Just for the record, I totally had this written before the magic that was last night's episode. I swear. Ask Carto.


"I can't do that," Armen answers.

Kate stares at him. "Why not?" she demands.

"It's too risky. If you arrest him when I'm your only source and you can't make the charges stick, we're all screwed."

"So what the hell am I supposed to do?'

He shrugs. "Solve the case."

She stares at him for a moment, waiting for the punch line, but it never comes. She shakes her head. "Yeah, that's great. Thanks for the fantastic advice."

He smirks. "I didn't say it was easy. I just said it was what you had to do."

"You know who he is, you have evidence against him, and you want me to work from what, exactly? Every person associated with this case is dead."

"Except you."

She glares at him. "Matisse is dead. Kilgore is a fucking senator. What am I supposed to be looking for?"

Armen starts toward the door. "Matisse's death shouldn't stop you. And neither should a title."

"Wait, where are you going? You can't just leave."

He smiles at her over his shoulder. "Sure I can. You've got a lot of work to do."

And then he's gone.

X-X-X-X-X

Rick wakes up slowly. His head aches. When he opens his eyes, his vision is blurry. He feels something combing through his hair. He focuses on it, recognizes a familiar touch. Kate did this once when he wasn't feeling well.

Kate.

His eyes fly open. He's terrified that whoever was strangling him will get to her. He tries to sit up, but she pushes him back down. She's so strong.

"Don't," she says, her voice a hush.

He struggles. "Someone is here—"

"Shh," she answers, holding him down more insistently. He stops fighting. She moves her hand down to his cheek and then ghosts her fingers over his lips. "He's gone. We're fine."

Rick looks around, just to make sure. She doesn't chide him; she just waits. When he finally looks at her, she arches an eyebrow. "You done, Rambo?"

He frowns. "I…what happened?"

"Our bible quoting friend was here."

Rick rubs his neck gingerly. "Did he have to strangle me?"

Kate smiles. "I guess he didn't want you to hear what he had to say this time."

She brushes her fingertips along the cords of his neck, biting her lip as she watches her hand instead of meeting his eyes. Desire flares in his stomach. Ever since that night in May, he's had a hard time keeping his hands to himself. He reaches up, tangles his fingers in her hair. She finally looks at him, and the expression in her eyes bowls him over. It's moments like this where he wonders how he ever questioned her feelings for him. Maybe it's not all on him, maybe she never allowed him to see what she shows him now, but it's hard for him to accept that he didn't fully understand what that look meant until he took her to bed.

But still, sometimes he needs to hear it. He doesn't ask her to verbalize it often, but he just got strangled until he blacked out, and there's a hideously powerful man that wants her dead, and he really just wants to hear her say it.

"Love you," she murmurs.

He can't help it; he laughs, the joy erupting from somewhere down deep. She lifts her eyebrows in confusion, but she's smiling. "That funny?"

"No," he says on an exhale. "I'm just…you know."

"I do?"

"You always know. That's all."

He realizes he sounds cryptic and idiotic, but she seems to understand. She leans over, kisses his forehead. When she leans away, there's a sudden, darker tint to her eyes. That haunted look that he almost got rid of this summer. She's back to business, smiles and affection gone. He tries not to sigh.

"Our friend has a name," she tells him.

Rick sits up, leans against the kitchen bar that her back is resting against. "Oh?"

"Henry Armen."

He stares at her, dumbfounded. "Armen? Like Bob Armen?"

"Yeah. Bob's brother."

"Whoa. Didn't see that coming."

"You and me both."

"So what'd he have to say?"

She rests her hand on his knee, gives it a squeeze. "I'm hungry. Come on, I'll fill you in while we eat."

X-X-X-X-X

Kate calls Esposito after lunch, gives him the rundown along with instructions to look into the schedule for the train yard where they found Cole Maddox. He doesn't ask why she isn't coming back to the precinct. He just tells her that he'll update Gates and be sure to tell her to fuck off if she wants more information.

Kate smiles at that.

She and Castle spend the rest of the afternoon in his office not speaking. She's given him the task of finding out everything there is to know about Kilgore, and she's taken Matisse. She wanted Kilgore, wanted to hunt down any idiosyncrasies in his past just to prove that the nasty feeling in the pit of her stomach isn't wrong, but she knows better. She needs to pace herself. Besides, Matisse is an open homicide with a flavorful twist, and that happens to be right up her alley.

They work late into the afternoon. She's contemplating whether the contents of the fridge are more appealing than a Chinese takeout menu, her stomach growling angrily as it waits, when her phone rings. It's Lanie.

"Hey," she says into the phone.

"It's about Maddox," Lanie says, cutting right to the chase.

Kate's opening her mouth to answer when she hears a crash from the study. She turns, on high alert because the incident with Armen is still fresh. Castle comes stumbling out of the study, wild-eyed and ridiculous looking.

"I win, I win, I win!" he says, starting toward her.

"Lanie," Kate says. "Lanie hold on one—"

She's cut off by Castle pulling her in for a bone crushing hug. He nuzzles his nose into her neck, inhaling into her hair. "God, you smell good. I win. You are going to love me forever."

He's not exactly talking quietly, and the phone is still up to her ear. She hears Lanie laugh on the other end of the line. "Sorry, sweetie, didn't mean to interrupt."

Castle pulls back, an annoyingly adorable frown creasing his forehead. "Lanie?"

"Castle," Lanie answers.

Kate shoves her boyfriend away impatiently. "Shut up," she says, not sure who she's talking to. Castle looks wounded, but Lanie laughs again. "What do you have on Maddox?" Kate presses.

"Well, right after you left, I got called in for a nasty triple homicide. Took me a while. I just started working on your boy and was looking at the stats…you're right. He wasn't killed by that train."

Kate grins. "I knew it."

"His body temp says he died twelve hours ago."

"So?"

"So the train hit him six hours ago. He wasn't alive when that train cut off his head."

Castle still looks wounded. In fact, he's actually pouting. The good news about Maddox and the vindication racing through her veins is enough for her to close the distance between them and inch her free hand up his chest. He eyes her grumpily.

"So then what killed him?" she asks Lanie, weaving her hands into the hair on Castle's nape.

"Something that made him bleed so much that it looked like that train hit him. Something that left no wounds, no bruises, nothing irregular. Almost the perfect crime."

"Lanie," Kate prompts. She brushes her hips against Castle's, smirks when he grits his teeth and fails to control his body's reaction.

"Somebody cut his throat and then laid him out just right so that the train would go over the wound."

"Wow. Smart."

"I'm smarter," Lanie says.

"I'm smartest," Castle hisses petulantly.

Kate gives him a look. "Thanks, Lanie. Do me a favor and call it in to Espo?"

"Sure. Have fun." Lanie laughs, and then the line goes dead.

Kate rolls her eyes and slides her phone into her back pocket. "Okay," she says, putting her hands on Castle's chest. "Maddox wasn't a suicide. Someone slit his throat and positioned him so the train would run over the wound."

"Cool," he says dully.

Kate sighs. "What, Rick? What did you win?"

"Nothing."

"Oh for God's sake," she huffs. "Stop being a child and tell me what you figured out."

He's still pouting. "Kilgore was in on Montgomery's ransom scheme," he mumbles.

Kate freezes. "He…what?"

He finally looks up at her, his eyes bright. She knew he wouldn't be able to last long. The thrill of a lead is too exciting. "I made a timeline."

"Show me."

He leads her into the office, hooks up his laptop to the Smartboard. A timeline that details the time from Pulgatti's murder until the present day pops up on the screen. Castle points at a section that's marked in red. "This red zone is the time when Montgomery and his buddies were running the ransom scheme. Look at the cases Kilgore was trying."

Kate squints. "Those are all cases against the mob."

"Exactly. Look before the red zone. They're all cases against the mob too."

"So what's the difference?"

"The difference is that once the ransom scheme started, he started winning cases."

Kate looks at him. "You think it was more than just a ransom scheme?"

Castle nods. "Montgomery told us that they would keep the guys they kidnapped for a while. Push them around and scare them a little bit. But I don't think they were just venting anger. I think they were interrogating them for information. Information they then passed on to Kilgore so he could get them convicted."

"That doesn't make sense. It would've been illegally obtained. Inadmissible in court."

"Well he wouldn't have tried to admit it in court, would he? That means he'd have to fess up to being a part of a ransom scheme with some rogue cops. No, what he did was use that information to get legally obtained information. He knew who to go to, where to go, what to look for. It was the inside scoop he needed to bring down the mob."

Kate nods. "Okay. So, Kilgore wanted to be D.A. His platform was that he was tough on organized crime. Problem is that he can't convict. He hooks up with Roy and the others, gets the information he needs, and suddenly starts getting convictions."

"Right."

"So how did he meet the Dragon?"

Castle smiles. "Kate, he is the Dragon."

Her heart goes still. "How?"

"He doesn't just need convictions to be D.A. He needs to get elected. And to get elected, you need money. Money he didn't have." Castle switches the Smartboard screen over to an article on Kilgore in The New York Times. "He grew up without a cent. College on a full ride, law school loans. Being a civil servant doesn't exactly pay well either."

Kate nods. It's true.

"When he got in on the scheme, he got a cut of the money. But when he started getting convictions and decided his dream could become a reality, he realized he needed more. So one night he's sitting in his den, sipping a whiskey and thinking about how to get more money out of the mobsters, when bam! Raglan and McCallister call."

Kate smirks. He's always a writer.

"They start in on this crazy story about how their rookie tagalong accidentally killed some undercover fed and now they're screwed because they've got a dead fed and Pulgatti in the back of their van. They want to know what to do."

"So Kilgore tells them to pin the murder on Pulgatti."

"And then once the cover-up is complete, he threatens to out them if they don't give him all the money."

"And since they have no proof that it was his idea, and since they're the ones who did all the legwork to cover it up—"

"They have no choice but to give him the money and keep their mouths shut or they lose everything."

They stare at each other, grinning. The high that comes with theory building buzzes through her veins, but there's something else too. A current of closure, peace, understanding…she's still got to find more evidence because right now all they've got is a theory, but for the first time in her life the Dragon has a name. No longer is he a faceless demon that haunts her nightmares. He's a middle-aged senator who underestimated her again, only this time it's for the last time.

"Castle," she murmurs.

"Yeah," he says. He's breathless from it all, just like she is.

"Let's go get him."