Chapter Six:

"God dammit, Beckett!" Castle slammed his iPhone onto the counter cracking the screen from corner to corner. He didn't care. Three times. He had called her three times and there was no answer. He didn't have the seconds to spare to try calling her again. He had already wasted too many standing here letting the anger flush through his system. He needed to go. He needed to leave. He had to go save his baby.

Taking the stairs two at a time, he sprinted into his bedroom grabbing his brown leather bag from the closet. Stuffing shirts, pants, socks, and underwear at random he filled the bag. He took two strides to the back of his closet and opened a large panel on one of his wooden dressers. Inside was his safe: top of the line and guardian of his possessions. Fingers dancing over the three sets of combinations, he swung the safe open and reached inside. Pushing aside a manuscript for a book he'd never published, he pulled out stacks of hundred dollar bills.

Taking ten bundles of cash, he stuffed them on top of the clothes inside the brown bag. That would be plenty of money. Grabbing his passport he ran out of the room leaving the safe open with the knowledge that there was nothing in there was worth anything compared to the time he was losing.

Back in the kitchen, he picked up his phone to call Beckett again, but it didn't even ring this time. He slid the damaged phone into his pocket and started to head towards the door. Halfway to his destination, he turned around and ran back to the counter. Grabbing a scrap of paper and a Sharpie he wrote the shortest, quickest note he could think of, grabbed a knife, and stabbed the note to Kate's apple.

It was a decision he made in the moment, knowing the odds of her coming to his apartment were slim, especially if she wasn't even willing to take a call from him anymore. As mad as he was that Beckett had appeared to abandon him in his time of desperation, he knew he would need her on this. If she did come over, she would not miss the blood red apple on the counter or the message he had left.

Pushing the front door shut behind him as he sprinted away down the hall and quickly made his way to the street and into a cab, clutching his bag to his chest.

"LaGuardia, please. Take 3rd Avenue to East 125th and then I-278 West. I don't wanna hit the traffic."

Every New Yorker thought they knew the secret to avoiding the city traffic. The cabbie nodded his understanding and then pulled onto the streets. Castle suddenly felt incredibly useless. Sitting in the car did not seem proactive enough to soothe the sheer panic that was still coursing through his blood. He pulled out his phone again and pressed the number to call Esposito. Again, the phone didn't even ring. Staring at the screen and cursing so depravedly the cab driver shifted uncomfortably in his seat, Castle stuffed his broken phone into the leather bag. He'd grab a new phone as soon as he could. Which, at the rate the taxi was moving, would undoubtedly be in thirty years or so.

Routes didn't matter in the long run. He knew that. Traffic was going to be terrible at five o'clock no matter which street they took. He sat in his seat with every muscle tensed and his jaw reflexively clenching at every damn car that cut them off or blocked an intersection.

Almost twenty minutes later, they finally hit Grand Central Parkway and Castle knew it was a straight shot from there to LaGuardia.

"I need to go to the private planes." he told the driver, "Take Exit 7 and follow the signs for private jets."

The driver looked at him in the rearview mirror as if trying to place the face that was flying on a private jet. It wasn't unheard of for a celebrity to take a cab, but they usually had private drivers take them to their private planes. Castle could see that the man had no idea who he was and the relief that filled him seemed out of place. He didn't feel like a celebrity today and he didn't want his departure from New York spread all over page six.

When the cab finally reached the final destination, Castle paid the man and threw his door open. Security for the private jets and their pilots was different than the rest of the airport. Castle flashed his many forms of ID and filled out his flight plan form as quickly as possible. As usual, he 'knew a guy' and was able to push things through with a speed that had him thanking every god he could name. Finally making his way to the hanger, he got into his Citation Mustang Cessna and immediately started going through the preparation checklist. He spun dials, flipped switches, and read outputs like it hadn't been a year since his last flight. When everything was whirring and rumbling like it should, he started his drive out to labyrinth of streets that lead to the runway.

Once at the front of the line, he pulled the plane into position and took a deep and calming breath. He closed his eyes, pictured the strawberry hair and vanilla smile of his daughter and pushed the throttle forward.

Now this was more like it. He could feel the force pushing him into his seat and he pushed right back, glad for the challenge. The small plane picked up speed and Castle felt the moment when he should take off rather than read it off the speedometer, although he did it anyway. His stomach dipped as the plane gained altitude rapidly. It wasn't a commercial flight, so there was no need for the gradual incline of larger passenger planes. The Cessna shot into the sky and for the first time in hours, Castle felt like he was actually where he needed to be: shooting at hundreds of miles per hour through the clouds on his way to find Alexis.

One hour later, that feeling had completely worn off. 357 miles per hour no longer felt fast enough as the plane glided slowly towards the west coast. On autopilot, Castle had absolutely nothing to occupy his mind but thoughts of Alexis and where she had gone.

They said her father had taken her, so obviously it had been a man. Great, I've narrowed it down to 3 billion people; it should be cake after this. What else could he use? Someone who knew she had been there? That was a short list: his mother, Kate, and probably some of Alexis' friends. He wasn't famous enough to have his daughter be recognized, so he doubted anyone at her camp had figured it out. But even though he wasn't THAT famous, he still had no doubt in his mind that her disappearance was targeting him and not just some random fluke. If someone had wanted to hurt him in the worst way possible, they had done it right. They had found his Achilles heel. The one thing he would never recover from. He had to find Alexis. Where could he have taken her? There had to be some clue, something that would lead him to her. Her letters! Maybe she had put clues in her letters. He reached for the brown leather bag on the copilot seat but withdrew his hand quickly.

The letters.

They were still sitting in his office lying in the open wooden box. How could he have left them! He felt his anger bubble up inside him, hot and unbearable. He clenched his fist and breathed heavily in and out, trying to get his pulse back to normal but knowing he would fail. Anger wasn't going to help Alexis (although those letters might have). He went back to desperately searching his mind for clues to Alexis' disappearance.

Why hadn't he received a ransom note or threatening letter? Why hadn't they shown themselves yet? What did that mean? He shuddered at his first thought: she was already dead. There was no need for a ransom, because they had only intended to kill her. He pushed that thought out of his mind with such force that it pulled a growl out with it. The noise startled him, and he looked at his watch. Only four more hours until he reached Seattle. Racing against time, he chased the sun.

A/N: It took me much longer than I thought it would to figure out how the hell people fly a private plane out of New York. Suffice it to say, I failed miserably and made everything up. We are all going to extend our imaginations and pretend that it's REAL! Won't that be fun? Yeah? Please don't hurt me.

So, Castle is flying halfway across the country with no phone to contact Beckett with. This is quite a pickle… I'm not a parent, but I'm assuming if your kid is in trouble and you have the means, you'd fly to Timbuktu to save them. Castle knows he needs Beckett, but I don't think he'd waste time trying to contact her further while Alexis is in such mysterious danger. I think he'd fly over there himself and try and contact Beckett on the way. His thought process is kind of...manic...right now. It wouldn't make sense for him to be rational. So I explain later...you'll see.)

Also: How many of my readers/reviewers are guys? I've always wondered. I almost always assume female, but I suppose statistically at least SOME of you have gotta be men.