked with some panic in her voice.

"Oh god, no one told you?" Lanie sounded panicked too

"Told me what Lanie? What?" Kate was letting the panic turn to rage

"Oh man, all right are you sitting down?" Lanie asked in a calming voice.

"Lanie just spit it out!" yelled Kate. Just then Rick Castle bust through the door to his apartment, and looked around for the threat. Upon finding none he approached Kate sitting on the couch.

"The killer planted the first bomb in your living room behind your book case. There's nothing left Katie girl I'm sorry." said a distraught Lanie. Kate Beckett broke down crying. Castle was a few feet away from her when she started to cry, and he ran the last few feet, and enveloped her in a hug.

"What's wrong Kate?" he said with concern. She didn't reply she just kept crying. Rick saw the phone in her hand, and figuring that he would get more answers from the person on the other side of the connection took the phone from her hand. "hello?" he asked into the phone

"Castle it's Lanie." She sounded relieved

"Lanie, thank god! Can you tell me what's going on?" he sounded just as relieved.

"I just told her that she lost all her books in the fire." Sounding hurt.

"OH! is that all? I can get her replacements" Kate cried harder.

"It's not that simple. She lost all of her Storm books." she replied as if that explained it all.

"Is that it? I keep like a dozen first addition copies of all of my books I can hand them over right now." he was confused.

"No it's not that simple. She has a connection to those books, they helped her get over her mom's murder. They weren't just books to her they were her therapist, And her security blanket. You can't just replace them." said a sad Lanie.

"Yes I can. I'll talk to you later Lanie I have to help Kate." with that Rick hung up the phone, and set it on the table. He then looked at Kate, and pulled her closer. "Kate? Kate look at me. The books can be replaced." She wasn't paying attention to him she just looked away from him and mumbled "All gone" over and over again. He pushed her back into the couch, and knelt on the floor in front of her. He took her face in his hands, and looked straight into her eyes.

"Listen to me Kate. We can replace them. The books are all the same. They all have the same words in them. The connection you feel is to the words on the pages not the pages themselves." she seemed to think about his words. Then she nodded. "Good now lets go see if I have a set of the Store books in the closet in my office." he stood up, and took her hand in his. He pulled her in the direction of his office. He put her to sit in one of the big leather chairs in front of his desk, and crossed to the closet. He opened the door to reveal stacks of boxes. He move some of them out from the closet and sat in the chair next to Kate. He opened the first box to reveal three copies of the first eight books he wrote. He pulled a copy of Storm Rising out of the box, and held it up. "see I have copies of all my books. Now lets get a pen, and I'll sign them all for you." he said with his patented charming Castle smile. Kate mumbled something. and he asked her to repeat it.

"I said you don't have to sign Storm Fall, Winter Storm, and Flowers for Her Grave. I have signed copies of them." she blushed.

"I know I gave you the signed copy of Storm Fall, but how did you get the other two? I don't remember you at a book signing." he was curious now.

"I got the copy of Winter Storm from my father as a thank you for getting him sober, and well… I got the signed Flowers for Her Grave from my mom." she finished the last part of her explanation so soft that he thought he almost missed it.

"Well then you can just take a copy of those books unsigned, we don't want to replace the copies you have. They have too much meaning, and you know what this means right?" he asked playfully.

"What?"

"It means I got the chance to meet your mom. I hope I was nice to her. When did she get it signed I might remember." he asked hopeful.

"She said she got it signed at work, so that means Columbia university where she taught law." She also hoped he could remember the meeting.

"I think I remember the signing. It was December 1997, and I gave a guest lecture to the English students about plot outlining. That signing was special because it was never supposed to be a signing. I remembered I stuck around for awhile signing books because the students responded so well to my talk… do you have a picture of her from that year?" he asked, and she shot out of the chair and ran to the boxes in the living room. She came back moments later with a photo album. She took her seat and started to flip through pages when she stopped, and turned the album towards him. He saw a picture of Kate and her mom. He looked at the picture and then looked off into space trying to remember. Then his head shot up and he smiled. "Did your mom use to wear a red Channel suit with a white rose on the lapel?"

"Yes! She loved that suit!" she was excited now.

"I remember her. It was towards the end of the signing, and Alexis was giving the nanny backstage a hard time so she brought her out to sit with me. She was three at the time. Your Mom walked up to me, and handed me the book, and said I had a cute kid. In fact she seemed more interested in Alexis then me so I called her on it. I remember her saying something like "I don't like your books my daughter does." she also said something about me obviously not knowing about search warrants, or some such. I made friends with judge Markaway because of her. That was your mother hah?" he was shocked.

Kate was sitting in her seat with her mouth hanging open. "You met my mom?" she was shocked because that was almost a direct quote from her mother, and she knew she never told him about it.

"Yeah. She was quite rude if you ask me, but then again she was a law school teacher, and probably thought my books were short on the legal details." he shrugged.

"Yep, you definitely met my mother that was almost a direct quote from her. She used to ask me how I could read your books when they lacked any legal truth. Well that, and she thought you had no artistic talent. She used to call your books male adolescent fantasies, and she would always ask me how I could read such crap. I think her dislike of your books is one of the first reasons I started to read them. After she died I… well I guess I kind of got lost in them, your books I mean. I guess I like the fact that Storm always got his man. That, and the fact that it gave you insight into the killers head. I guess I needed to know why people killed. Why they took loved ones away from their families." She was getting choked up now so Rick stood up and moved to her. He picked her up out of the chair, and sat down pulling her into his lap so he could hold her close to his chest. He rocked her softly like he used to do with Alexis when she was little. Sitting her on his lap he felt just how light she was. He was right she had been letting herself go. The first order of business is going to get her to eat more. She needed to get more meat on her bones. How was she going to get into a fight with a suspect if she had no muscle mass. He didn't know how she had grappled with the Nikki Heat killer at all. Yes the first thing he was going to do was get her to eat like a normal person. Soon both of them fell asleep.