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Family Secrets
Chapter Six

Marty woke suddenly, blinking to try and clear her vision. It was a moment before she realized her eyes were wide open; she just wasn't seeing anything. Am I blind?

She took a breath, trying to steady herself. Her parents and sister had taught her about things like this. Cautiously, she tried moving her arms and legs. Both wrists and both ankles had restraints of some sort on them; based on the lack of metallic noise, she eliminated handcuffs. Her position indicated she was bound to a chair.

Scrunching up her face, she felt the edge of a piece of cloth. Not blind, then. Blindfolded. And tied up. What happened?

She shifted in the chair, and one of her palms abruptly began a familiar stinging. That was a pavement burn. She'd jumped off the bike, and then someone had grabbed her and knocked her out. Her head was pounding. What did they give me?

She didn't have a chance to think any further than that before there were footsteps. The blindfold was torn off and light exploded across her eyes. Marty couldn't keep from crying out, and her eyes began to water.

Rough hands pulled her shoulders back and shone the penlight in her eyes again. "It's worn off."

"No thanks to you," she snapped, squinting to try and get a better look at her captor.

That earned her a thump against one cheek. "You're not in charge here."

"I kind of guessed that. Who is?"

"Here." Two capsules were pressed against her mouth. She refused to open it.

"If we wanted you dead or hurt worse, you would be. This is for the headache. Swallow. Now." Accepting the truth of the statement – anything could have happened while she was out – she obeyed, and then took a sip from the glass of water that followed.

"What's going on?" she asked when she had a chance to clear her throat. "What do you want?"

"I'll be asking the questions."

"Who are you, then?"

"Someone who's been aware of you for a while now." There were more footsteps and then a rustling noise, as if he were moving papers. "Hm. You're called Marty, but it seems that it's a nickname. Martha Johanna Castle. Named for your grandmothers, were you?"

"That's right." The question seemed harmless enough, though she remembered that some interrogators began with simple questions in order to smooth the lead-in to harder questions. She resolved to be careful.

"You would think you would have taken warning from what happened to your namesakes. They were both murdered, weren't they?"

"Sixteen years apart, and not by the same person." That was a matter of public record. "So?"

It was still too dim to see more than shadows, but she kept straining her eyes in the hope of catching a glimpse as the questioner paced in a circle around her. "It's an interesting coincidence, don't you think? The master of the macabre, Richard Castle, and his muse Kate Beckett. Both losing their mothers at the hands of a killer."

She shrugged, though the restraints kept her from moving too much. "What does that have to do with me?"

"You're digging into one of those cases."

"I am?" Then, she caught her breath, realizing that his voice was familiar. She'd heard it before, over the phone. This isn't a threat. This is a warning. Leave the Pulgatti case alone. "You've been watching me."

"Yes. And you spoke with Joe Pulgatti's son tonight."

"The last time I checked, that wasn't a crime."

"Don't get smart." There was an unexpected sharp rap at the back of her head. "On the way back from your first interview, we sent a directed electromagnetic pulse to show you how serious we are. But you've not been paying attention, have you?"

"I've been aware of you," she replied. "I've just been ignoring you. Threats don't scare me."

"They should." The footsteps paced around in front of her. "Pulgatti's son gave you some personal papers from the estate. We want them."

"I don't have any idea what you're talking about."

He smacked her face, harder than before. "Enough with the games, Martha! Don't you value your life?"

"Just fine, thanks. But I don't have any papers."

"Where did you leave them?"

"Someplace safe."

This time, the slap was backhanded. It brought fresh tears to her eyes. "Your parents have lost so many people that they loved. Do you really want to be one more?"

"What do they have to do with this?" Maybe she could turn the tables and learn something.

"Why don't you tell me? You're the one who's kept investigating even after you learned they were involved with Joe Pulgatti's case. How much do you know?"

"I –" But they were interrupted by a shout, and her captor turned away.

Marty quit speaking, listening to see what she could learn. She couldn't quite make out the words in the distance, but apparently he could, because he stiffened. "I wasn't going to – never mind. Yeah, all right. Fine. I'll be there in a minute." He turned back to her. "Wait here."

She pulled at her bonds. "It's not like I have a choice. What's going on?"

"Nothing." The blindfold was tied back around her head and his footsteps receded into the distance. She sighed. Despite the fact that her vision had cleared, it had been too dark to figure out more than a general size and shape. That wasn't enough to start figuring out who the mysterious figure had been.

In the silence, she started counting breaths. She'd just gotten to five hundred when she heard footsteps again. These were sharper and quicker than the ones she'd heard before. Someone different, then.

Once again, the blindfold was pulled off. But now, she was able to clearly see the face of the person who stood in front of her. "Mom?"

"Marty." Her mother knelt down in front of her to cut the ropes with a sharp knife. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question." She waited for Kate to cut the ropes at her wrists and then stood up, swaying slightly, rubbing her arms to restore the circulation. "How did you know I was in trouble?"

"I didn't," answered her mother. She closed the knife and pocketed it. "Come on. Let's go."

"Wait." She stayed where she was, one hand on the back of the chair. "If you didn't know I was in trouble, then what brought you here? Do you know these people?"

"Not really."

"Don't equivocate."

"I'm not. Working with someone and knowing them are two different things. And I haven't worked with them very much over the years."

"Them?" asked Marty. "Who are they?"

"Nobody you need to know," said Kate, her face now in shadow. "You've been looking into Joe Pulgatti's case. How did you learn that name?"

Marty brought her chin up. "I'll answer your questions if you'll answer mine."

Her mother sighed. "I know you don't like doing it, but you need to let this one go. It's not just you who's at risk here."

"I'm supposed to just take your word for that?"

"Yes!" Even now, in her early sixties, Kate still tended to prefer stilettos, and that made her tower over Marty as she walked back up. "You are in way over your head and you're lucky I was here because you might not have made it out! Other people have already died over this, and I –" she cut herself off abruptly.

"You nearly did too," said Marty after a moment. "Mr. Pulgatti said something about your shooting being a result of this situation. Whatever 'this situation' is. I'm right, though. You're not going to talk about it, are you?"

"It's over and done with," answered Kate. "Nothing anyone does now can change it."

"Then why not talk about it! What are you trying to hide? Who was Joe Pulgatti?"

"He was a bystander, caught in the middle. Nothing more. Now, where are your things? It's time to get out of here."

Marty folded her arms. "That's not good enough."

"That's all you're going to get." Kate looked around and started into the darkness. Left with little choice other than to follow, Marty trailed behind her. They found her bike in a corner of the large, empty building, and her heart immediately sank.

Her city bike was an old Raleigh that she'd found in, coincidentally enough, Raleigh, during the one time she'd talked her father into going with him on a book tour. The tour had been boring, but the bike shop in that city's small downtown area had been amazing.

He'd found her there after his last signing and noticed the way she looked at the bike, despite its dilapidated condition. Two months later, on sixteenth birthday, she'd answered the brownstone door to a delivery man carrying it. She and her mother had restored it together, becoming closer in the process, and the things she'd learned while restoring it had come in handy when she'd needed to repair it since.

But no amount of repair could fix the bike this time. It had been destroyed: the frame was bent, the handlebars hung loose, and both wheels were broken. The chain was loosely wrapped around the remains of the pedals. Marty felt tears sting her eyes again.

"I'm sorry," said her mother beside her.

"You're sorry. You're sorry?" She stood back up, feeling her pulse begin to pound. "I get kidnapped, my bike gets destroyed, and that's all you have to say?"

"Marty…"

But her emotions broke through to the surface. "You've been keeping secrets this whole time, haven't you? First, about your mother, then about this –" she waved her hands at their surroundings – "cover-up, and now you and Dad have been hiding major medical treatments!"

"Medical treatments? What are you talking about?"

"Jay found out what Dad was really doing when he went to Baltimore. And I saw the surgical scar on New Year's Eve."

Kate's shoulders slumped. "So that's what happened. He snooped because you asked him to, didn't he?"

"I was trying to find out what was going on with Pulgatti, since I figured you wouldn't be a helpful source. And I was right!" She snatched her messenger bag up from where it lay beside the bicycle's ruins. "How many other secrets are you keeping?"

"That's not fair. All parents keep secrets from their children."

"Most parents," snapped Marty, "hide things like embarrassing details about their children's conception. They don't hide cover-ups. They don't hide consorting with kidnappers. They don't hide murder."

"Murder? What are you talking about?"

"Don't pretend you don't know! Joe Pulgatti was murdered yesterday!"

"What?" The shock on her mother's face appeared genuine, but Marty didn't want to think about that right now. "What did you find out?"

She dropped the messenger bag over her shoulder, wincing as the strap cut into a bruise. "Ask your friends. The ones who called you here tonight to tell you someone had been digging around, even if they didn't tell you exactly who."

Kate followed her as she stalked toward the door. "Wait. Marty, this is dangerous. You have no idea what you've stumbled into!"

She spun around, breathing heavily. "Yeah? It's not as if you've actually told me what's going on here, have you? Well, I might not know why this is dangerous, but you don't know what I'm going to do about it. So I guess we're even, aren't we?"

Her mother didn't follow her after that. She slammed the door behind her, leaving the bike behind. There was no point taking it with her; it couldn't be fixed. And that, she thought, was as good a metaphor as any for the relationship with her mother as well.

Sunlight was beginning to tint the sky when she got home, and she could feel the fatigue hiding behind her agitation, but Marty knew she wouldn't be able to sleep. Not yet. Dropping the messenger bag on the bar between her kitchen and living room, she settled down at her terminal. It was too early for the autopsy report to have come back, but there might be something else.

There was: the database search results for Michael Smith and Evan Howard. She opened the files eagerly, skimming through first and then settling in for a more in-depth read. Smith's name, she was surprised to learn, wasn't a pseudonym. And both of them had started out, at least, as prosecutors although neither had stayed in the field.

Prosecutors? Yet they testified in Pulgatti's defense?

But it made sense. Prosecutors did sometimes testify for the defense if new evidence had come to light. So what new evidence did they find?

The files suggested nothing. Smith had eventually moved into private practice, earning some notoriety (and a good bit of money, she noted) with tobacco lawsuits in the early 1980s before dropping completely out of sight in 2012. He'd only surfaced long enough to testify before disappearing again.

Howard had eventually gone into politics. He'd been a senatorial aide for several years, making a major contribution to the first significant energy legislation to pass the Senate after the turn of the century. He'd later capitalized on that work with Senator Bracken to successfully run for state office on his own.

Private practice and politics. Both were fairly typical career paths for lawyers. What was special about these two? A cursory search didn't reveal any connection between them.

But there's got to be one. This can't be a coincidence.

Her earpiece had been crushed during the kidnapping, so she tapped on the microphone attached to her terminal. "Veta, widen the search. See if there's any cross-referencing between these two and…and Detective Kate Beckett of the NYPD." That's who her mother had been then.

"Okay. Time frame?"

"Anytime between 1999 and 2015," she answered. "How long will the results take?" Simple Boolean searches were usually instantaneous, but the kind of complex cross-referencing she was asking for took time, particularly with her standing instructions to filter out any irrelevancies.

"Estimated time is six to eight hours."

Marty yawned, abruptly feeling the effects from the night before. Six hours? That would be enough time to catch up on the sleep, at least. Thank goodness today was Saturday. "All right. Notify me when it's ready." She stood up and turned toward the bedroom.

"Marty, incoming call from Rory."

She moaned into her pillow. Surely it hadn't been six hours yet.

"Marty," said Veta again. "Incoming call from Rory. Should I decline?"

She tried to push herself into a sitting position, but failed. Rolling over, she scrabbled for her earpiece before remembering it wasn't there. "No, answer it and put it on speakers. It's too early for sane people, Esposito."

"Too early? Do you know what time it is?"

She squinted at her bedside clock. "Oh." It was past noon. "Yeah. Okay."

"We were supposed to have lunch before I went on shift."

The attempt to sit up was successful this time. "I'm sorry. I forgot. I had a long night. Can I make it up to you? You're off tomorrow, right?"

"I'm in your building lobby. Will you tell the doorman it's okay to let me up?"

Unwinding the sheet from around her legs, she put her feet on the floor and bit back a yelp as the bruises began to make themselves felt. "It's all right, Saul. Go ahead and send him up."

When she opened the door, he looked at her face and blanched. "Good Lord. What happened?"

"Took a spill."

He looked her over. "You're covered in bruises."

"That's what happens when I take a spill." She grimaced; that sounded nasty even to her ears.

Judging from the look on his face, he noticed. "Behave. How's your bike?"

She shrugged. "Worse. What's got you all fired up?"

"I called you this morning, too. It's not like you not to answer your phone for hours at a time," he said, "especially with what's been going on recently. Are you sure you're okay? You weren't home last night."

"I'm fine. How do you know where I was last night?" He didn't, did he?

"I don't know where you were. But I know where you weren't, and that was here. Your lights were out when I came by after I went off-shift."

"Maybe I just went to bed early." She'd brushed her teeth while he was in the elevator, but a shower sounded really nice right now.

"And maybe you should try that one again." He folded his arms. "You 'had a long night' after you went to bed early? And then slept through lunchtime? Something isn't making sense."

Caught. She opened her mouth to protest, but then shut it again when she realized she had no good answer unless she wanted to tell him about the kidnapping, and she wasn't ready to talk about that yet. Shaking her head, she turned away and went to her terminal, checking to see if the database search results were back yet. They weren't.

Behind her, she heard him sigh. "I'm sorry. I just – that hurt, that you didn't even call and cancel and you won't tell me why. It's not like you to be this rude, either."

"I'm not trying to be rude," she answered. "I promise I only forgot."

"What got your attention enough to make you forget?" He came up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder, inadvertently brushing one of the deeper bruises, and she couldn't keep from flinching. He jerked his hand back. "Marty?"

"It's okay. I'm just really tender."

Stepping up beside her, he looked her over again. Then he frowned, picking up one of her hands. "Wait a minute. These look like rope marks. How'd you get them?"

"I told you. I took a spill." She tried to take her hand back but he held on.

"Right. And you just happened to slide along the pavement the right way to cause these?" He picked up her other hand for emphasis, holding them side-by-side so that the matching rings of bruises were obvious. "You're too experienced to try and break a fall with your hands."

She tried to pull free again. "Let me go."

"Tell me how you really got hurt."

"There was a truck, okay? I jumped off the bike to keep from getting hit."

"That doesn't explain these. Who tied you up?"

"I don't know," she said, choosing to be honest. "I couldn't see them for sure. They knocked me out and –"

"You were knocked out? And you're not in the hospital?"

"I don't have a concussion. I'm fine." He let her have her hands back and she turned away, dropping down onto the couch in her living room. "Really, I am. I'm just still trying to figure out exactly what happened."

"Why didn't you call the police? You could have at least called me." He looked her up and down again before sitting down beside her. "How did you get out of it?"

"They let me go."

"Why'd they take you in the first place?"

She closed her eyes. Apparently they were going to talk about this regardless of whether or not she was ready. "Take a guess."

"Your story."

Keeping her eyes closed, she nodded.

"Damn it." The frustration was plain in his voice. "You have got to be more careful."

"I was being careful!" She opened her eyes, turning to look at him. "I'm not stupid. I know this is getting dangerous."

"Do you? Because I'm starting to wonder. First they mess up your car, then your apartment is broken into, then you're kidnapped?" He pointed at the terminal. "And you're still investigating, aren't you? You were checking on something just a minute ago."

"So what if I am? I'm still here, aren't I?"

"Marty," he started, and his eyes were perhaps the most serious she'd ever seen them. "Whoever doesn't want you to write this story is very serious. It may not be bruises next time."

"You think I don't know that? I'll handle it if and when it happens."

"How?"

She realized she was trembling. "I don't know. But I've made it this far."

He stood up again, pacing over to the window the way she did when she was upset. "You don't have any idea how much worse it can get. I've trained for this. I've seen the awful things people can do to each other, and –"

"I know what people can do to each other," she snapped, pushing up to follow him. "My parents never shielded me from that sort of thing."

"Hearing people talk about it and actually seeing it are two different things. Even my parents never let me see it until I got in to the Academy." Without warning, he turned around, backing her into a corner next to the window.

"What are you doing?"

He slapped his hands against the wall, one on either side of her face. "I thought you said you can handle things."

"I can." But the trembling had made its way into her voice. "Back off, Rory. Please."

With a sharp breath, he did, turning back to the window. She stayed where she was, steadying herself by putting her own hands against the wall behind her waist.

After a long moment, he let his head fall against the glass. "I'm sorry. I…" he trailed off, then seemed to find a renewed courage and turned to look at her again. "I don't want to lose you over a murder that happened before either one of us was even born."

"What?" She shook her head. "What are you talking about? You're not going to lose me, and just because I forgot one lunch date under extenuating circumstances doesn't mean anything's wrong." She crossed over to stand behind him. "You know that. You know me. I'm not some girlfriend you need to be insecure about."

He stayed where he was, and while she couldn't see his expression she could hear the change in his tone. "No. You're not, are you?"

Crap. She was just saying all kinds of things to upset him today, wasn't she? "I'm sorry. I was just making a point."

"Yeah? Well, sometimes you have a way of picking the wrong words to do that. Do you even realize how that came across? It – oh, forget it." He turned toward her door. "You're upset and I'm upset. I'll go before we say anything worse."

She followed him. "No. Don't you turn away, not when you won't let me do the same thing."

He stopped, but didn't turn to face her. "You don't get it. New Year's. I was going to find you that night anyway, so when Jay called, it was just good timing."

"You were going to find me on New Year's anyway? Why?"

"Why do you think?" He had at least turned around, though he didn't quite meet her eyes. "This – I don't know. Ever since I've gone to second shift and we've been spending more time together – Marty, I like it. A lot. And I know we've been friends forever and maybe it's a mistake, but I can't…I'm not ready to give up this chance by losing you." He shook his head. "I'm scared about these people coming after you. You're scaring me by being so reckless."

She felt like her feet were rooted to the ground.

Rory must have seen something on her face, because he shook his head and started to turn away again. "Right. I didn't mean to just dump this on you. It's just…you tried to lie to me about where you were last night. I don't understand."

"I don't either," she answered. "But you're right. This article's getting in the way, isn't it? New Year's. You…you were going to make a move, weren't you? Except that we got here and everything went haywire."

He nodded, laughing with little humor. "Now go ahead. Tell me how bad an idea that would've been."

She stepped closer so that she could touch his cheek. Their eyes finally met. "I can't."

Catching his breath, he held her gaze for a long moment as he reached up and covered her hand with his own. Then, without letting go, he leaned over and kissed her.

This wasn't the first time they'd tried something like this. Years ago, during the summer they'd been fourteen, they'd taken advantage of the darkness during Independence Day fireworks to share their first kiss.

They'd dissolved into laughter after only a few seconds. She'd never told him, but she'd actually been faintly repulsed that first time. It was, she figured, because they'd grown up together. They knew each other far too well to ever succumb to a romantic rush. Didn't they?

Then the tip of his tongue touched hers, and she forgot how to think. Closing her eyes, she wound her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. One of his hands came up to tangle in her hair, and she felt more than heard the soft noise. She wasn't sure which one of them had made it. It didn't really matter. His other arm slid around her waist, strong, warm, holding her close.

When it ended, he rested his forehead against hers. They stood silent for a long moment.

"Wow," she finally whispered.

"Yeah." His breathing was still uneven. "I liked that."

"So did I. I guess…I guess we have some more things to talk about, don't we?"

He shook his head against hers. "I want to. But I really was on my way to work, and if I don't leave soon, I won't make it to line-up on time. So we'll talk later, okay?"

She laughed, and then realized it was closer to a giggle, one that bordered on the hysterical. First, she'd been kidnapped; then she'd been set free by her mother of all people; and now, she was discovering that there might just be more to another relationship too…

"What?"

Marty straightened up, though she kept her arms around his shoulders. They felt good there. "It's been such a crazy couple of days."

He touched her cheek. "You're going to keep investigating this thing, though, aren't you?"

"Did you really doubt that?"

"No. But will you promise to be careful? And call me if things start getting dicey?"

She nodded.

He bent over to kiss her cheek. "That's all I'll ask, then. That, and don't ride your trail bike down the sidewalk when you go back out, okay?"

This time, the laugh was honest.

She decided not to ride her bike at all. Despite being cold outside, it was sunny, and a walk would do her some good. There was a good electronics shop only three blocks from her building; she could replace her earpiece there.

A floating ad appeared directly in front of her as she exited the store, new earpiece tested and clipped on. "Hey, knock it off. We're in the street."

"Non-vehicular traffic," it informed her. "No display restrictions." Then it went on with its pitch.

"Shut down anyway." Those things seemed to be getting more aggressive every month.

She was still shaking her head at the advertiser's audacity as she crossed the street back on to her own block, and if she hadn't looked up when she did, she might not have noticed the black-clad man staring at her.

He was leaning against a lamp post at the other end of the block, a pad out as if he'd been reading it, but there was something too sharp, too alert about his stance. When their eyes met, he quickly looked away, turning to walk down the cross street and quickly disappearing.

An unexpected gust of wind caught her, slithering down her collar into her coat. She shivered and wrapped her scarf tighter, staring after him, wondering if she'd imagined that, or whether she should follow him and see if he was still around the corner. She quickly dismissed the idea; if he was watching her, he likely wasn't alone. If he wasn't, she would just be giving in to paranoia.

But it's not paranoia if someone is really out to get you, thought Marty. Black trucks knocking her off her bike. Black-clad strangers breaking into her apartment and watching her walk down the street. Those couldn't be coincidences.

Yet they'd left her in remarkably good shape after her kidnapping. It would've been just as easy to put her in the hospital or even kill her. That had been a precision attack, just like the break-in had had an obvious goal. Someone wanted something. The questions were, who and what?

The database search results were no doubt back by now, but she suspected she was going to have to talk to her parents to get the full story. Really talk to them.

The bruises on her wrists started to throb.