Chapter Four

The news from Lanie was troubling her. According to Internal Affairs, that bomb was rigged to explode with a cellphone detonator. From all the interrogations with Dempsey, he admitted that panicked and set off the bomb prematurely. He never did anything that constituted as a mistake before. This had to have been the first. Everything with him was meticulous to a fault. He planned and executed all his plans perfectly, always leaving himself enough time to return to headquarters and never be implicated. She almost wanted to believe that Dempsey wanted to get caught. That's impossible no one ever wants to get caught.

Dempsey, what are you hiding? He was playing them. What is your end game?

She walked with the ME back to her office and headed into the precinct just like she predicted. A few 'welcome back's later, she slid into her chair comfortably and started looking.

"Detective Beckett" a shadow loomed behind her, "I thought I made it perfectly clear that you were not to return to duty until you have been cleared by Dr. Grant. As you can see, the precinct did not burn down without you. So go. Home."

"Sir, didn't you find it strange how easy it was to find the last bomb site?"

"No, the dirt bag made a mistake and counted on us to be slower that he thought. Now go home. I don't want to see you for another few days."

"My gut's telling me something is going on and I can't see it. I can sense it." she bore the brunt of his disapproving glare "Sir, I'd just be back here again if you send me home. I just want to make sure I've got all my bases covered, that's all. No fieldwork I promise."

He stared at Beckett and studied her face. She was determined to see it through. Something about this case touched her on a personal level and she could be stubborn-headed if he had gotten in her way. She was right, he would find her right back in that chair if he had sent her off and she'll never get any rest.

"Fine." He sighed, knowing better than to argue with one of his best. There would be no end. "That's it. Nothing else do you hear me?"

Nodding, she packed up all she needed and left. She stopped by the evidence locker in the basement before driving back home but found herself once again at in front of Castle's door. When she knocked, she heard a strained muffled sound coming from within. She didn't even hesitate when she kicked open his door only to find him trying on different materials for gags.

"Whoa! Where's the fire?"

"Uh..." she paused and stared. That man was going to be the death of her. "I went to the precinct after lunch. Something's been bugging me about the Dempsey case."

"You mean like why it was so damn easy to catch the son of a bitch when it was so damn hard to track him down in the first place?" He lifted an eyebrow as she pushed the door shut behind her.

"Exactly." she said, thankful of finally finding someone who thought like her, even when it was just Castle. "Apparently, IA says that Dempsey admitted being a little premature in dialing into the burn phone. He's a NYPD trained explosives expert. He's been the perfect villain all this time and he fucks up now? So I went to the precinct and got what I could about him. There has to be something we're missing."

Dempsey was a psychopath but he passed the department psychological evaluation just the same. He entered into the NYPD Bomb Squad when he was 24 after showing an aptitude for dismantling one as an officer in a intensive and high risk case. After that case was when Beckett thought he turned the corner. He craved the danger and the praise that came with being in the city's most exclusive team. It wasn't enough that he was saving the world with his talent. He needed someone to know it. So he started planning and planting detonators around the city. He watched as one of them tore apart one his teammates and cripple another. He must have been angry when the news reported it as a broken gas main that exploded in the basement of that office building.

By the time Dempsey popped up on the fingerprint search, the man had already disappeared. None of his teammates seemed to know where he had gone and the manhunt was on. They displayed his picture on the news as a person of interest and then they got a note from him, sent by courier. She could still feel the heat of the blast on her face, as she remembered, knocking her back against another container.

"By the way, that's the last time I'm kicking down your door." She mentioned as she massaged her lower back, her adrenaline giving way.

They both knew, with psychopaths, nothing was easy.

"Beckett, as much as this sounds like a fantastic plan, you're still under orders to stay put. Or have you already forgotten about that."

"Castle, its just research. I'm not going anywhere." she plopped down on the stool in the kitchen, spilling the contents her bag onto the countertop. "See? Staying put."

"Who needs drugs when apparently crime fighting gets you high? You would be a shoo-in poster child for the next recruitment or anti-drug campaign... Fine..." her partner sighed in resignation. So he joined her by putting on a pot of coffee and rolling an old whiteboard from his study. She smiled and thanked him only to have him wave it away as he walked back to his unfinished novel.

"Finally got signal back from the campgrounds eh?" he said, smiling into the phone. "How's the trip going? Ready to come back yet?"

"The trip's been awesome but it would be nice to take a real shower though. What's going on over there?"

"Nothing much, I miss you. Although Beckett has been keeping me company. She is quite the cook apparently. You'd never know by the look of her fridge."

"Beckett? Detective Beckett's there?" he could detect a note of concern for her heroine.

"She's fine. She just a little banged up. I didn't want her to be home alone with just old Thai food."

"Good. I'm glad she's okay." Alexis lost some of the edge in her voice. "How's the writing coming since you brought work home with you?"

"Not too bad..." he gave a small smile, "I think I may be getting brand new insights into the character."

"Are things happening?"

"And what things are you talking about?"

"Oh please Dad, spare me." A pause on her end and he could hear one of the chaperones calling. "Oh I have to go. I'll see you in a couple days. I love you."

"Love you too."

He returned to the kitchen for some caffeine only to find his formerly pristine whiteboard covered. Photos were tacked up across it with his temporary housemate's familiar handwriting. He stared at the black tape she had somehow procured stuck across the board as a makeshift timeline of Dempsey's life.

She had enough there to begin a short autobiography of the mad man. It was, and always had been, fascinating watching her work, especially when she didn't know about it. Her brow was furrowed as she paced back and forth, staring at the whiteboard. Her eyes were lively as she ran through scenario after scenario in her head. She twirled the marker between her fingers as she bit on her bottom lip, still deep in thought.

This was a sight he only saw at the precinct. At least now she had a couch to crash on instead of falling asleep at the station in her chair, arms sprawled across her table and used her files as pillows.

"Looks like you're making progress." he said softly, trying not to startle her. He looked a little closer and found himself staring at his own words from the pages of the Derrick Storm series. "And inhaling too much marker fumes."

"Don't worry Castle, these are photocopies." She smirked as she highlighted another section.

"I'm sure you're about to enlighten me on why my books are on your board." The marker squeaked as she wrote on the board.

"Castle, I think it's you." She turned to him, concerned. "The whole thing revolves around you."

"Well everything revolves around me." he mentioned and then had a marker thrown at his chest.

"Look this, his bookshelves. His novels all look as worn as all the other ones except yours. He hasn't bought any of your new stuff which is strange because he has everything of yours up till Storm Fall." She then went over to more photos of his apartment. "Then there's his wardrobe. Does anything about his apartment seem familiar?"

Castle took a closer look. The coffee table was bare, his bookshelves were lined neatly on one side and three photographs lined the dark slate painted walls. Very familiar…

"Then there were his notes. I called Karpowski to check on the calls his team responded to before we caught on to the case. There were at least four false alarms that matched the same M.O. He was testing his team and making sure that his plan would be executed perfectly. So my question becomes why didn't he send notes before when he was 'practicing'?" She glanced over at the clues photographed and logged. "Only when we took the case did he start sending these. I've rechecked the evidence from previous false alarms that we hadn't connected Dempsey to. Nothing out of the ordinary with the exception that they didn't explode."

"He wanted to make sure we got the call…" he said trailing off, studying the photographs that he had memorized by heart. "Why didn't I see this before?"

"We were a little busy Castle what with the imminent bomb threat and finding Dempsey, we forgot to look." She placed her hands on her hips and pursed her lips. She was so stupid…

"But how? He's nothing like him. I don't get it."

"That's why we call them psychopaths, Castle, sometimes there's nothing to get. He identified with him so he probably thought he was him- Hero complex and everything."

"Just because he wanted my attention..." he whispered. "Just because he thought he was Derrick Storm..."