Chapter Four
Comes the Blind Fury

There's a killer on the road.
His brain is squirmin' like a toad.
Take a long holiday,
Let your children play.
If ya give this man a ride,
Sweet memory will die.
Killer on the road

"Riders On The Storm": The Doors

Mother's Day, 2023
11:00 AM

The Castle Family walked together into Forest Hills Cemetery to pay their respects to both Rick and Kate's mothers. It had become a grim, maudlin family tradition ever since her father had emerged from therapy a changed man. Since that first year they had all learned their parts by rote.

It had taken on a somber new meaning five years ago, when Jim Beckett had died following complications from a liver transplant. (his five years of binge drinking after Johanna Beckett's murder finally having caught up with him) He had been buried next to his wife as was right and proper.

Sadly it was that occasion that had finally dragged Richard Castle out of his own head and allowed him to be the man Kate had married again, at least at home. It had become more bittersweet since the passing of Jackson Hunt from congestive heart failure shortly thereafter. He had been placed next to Martha, as the CIA could not officially claim him. Though CIA Special Projects Director Martin Danberg had appeared briefly at his calling hours to pay his respects...unofficially.

Since then, the remainder of the Castle/Rodgers/Beckett family marked this occasion in the only way they could. Flowers were placed on tombstones, tears were shed and hugs were exchanged. This was the one day of the year they permitted themselves to be overwhelmed by what they had lost. The other three hundred sixty-four days a year they did what the people buried here would have wanted for them. They carried on as best they could with the business of living, while Kate and Alexis spoke for the dead.

Six Weeks later

Ann Hastings' sendoff to be the new Lieutenant for Major Crimes was a major affair, held at "The Old Haunt" at Richard Castle's insistence. She had worked hard for nearly a decade to get where she was now. She had come a long way since the "Lone Vengeance" case so many years ago. Her fiance, Paul Whitaker had proposed only a few weeks before in this very bar, at Richard and Kate Castle's 10th wedding anniversary celebration. Rick had also insisted that when they got married that the reception be held there.

Captain Beckett and her husband had kept her secret about Lone Vengeance all those years ago, and had always been good to her. Better than she thought she deserved sometimes, but she couldn't possibly believe their overwhelming generosity to her sometimes. Kate Beckett had been her mentor from the very day she had first gotten her gold shield and she had mourned with all the rest of the 12th when Richard Castle's mother died. She had been one of the contingent of 12th Precinct officers and detectives who had walked the entire five miles on either side of the hearse that carried her to Forest Hills Cemetery, an unofficial honor guard for the mother of one of their own.

She had done her best to repay Rick and Kate's generosity by being as good a mentor and supervisor to Alexis as Kate had been to her. Secretly, she was in awe of the young woman's tenacity and level-headed attitude. She never forgot why she was doing this. Whom she served and whom she spoke for. This girl had non need to avenge her grandmother, no need for a costume to be a hero. She learned almost as much about being a cop from Alexis Castle, as she was able to give. She would make an incredible lead detective after she was gone.

The party had pretty much broken up by ten o'clock, most of the cops assembled had to be back in the precinct in the morning, especially Captain Beckett and Lieutenant Ryan. Alexis and her boyfriend, Jeremy had slipped out of the bar without so much as a "by your leave" as soon as the last toast had been made. She had no illusions what thy had in mind, as they had been making eyes at each other the entire night.

3:00 A.M.

Jeremy Christian lay in Alexis Castle's bed, his arms wrapped around her slender, athletic body as she slept in his arms. For the first time in his life he began to feel conflicted about his motivations, about the course set out before him. He knew it had been truly set years ago and that he really had little choice in the matter. The woman in his arms should mean less than nothing to him.

His stepfather had taught him harshly since he was little more than ten years old never to be swayed by the pleasures of the opposite sex. Love was a weakness, a sickness to be purged, led to nothing but ruin. He had seen firsthand what that sickness had done to his mother, the acts of depravity she had committed for the sake of "love." He had watched her poison grandma and grandpa in their hospital beds because of it and he wanted nothing to do with it.

He knew that Alexis was falling in love with him, and saw that it was making her weak already. It would be her blind spot in what was to come, and he saw it for what it was. His opening to do what must be done. But if all that were true, why did he feel so conflicted? Why did watching her sleep, naked in his arms make him want to protect her from what was to come?

"NO!" came the angry, insistent, unwavering voice of his stepfather in the back of his mind, "She is a pawn! Nothing more! A sacrificial lamb, to be led to the slaughter to make the man who did this to me pay! Love and trust are weaknesses to be purged!"

The war in his head went on until the chirping of his cell phone interrupted his thoughts. He unwrapped himself carefully from Alexis without waking her and walked over to her dresser where it had been casually tossed next to hers in last night's frenzy of arms, legs, hands and tossed clothing on their way to her bed, to pick it up.

There was a single text message from an unlisted number, that when opened simply read:

Time to begin.

He left her a note to let her know he had to go home to get ready for his shift and was out the door. He had work to do.

9:00 AM

Alexis had gotten the call roughly half an hour ago.

Karen Eileen Matthews, Age 22 was found dead in her apartment lying as if prepared for death by her roommate Karen Jefferies and as Alexis was on call and the next on the rotation she had gotten the wake up call. The young woman was willowy, with long blonde hair and a neat ligature mark around her neck.

"What do we have, Lanie?" she said, and for a split second felt like she was a seventeen year old intern again, not the Lead Detective for the 12th Precinct.

"No...it can't be...he's dead. It can't be." was the only reply she got back.

The look of abject horror on Lanie's face when she looked up at her chilled Alexis' blood.

"It's him...he's back."

"Who, Lanie?" Alexis asked, she had never seen her one time mentor get so pale at a crime scene before, "Who is back?"

Lanie Parrish spoke only one word in response, but it was more like a hoarse whisper.

"Tyson."