"We've got nothin'." Esposito flopped into his chair, the furniture groaning at his sudden drop, and Kate resisted expelling the same sound.

They were, unfortunately, coming up empty on why Ben Willis had been following Sue Longreach around the city. Financials were good. Background clean.

"We could put him under surveillance?" suggested Ryan, his fingers curling into fists as he eyed their suspect's picture. He seemed to have taken the newest development as a personal insult.

Either that, or he was grasping at straws…

"I can't approve the work hours." She cringed. She'd never given much thought to Montgomery or Gates when she'd put in for such requests, the need to solve the case her only priority. How things had changed, and for the worse.

"Seriously, Captain?" Espo glared - just as she'd done in the past - standing in annoyance. "We're literally at a dead end, because unless we can get something on this dude, he walks."

"Hey."

Turning toward Castle's voice, she broke into a smile. Alexis stood hesitantly at her father's side, her gaze flickering to the boys and then to Kate.

"Hi, Alexis." She stepped forward, embracing the redhead, ignoring the noise of indignation from her husband as she ignored him. "What brings you here?"

"Nothing. Classes were canceled due to a power outage in the lecture hall, so we had coffee. Or Dad had coffee while I tried to convince him that he's lost his marbles." Alexis rolled her eyes.

"Why does everyone think that?" Castle raised his voice, throwing his hands up in the air. "It's a good idea."

"What's a good idea?" asked Ryan, genuinely interested.

"Don't ask." Kate jumped in before Castle could begin. It was bad enough that he'd spent last night arguing that his proposal to start a family daycare was a sane one; the fact that he'd then spent this morning badgering his daughter only made it crazier.

"Yo, Castle, if you've got no plans today, you could put all those PI hours to use and follow Mr. Willis around. Beckett's refusing to let us."

"That's not what I said."

"You won't pay for it."

"I'm not paying Castle, either."

"You can pay him in other ways."

"Eeeew." Alexis broke in, thankfully, before she had to damage Espo for his stupidity.

"And I can't," interjected Castle. "He saw me at the crime scene with Kate. You could call Hayley, see if she'd do you a deal?"

Nodding, Kate reached for her cell; she wouldn't be able to budget in the PI's time either, but owing a favor wasn't as grave as allowing a killer to escape their grip.

"They can't, Dad, Hayley's in DC running her own case. But I can." Everyone jerked their gaze toward Alexis, objections from all four mixing together to form a general consensus of 'no.' Not that their arguments halted her stepdaughter's determination in any way.

"I can," she repeated. "He hasn't seen me and I know what I'm doing. It'll be easy work sitting on his tail and seeing if anything out of the ordinary happens." Alexis eyed Castle intently. "I won't do anything dangerous, I promise."

The war within Castle was obvious, and Kate fought the urge to shut Alexis down just to wipe that expression from his face. But they'd both agreed that his oldest - soon to be - had to find some footing in their ever-changing life. That the last year had been hell, not only for them, but for his daughter, forced to watch them recover from their gunshot wounds only to then have her best friend murdered.

"Nothing stupid, Alexis." Rick pointed a finger as if she were six and he had some control over her life. "You don't approach and you call in every half hour with updates."

"Every hour. And I'll take the pepper-spray."


Rick swiped his finger across the screen of his cell, the action bringing it to life, but it only proved that there were no missed calls. Alexis was twenty minutes late checking in.

"It's nearly five. Maybe she called it quits and headed home?" Kate lifted an eyebrow in his direction, not looking up from the paperwork she'd slowly spent the afternoon working through. He'd helped, mainly by offering his charming company and ensuring that she was well-hydrated, but the time still crawled by.

"Hi."

Jumping from the couch, he stormed toward his daughter in the doorway, her wave of greeting freezing in mid-air. "You're late."

"I didn't realize I had to be back by a certain time."

He waved his cell phone in response, and she rolled her eyes. Actually rolled her eyes at him!

"I was headed back here, so it was pointless to call. I thought I would deliver my report in person."

"You have something, Alexis?" Kate interrupted and Castle threw his hands up, exasperated.

"Yes and no." His daughter stepped into the office, the boys crowding in behind.

"So how'd it go, Red?" Espo gave his daughter a soft fist bump, their friendship loosening the anxiety twisted around his heart. Even if she'd discovered trouble, their family would be at her side in a flash.

"I followed Mr. Willis around the city without an issue, and he didn't appear suspicious either. Strolled easily on and off the subway, never once looking over his shoulder. If he's your killer, he sure didn't act like it." Alexis shrugged, drawing her satchel down off her shoulder. "He was checking out new daycare places. Went to four in total. They seemed nice enough. Except for the last one."

Castle lifted a hand, signaling her need to stop talking. "How do you know they were nice?"

"Oh, well, after he'd finished and went back home, I retraced his footsteps. I just pretended I was a prospective parent who'd been given their address from friends and they let me in without an issue."

He blinked, his jaw dropping. "You did what?"

Alexis drew her eyebrows together, the hunt through her bag coming to a halt. "What?"

"You're not a prospective parent. You're not even old enough to be a parent." He pointed back and forth between himself and Kate. "We're prospective parents."

His daughter, Esposito, and Beckett chuckled as if he'd said something funny. This was not funny. At least Ryan patted his arm in sympathy.

"Relax, Dad. And look." She withdrew her hand, fingers clasped around brightly colored papers. "I got you and Kate some pamphlets. In case your daycare business doesn't get off the ground."

"Now hang on a minute." He snatched the outstretched documents before they reached his wife's hands. "There'll be no need for these."

"You're starting your own what?" Esposito laughed. Hard.

"Really?" Ryan positioned himself in front of his partner, blocking his view. "What hours are you offering?"

Rick took a backward step.

"Have you thought about how much you're going to charge?"

And another step.

"Will you be providing diapers and wipes or is that something we're going to have to bring?"

Holding his hands out in surrender, Castle vehemently shook his head. "I. Wait. What?"

This was spiraling out of control fast.

"Okay, boys." Kate broke in, saving him from answering Ryan's rather panic-inducing questions. "You can swap numbers later." She turned to face Alexis. "What did you mean, except for the last one?"

"Mr. Willis entered the building, and I watched him enter the elevator, which stopped on the fourth floor. But when I'd climbed the stairs to see if I could work out which apartment he was going into, he wasn't."

"Wasn't what?" asked Kate.

"He wasn't going anywhere, just standing in the hallway, staring at a closed front door." Alexis grinned, satisfaction pushing her cheeks high as she paused dramatically. "It was apartment 4D."

Rick met Kate's curious stare as he asked, "What was he doing back there?"

Alexis gave a one-sided shrug. "No idea, he just stood there for a minute or two, before he turned and left for home."


"Thank you for coming in, Mr. Willis. Or would you prefer Ben?" Kate seated herself across from their suspect, ensuring her body language remained relaxed and non-threatening. Uniforms had picked him up from home, reporting that he'd abused them the entire journey here.

"I don't care what you call me, I want to know why I'm here. You cops think you can just bully people around for fun. Wait until my lawyer hears about this."

Apparently, the attitude was going to continue.

"Are you asking for your lawyer, Mr. Willis? Do you have something to hide?"

He blustered in front of them, and Castle went rigid in his chair. The last thing she needed was a pissing match.

"I ain't got nothing to hide."

They both cringed at his grammar, his Brooklyn accent slipping through.

"That's good, this will be quick then. Did you ever meet with Sue Longreach outside of work?"

"No."

"Did you or your wife ever bump into her on the street or at a random mall?"

"No." Ben slapped the table, his palm surely stinging after such a display of annoyance, and Castle switched tactics.

"Did you like Sue?"

Their suspect reared back, eyes wide and seemingly caught off-guard by the question.

"It's a lot to trust someone to look after your child, to hand them over and walk away." He couldn't help but sneak a glance at Kate. "You would need to build a rapport, keep communication open between your family and Sue. So did you like her?"

Mr. Willis' body contracted before them, a vein popping out on his forehead, his nostrils flaring.

But still nothing.

"I've walked around her apartment, seen the grime layering the surfaces, the broken toys stacked in the shelves. You forced your child, your only son, to go there every week, to sit amid that filth, to be exposed to-"

"Enough!" Mr. Willis stood suddenly, the chair scraping forcefully across the floor as he stuck his face toward Castle's.

"Sit. Down." Beckett's crisp command gave him no other option, and their suspect sulked but did what she demanded.

"You have no idea, no idea about my son or-" Ben's lips snapped shut for a moment. "I didn't like that bitch, and I sure as hell didn't like my son going there. But I had no choice."

"Why?" What in the world could force a father to leave their child against their will?

Ben raked his fingers through his graying hair, gaze averted. His shoulders dropped abruptly.

"We didn't know, not at the start. Even… even now I don't think I actually know the full story. When you go and do an interview before beginning care, everything seems fine, apartment clean, kids playing happily."

Rick held his breath; the story unfolding was not the one he'd written in his head prior to this interview.

"But?" Kate prompted as the silence continued beyond a pause.

"My wife mainly did the dropoff and pickup. I didn't have time for that." Ben at least had the decency to appear contrite. "But recently my hours have been cut back, so…"

He'd been picking up the slack.

"What did you see?"

"It wasn't what I saw. More a feeling."

Beckett flipped open the folder resting between them to reveal the photo of Ben watching Sue and Joy at the Rockefeller. "A feeling that you acted on."

"I…" Ben's coloring turned green. "I followed her. I needed evidence, something to take back to my wife as proof, something to get my family free of her clutches."

"Why not just leave? Find care elsewhere?" Rick shook his head, the utter disbelief completely unnerving him. Was this what it was to be in the daycare business?

"My wife refused, and all I could think of was that Sue must have had something on her. She's younger and," Ben cleared his throat, "I think she's having an affair. That's why we couldn't leave, why we were forced to pay for care each week, even though I didn't want to be there."

"So you thought you would get to Sue first, blackmail her in order to leave?" Kate spread the damning pictures in a half circle. "But then when that didn't work, you killed her instead."

Startled, Ben looked up from the table. "No. No, that's the thing, I finally found confirmation, I didn't need to kill her." He slanted forward in his seat, his voice an excited whisper. "A friend of mine, his wife works in the State Office of Children and Family Services. When I told them, briefly, about what I was going through, she accessed Sue's record, the complaints that had been made against her. They couldn't make anything stick, a lack of evidence when they visited, but it was enough for us. I gave two weeks' notice with those documents in hand and that bitch didn't bat an eyelid."

Well, there went his motive for murder.