In Pieces

by

A.K. Hunter

Chapter Three


Kevin came back to the world with an overwhelming urge to vomit. He tried to lift his head, and the world pitched and spun. He shook his head, trying to quell the nausea churning his stomach, and the world tilted completely on its side for one bile-inducing moment.

"Wow, there," he heard a familiar voice say. Javi. "Here, have some water."

He wasn't sure he could keep it down, but his dry, cracked tongue begged for moisture. A straw was placed in front of his lips and Kevin greedily drank. Each gulp soothed the desert in his mouth and throat. His partner pulled the straw away after only a few pulls. "Slow down, bro. You've already puked on me once today. I don't need an encore."

Kevin tried to respond, but the words got caught on his too-thick tongue and his drug-tumbled brain struggled to push through the haze. His directives were simple: drink, stop, drink more, stop again. It felt like ages that Kevin sipped from that same cup of water, taking several short breaks along the way. By the time air pulled through the bottom of the straw, his brain was clearer, and his stomach no longer seemed to want to escape from his body.

"What happened?" Kevin asked, his voice somehow thick and hoarse at the same time. He glanced around the room, surprised to find himself in a hospital. An IV was steadily feeding fluid into his body through the back of his hand.

Javier shrugged. "Some perp roofied you at Crespo's apartment. I found you out cold on the bathroom floor. Do you know what happened?"

The memories slammed into Kevin like a ton of bricks. An empty bathroom with a drawn shower curtain. A needle sticking out of his thigh. A terrified, battered redhead.

Alexis.

Kevin shot upright in his hospital bed, immediately regretting the movement as he fell hard against his bed rail.

"Hey, calm down—"

"She drugged me, Javi. It was her."

"Who?"

Bitterness seeped into the wounds made by the redhead's betrayal. He'd poured his heart out, had asked her to stay, and she'd bailed. Then, when they'd met in the worst of circumstances, she'd drugged him and bailed again. Bitterness twisted into anger, stinging against the festering hurt in his chest. "Alexis. The woman I met last night. She was the one hiding in the bathroom, and when I found her she drugged me."

Kevin had never been so furious in all his life, and he held tight to that anger. Anger had been his go-to response for over two years, and it hadn't failed him yet. "Javi, we have to find her."

His partner nodded, looking grim. "We will. First, you need to get rehydrated so they'll let you go home, and then I'll need you to tell me everything you know. We can lean on Crespo for answers, too. We'll find her, Kev."

Javier offered another cup of water, and Kevin accepted it thankfully, his mind already flipping through variables, methodically replaying the encounter with Alexis and looking for useful information. Something heavy pressed against his chest as he recalled the way the black-purple mark hugged her eye, her bright blue iris standing out all the clearer against the broken blood vessels.

She huddled back against the tub, terror and panic written across her face—

Kevin shook his head again. No. No, he wouldn't feel sorry for her. She was a criminal, not a victim. Certainly not a damsel in distress. She'd lied to him. She'd drugged him. He was going to find her, and when he did, he would make sure she got what she deserved.


Putting pressure on Crespo, or Pi as he called himself, wasn't yielding many answers.

"Tell me what you know about Gregor Ivanova," Kevin's harsh tone was just short of a bark. He'd been discharged late in the evening and had been told to go home and rest before returning to work, and Javi made sure he followed the doctor's orders. Javi hadn't learned much from interrogating their newest suspect, and Crespo had spent the night in holding.

Kevin had woken in the morning with a bitch of a headache and no answers. He was beyond frustrated and more determined than ever to find out what the hell was going on. They'd taken on Slaughter's case as a favor to Beckett, as a way to burn time while the roadblocks with their current case resolved. Instead he'd gotten the surprise of his life. Kevin didn't like surprises; he'd learned the hard way that they rarely ended positively. It didn't leave his mind for one second that Alexis was still out there, likely taking advantage of the head start that she'd gained by drugging him.

The curly-haired man glanced up at Kevin, then shrugged. "Never heard of him. I don't even know why I'm here."

"You're here because your fingerprints are a perfect match to the prints found on the gun was used to kill Ivanova. How'd that happen?" Javier asked.

"Coincidence, I guess."

"That's one hell of a coincidence," Javier remarked.

"I'm sure stranger things have happened."

"What about the girl?" Kevin asked. "Did she know Ivanova?"

"What girl?" Crespo's eyes cut to the side, and Kevin knew he was lying. About Alexis at the very least, maybe Ivanova, too.

Kevin hadn't really believed Alexis was involved in the murder. At the very least, he knew she had an alibi. While the Russian mobster was being murdered, Alexis had been fucking a naive homicide detective who'd been stupid enough to think good things were still possible for him. But Pi's cagey behavior made him wonder if the girl wasn't connected to their victim somehow. "The redhead I found in your bathtub. The one you tried to hide from us. Come on, Peter—"

"It's Pi."

"Whatever. Why were you trying to hide the fact that she was in your apartment?"

"I don't know who you're—"

"She had a nasty shiner. Who gave it to her? You?" Kevin's voice took on a mean edge. "You afraid of the cops finding out how you treat women?"

For the first time, there was something akin to anger in their suspect's eyes. "I would never hurt Lexi. Never! I tried to—" he cut himself off, his teeth snapping together with the force of his frustration.

The fervor behind Pi's words brought Kevin up short. The satisfaction that Pi was acknowledging Alexis paled when he considered the possibility that she was in some kind of relationship with this lowlife. Had Kevin helped her cheat? He shook the thought off. It didn't matter—not while a murderer was at large. "Then who did? Is she involved in this mess somehow?"

Pi went silent again.

"She was prepared to protect herself. You don't hide in the bathroom when someone comes to the door, a syringe of tranquilizers in hand, if you're not expecting to be threatened."

"We don't think it's a coincidence that your prints ended up on that gun, Pi," Javier said. "Just like it's not a coincidence that your friend was expecting trouble, that you lied to keep her out of it. What's going on here? What aren't you telling us?"

"Nothing," Pi lied; they all knew it was a lie. "There's nothing to tell. Can I call a lawyer now?"

Kevin briefly locked eyes with his partner before standing up and leaving the room. Something hot and sick twisted and tangled in his gut. Variables appeared in his mind like little blips on a radar: Ivanova, a literal smoking gun, a protective fool, and a remarkable, lying woman who was still at large. Javier could handle the processing and paperwork—Kevin was going to find the answers that Pi wouldn't give them.


Less than twenty four hours after entering the apartment for the first time, Kevin found himself standing in the middle of the small, cluttered studio, taking in everything from the worn card table shoved into the corner that seemed to serve as both a dining room table and a desk to the layers of plastic taped over the windows to keep out the cold. Unis and CSU had already been through the scene. They were searching for fingerprint matches and trying to gain access to a laptop they'd found in the corner of a closet. Besides three more drug-loaded syringes, there were no weapons or other paraphernalia in the apartment. Javi had told him he wouldn't find anything new in that shoebox Alexis and Pi had been living in, but Kevin wasn't looking for evidence in their murder case, necessarily. He was trying to piece together an entirely different mystery.

Kevin mindlessly picked up a couple of the worn books stacked on the card table: a French edition of Brave New World; Circuit Analysis for Dummies; a copy of Raging Heat that had been borrowed from the New York Public Library. All of them but the library book had "AC" written in neat cursive inside the front cover. These were Alexis' books. It looked like her interests and knowledge base were as varied as they had seemed the night they'd met. She also read Castle's books, liked them, probably, if she went to the trouble to keep reading to the fourth book in the series. Kevin wondered what the "C" stood for and filed all the information away for later examination.

He crossed to the tiny kitchen, dismayed to find the cupboards empty save for chipped plates and cups, and lots of canned soup and Ramen. The fridge was in the same state, and Alexis' sharp bone structure flashed, unbidden, into his memory.

Kevin shook his head and moved on.

It was easy to find Pi's preferred space in the apartment. Men's clothes were scattered over the battered couch along with a couple graphic novels. Despite the fact that Crespo and Alexis had been living together, Kevin didn't see much integration of their belongings among the mess. The thought made him uncomfortably relieved.

He found Alexis' space in a walk-in-closet-sized bedroom next to the bathroom. More secondhand books were stacked along one wall—a fire hazard four feet high. Their titles and subjects varied so much it made Kevin's head spin. A small, metallic tree sat on the windowsill, looking crude in its design—all rough, metal seams, sharp points, and exposed bulbs. Kevin picked it up with gloved hands, turning it over to inspect the tiny bulbs and wires that had been set into the metal. His mind helpfully supplied the title of a welding book among the stacks. Had she made this? Again, he filed the information away and set it aside. He didn't have time to ponder the dichotomy that was Alexis—at least not now.

A thin yet lumpy twin-sized mattress was covered by blankets, and a cheap, plastic set of drawers held her few clothes. A thick composition book was half-tucked under her pillow, and rather than anything as mundane as a journal or a murder confession, it held drawings, equations, and blueprints. He flipped through the book, stopping at a dog-eared page that depicted the tree he'd just been holding. He looked around the tiny room once more and various descriptors popped into his mind: well read, a little messy, poor, highly intelligent, possibly genius. Nothing in her bedroom gave any indication that she might be involved in illegal activities. Who the hell was this woman?

Kevin's phone rang.

"Ryan," he answered.

"We just got the report back from CSU," Javier said. "If you're done digging around in that shoebox, I think you'll want to come check out what they found."

"I'll be right there."

Kevin moved toward the door, then stopped. For a reason he couldn't quite quantify, he grabbed a small throw blanket from Alexis' bed and wrapped it around the tree sculpture. He tucked the bundle under his arm as he left the apartment; the sweet scent of strawberries wafted up to him, haunting his every breath as he returned to the precinct.


The results were in: His dream girl was a criminal.

Kevin frowned as he sank into his chair, Alexis' background check in hand. Both sets of fingerprints found in the apartment had matched to records in the system. Pi's fingerprints pinged again, no surprise there. What had shaken Kevin deep in his bones was the file in front of him, Alexis' history typed neatly onto a page.

Javier stuck Alexis' mugshot up on the murder board. It was four years outdated, taken the day she'd been sent to juvie for pushing her foster father down a flight of stairs.

"According to California's state records, her name is Alexis Castle," Javier said. "Think there's a relation?"

Kevin shook his head at his partner's attempt to lighten the mood. "It's not that uncommon of a name. Plus, I think Castle would have told us—"

"Told you what?"

Kevin nodded at the writer, who had come into the bullpen with a container of coffees. "You don't have a redheaded, criminal niece, right?"

"I'm an only child," the writer answered, handing both of the detectives their coffees. "Why?"

"Our suspect's last name is Castle," Javi supplied, tapping on Alexis' picture. "I was just trying to get Kev to lighten up for sec."

"She's not a suspect," Kevin said. "She has an alibi, remember? Me." His eyes slid over to the writer, who had stepped close to examine the photo. A frown had etched itself into the lines of his face. "Don't tell me you know her?"

Castle stepped back and shook his head. "I don't." He cleared his throat and took a sip of his coffee. "So what's the story here?"

Kevin flipped through her file, forcing the words from his mouth. "Alexis Castle. Twenty-one. Looks like she grew up in the system—her mom gave her up for adoption and had the maternal records sealed. We'll need a court order to get access them. No father listed. Bounced between foster homes for most of her life until she was sent to juvie at seventeen for assaulting her foster father. She was released six months later when her foster father ended up in prison for man one..." a frown tugged at his mouth and that sick tangle of emotion clenched in his gut. "She was invited to testify, but never showed. She'd already dropped off the radar. And there's no record of her anywhere, until she ended up involved in this case." Kevin closed the file, his mind mulling over the wealth of new information as Javi filled Castle in on the case and Alexis' connection to their prime suspect.

"And here I thought Beckett was pawning me off on a dead-end case," Castle quipped.

Kevin stood up, stretching before addressing his partner. "Let's pull Pi out of holding again."

"You think really think you can convince him to confess?" Javier asked.

"No," Kevin said, "I think I can convince him to help his friend."


Interrogation had been silent for at least ten minutes. Kevin sat across from Pi, reading through evidence that he already knew by heart, letting silence wear on his suspect. Kevin was used to silence. Outside of work, his life had been wrapped in silence for a couple years now. Silent apartment. Silent nights in bed. Silent mornings alone. Before Jenny had gotten sick, silence made him uncomfortable. Now he wore it like a second skin.

"Am I just supposed to watch you read or something?" Pi asked.

Kevin didn't even spare a glance up at the other man. He flipped the page on his current reading material—the CSU report on Emma Carter's death. Emma had been Alexis' thirteen-year-old foster sister. A particularly gruesome photo from the crime scene made his stomach flip, not with disgust, but with grief.

"Why are you wasting my time?" Pi said. "You know I didn't kill Ivan. If you thought differently, I'd already be in jail, right?"

"Ivanova," the detective corrected. "And yes, if the evidence added up, you wouldn't be here right now."

"So what do you want?"

Kevin closed the file, finally making eye contact with the other man. "Why didn't she testify in Emma Carter's murder?" He watched Pi's mind struggle with the unexpected question.

"What?"

"Emma Carter. Alexis' foster sister. Why didn't Alexis testify in the trial? Her foster father could have been found guilty of murder with a convincing testimony of abuse, and instead he was convicted of manslaughter."

Pi's confusion was replaced with a grave expression. "You've done your homework."

"I'm trying to understand," Kevin explained. "I get it that you don't trust me. But I want to help. I know you're not our murderer, and I know Alexis isn't either. But I need you to help me prove that neither of you were involved."

Pi watched him for a long time before running his hands through his unkempt curls. He exhaled raggedly. "She was afraid. Emma wasn't the only one he hurt."

"Is that how you two met? In juvie?"

Pi nodded. "Been friends ever since." Something dark laced his tone. Bitterness? No. Regret. "Not that it's done her any good."

"Why's that?"

His suspect bit his lip. "Lexi's amazing. She's special. Anything she touches turns to gold, I swear. She can take bit of garbage and turn them into art.

"Like that tree?"

Surprised flashed in Pi's dark eyes. "Yeah. She made that out of a broken bicycle frame, among other things."

"How's it work?"

A fond smile tugged at his lips. "Leave it in the window, somewhere it can get plenty of light. It'll blow you away."

Kevin nodded, and Pi asked, "You really do want to help, don't you?"

"More than anything," Kevin said in earnest. "I— we haven't found her yet. She's out there somewhere, and if she's truly in some kind of trouble..." He trailed off, letting Pi's imagination fill in the blanks.

"I'll tell you everything I know. But you have to keep up your end of the bargain."

"And what's that?"

"You have to keep her safe." The weight and anxiety behind the young man's words echoed in the back of Kevin's mind, finding friends in his own fears for the redhead's safety.

"I'll do everything in my power to help her."

"Promise me."

Kevin sighed, then nodded. "I promise."


Long after Beckett and Javi had gone home for the day, Kevin found himself at his desk, going over everything he'd found out about his dream girl turned nightmare. Her records from the foster system and juvie were in a neat pile on his desk; he'd read through them enough to have memorized entire passages. Four days had passed, and despite Pi giving up every scrap of information he had, the case was far from solved.

It turned out that Pi had more drive than any of them had given him credit for, and the young man had focused that drive on nursing an expensive cocaine addiction. In the years after he'd aged out of juvie, he'd gotten in deep, deep enough that he had no real chance of digging himself back out. His only credit was that he'd never been busted for it, but that was a small comfort when a dealer from the Odessa clan had started stalking him, demanding repayment. So he'd reached out to his one friend in the world: Alexis. She'd been wandering for a few years at that point, but she'd dropped everything to come to New York and help him. She hadn't had the money Pi needed to keep his kneecaps, but she had picked up a few new skills in the years since he'd seen her. Particularly data theft. She'd gone to the dealer's boss, Gregor Ivanova, and had bargained for Pi's future. His debts were erased, and in return she was hired on to steal information about or from other members of the syndicate. The money was terrible, the risk was great, and she'd done it anyway. All she had asked Pi to do in return was get clean.

Guilt-ridden tears had slipped down Pi's face as he recounted the tale. "There's nothing quite as sobering as your best friend giving up everything to save your sorry ass from your own terrible mistakes."

"You know what this means," Kevin had said. "You lied about knowing him. Your prints were on the gun; you had motivation to kill him."

"And bring this exact mess down on Lexi? Risk her life for some vendetta? I'd never do that."

Kevin had believed him; he still believed him. The detective rubbed his eyes, his brain sluggishly moving over the cold hard facts.

Tori was still trying to decrypt Alexis' laptop in hopes of learning more about her work for Ivanova. The redhead clearly knew what she was doing, because it was taking forever to unlock. When Kevin put the puzzle pieces together in front of him, they told the picture of a victim more than a criminal, and anxiety twisted in his stomach every time he was reminded that Alexis was still MIA, god knows where, in the middle of a New York winter without the pathetic safety net she'd created for herself.

He stood up, heading to the break room for some coffee. He stopped in the doorway when he saw Castle examining the metal tree in the windowsill. Kevin had followed Pi's instructions and left the sculpture to soak up sunlight. His breath had been taken away the first time he saw the illuminated creation. The gentle light the tiny bulbs emitted softened the harsh, metallic angles, and the tree looked like it was blooming with softly lit flowers. It never ceased to amaze him.

Castle caught him staring. "I hear you're very conflicted these days."

Kevin shook off his reverence and walked to the coffee pot. "Thought you would have gone home with Beckett."

"You know about that, huh?"

"We all know about it."

The writer was silent for a moment, then continued, "You don't think she's guilty."

"I don't think she's innocent, either." Kevin turned to his friend, squaring his shoulders against the uncomfortable half-truth.

Castle touched the glowing sculpture. "Maybe she's committed a crime, but that doesn't make her like the others."

"Why do you care?" Kevin asked. The writer had been oddly subdued about the case. He still offered up odd theories and had a joke ready when the tension grew to be too much, but Kevin had caught the writer examining Alexis' four-year-outdated photo on the murder board more than once, as if the photo would offer up new information with each perusal.

"She reminds me of someone I used to know," Castle hedged.

"Who?"

"Me. If I can help in any way, let me know."

Kevin was surprised by the writer's interest. He quickly shook his head. "I haven't heard a peep from her."

"You're worried."

He was terrified. "It's just…" Kevin motioned to the glowing tree. "Cold, hard, criminals don't make things like this. They don't indenture themselves to terrible people to help a friend.

"When I met her, I knew she was different, but she never once struck me as dangerous. Maybe a little wild, a little reckless, but never threatening. If she knew I was a cop, she could have stolen from me, she could have taken advantage when my guard was down. She didn't. She folded my clothes neatly before she left. She kept me from smacking my head when she drugged me, and," he paused, "she apologized. Repeatedly. I know I'm supposed to stay neutral about this, to look at the facts, but the facts are useless and my instincts—"

"Your instincts are telling you she needs help," Castle finished for him.

"She's out there alone and I have no way of finding her. I've tried everything—"

"Maybe she'll find you." Castle patted his arm and sighed, "I'm going home. Think about what I said. I'd like to help—inside or outside the law. Just let me know what you need."

The implication that Kevin would work outside the rulebook didn't grate on him like it should have. Instead, he was grateful. The writer had resources Kevin could only dream of. Surely he could help.

"Thank you, Castle."

"Always."


Kevin yawned as he took the finals steps to his floor, following the same route his feet had carried him on for years. He'd be back at the precinct early in the morning, but for now, his mind and body desperately needed rest. His tired eyes landed on a huddled form next to his front door.

Police instincts kicked in as he approached the person warily, looking for possible threats. "Can I help you?"

No answer. Kevin stepped forward, taking in the overly large brown coat covering a gray hoodie. Long strands of red hair peeked out from beneath the hood. Recognition plowed into him, and he kneeled down.

"Alexis?"

He pushed the hood back, dismayed to find the bruising on her face had worsened. Her skin was flushed and clammy. He shook her shoulder. "Alexis."

She flinched, emitting a pathetic whimper, her eyes slowly opening, watching him with a glazed expression.

"What happened to you?" he asked.

She mumbled something he couldn't quite understand, her head bowing forward again.

"Alexis?" He touched her face, almost pulling his hand away from the burning fever under her skin.

"Sorry, Kev," she slurred.

"Come on, let's get you inside." He lifted her under her arms, and what little color she had left drained from her face. He pulled his hand away, shocked to see her blood marring his hand.

"Shit." He hovered in indecision before picking her up in a fireman's lift and carrying her into his apartment. She groaned at the shift in her posture, then yelped when her back pressed against his couch. Her eyes rolled around without focus and her head tilted forward. He wrinkled his nose at the unwashed smell that drifted off of her.

"Alexis, can I take your coat off? I need to see what's wrong." His hands had started shaking. Something was wrong—terribly wrong. He hadn't seen a person so sick since—

"Sorry," she mumbled again. He cupped her face in his hands, anxiety rising at the heat emanating from her pale skin. She shuddered, and he felt goosebumps rise under his fingertips. Her wild eyes landed on him, tears slipping out as she stared directly at him, her gaze void of recognition. Then she glanced away again, and a sinking feeling pressed in on his chest as he realized that she wasn't with him mentally.

Panic pushed through his veins with each heartbeat, but he forced his movements to be gentle as he guided her arms out of the coat and slipped it from her shoulders. A large, black-red stain sank through the gray fabric over her right shoulder. Shit. She was really hurt.

"Can you lift your arms for me?"

Alexis didn't answer; she didn't even seem to hear him. Thinking quickly, he guided her down onto her stomach, helping her to stretch out across the couch. He had to run to the kitchen, and he didn't trust her to not tumble to the floor.

Once he was satisfied that she wouldn't fall, Kevin rushed to his kitchen and dug through the drawers for a pair of scissors. He hurried back to the living room and began cutting open the back of her hoodie and the tank top beneath it. He peeled away the stained fabric, for a moment so repulsed that he didn't acknowledge her shriek of pain.

A deep, severely infected laceration chased up the inside of her right shoulder blade, inches from her spine. The wound was an angry shade of red, and foul-smelling fluid wept from the edges. Long, red lines spanned outward from the laceration, crying out like a beacon from her corpse-colored skin.

"Alexis," he gasped, horrified.

The redhead cried bitterly, trying pathetically to crawl away, and he grasped the back of her neck loosely to keep her on his couch. Her weak body succumbed to his grip and she sank into the cushions, slurring broken apologies that shattered every ounce of anger and bitterness he'd been holding on to.

Helplessness smashed into him, so terribly familiar that it took his breath away. She was so sick… She'd been hurt so badly.

Just as quickly as his anger at Alexis was destroyed, protectiveness took its place. He stroked a limp, greasy strand of hair from her tearstained face. "You're going to be okay." She had to be okay. There wasn't another option.

Kevin pulled his phone out of his pocket.

"Castle, it's Ryan. I need your help."


Author's Note: Man, that felt like a dense chapter. Glad Alexis is back with Kev though. :) I hope you all enjoyed the update. Please review!