Chapter 9: Deception
Castle fiddled with his keys at the door. He saw Alexis at the kitchen counter and Castle headed her way.
"Hey Alexis, how was your day?"
"I ran into Owen."
Castle hesitated. "Is that good or bad?"
"I'm not sure." Her expression was quizzical. "He asked me out for coffee. I told him I was seeing someone, but if that was ok, I was willing to meet and catch up. He said it was fine. Do boys find that ok? Meeting with an old girlfriend who is dating someone else?"
Castle shrugged. "It depends on the boy. Have you mentioned it to Ashley?
She shook her head.
"You might want to, that way you don't feel like you have to hide your meeting from him. If he freaks out when you tell him you ran into an old boyfriend, tell Owen you can't come."
"Am I really taking relationship advice from my dad? Alexis shook her head.
"I have made every mistake in the book, I might be able to keep you from a couple of them." Castle kissed her forehead. The situation with Jenny came to his mind. This was essentially what she had done. And now she was under suspicion for murder.
"Esposito, it's Beckett." She identified herself as soon as he answered the phone.
"Hey."
"I wasn't sure what you had planned this evening but I need a favor."
"Shoot." Esposito adjusted the phone against his ear.
"It's going to be difficult." The female detective's tone caused him to straighten.
"Go ahead."
"I need to get Ryan away from Jenny so I can talk to her."
"Where are you?"
"Outside Jenny's apartment."
Esposito cursed under his breath. "Any ideas on how to get him to leave?"
"I'm not a guy so I don't know what you guys do, but what about meeting for a drink to calm him down."
"I could offer info on the case that might make him come."
Beckett hesitated. "Just not too much and no names."
"How long to do you need?"
"Not long…30 minutes?"
"Done." Esposito ended their call and dialed his partner.
Beckett felt guilty for pulling Esposito into it, but there was no way Ryan would leave Jenny alone tonight without a little push.
It seemed to take forever but finally Beckett saw Ryan come out of the building and head to his car. She gave him a minute to leave before getting out of her car and heading into the building.
"It's Detective Beckett, Jenny; you got a minute?"
Jenny's eyes were red and she observed Kate warily. "Do I have a choice?"
"Ryan seems to want you to get a lawyer and not let you talk at all. But that would make us pry more into your life and relationship with Steven."
"Come in."
Beckett didn't want to do this, but it had to be done. "You told me in your interview that Steven said he was in town on business."
"Yeah."
"But he lives here."
Panic ran across Jenny's face and Beckett felt her heart fall. Ryan is going to kill me for this.
"That is what he told me on the phone." Jenny told the detective.
"And you believed him?"
Jenny slumped back into the couch. "He was always a charmer and I didn't want to meet him. I guess he thought telling me he was only in town for a little while would make me agree to see him."
"Apparently it worked."
"In college, he was suave, persuasive and popular; everything I wasn't. But he cheated on me when we were dating."
"Yet you still met him when he called." Beckett stated.
"I guess I wondered if he had changed. One of those, "what if" moments."
"Had he contacted you before?"
She hesitated.
"Jenny, I want to believe you had nothing to do with this. But I need to know about your relationship with Steven and what kind of person he was."
"He called a lot at first after I broke up but after graduation I changed my numbers. This was the first time in several years."
"Any idea why he called you now?"
Jenny sighed. "I guess I knew he wanted to rekindle what we had but I am over him. I thought I could tell that to his face and maybe he'd leave me alone."
"I can't get over the fact that after all this time he just calls you out of the blue!" Beckett voiced her thoughts.
"Don't you ever wonder what happened to your friends from college? I guess I was curious too. To see if his charm and looks were still there."
"So that night. What happened? And Ryan's not here and I'm not telling. What did he talk about, why did he call you?"
"I told him that I was engaged to a cop, showed him the ring…he said something like 'we could still have fun.' That's why I went first, I wanted to let him know I wasn't available!"
"But he didn't care." Kate filled in the blanks. Jenny nodded.
"Did he mention what he was doing now? Job? Friends?"
"He did mention work but I don't remember details. He said it was boring and he wanted to spice up his life."
"Did he say how?"
"I figured it was with me." Jenny grimaced. "That's when I left and the stuff outside happened."
"Do you remember if he mentioned a girlfriend?"
"I think he just broke up. Mentioned her in past tense. Probably wanted to see me because of he didn't like being alone."
"From what we heard, he was pretty popular with the ladies." Beckett smiled, "So as far as you know, besides the girlfriend problem everything was ok?"
"I hadn't seen him in what, 5 years? Maybe more like 7 or 8. I have no idea what is normal."
"So he didn't talk about anything else?"
"He was flirting and coming on to me—other than that I didn't notice." Jenny closed her eyes. "I thought it would be good to see him after all these years but he was still the same arrogant guy I dumped in college. I just wanted to get away from him."
