Chapter Nine


"Katherine Beckett, I'mma smack you, girl."

Oh boy. This was going to be one of those times that Kate wished she'd been more careful about answering the phone without looking at the caller ID, wasn't it?

She set down the box of leftovers she'd been about to heat up for dinner and went over to sprawl on her couch instead. She knew from experience that trying to have a discussion that begins with Lanie saying the words "smack" and "you" was bound to be a daunting task.

At least Lanie had graciously chosen to undertake this particular interrogation over the phone. Kate could always just hang up on her.

As tentatively as she would if she were navigating her way through a minefield, Kate questioned, "What did I do this time, Lanie?"

The ME huffed loudly. "Oh, don't even try to pretend that you don't know what I'm talking about! You've been hanging out with Rick Castle—who happens to be your favorite author—and his daughter all week, and you don't even tell me? What is up with that?"

Ah. Kate had no idea how Lanie seemed to know everything, but her chain of information was impressive enough to rival the CIA's.

"Okay, first of all, I've been hanging out with Alexis, not Castle. He just happens to be there because, well, he's her dad. Second, I haven't been hanging out with them all week. It was twice."

In one week, added her mental voice.

Shuuuut uuuup, me.

"Splitting hairs, Beckett. Just admit that you like spending time with the guy."

"It's not like that, Lanie."

"Well, why the hell isn't it, then? I mean really. If Richard Castle is as good with his kid as Charlie says he is, then he can't be as bad as the gossips paint him as, right? What're you hesitating about?"

"Wait, back up. Charlie? As in the front desk officer at the 12th? How do you know Charlie?"

"Pssh, please." Kate could practically see the black woman's roll of her eyes over the line. "I'm an ME. I know the front desk officers at all the precincts."

Huh. Well, there's one source of information. It made sense since Lanie had to contact homicide detectives from all precincts. It was a little frightening, however, to think that Lanie had all those officers under her thumb. It made Kate think that Lanie went into the wrong profession. Just imagine if Lanie were Langley...

"Don't try to change the subject," Lanie pressed. "Why the hell are sitting at home on a Saturday night—and yes, I know you're at home, probably reading one of his books—when you could be gettin' it on with Writer-Boy?" Lanie paused, then added, "Of course, if he's not as hot as his pictures..."

"Oh no, the real thing's better," her mouth responded before her brain could filter it. Ah shit. Well, that wasn't telling at all.

Lanie's pointed silence said everything.

"Just because I have eyes…" Kate tried to salvage.

"Uh huh. Self-denial is really not healthy. You know that right?"

At least this Kate had the perfect response for. "So says the kettle. Or do you want to be the pot?"

"Funny. Very funny."

"Seriously, Lanie. You know I was partnered with Esposito during my last undercover op. He looks like he's doing well. You guys still not on a talking basis?"

"He was the one who said we should cool things off for a while."

"Only after you told him you didn't think you weren't ready for a serious relationship."

Lanie didn't respond for a while, and Kate just wanted to sigh. Or smack some sense into the ME.

Although Kate didn't know Esposito very well, she was aware of enough of the situation to know that Lanie had been the one with cold feet. For all her regular sass, the medical examiner was alarmingly reticent about entering into committed relationships, even with genuinely good guys like the Hispanic detective.

Then again, who was she to judge other people about their willingness—or lack thereof—to commit to a relationship?

Before Will, Kate had thought that she would only be able to be with men who were also in law enforcement. When she'd met Will during a kidnapping case, Kate had thought that she'd finally met The One. They bonded in shared grief over the eventually tragic ending of that case, and for a while, they'd been good together. Really good. So good that Kate had seriously contemplated moving in with him even though they'd only been dating for six months.

Of course, everything turned on its head when he told her about The Move. He'd been offered a huge career advancement opportunity with the FBI field office in Boston, and he'd snatched it up almost immediately. She couldn't blame him for that, not when she knew how much the job meant to him.

What really stupefied her, however, was the fact that he'd taken it for granted that she would go with him. He'd been seriously shocked when she told him no.

That he thought she would leave everything—even her mother's case—to make that move with him made her realize that he didn't really know her at all. And the truth was that she didn't really know him either. She loved him, yes, but she couldn't help wondering whether what she'd truly loved was the idea of a man like Will Sorenson and not the man himself.

Either way, they'd parted with regrets on both sides. But not with enough regret to change their minds about their respective, chosen paths.

Still, the whole fiasco had shattered the illusion that only a fellow cop (or FBI agent) could be her lifelong partner.

Now, she wondered if she was destined for serial monogamy. Of course, the way things were looking right now, she seemed destined for the spinster life. She hadn't dated anyone—seriously or otherwise—in over six months, not ever since she broke it off with Will. She'd been telling the truth when she told Lanie several days ago that she was over him, but neither was Kate inclined to complicate her life with a man.

And at this stage of her life, when she was so close to transferring to Homicide and finally getting one step closer to solving her mother's murder, she couldn't afford to be distracted.

She couldn't be thinking about guys and dating and families, especially not families with Richard Castle.

Whoa. Get out of my head, Freud.

Slip of thought or not, Castle simply wouldn't fit in her life. Of course, it wasn't as if he'd ever indicated that he was interested in her romantically. Sexually, sure, but he'd never shown any signs that he wanted a relationship deeper than that.

And why was she thinking about this anyway? She'd already decided to limit the time she hung out with the Castles—him in particular. She wasn't interested in a relationship with him. She wasn't.

"Stop trying to distract me from the real issue at hand here," Lanie eventually said, though with a lot less impertinence than before. "We're talking about you and Rick Castle, not me and Javier."

"There is no 'me and Rick Castle.' And there never will be."

"But why? What's wrong with having a little fun every now and then?"

"Disregarding the fact that the last thing I need in my life right now is a fling, have you thought about the fact that I met his daughter before I met him? I like Alexis. I really do. And I want to be able to visit her on occasion without things being weird between me and her dad."

"Okay, but aren't things already weird? From what Charlie said, you and Castle were generating so much electricity between the two of you that he thought you might cause a power outage. With that much sexual tension, isn't it better to get it out of your system so that you can actually relax around him?"

"First of all, I can't believe that Charlie said that. Second, I'm not about to go relaxing tension with every guy I'm attracted to."

"Hah! So you are attracted to him."

Kate didn't bother to suppress her growl of irritation. "I never said I wasn't," she said thinly. "But I also know that I'm more likely to hurt him and Alexis if I get into anything with him that isn't platonic. You know me, Lanie. I suck at relationships. I just want them to be those friends that you meet up with on occasion to chill out with. Why complicate that with sex?"

"I still don't see why you can't have both."

"Lanie, seriously. It's me we're talking about here. Of all the guys I've ever dated in my life, I'm still friends with none of them."

Kate and Lanie sighed simultaneously. Apparently they were both failures in the relationship department.

"Hey Beckett, you got a minute? We need some extra hands for the Oz case."

Kate looked up from case she was working on. Vice had been circling a group of dealers operating out of Central Park, and they'd just caught one of the low-level lackeys who just happened to be connected to the murder of a prestigious prep school kid whose family had fallen into disrepute. On the surface, it looked like a simple open and shut case; a witness had seen the dealer, Kent Scoville, running away from the park right after she heard gunshots, and the kid used to peddle for the Scoville, so the motive was probably money.

But something about the case didn't add up. As bad as Scoville's criminal record was—a two-time loser facing his third felony conviction—she just didn't see him as the murderer when she looked at this case.

She put it aside for now as she gave Detective Evans her attention. "The Oz case?" she repeated with a frown. "I thought OC was taking care of the fallout for that."

The grizzled detective nodded. "They are, but they need some help on the local level. Oz hasn't given up much; whoever he works for has him pissing his pants in fear. Until we get some better leverage on him, OC has to go another route. Oz did mention a possible gang connection, and OC thinks they can find an in to the drug cartel through a blade-man for the Latin Kings."

"The Latin Kings? They've been dealing for years, but it's always been a fairly unsophisticated, local product. What makes OC think they made a jump to the big leagues?"

Evans shrugged. "I don't know, but you got dibs on the case since you were part of the op that took in Oz. You want in or not?"

Her eyes brightened with the thrill of the chase, but she glanced down at the case she was already working. Technically, the murder wasn't hers, but she couldn't help but be intrigued by the homicide aspect.

Evans followed her gaze.

"You'll have time to work other cases on the side," he reassured her. "You're operating more as a liaison and consultant than anything."

She nodded in response. "Okay. I'm in."

"Good. I'll let them know. You might need to take a trip down to the 54th to meet up with Detective Esposito and the rest of the guys on the task force."

"Got it. Thanks, Evans."

"No problem kid. We gotta run you ragged before you transfer out, after all."

She laughed. "Of course."

Their conversation was interrupted when Captain Roy Montgomery, head of the 12th Precinct, walked up to them.

From what she knew of him and the few interactions she'd had with him in the past, Montgomery was exactly the kind of captain one would want running the ship. He was smart, insightful, with decades of on-the-street experience which allowed him to commiserate with his underlings, unlike many of the other captains who'd taken the administrative route to captaincy. He was firm and unyielding when it came to upholding the law, but he understood that rules in and of themselves were not the end-all. He had enough respect for his detectives to expect them to know the difference. On top of it all, he was known for his sly sense of humor.

Be that as it may, it was a rare occurrence to see him up here in Vice. He'd spent his detective years investigating homicides, so he usually chose one of their cases to follow whenever he had an urge to relive the good ole days. His office was located on the same floor as Homicide, so that probably factored in as well.

"Captain," greeted both detectives.

Montgomery nodded in acknowledgement. "How are things going down here, Evans?"

"Eh, not bad. OC at the 54th wants Beckett's help on some things."

Montgomery shook his head wryly. "Always trying to steal my people, the 54th."

They all shared a laugh and then Montgomery turned to Kate.

"Beckett, can I have a word?"

"Of course, sir." Her brows furrowed a little in confusion. She'd spoken with Captain Montgomery before in the past—including one time when he'd found her in the records room poring over the case files for her mother's murder back when she was still a uniform—but since she was under Evans' charge, she rarely reported directly to him.

"Let's move to my office."

Okay, this was strange. When did the captain ever come to down to Vice in person to tell a detective to meet in his office? He could have just as easily called for her on extension.

"Yes, sir."

When they entered the elevator together, Montgomery cleared his throat, and she was surprised to see that he was…amused?

"It seems that you have a fan," he stated rather abruptly.

"What?"

"Rick Castle."

This time her "What?" was low and more a demand than a question.

"Apparently he wants the focus of his next book to be on the NYPD instead of the CIA. But he needs to do research."

"What?" This was a squeak as a pit of unease began to form in her stomach.

Montgomery continued nonchalantly. "He requested to shadow a detective for a couple of weeks to get a better understanding of the correct procedures and all that."

"What?" She was beginning to feel like a broken record, so she switched it up by saying, "No. Oh, no. Just—no."

"Oh yes. Richard Castle has requested to shadow you."

"You can't possibly think this is a good idea," she said incredulously. Then she hurriedly added, "Sir."

Montgomery shrugged, and this time Kate definitely detected humor in the gentle lines of his face. "The mayor thinks it's a good idea. Good publicity and all that. And you know how it works. If the mayor's happy, then the commissioner is happy. And if the commissioner's happy, I'm happy."

Kate's mouth did an excellent impression of a fish, and it was only when the cheerful ding of the elevator sounded as it arrived on the fourth floor where Homicide was located that she snapped out of it.

Her eyes narrowed into a vicious glare when the elevator doors opened to reveal Richard Castle jauntily waving at her from the bullpen.

She was going to kill him.