Chapter 7
A/N: Sorry this took me so long. Real life gets in the way.
Kate felt sick. All these years she had heard about Gulliver but never saw him as a real person. And never like someone's father, least of all Castle's. "That's why you have been asking all these questions."
Shaw nodded, looking very tired herself. "Right. Once we realized the connection, we had to consider all the possibilities. Richard Castle is the son of one of the most prolific serial killers in America. There was a chance he may already know."
"He doesn't."
"We had to be sure, Det-, Kate. Also, if he knew his father, there was a possibility he was a part of the crimes in some way. We've discovered father/son teams before."
"He would never …" Kate closed her eyes, this whole conversation was nothing like she expected. "... he's not a killer."
Shaw studied her for a short moment. "We know that now. But we had to be sure."
Kate began picturing the family last night during dinner. Her heart ached at the thought of all of them finding out what really was going on. "So Dr. Spencer showing up a few months ago, that was what?"
"By then, we already dived into his paper life. The novels did seem rather suspicious. That he wrote about killers, especially so well. Those early books could have been …"
"I told you, he's not like that," Kate said, knowing the FBI were just doing their job but couldn't stop herself from saying so.
Shaw sighed, "We sent Reid in to talk directly to Castle. Of course that conversation wasn't enough so we monitored his activity: his time outside the loft, his time in the loft, and of course his time at the precinct."
"You monitored him with me?"
Shaw almost smiled. "Yes, from afar. We read the case reports you filed. I must say, you two are quite the unorthodox team."
"So you know why …" Kate felt herself blushing, "… why he is no longer shadowing me."
"Investigating your mom's murder?" Kate nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure that had to hurt, but if it makes you feel any better, that act helped us breathe a sigh of relief where Gulliver was concerned."
"What do you mean?"
"If he was a sexual sadist like his father, or at least had a psychopathic personality, he wouldn't have cared to try to help you at all."
Kate felt a chill run through her at the suggestion they thought Castle could be so cold blooded. She hadn't thought anything good could have come from looking at that case. Still, she couldn't let it totally go. "But you did lie."
"Pardon?"
"You lied earlier. He asked you point blank why Gulliver would be targeting him and you said something like you had no idea."
Shaw shrugged. "Yeah, well, we weren't ready at the time to make this known."
Kate had issues with that. "Sure, because clueing us in to the fact that the reason a notorious serial killer is stalking Castle is because he's his long lost father was a danger to the case."
"Detective – " Shaw was about to argue, but she stopped. Kate then saw the regret in the older woman's eyes and backed off. Whatever Shaw's motivations for keeping them in the dark had been, she was taking the current situation very hard and didn't need to hear it from her NYPD counterpart.
Softening her voice, Kate said, "So what do we do now?"
"Obviously this isn't a safe location. For the moment, the whole family needs to come to the station. The Captain there has told me the family can stay in the break room, and there is a conference room that doesn't have to be used. It's just for the day until we can put them in a more locked-down facility."
Kate nodded, following the agent back into the apartment to get the family ready to leave.
It was several hours later and Kate looked up as Castle handed her some coffee. She smiled gratefully. She'd been going through footage taken from nearby traffic cameras trying to spot anything that looked suspicious, but so far it turned up zilch. Shaw's team had been working on trying to help find the missing FBI agent but to no avail. It had been a long day.
During this time Alexis and Martha had tried to make do in the break room by watching TV. Alexis was scared and Martha did her best to be brave, but it was obvious she was nervous too. Castle had avoided Kate which was new for him. Kate felt relief at this only because Shaw still wanted Castle to remain in the dark and the less she spoke to Castle, the less likely it would be she would have to lie. Yet Castle was the one always seeking Kate out, so why did he avoid her now? Was he disappointed in Kate's inability to do more for him? He always held her police skills at such high esteem, so now that they hadn't been able to do squat in protecting his family was he rethinking his opinion of her? Kate should have welcomed any chance of Castle wanting to put distance between them, but instead she worried about it.
"Now I wish I had sent espresso machines to all the stations, not just yours."
"Well, it's been a long time since my last cup, so this tastes good enough." She put the cup down and looked at him. He looked exhausted. Since coming in, he had insisted at looking over mug shots trying to see if anyone might have looked familiar. His theory was that maybe he came into contact with Gulliver recently. Kate had to ignore the guilt she felt knowing that would turn up nothing. "So, how did you do with the books?"
"Struck out. I did find that statistically speaking, six out of seven people take a bad picture when they are arrested."
She had to smile at that. "Six out of seven, huh?"
He shrugged, "Yeah well, Reid, I mean Dr. Spencer, is the one who gave that exact statistic as he sat with me as I went through them all. He likes numbers."
She nodded. "Making new friends?"
"He's a good kid. He's a fast reader, even faster than me."
She chuckled, "Amazing."
"Well, I can't be the best at everything."
"I don't know about that. You're the best at annoying me."
That got a smile from him. "I'm glad to hear it. I work really hard at it."
"I know you do." She felt a twinge of guilt. Joking with Castle while knowing such a tragic secret about him made her feel like a hypocrite. "How are you doing?"
"We're okay. Alexis is watching some documentary on the TV; Nothing gets her mind off of stuff like an educational program. And Mother perks up when an officer asks for her autograph." He glanced past her to his family in the next room.
"How are you doing, Castle?" Kate asked again.
She recognized the look on his face and expected what he said to annoy her. "C'mon, Detective, this is hardly the time to get personal."
If she didn't know about Gulliver, she'd have taken his answer and let it go. But knowing what she knew, she couldn't. She stared in his eyes, those irritating, arrogant, beautiful eyes that in spite of his bravado were showing fear and sadness.
"Kate," he said, breaking eye contact, "Let it go."
"Let what go?"
Now she saw something new in his eyes. Anger. "That, right now, I feel like the most useless father in the world. My family is in danger and there isn't anything I can do to protect them!"
He stood up after that and walked out into the hallway. Kate had hoped to get him talking but she hadn't been expecting an outburst. She looked around to see if anyone had noticed it, specifically his family, but apparently nobody had. Standing up, she followed him.
"Castle, wait."
"Why should I? So you can tell me I'm right? Or how I brought this on us?"
She caught up to him by the elevators. Thankfully no one was around but still aware Castle needed some privacy, she took his arm and brought him over to a nearby corner by a window. He went with her probably more out of the fact he didn't want to cause a scene and worry his family more.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
He shook his head. "C'mon Beckett. I've been thinking about this all day. I try to concentrate on what we know, or little we know. What we know of Gulliver and what we learned of him since the other day. But no matter what, I can't get past the why. The why is everything."
Kate shook her head, she'd never seen Castle act like this before. "Castle, you're going to drive yourself crazy."
"Yeah, but how am I supposed to know which way we go from here if I don't know the story?"
"You always come back to the story, don't you?"
He laughed a little. "If I don't have the story to something, it drives me nuts." He groaned and leaned up against the window. "Oh Kate, I don't know what to think or do any more. It's one thing to speculate and theorize when it's victims I have no connection to, but when me or my loved ones can be a target … my mind, it's like it stalls and speeds up at the same time! It stalls on thinking of anything useful and instead focuses on the outcomes that should be unimaginable.
"So far I've imagined scenarios of Gulliver coming into the loft, that he's there right now. That he's stalked me when I came to your station and even followed us. Then my mind really goes nuts and imagines him at Alexis' school. If he's interested in hurting me for payback, the best way would be to go after my daughter." Castle's voice cracked at her name.
Kate was leaning against the window now too. She looked down and was surprised to find she had taken his hand with one hand and caressing his arm with the other. "I'm so sorry, Castle. I don't know what to say."
"There isn't anything to say, Kate." When did he start using her first name? Dropping his hand, Kate folded her arms. When she did, she noticed he took his other hand and patted the spot on his arm she'd been touching. She felt suddenly uneasy and knew they needed to get back to work.
"C'mon Castle, we need to get back there. Help me go through the video footage of traffic. Maybe you will spot something I missed."
An hour later Shaw appeared her cell phone to her ear. "Okay, I got it. We'll be leaving now."
Both Castle and Kate jumped up. Obviously Shaw had a new lead. Castle asked, "What's going on? Where are we going?"
She shook her head. "Not you, Mr. Castle. I am going to bring Detective Beckett with me. You need to stay here at the station."
"What is it?" Kate asked.
"We believe we found Agent Frederick's body."
A silence fell on the room. Everyone reacted differently to the news. While many didn't know the agent directly, it was always tough when an investigator died in the line of duty. Castle spoke first, "Is he …. was he posed?"
Shaw looked him directly in the eye. "Yes."
Castle flinched and shut his eyes and Kate worried he was blaming himself. He did recover enough to say, "You have to let me come."
"No, Mr. Castle, I do not."
He looked at Kate suddenly and she worried he wanted her to push for him to come as well. She actually did want him to come but she wasn't sure if it was because she thought he could be helpful or because she wanted to keep him close so she knew he was safe. There was also the other matter of Castle taking the death personally and not being able to think clearly. Was it a good idea to bring him to this crime scene?
As if reading Kate's mind, Castle spoke. "I know what you are thinking, that this isn't some regular crime scene. It's a murdered FBI agent who is now dead because he was guarding me. Having me around in normal situations was never considered a good idea. But Gulliver is obsessed with me now and this killing was because he wanted to leave that letter. It could be that the agent's body was left to leave me another message. If that's the case … I need to see it."
Kate had to bite back a smile. Turns out her shadow made a sound argument all by himself. "Agent Shaw, I think Castle is right. He's been to crime scenes before so he knows protocol and at this one he may have particular insight into what Gulliver is trying to say."
Shaw's look didn't exactly fill Kate with confidence on Castle's abilities but at least she didn't argue. Before leaving, Castle ran into the break room to say goodbye to Alexis and Martha and to promise he would come back safely.
While he was in there Shaw whispered, "I hope you're right, Detective."
Kate hoped so too.
Thoughts? I hope because it's been awhile since I last posted I haven't lost your interest. Reviews are especially welcome.
