Chapter 6

Beckett sat at her desk and stared at the lined form in front of her without really seeing it. She twirled the pen in her fingers, and tapped the end of it from time to time, as her brain raced as she thought about Castle. Her whole life since the death of her mother had centered around her ability to focus on a single objective, a single point on the horizon. No matter what the distraction, what made her a great detective and a great police officer was that she was able to put on the blinders and maintain her view of the objective. That all changed with Castle. For some reason, he had a way to break her out of her focus, to see the world around her and to entertain the notion that there were other possibilities to her set, logic-based preconceived ways of thinking.

Castle always looked for the story, and beyond that, the story that made the most sense. Even when she'd thought she had the narrative right on a case, if it didn't make sense to Castle, he'd keep digging, keep questioning until he found a story that made sense. It would exasperate her from time to time, but more often than not, he'd be right. Her problem was that her story, if she looked at it, was not a good one.

Her narrative, on the surface, was about justice. Justice for the victims of the murders she investigated. Justice for her mother. Justice for the weak who were victims of the powerful. Justice for her AG team. The list went on and on and on. But the surface story wasn't what bothered her, because to her, the real story wasn't about justice, but about obsession. When was justice complete? There always seemed to be the next dragon to slay; Vulcan Simmons, Lockwood, Bracken, LokSat… Each time, she'd felt like she was finished, and yet, each time that focus would overwhelm everything else, even what she felt for Castle, and that was her sin. She knew, beyond anything else, that no matter what she did, Castle would follow. He'd "walk into a tornado" for her. She KNEW that. It was fact, plain and simple, and yet she would follow her obsession. This time, it almost got Castle killed. It almost got everyone she knew killed. The well of guilt in her chest was consuming her. It was bad enough that she felt guilty for dragging everyone into the LokSat mess. The worst part of all this was that there was lingering doubt in her mind that if another dragon reared its head, she wasn't sure if she wouldn't do it all over again. Maybe she didn't deserve to be happy. Maybe, because of who she was, she didn't deserve Castle.

"Captain?" The knock on her door startled her out of her reverie. The papers on her desk came into focus and she was back in the moment. Esposito stood outside her door.

He looked at her, concern in his eyes. She realized that she had no idea how long he'd been standing there. He stepped inside and lowered his voice an octave.

"Kate, are you all right?"

She sighed and made a weak display of nonchalance. "Yeah, I'm fine. What do you got?"

Esposito was not convinced, and not one to let things slide so easily. "Come on, Kate, we've been friends for years. What gives?"

"I'm fine, Espo. Really."

"That's BS, Kate. You've been acting strange ever since Castle got home from the hospital. Is everything all right with you two?"

Her first instinct was to lash out, to smack Esposito down for prying into things that weren't his business. But he was right. He was her friend. He'd been there in her darkest times, pulling her from the dregs of PTSD after she'd been shot. She sat back in her chair.

"I hear him, you know? At night, he has dreams, nightmares really. It's horrifying to hear him relive the moment."

"Kate, you've been there. You know what he's going through. You can help him, just like I helped you."

"I know that, Espo. It's not that." She glanced out the window, gathering her thoughts, weighing what she should say next. She turned back to Esposito. "This is all my fault, Espo. I did this to him. He's suffering because of me. Those nightmares are because of me."

Esposito nodded. Beckett was a crusader. He knew that. Beyond that, she had completely unrealistic expectations about what she could control.

"I could tell you that you're wrong or that you're being silly." He smiled. "But you'd ignore it and tell me I'm right, then tell me everything was okay. You'd thank me for being a friend, and you'd keep feeling the way you do, and we'd ignore the tension all around and do our jobs."

She laughed in spite of her pain. He'd nailed it. He continued.

"So, I'm not going to tell you all that. I'll just say this." He put his hands on the front of her desk and leaned forward. "If you love Castle, and make no mistake, you do, then why don't you ever give him credit for making his own choices?"

His words felt like he'd slapped her. He didn't let up. "I mean, seriously Kate, from the beginning, Castle chose to be here. To be with you. You didn't force him to make those choices. You didn't force him to get involved. Hell, he knew about LokSat BEFORE your AG team was assassinated. How'd that happen?"

A light of understanding flickered in her eyes, if just for a moment.

"I'm just saying that you are who you are, Kate. But Castle is a grown-ass man, and can make decisions for himself, and over the years, they've been some pretty good ones. You may love him to death, but I'm not sure you're giving him the respect he deserves, as a partner, as a friend and as a husband."

That was Esposito in a nutshell. He was her friend, and as a friend, he had no compunction whatsoever to tell it like he saw it. He was probably wrong, wasn't he? Her mind raced, and an entirely new perspective entered her brain. Was she being condescending? She'd have to think about that, but later.

"Thanks, Espo." Then she smiled. "I do not ignore what you tell me and do what I was going to do…"

He gave her a baleful look, his eyebrow rising ever so slightly.

Her smile broadened. "Usually I don't, anyway…you didn't come in here to lecture me. What's up?"

"Well, the Rydes owner is on his way in. I'm going to talk to him some about Haden Farber and some of this botcoin business. But Farber's girlfriend is coming in too, and I was wondering if you could speak to her?"

Her brain was back to business. "Where's Ryan?"

"We got a tip from a doorman at the Marriott Marquis. Apparently our victim got into some sort of an altercation with a cab driver the night of the murder, so Kevin is checking it out."

She nodded. "Ok, I'll talk to the girlfriend, you handle the Rydes owner. I'll talk to her in here."

Angie Reed was a small, frail-looking woman in her mid-twenties, but the bags around her eyes told a story of someone much older in life experience. She wore a mustard yellow uniform with matching blouse and pants trimmed in garish red piping and a nametag on her chest that told Beckett that Angie was either coming from, or heading to a job at a diner somewhere. It was hard to tell, because the weariness in Angie's eyes could easily have been exhaustion from a long shift on her feet, or sadness from the loss of her boyfriend. Either way, life had been hard to Angie, and Kate could tell she was just holding it together.

"Thanks for coming in, Miss Reed. I'm so sorry for your loss." The young woman sat in one of the chairs in front of Beckett's desk. One leg bounced nervously while her hands were clasped on her lap and her head was tilted down. Beckett took the other chair and placed a reassuring hand on Angie's shoulder.

"This won't take long. We just wanted to ask you a few questions about Haden." Angie looked across at Beckett and then nodded her head slightly.

"Ok. There's not much to tell. All he did was work and play on his computer. We really didn't do much. We couldn't afford it."

"I understand. Did Haden ever mention having any problems with anyone?"

Angie shook her head vehemently. "No. We just moved here. His parents were from Austria. His dad got a job with a big steel company in Pennsylvania, but they closed down right after they moved here. Both of his folks died when Haden was fifteen. He's been alone ever since."

"I understand, but anyone that he might have fought with? Maybe at work or in the neighborhood?"

"No. We put everything we had into just keeping our place. I worked double shifts and he worked overnight driving. Any extra money went into keeping his car going and into his computer." She buried her head in hands and sniffled. "I was always yelling at him that we didn't need all that computer stuff, but he insisted that he was making things right for our future."

"What did he mean by that?" Beckett felt a stir in the back of her neck. Something wasn't adding up. Granted, living in New York City was by no means cheap, but given where Angie and Haden lived, they should have been doing a little better than they were. Rydes drivers who worked as much as Haden should have brought in more than enough money to make ends meet.

"I thought it was because he was playing video games. I mean, he would watch all of these shows about competitive leagues with large payouts, but I never really saw him playing. That's why I couldn't think of anyone who would be mad at him. It wasn't like he was playing online with people."

Something she said prompted Kate's next question. "You said you thought he was playing video games. What changed your mind?"

"I was checking on his computer this morning, to see if I could access our bank accounts. Rent is due at the end of the week, and he'd been working so much." She suppressed another round of tears and continued. "Our account was low, so tried to find another account. I found this icon for something called a 'wallet'. When I clicked on it, it looked like a jumble of numbers, like you see on a stock market report or something. I didn't find any bank accounts or money, so I don't know what it all means."

Beckett's discussions with Demming told her the Serbs had been dabbling with the dark net and sophisticated ways of laundering money. Ways very much dealing with private wallets, botcoins and other things.

"Angie, would you mind if my computer expert took a look at your computer? There may be something on it that'll tell us who killed Haden." The woman nodded slowly. Kate rose and led her towards her door.

"We'll find out what happened to him. I promise." Angie's look was far from reassured. She put the strap of her purse over her shoulder and looked at Kate.

"That's good, I guess." She took a deep breath and mumbled. "What am I supposed to do now?"

Not having an answer, Kate watched as the young woman headed for the elevators on the far wall. The door opened and as Angie stepped in, Castle stepped out. He glanced around the squad room and caught sight of her.

Then, he did something that she hadn't seen for quite a while. He smiled. He held up a piece of paper in his hand started walking towards her. Her heart soared. At that moment, it was just like the days before the last year. He had the look of being the bearer of important information, back when they worked together as a seamless team to solve crimes. In this one instant in time, things were as they were supposed to be. Forgetting her melancholy, her guilt, and almost before she even knew it happened, she smiled.

Castle walked up to his wife, the euphoria of seeing her overwhelming him, compounded by the fact that he just might have some information relevant to the case they were working on. It felt like before, and she looked amazing to him. Seeing her was like seeing for the very first time, so many years ago. She looked radiant, perfect, the most beautiful woman in the world. Just when he thought she could never look better, she smiled, and he felt a rush of adrenaline. They'd really not had a moment since he'd left the hospital. They'd been alone together, but not really together. Something had come between them. But his journeys out and about today, getting involved at the office in this case, it got his brain going. The missing piece was her, and she was there, smiling at him.

He walked up wordlessly and placed his hand gently on her cheek. He drew her in towards him and kissed her. He kissed her with an urgency that they both hadn't shared in quite a while. Their lips met in a combination of longing and love that both seemed to have missed beyond the last two weeks, but over the last year. Right there in front of everyone, the Captain and the writer kissed, and for that one brief moment, everything was right with the world.

Eventually, they parted, breathless from the experience. Castle knew Beckett's wall would come back. Whatever he'd done to distress her wasn't solved by a kiss, but he'd made a dent. He could tell.

To Beckett, the kiss was more than she could have imagined. She loved this man so much. Her talk with Esposito echoed in her head. Deep down, she knew he was right, but that edge of guilt was coming back. She could feel it.

She regained her composure, and with a quick glance around the squad area, looked over at her husband.

"I thought you were supposed to be resting? What are you doing here?"

Castle's snapped into place, as if he suddenly remembered where he was. "Right, I was going home, but I stopped by the office. By the way, have you seen that place? Hayley and Alexis have done a great job. We've got all these new people and we're raking in the money, Beckett. I mean, REALLY, raking in the money. And there's all this cool stuff!" He turned his head to the side, as if talking to himself. "I wonder if we really do have someone called Q or if we can hire someone named Q…."

"Castle!" Beckett broke into his stream of consciousness. "I get it. Now why are you here?"

"Oh, right." Castle straightened his back and tugged the bottom of his coat. "Castle Investigations," Castle spoke with a certain arrogance, "has discovered something that may just be the break you need in this case."

"Castle." There was a slight edge in her voice, very much like the times when she would have to reel in his adolescent tendencies.

"Right." He held the sheet of paper out to his wife. "Our forensic accountant, Sarah, has been digging into Rydes and take a look at this."

Beckett took the readout and scanned the diagrams and figures. Her eyes widened. "This is amazing."

Castle looked at her in puzzlement. "Not really, most of the big detective firms have a forensic accountant. Financial crimes are big these days."

It had been a long time since Beckett had executed a well-needed eye roll. She'd been out of practice. All in all, this effort had been pretty good. Besides, when she smacked Castle on the arm, it made for a good combination. "Castle, focus."

The sheet in her hand showed large numbers of transactions on the hidden botcoin market. Botcoins were virtual, digital currency, and highly volatile in value. One day, they may be worth a $1 and another day, worth $1,000. The attraction was their anonymity, but their danger was the volatile nature. All it took was a huge infusion of more currency into the trading market in a short span of time to cause the value to drop, possibly causing holders of the currency to lose millions in value. The curve showed that a week earlier, millions of dollars worth of botcoins had been purchased by a single buyer, not unusual on the surface, but it had caused the value to skyrocket. As long as the buyer was careful, and sold his botcoins slowly, and not all at once, they stood to make a lot money.

The problem was that someone else, not the original buyer, sold a huge amount of botcoins on the market, all at once. They made a ton of money, but they also caused the market to tumble, making the original buyer's investment worthless.

Castle clasped his hands together. "We can't figure out who the original buyer is, but we know where they bought it from."

Beckett smiled. "The Serbian night club."

Castle nodded. "That's not the big reveal." He was positively giddy, but a sharp look from Beckett made him focus. He reached into his pocket and handed her another sheet of paper. "Look who dumped all those botcoins onto the market last night."

Beckett looked at the new sheet. "The botcoins were sold from the Rydes account?"

"Yep. The Serbians are trying to use the dark internet to launder their illegal money."

Beckett picked up the stream of thought. "Why not? It's quiet, it's hidden, and if the exchange price is right, you could make a few bucks on the deal."

"Right, but they weren't the only ones using botcoins." Castle and Beckett were slowly getting in synch, their investigative partnership rekindled.

Beckett nodded. "Rydes deals mainly in botcoins, so they have a large bank available."

Castle pointed to the second piece of paper. "They see the price rise, decide to sell while the market is good and make a quick buck."

"Meanwhile, there are some very irritated Serbian gangsters that just lost all of their investment." Beckett glanced over towards the interrogation room.

Castle stopped. "But if Rydes sold all the botcoins, why the Serbians kill Haden Farber?"

Beckett looked over at him and smiled. "I don't know. Why don't we ask?"

She turned and started walking towards the interrogation room, leaving Castle standing by himself. She stopped and turned towards him. "You coming?"

A/N: I apologize for the tardiness. It's the end of the quarter and work sometimes really gets in the way of the writing. I'll try to update sooner. Please, as always, leave feedback.