Hey everyone. I've been loving all of the reviews and have enjoyed replying to them. Keep it up!

Sorry about the delay, I had a tough weekend, but (I hope) this chapter is worth the wait. The case is starting to pick up in this chapter, and I can't wait for you to start making guesses at who the killer is going to be.

Also, don't forget to read my author's note at the bottom, because I have a sneak peek for you guys.


Chapter Eight: Interviews, Lies, and Videos

Detective Beckett walked up to a girl no older than twenty who was sitting on a park bench, staring distractedly out at nothing in particular. She wasn't particularly tall, and had longish brown hair that was pulled back into a low ponytail. She was wearing a plain red hoodie that was one size too large for her, and blue jeans. Carefully, she walked over to the girl, and sat next to her on the bench.

"Jessie Palmer?" Beckett asked quietly, and with some level of caution. The bench she was sitting on was directly across from the area where Kayla's body was dropped, and for all she knew, she was looking at her vic's murderer.

"Yeah?" The girl looked up at Beckett finally, sadness and confusion. "How do you know me?"

"I'm Kate Beckett, NYPD. I'm the homicide detective put on the case of your babysitting charge, Kayla Evans. I need to ask you a few questions."

"Oh, sure. Whatever you need to know." She said, still distracted. "I got the news about an hour ago, and have been here since. My Dad always took me to the park after school when I was little, so when I started babysitting Kayla and Aaron, it was just the logical thing to do, especially since they have Gramercy so close by. When I heard, it was just natural to come here."

"I know this is hard, but I need you to tell me if you saw Kayla at all yesterday. Did you babysit them?"

"Yeah, I always do weeknights. Plenty of weekends too, but then I usually get done earlier. Since it's summer, I've basically taken over though. The summer courses I'm taking at school make it hard though."

"Can you tell me what happened while you were babysitting them last night? As complete and accurate of a description as you can make it."

The girl appeared to the world to be looking at her during their conversation, but Beckett herself saw otherwise. The dazed college student was actually staring over her right shoulder. She wasn't sure what to make of it, and for some reason, the distant gazing worried her. In any other situation, she would've thought that the girl was nervous, and trying to avoid looking her in the eyes because she was hiding something, but the girl wasn't nervous at all, just sad. Still, Beckett kept the possibility open that she may not get the full truth.

"All my summer courses are morning courses, except for my 1:00 pm class, so I had no trouble picking up the kids from school at 2:30, like I do every day. We got home. I made them a little snack, just peanut butter on graham crackers, and then they did their homework until a little after three. We played the Game of Life after that. Then I got a call from Luke…" she trailed off, and started rooting through the pocket in her sweatshirt.

"Does he normally call you during the day?" Beckett asked, already knowing the answer.

"No, never. He just called to tell me about this high scale charity event that his client was hosting that he and his wife had to attend. I think he organized the whole thing too, which is why he had to get there early. He just told me that he and his wife needed to pick up their things." Finally the girl pulled out her cell phone and opened it up. The tiny device beeped several times before she looked up. "Here it is; he called at exactly 4:16."

"Were you and the kids at home when they came in to pick up what they needed?"

"No," she shook her head sadly, her eyes never leaving the blurry area that hung behind Beckett's shoulder. "We come to the park every day to get some fresh air around five o' clock. We went back to the apartment around 6:30. I made the kids dinner: grilled cheese. I think Mr. and Mrs. Evans came home sometime while we were at the park."

"Then what?" Beckett asked, getting eager to know when the babysitter had to stop providing information.

"We played games, watched TV, and then I got them ready for bed. Kayla's bedtime is at 8:00, and Aaron's is at 8:15. After I put them to bed I studied for a test I have in this summer course I'm taking at school. I have a heavy testing load this week and needed to study. Sometime around 9:40 Mr. and Mrs. Evans came home. Most days I talk for a bit with whichever parent gets home early, but they seemed pretty tired that night, so I left after five minutes of giving them the summary of the night."

"You didn't check on them at all after you put them to sleep?" Beckett asked, taking a couple of notes in a small pad.

"No, both kids are light sleepers. If I walked into their rooms to check on them, they'd probably wake up."

Beckett nodded uneasily, and decided not to freak the girl out in case she went on the defensive. The last thing she needed was an important witness who was unwilling to cooperate, so she wrapped it up.

"Thank you Jessie. You've been a big help. I'll keep in touch with you, and should be able to find you if I need anything else. Don't run off." She stood up, and quickly left the park, and headed towards the car, plugging in Esposito's speed dial the moment she was out of earshot of the shaken babysitter.

"Esposito."

"What have you got for me?" She cut to the chase hastily. He knew who she was, and she wanted to know her next course of action soon.

"Pam Linden's story checks out. Now, what have you brought for us that's so important it can't be postponed for the ten minute drive back to the precinct?"

"Call it a hunch, but there's something missing in our timeline," Beckett started, and continued before Esposito could interrupt. "She filled in our gap, but I need you to confirm her alibi that she was with them from two thirty to nine thirty-five. Something seemed out of place."

"You think the babysitter slipped out at some point?"

"Her descriptions of the day went from very specific, to wishy-washy at best. Search around and see if she was spotted anywhere else after six thirty."

"Will do," Beckett heard Esposito cut off on the other line, then some muffled debating before she heard a new voice on the phone.

"Beckett, when did the babysitter leave again?" Ryan's curious voice met her ear, and she immediately knew what he was getting at.

"She told me nine thirty." The epiphany seeped into her excited voice. Finally they had a good lead on what had actually happened that night. Normally, murder is never straightforward, but this case had been nothing but straightforward, and simple. With the exception of Ryan's strange reaction, nothing was unexpected, and if Castle had taught her anything, it was that if something is easy, it's generally wrong.

"But the parents said that they got home before just before ten thirty. One of them is lying."

"Ryan, see if you can get the camera footage from the hotel lobby. I want the exact time each of them came in. I'll be back in twenty."

She hopped in the car quickly, and revved the engine, eager to get back to the precinct and fill in the hole in her timeline. But first she needed to fill in some other large elephants in the room. The largest of which, was Mr. Evan's mysterious charity event, and see what she could find out about it. Still, many unanswered questions echoed in her mind irritatingly. Why would either the parents or Jessie lie about Mr. and Mrs. Evan's return time? What wasn't Mrs. Linden saying? Why was Jessie so distracted?

•••

It didn't take long to contact the apartment lobby and convince them to email the digital footage from the camera of yesterday and this morning to him. He knew the lobby clerk from his first sweep of the neighborhood, and simply had to give the man his badge number, and minutes later, the videos were in his email. Now he was scanning through them, not as quickly as he normally does, but nowhere near real time either.

So far, the babysitter's story checked out. She had first entered the building with the kids at 2:35, so it made sense that she picked them up a few minutes before. Similarly on cue, she left with the kids again at precisely 5:00 where she said she took them to the park. But when the clock sped past a quarter after six, he set it to real time again, just in time to watch both parents rush through the doors at 6:19. They looked like they had been arguing recently, or were angry at each other at the very least. They left shortly after, at 6:27, equally as red-faced and cold as before, if not more so. So far the babysitter had been accurate in calling it. She had missed the parents, but only by a couple of minutes if her story checked out.

Ryan was running the video at only a couple of notches above real time now, and watching very closely, as this was where Jessie was supposed to come back after the park. At that moment which was clocked at 6:34, he spotted Kayla, and her brother burst through the doors, focused entirely on a race to the elevator. Ryan allowed himself a moment to smile sadly at the image. They looked so innocent; neither had any clue at the time that this was the last time that little boy would have a sister.

Then, he noticed something in the video that made his jaw literally drop, and hang open limply in shock. Making sure he hadn't missed anything, he rewound the tape to play the last few minutes and watched Kayla and Aaron's big entrance two more times before he was convinced.

"Son of a bitch!"

•••

Beckett stood outside of Mr. Evan's office building. Slogans for some politician that she hadn't taken the time to learn too much about were splattered over every inch of the windows, as if an advertising factory had puked all over them. She locked the car, and was about to step into the building to talk with her vic's father when her phone rang.

Out of habit she quickly glanced at the caller ID then moved to press the "Talk" button, but quickly did a double take once her brain processed the name.

"Castle?" She asked, confused beyond belief. This was far from the best time to be sidetracked by her own personal dramas. Why was he even calling her now? She hadn't talked to him all summer. Hell, she was still annoyed with him, even though he didn't actually do anything wrong; she reserved the right to be irrationally grumpy with him.

"Kate! I know we haven't talked much this summer, and I'm sorry about that, but first things first. Are you okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" she asked, completely shocked by his response.

"I heard about your case, and I wanted to see how you were holding up."

You see, that was so typically Richard Castle! He had to piss her off for being an oblivious idiot, but not technically do anything that she could legitimately hold him accountable for, and then turn into that sweet caring guy immediately. Now, she couldn't be angry with him, no matter how much she tried. She took a scarce little comfort in the fact that she could still pretend to be annoyed with him. She'd had plenty of practice.

"It's just another case Castle. I'm a big girl. I can handle it," she said as stoically as possible.

"I know you can handle it, and I know you will handle it, just like I know without a doubt that you'll solve it. But that's not what I meant and you know it." His words weren't light, and joking in the least, and that's what surprised her the most. If he was here, and had seen the case, then it wouldn't be that surprising, but he wasn't here. In his mind, it was just another case, and he had no problems being his joking self around a normal case.

"Thanks Castle, but I don't need the pep talk, and now's not the best time. I was just about to talk with the father, and I have to do it before he leaves work. So if you don't mind," she didn't feel the need to end her sentence. Her voice sounded impatient enough. She still didn't want to let it slip that she was really touched by his words.

"Okay, go get the bad guy. But please remember, I'm just a phone call away if you ever need to talk. No matter how late," and the unavoidable adorable side of him reemerged. She could only be glad for the fact that he wasn't here, and couldn't see the small grin that had snuck onto her face when she was blindsided by his words. "Until we next speak, Detective."

The click on the end of the line snapped her out of the trance she was caught in, and brought herself back to the present. She would have time to ponder the unexpected first-conversation for hours later with Lanie, but for right now, she was still very much on duty, and had a job to do.

Confidently, she strode into the office, and weaved her way through several rows of cubicles, looking for Mr. Evans' office. After she had passed what seemed like her billionth desktop bobble head, she finally found what she was looking for. Immediately she gathered that he was a fairly important person in the business. If the cubicle to private office comparison wasn't enough, the secretary would've been another selling point.

"Could you please tell Mr. Evans that Detective Beckett has some questions for him?" She said it more as a demand than as a request, and the secretary took it that way as well. She said nothing, but nodded tightly and stood up to go and deliver her message. The moment the girl closed the door, Beckett started to it, not waiting for the okay. She did, after all, have the badge for a reason.

"Detective, what a surprise. What can I do you for?" Just like his secretary, Mr. Evans sounded much too proper for her liking, and she stored the feeling of uneasiness away in her memory.

"I know I had asked about what had happened yesterday, but I need you to confirm some details, just to make sure we have our timelines straight." She gave him the reassuring answer for the same reason she backed off of Jessie's questioning earlier. She didn't want to spook him until she had some real evidence to confront him with. Besides, if she went easy, and let him get comfortable, who knows what he may let something slip?

"Sure, ask away."

"Now, what role did you play in this charity event that your company hosted?"

"I organized it, and was the main planner. I'm being considered for a promotion, and this event was my test run. That's why Natalie and I had to get there early, to make sure everything was running smoothly."

"When did it run to?"

"Well, it started at 7 pm, but like I said, I arrived twenty minutes early. It ended at 9:30, but once again, I needed to make sure that everyone left, and that the catering company was able to pack things up, and that all that night's profits got to the right people. In the end, we somehow left for home at 10 pm, and got home at around twenty after, where we both collapsed in bed. We were very tired."

"Did you see Jessie before you went to sleep?" Beckett asked a pivotal question, curious for the response.

"Of course. We got a quick synopsis of the night, she said both kids were asleep, so we paid her, she left, and we went to bed immediately." He said it plaintively, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"You didn't even check to see if your kids really were asleep in bed first?" Beckett regretted her phrasing the moment it came out of her mouth, and his response only confirmed that.

"I trusted Jessie. Besides, we were beyond exhausted, and the children are light sleepers. I assumed that with a babysitter here, not much could've happened to them. Any parent would've made the same assumption with a babysitter they've been using for almost a year now."

He sounded insulted, and why wouldn't he? Beckett, decided to back off. She had the information she needed, and now she could return to the precinct to see what the boys had found. She had left them with two strong leads. By now they were sure to have something.

"Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. I'll keep in contact." With that, she left the office, and headed back to the cubicle labyrinth.

She had her suspicions, and there was an easy way to find answers to some of them. Staring at the rows and rows of tiny boxes with disgruntled people typing away at computers, she scanned the area for the one with the fewest bobble-heads in the vicinity, and headed over.

Inside was a very tall man, who didn't lose any of his height sitting in a chair. He had black hair and a very square jaw, but soft facial features, so he didn't appear intimidating at all.

"Hi, can I ask you a few questions?" She asked as casually as possible, trying to drop her daunting, cop-like tendencies and just interrogate him in a civil manner. He turned to her and grinned lightly. She tried to avoid rolling her eyes.

"Ask away."

"Were you at last night's charity event?"

"Of course, everyone was there."

"Even Mr. Evans?"

"'Course the boss had to be there. He definitely caught attention too. He had to make sure everything was going well, so he was all over the place," the guy was clearly confused about why she was asking these questions, but not nearly so curious to actually ask.

"Do you know when he left?"

"Sure I do, if only because he dumped the cleanup duty on me. Can you believe the guy bailed early? Probably to go get laid too. Just watch as he takes credit with the superiors too…"

"When did he leave? Do you know what time that was?" She pressed him urgently. This was by far, one of the most important questions, if not the most important question, that she'd asked all day.

"Just a bit before 9:15. I told the guy that it would be over in another fifteen minutes, and that he should stick it out, but he wouldn't listen."

Beckett paid no attention to all of his extra details, and just processed the information. She had to tell Ryan and Esposito about it. The man in the cubicle barely finished his sentence before she thanked him and took off, probably leaving him confused, but she didn't care.

Wait till the boys heard about this twist of events.


Finally, the first bit of a plot twist in the case! Things start to get interesting from here on out.

Because you guys have been so good with reviews, I'm going to give you the name of the next chapter title. If you keep up the fantastic reviews for this one, I'll give you the next one, and so forth. Sound like a good deal? I sure hope so!

Chapter Nine: Trick or Treat

Now if that doesn't get you to review, I don't know what will... save bribing you all with lots of chocolate.