SO sorry this took so long. When I wrote it it ended up just being 100% dialogue and it took a while for me to go back and fiddle with it to get it the way I wanted.
Two hours later and Officer Hastings is calling across the bullpen to him. "Detective, they've found Detective Castle's car." He recognises the address she reels off, and it sets something off in his mind; a tiny inkling of doubt that Castle isn't treating this case like any other case, that he's getting lost again in something that he can't solve. Martha left over an hour ago saying she needed to tend to Alexis and hope for her son's safe return and Ryan is, in all honesty, glad she's left. He's seen too many families ripped apart by bad news, and he doesn't want to be the bearer of bad news when this particular family is ripped apart, yet again, by death.
"Espo!" His partner ducks his head out of the break room, coffee mug in hand and with one eyebrow raised. "Found Castle's car. It's outside our vic's apartment."
"The hell is he doing there? Is he answering the phone?"
"No, it's just going straight to answer phone."
Esposito disappears for two seconds and reappears minus the mug. "Alright, I'm driving."
"Locked, no sign of forced entry. Well parked. It doesn't look like it's been dumped. Maybe he was at her apartment and he did just fall asleep?"
Espo pulls a face, his expression telling Ryan all he needs to know about the belief his partner has in his theory. Or maybe it's the faith he doesn't have in Castle. "You really believe that, Ryan? He'd never sleep that long. Not that I don't believe he wouldn't be doing this. There's something not right here, and I don't like it. Get uni's to canvas. I know it was late but maybe there was a bar, or someone working late in a shop, see if there are any cameras that point in this area. Do we know who the landlord is?"
"Lives in the building. Name of… Olivia Burkman. She's clean, checked when we first looked in to our vic, finances are fine, no previous convictions, not even a point on her license. Didn't check her alibi though, didn't think she needed one." He steps back from Castle's car, runs his hand over the stubble that peppers his chin. He needs to shave. He knows Jenny hates it, but this case has been sucking the energy out of him and when he woke up this morning it was all he could do just to infuse his blood with caffeine and stumble out of the door with the correct clothes in the correct places. "I'll go up to the apartment, see if he's there. If not I'll call in a truck and they can tow it."
Javier nods, and digs his notebook out of his jacket pocket. "I'll talk to Olivia Burkman then."
"You seen this guy?"
"Him? Yeah, he was here a couple of days ago… about one of my tenants, Katherine Beckett. He said she was … um, murdered." He sees her shudder. Espo knows the feeling. He's been around dead bodies for years now, through the armed forces and the NYPD, and it never gets any more pleasant. There's at least five times in the past seven cases where he questioned his career choices. "He had a badge and ID and everything," Olivia carries on, "I let him in to have a look around, I didn't think there was anything amiss. Was there? Was he the man who killed her?"
"No, he's my colleague, Detective Richard Castle, but now he's gone missing and we're just trying to track him down. His car is outside, which leads us to believe that he was here at some point last night."
"I haven't seen him since I let him in, oh, two days ago now. I thought I would see him when he left, but I didn't. He had my key for this place, he said he would return it after."
"Did he?"
"Yeah, eventually. I found it in an envelope under my door a day later. I figured he'd just forgotten to give it back."
'Can we go up and see her apartment?"
She narrows her eyes at him, vague distrust radiating out of every pore. He's used to it."You going to take the key again?"
"No, you can keep the key. I don't think we'll be long, we just want to see if there's anything amiss, anything that will help us work out where Detective Castle has gone, or if he's still up there."
Olivia visibly relaxes against the doorjamb. "Sure, I'll take you up there now."
The apartment looks normal to him. Neat, respectable, no dead bodies, no blood, but most importantly, no Richard Castle. And yet… it feels like there's something off. There's something that doesn't sit right, and Kevin Ryan can't quite put his finger on it. He looks from the neat, careful arrangement of her kitchen, the office, her bedroom. Everything in its place, everything organised and proper, except for the casual disarray of the throw cushions on the couch.
"Hey, Espo."
"Yeah?"
"This place is neat, right. Tidy…so, why is the couch such a mess?"
Espo twists around from his place in the kitchen, eyes alighting on the grey sofa with interest. "Somebody had a fight?"
"Nah, too little mess. You have a fight with someone it wouldn't just be a bunch of messed up pillows. Coffee table would have been moved, things would have broken… not a fight. At least not a proper one. Scuffle, maybe but a small one at that."
"Our victim?"
"Possible. Would have thought she'd have put up more of a fight."
"Drugged? Someone she knew, could have let them in… doesn't take much to jab someone with a needle, or put something in a drink."
"Well, that would mean getting an unconscious, or barely conscious person out of the apartment block and into a car without anyone noticing. And I don't think that's possible. Go around, ask the neighbours, people outside, shops, bartenders, you know the deal."
"Katie? I don't know her much, you know, first name basis but that's about it. I think her job keeps her busy. I work the night shift at a twenty four hour place, so she's usually going to work when I come home. Last time I saw her was, oh, a couple of days ago, actually. Is she okay?" Oscar Campos, the illusive next door neighbour has finally made his appearance, his hair mussed and chin unshaven
"Unfortunately not, she was murdered a few days ago. We're still trying to work out what happened. Were you in last night?"
"I was. My day, well, night, off."
"Asleep?"
"On and off. I find it hard to sleep during the night when I'm not working. I'm too used to night hours you see. Why?"
"Something may have happened here last night. At Kate's apartment, we think. One of our colleagues may have disappeared."
"Oh, I dunno," he replies, scratching the side of his nose thoughtfully, "I drift in and off and I usually have the television on. Though, actually, I think I did hear the front door go at one point. Figured it was just her. She gets takeout a lot, I don't think her job allows for much cooking, you know? You say she's dead? Seriously?"
"Unfortunately, yes, we are. We have pictures, if you want proof."
Ryan jams an elbow in to his partner's rib cage. Esposito is an excellent detective, but sometimes his demeanour leaves little to be desired. "If you remember anything else, here's my card. Call me if you remember anything, or hear anything else."
Oscar nods, and the card disappears somewhere in his jeans pocket. Ryan's almost certain it's never going to see the light of again. "Thank you for your time."
They mull over their choices standing in the lobby. Ryan can see that Esposito is still lingering on the idea that Castle has simply gone off the rails again. Ryan is more likely to give him the benefit of the doubt, after all, considering off the rails meant 'avenging the death of his wife at the hands of a corrupt police commissioner'. Kate Beckett is not his wife. It's an entirely different scenario, and not one Ryan wishes to ever find himself in. But Castle's actions, the insistence that Commissioner Averill ate, breathed, and bathed in dirt, had sent the New York Police Department spiralling into a pit of distrust and betrayal. It didn't help that Averill was in fact, as dirty as a pig in muck, and when his office had been stormed by other members of the NYPD they had found that he, and his secretary, had been long gone. No one knows if his secretary had been in it with him, or whether she had simply been collateral damage, but no one has seen either of them since. It haunts Castle. It haunts all of them, really, but it's Castle who bears the brunt of it. He won't tell anyone, won't take the guidance of their captain to see a counsellor or a therapist, but Ryan sees the blue and purple bruising under his eyes on most days and knows that sleep continues to elude him.
"Hey!"
Ryan turns, torn out of his thoughts, as he finds a young female waving at him from near the elevators. Esposito raises an eyebrow at him, and then jerks his head over to her. They meet her half way across the lobby.
"Can we help you?"
"That guy you're looking for? You were asking Oscar about him, can I have a look at him?"
"Um, yeah. Sure."
She practically snags the photo from his hand, holds it close up to her eyes. "Sorry, I just got out of the shower and I didn't have time to grab my contacts. I heard you talking to Oscar and I was coming back from a night out, and I don't know Kate that well, just what she looks like, but this guy was here."
"Yeah, we know that."
"Well, you should know that he got arrested."
"What?"
"Yeah, I was coming back and he was being led out of the building by some cop. Got into a car in the back. He didn't look quite right though, man, maybe he was drinking something I don't know, but his eyes were all over the place and the cop guy was half carrying him. I assumed it was just a drunk and disorderly or he got too drunk and someone called the police on his ass. But yeah, if you want to know where he is, then probably in a cell somewhere with one hell of a headache."
"Are you sure it was him?"
She shoots Esposito a withering look. "Yes. One hundred per cent. I was barely drunk and all the lights were still on. It was him."
"Alright, can we take your details? Name, phone number and all. We'll check up with other precincts to see whether they're holding him."
"Why do you need me to do that?"
"Because if Castle has been arrested then we should have been notified by now, and we haven't. Something tells me this isn't an arrest and more of a…"
"Oh my god, did I witness a kidnapping?"
"I – well, it's … possible. Probable, I think. This whole thing feels fishy to me. Actually, do you think you could come down to the precinct with us?"
"Do you want me to do one of those sketch things? This is so cool, I've always wanted to do one. Not that it isn't terrible that he's gone missing, or that Kate's… you know… sorry, I just watch a lot of cop shows."
"It's fine. We're used to it."
She smiles, somewhat sheepishly. "Right. Well, my name is Hollie. Um, I need to go and put some more suitable clothes on and also put my contacts in, I will be down in like… oh, ten minutes or something."
"We can wait."
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