A/N: I'm so glad you guys are enjoying the sequel - thanks for all the reviews!

Four

Back at the twelfth, Kate reconvened with the rest of her team and they swapped the information they gathered to that point. Ryan discovered that, unfortunately, there had been no witnesses to Ashley's death and there were no cameras in the alley that conveniently gave them a look at their killer either. Fortunately, the CSU was able to tell them that evidence indicated the alley was the location of Ashley's death; her body had not been dumped there.

Kate tasked Ryan to go to Ashley's school, obtain her records from there, and interview any friends she may have had including Bryn, the friend she'd allegedly been with just hours before her death. Meanwhile, she and Castle would investigate the orchestra Ashley was part of and see if they could do any interviews with associated people.

Before Kate could begin this task, Gates emerged from her office seeking an update. At that point, Kate was forced to make introductions between Gates and Castle, an event which was icy at best. Castle was being his charming self, but Gates was having none of him. When she walked away and Castle looked slightly wounded, Kate was forced to explain the arm-twisting she'd done to secure his shadowing.

"That's okay," Castle insisted. "I'll win her over."

After doing as much research as she could through Google, Kate and Castle headed towards the offices of the Eastside Youth Orchestra. There, they found the orchestra director was not available that evening, but they were able to speak with the assistant director, a college junior, who volunteered his spare time as it coincided with his major: music education.

The young man was kind, polite, and seemed genuinely distraught to learn the news of Ashley's passing. He stated as her parents had that Ashely just seemed like a normal sixteen-year-old girl to him. Their visit was not a total waste as he was able to direct them to her closest friend in the program: another sixteen-year-old violinist by the name of Cat Lindeman.

With Cat's information in hand, they went to her parents' home and were once again forced to break the news of Ashley's death. For the most part, Cat did well answering questions about Ashley and their friendship. As it turned out, while they were very buddy-buddy during their time at the EYO, they rarely saw each other outside club sanctioned events.

As they had not had a chance to speak with him, Kate asked Cat about the orchestra director, a man named Bryan Timmons. The moment his name was mentioned, Kate saw Cat's eyes cloud over, and her answers were immediately reduced to those of one or two syllables at a time. It was as though the lid on a clamshell had been shut tightly—and locked.

"Did you see? Did you see what happened?" Castle asked excitedly as they left the Lindeman home. Despite question after reworded question, Cat would not open up again after the subject of Timmons had been broached, so Kate decided to end the interview and asked Cat to contact her if she thought of anything else useful.

"Yes, I saw," Kate said, glancing over at him as they drove.

"The second you mentioned Timmons—bam," he snapped his fingers. "She changed. We've got to talk to that guy!"

"And we will. First thing tomorrow we'll-" Kate was interrupted by the ringing of her cell phone. After a brief conversation she hung up the phone and quickly merged into the left lane and made a series of left turns, completely reversing their course.

"What's going on?" Castle asked.

"The medical examiner has something we need to see right away," she explained simply.

"Ashely Poole was pregnant," Lanie informed the duo when they arrived at the medical examiner's office.

"NO!" Castle gasped.

"Are you sure?" Kate asked.

Lanie nodded. "Yep. She was approximately twelve weeks along."

"So she knew about it?" Kate asked.

"Probably," Lanie concluded.

Castle made a fist and shook it in the air. "The father is the killer—bastard!"

"We don't know that," Kate reminded him. Then she turned to Lanie. "Can we get DNA evidence to match with a potential father?"

"Already send to the lab," Lanie informed her with a smile. "I was also able to pull DNA from underneath her fingernails, so we may also be able to identify her attacker."

"The music director killed her," Castle deduced wisely as they left the medical examiner's office.

Kate gave him a sideways glance. "I thought you said it was the baby's father?"

"Changed my mind—it's the music director."

She shook her head. "You can't possibly know that."

"But it makes sense." He began to tick off reasons on his fingers. "Look at how Cat clammed up when we started talking about him. Like she was scared of him. We know Ashley was the first chair violinist and she was very good. Maybe she told the director she was pregnant or he found out and he was so mad at her he killed her."

"Again, there is no evidence to that."

"But it would make a good story."

Kate laughed inwardly at his simple conclusion; if only it were that easy.

First thing the next day Kate located Bryan Timmons, director of the Eastside Youth Orchestra, at the music store he owned with a partner. She and Castle made the trip together, not wanting to waste any more time. Kate began by informing the man that Ashley Poole had been murdered, and he said that he already knew, because the assistant director had called and told him the news the night before.

Within ten second of speaking with him, Kate did not have a positive impression of the man. She could not pinpoint exactly why, but he was ticking every mark on her creepy meter. He was extremely soft spoken, as though waking from a dream state, and appeared very even tempered, but there was something about his intense stare that disturbed her. What really set off her senses was when he began speaking about Ashley.

"She was a very special girl. A delicate flower. Watching her play the violin was like a religious experience."

"She was that good?" Kate offered merely to keep the man talking.

He intensified his gaze at her so much so that she had to avert her eyes. "Ashley was exquisite. She could have been the best. She could have gone on to Julliard. This is just such a tragedy."

"Well, again, I am sorry for your loss Mr. Timmons. Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt Ashley? Anyone she fought with recently?"

Timmons blinked at her. "No, not at all. Ashley was a joy, a gift. No one would have ever wanted to hurt such an innocent creature."

Resisting the urge to shiver, Kate thanked the man for his time and then led Castle out onto the sidewalk. Once safely in her vehicle, he concluded, "Well, he definitely did it."

Kate grimaced. "It wasn't just me then? He seemed really creepy?"

Castle laughed. "There must be a picture of his face in the dictionary next to the word creepy. Yowza. It sounded like he wanted to lock Ashley in a glass case in his basement. He's definitely the guy."

"Well, unfortunately, it's not that easy—we need evidence, remember?"

"We'll have DNA," Castle pointed out.

"Which will take a few days," Kate countered.

Castle's jaw dropped slightly. "Days?"

Kate nodded. "Sorry, Castle. This isn't the movies; things take time here in reality."

Castle nodded and remained silent for a moment then he gazed over at her as she drove. "I love this." When she gave him a questioning glance, he continued. "Not this case, obviously, but us working together—I love it."

She smiled softly. "I do too."

"I'm serious, though. I love this. Watching you—you're incredible."

Kate immediately felt heat begin to creep into her cheeks. "Castle…"

"You are! Interviewing suspects, consoling victim's families—you do it all!"

"So I take it this is worthwhile research for your book?"

"It's excellent research," he informed her. "Just you wait, Kate Beckett; just you wait."

Back at the precinct building, Kate and Castle reconvened with Detective Ryan to see what he had uncovered when speaking with the victim's classmates, teachers, and friends. Unfortunately, it wasn't much, but he had discovered something crucial.

The night of her death, Ashley told her parents she was going to her friend Bryn's house, but after several rounds of discussion with Bryn, the young girl confessed that was not the case at all. Earlier that day, Ashley had asked Bryn to cover for her, because she had to do something and needed to get out of the house without her parent's knowing the true reason why. Bryn had agreed to cover for her friend, but ultimately became inconsolable, fearing that her covering directly resulted in Ashley's death.

"So, Ashely goes on a secret trip just hours before she dies. Is it safe for us to assume that wherever she went and whomever she saw could have been directly involved in her death?" Castle asked.

"It's certainly something we don't want to ignore," Kate said, adding their new evidence to the murder board. When Kate capped the marker and turned around, she spotted Cat Lindeman, Ashley's fellow violinist from the EYO walking into the squad room. Cat's eyes widened when she spotted the murder board with photographs of her strangled friend.

"Cat," Kate said, walking forward to guide the girl's gaze away from the gruesome photos. "Is there something you remembered? Something about Ashley?"

"There is something," Cat said softly. "You said I could come to you."

"Absolutely," Kate told the girl with a soft smile. Cat's eyes darted between Kate, Castle and then back again. Noting the younger girl's uncertainty, Kate suggested, "How about we go someplace a bit more private to talk?"

Castle stayed behind and took a seat at Kate's desk and he watched her guide the teen girl into one of the conference rooms. They sat on either side of the table, with Castle only able to view Kate's face and the back of the younger girl's head. Kate, he decided as he watched, would have made one hell of a poker player, because he had no idea what was transpiring in the room based on her expressions alone. Other than an occasional nod or her lips moving as she asked a question, the majority of her face remained frozen in a pleasant, but not otherwise telling expression.

Forty minutes later, clutching a tissue to her cheek, Cat exited the conference room and Kate walked her to the elevator. When she returned to her desk, she folded her arms and stared down at Castle. "Well, you were right."

He stood immediately. "Timmons! It's Timmons isn't it? Creepy bastard."

"Yeah…but not exactly in the way you'd expect. From the way things sound, it appears Mr. Timmons might actually be the father of Ashley's baby."

Castle's jaw dropped a few inches, and he let out a disbelieving, "NO!"

Kate bobbed her head and sat down at her desk; Castle took the chair beside. "Cat just informed me that Timmons encourages special members of the EYO to come in for "private lessons,"" Kate said using air quotes. "During which he would complement them and rub their shoulders…among other things."

Castle balled his fist as he felt his stomach flip over. "To Cat?"

"During their last one-on-one he apparently put his hand under her skirt to touch her leg, but fortunately her mother showed up to pick her up before it went any further," Kate explained.

"Sick bastard!" Castle spat. "But Cat believes he slept with Ashley?"

"She knows he did—because Ashley told her," Kate explained. Resting her forearms on the desk, she leaned in a bit closer. "Apparently, while Cat was thoroughly disturbed by her encounters with Timmons, Ashley didn't mind them so much. Cat seemed to think that Ashley was sleeping with him willingly."

"Did Cat know about the pregnancy?"

"I would imagine not, because she didn't bring it up. I didn't ask either because we want to keep that detail to ourselves for now. She did say, though, that Ashley had missed a few rehearsals recently for being sick, which she found odd because Ashely was usually dedicated enough to show up even if she had a cold."

"So…" Castle thought for a moment, formulating the story that best fit the new information. "Timmons gets Ashely pregnant, she tells him about it, he freaks out and kills her?"

"Maybe. But how'd they end up in the alley? We know that's where Ashley was killed."

"I might be able to answer that," Ryan chimed in. He placed a grainy photo on Kate's desk displaying two familiar figures sitting at a two-seater table in what appeared to be a coffee shop or bistro. "Seven thirty-seven p.m. the night of Ashely's death."

"Well that's Ashley," Castle said, pointing to the girl in the photo. "And Timmons!"

"Yep. According to the waitress at the coffee shop the two of them were having a pretty loud argument. And then the girl stormed out. And this coffee shop? Half a block from the alley."

"So they had a fight, Ashely stormed off, Timmons followed and killed her," Castle concluded.

"Which is interesting, because when we interviewed Timmons he told us he hadn't seen Ashley since their last orchestra practice," Kate said, standing up from her chair.

"You going to pick him up?" Ryan asked. Kate nodded and Castle leapt up from his chair.

"YES! My first arrest!"

"No, not an arrest; I'm just bringing him in for questioning," she told him.

"But," he protested, pointing towards the picture.

She shook her head. "Not enough for an arrest."

"But the DNA will be."

"Yes," she smiled, "but a confession is better. You ready to watch an interrogation, Castle?"

He nodded gleefully for a moment but then let his expression fall. "Oh, sorry, I guess I shouldn't be so excited since a pregnant teenager was killed…"

Forty minutes later, Kate returned with Timmons, who seemed as unfazed as he had in the music shop earlier that day. She allowed uniformed officers to take him into the interrogation room while she went to her desk to retrieve the paperwork she'd be bringing in there with her. As she gathered her things, Castle asked, "So is there an observation room I can watch from. Like behind the two-way mirror?"

Kate eyed him for a moment before saying, "Tell ya what, Castle. I'll make you a deal. I'll let you come in the room with me if you promise not to say anything and to say seated at all times."

He jumped to his feet. "DEAL! Absolutely a deal!" Kate smiled softly and nodded for him to follow.

Castle resisted the urge to skip as he followed her to the interrogation room. Taking a leaf out of her book, as they entered the room he straightened his expression into one of indifference. He took the seat beside hers, folded his hands in his lap and stared across the table at Timmons, who appeared as casual as though he was sitting on a bench in Central Park.

Kate slapped the photo of Ashley's body on the table and next to it the picture of Ashley and Timmons at the coffee shop. "You lied to us, Mr. Timmons."

"About what?" he asked in his ever-present ethereal tone.

"You saw Ashley the night of her murder."

"I did not."

"Yes you did. You were arguing with her in a coffee shop. This is your picture," Kate said, tapping her index finger on the photograph.

Timmons gazed down at it, uninterested. "That's a terrible picture; it could be anyone."

"What were you and Ashley arguing about that night?"

"Nothing, because we didn't see each other."

Kate cleared her throat and leaned back in her chair. "Mr. Timmons were you aware that Ashley was pregnant?"

Timmons tilted his head to the side and gazed at her curiously. "Was she?"

"Yes. She was. And you were the father."

Timmons chuckled. "That's impossible."

"Is it? Because you do realize, Mr. Timmons, that we can prove that. DNA evidence was taken from Ashley's body."

"But you have nothing to compare it to."

"We can get a warrant for that."

"Well then you should get one." Timmons said simply.

Kate stared across the table at him for several moments. "You know what I think Mr. Timmons? I think Ashley told you about the baby at the coffee shop last night and the two of you had a fight. She stormed out, you followed her into that alley and you killed her."

"But why would I do that?" Timmons asked. "Why would I hurt Ashley? She was a lovely girl."

Kate went round and round with Timmons for the better part of ten minutes with no avail. He side stepped her every move and his tone remained constant throughout. Finally, she decided to go with a several minute bout of silence in hopes of distracting him and making him nervous so she could go at him once more. When they were on minute three of silence, she heard from beside her, "It's because you have a small dick, isn't it?"

It took every ounce of self-control in Kate's body not to react to Castle's comment. The only thing that kept her steady was the knowledge that she was going to kill him when they got out of the interrogation room since he had violated the only rule she had given him.

Timmons blinked in Castle's direction. "Pardon me."

Castle leaned forward and placed his hands on the table. "You have a small dick. That's why you can't get with any real women. Real women laugh in your face. They take one look at you, one look at your pathetic manhood, and laugh."

Timmons said nothing, but Kate saw his upper lip twitch slightly. It was almost imperceptible, but she had seen it and took it as an opportunity. "Is that what Ashley did? Did she laugh at you?"

Timmons's gaze shifted back to Kate's, but he said nothing.

"No, she didn't laugh," Castle answered for him. "He wouldn't let her. You didn't let any of them laugh, did you? It made you feel like a man, didn't it? Taking advantage of those young girls—overpowering them. You felt like a big strong man. You didn't even know, did you? They were all laughing behind your back."

Timmons lip twitched again and Kate pounced.

"Ashley's friends told us. They told us she laughed and laughed about an older boyfriend who thought he was just the best lover, but he wasn't even close. He wasn't a real man and she knew it. She only used him to get ahead."

"Didn't you know?" Castle asked, bemused. "Didn't you know what Ashley said about you to her friends? The things we heard," Castle chuckled and looked at Kate. "I almost feel bad for you—almost."

"How many other girls are there? How many other girls laughing about you at their lunch tables? Laughing at you and-"

"Those bitches loved every second of it—every second!" Timmons spat, seething evident in his tone. "That little bitch Ashley didn't even know how good she had it. As if she could have ever had better than me! Me!" He insisted, standing from the table.

Kate stood just as quickly, narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. She towered over him as Timmons realized what he'd said and shrank back into his seat. Got you, you bastard.

Two minutes later, as Timmons was led away by two uniformed officers, Kate and Castle were joined by Ryan and Captain Gates in the hallway outside interrogation. "Excellent job, Detective. And ah," she cleared her throat and lowered her voice, "Mr. Castle."

When she walked away, Kate turned around to find Castle beaming. "See—I told you she liked me."

"Well I wouldn't go that far," Ryan added. Kate and Castle looked at him. "I thought she was going to go through that glass wall when Castle started talking to Timmons; she was furious."

"Yeah you know I'm not too thrilled about that myself." Kate folded her arms over her chest as she looked at him. "We did have an agreement."

Castle's jaw dropped. "But Timmons wasn't cracking! I thought I was helping. I had a hunch and went for it."

"Hell of a hunch, Castle."

"Very impressive," Ryan agreed. "Not just the hunch, but going toe-to-toe with Beckett in the interrogation. I've seemed even seasoned cops struggle with that."

Castle smiled proudly and put his arm around his girlfriend's shoulders. "Well I guess we're just very in sync—in more than one place."

"Gross," Ryan concluded with a grimace before walking away.

After he went Kate punched Castle's shoulder. "What's the matter with you?"

"What?!"

"That was not an appropriate work place comment!" she insisted. Castle cringed and mumbled an apology. "Also, next time your hunch might not pay off so do me a favor and keep it to yourself."

Castle's expression lightened at her comment. "Next time? You mean I might get to shadow you again?"

Kate glanced towards Gates's office door and then back at Castle and told him just above a whisper, "I'd say that's a distinct possibility."

"Excellent," he grinned.