Disclaimer: These beautiful characters (except for Petturi, Thurgood, and Troy) are not mine unless Marlowe and ABC someday just hand over the rights to me for some reason

Author's Note: I'm thinking this story will probably be 3 or 4 more chapters and they will probably be longer ones than the others have been. Thanks for reading this far I hope you continue until the end! Also, please review because this is my first Castle multi-chapter and I want to know what you all think of it.

Castle led the group to Kate's computer and by habit took his spot at the chair that was at the end of the desk. He received strange looks from Ryan, Esposito, and Gates which made him get up and then sit at Kate's chair right in front of the computer instead. It was strange for him to sit in her chair; the one she often accused him of changing the height of it to make her legs dangle off. They all crowded around the computer while they tried to be as inconspicuous as possible so as to not alert anyone else in the precinct to what they were doing.

"Wonder what it is now," Esposito muttered as they waited for something to show up on the screen.

His musing was answered immediately when a pop-up took over the screen. Despite the words preceding the picture on the page, all four pairs of eyes jumped straight to the photo. The photo of Kate with a sunken and broken look on her face.

A single tear escaped from Castle's eye as he analyzed the face of the woman he had fallen in love with over the past four years. This couldn't be Kate. She was tough. She'd gone through almost freezing to death, escaping her apartment exploding, even getting shot. There was no way she would be giving up in this situation. But then, in those situations she hadn't been alone. Castle was always there. This time it was different because they couldn't communicate. They were cut off from each other.

Gates and Ryan both had sad expressions while Esposito reacted violently to the picture of the beaten Kate, a person he practically he considered his sister. His fist sailed towards the desk and hit it with a loud 'thud' with such force that it knocked over several of the elephants on the desk.

At that moment, Petturi arrived.

"What's-" he started as he approached the desk and stopped when he was close enough to see the computer screen. "Is that the detective?"

Gates looked at him with some shock as she had not expected him to be back. When the government had come and taken the case from the 12th she assumed they also would have had Petturi taken off of the case as well. Not wanting to waste time questioning this, Gates replied, "Yes. They just sent us this picture."

"What does it say above the photo?" he asked. Since he wasn't as emotionally attached to the case as the rest of the people gathered around the desk, he was able to have a clearer mind and focus on the task at hand.

Castle glared at him, angry at his ability to remain calm while that picture of Kate was still on the screen, and began to open his mouth to protest about this before the words Petturi said registered. He had completely skipped over the words at the top.

"It says: 'We're not afraid to hurt her. You have half an hour. Be careful of your surroundings,'" Castle read quietly but loud enough for those around the desk to hear.

The last part stuck out to Ryan who repeated, "Be careful of your surroundings? What does that mean?"

Gates surveyed the precinct and said, "I think he's hinting that they have a mole in here watching our every move to make sure we're doing what they want."

"But why would we do that?" Petturi asked. "We're going to give them the information aren't we? We don't want to risk the Detective's life."

Esposito gave a curious glance in Petturi's direction at his sudden expression of concern for Kate's health.

"I just mean that we will give them what they want, then we can get Detective Beckett and she can tell us who they are so we can locate them before they do anything with the information," Petturi explained. "I assume you already have the contact list they requested?" he probed.

"Of course we do we've had it for a while now," Ryan responded quickly with a tinge of annoyance that Petturi would think they didn't have it yet.

"So why don't we just give it to them and this whole thing will be over with?" Petturi asked facing towards Gates who was the next highest authority figure.

"I'd rather we didn't risk them getting away with this information. We need to try and find where she's being held so we can try to get there before the deadline," said Gates with certainty in her decision. Seeing Petturi's confused face, she said, "You weren't here but we got a phone call from them and Beckett was able to give us one street name and part of another as an intersection she's near."

"I see…" Petturi said and his voice trailed off. He thought for a moment while Gates, Ryan, Esposito, and Castle looked on and then he said, "If that's what you want to do and you think that we can do it in the time period we have left than we can try."

Gaining confidence, Castle said, "Of course we can do it. We're detectives."

The last sentence got Castle a few dirty looks and he corrected himself, "Well some of us are anyways. The rest of us are famous novelists who help detectives."

Ryan walked over to his computer and began searching for streets that intersected with Madison and a street that started with a 'J' sound. Or was it a 'G'? He'd try both. Esposito rolled over to Ryan's desk in his chair and looked at the maps with Ryan to make sure he didn't miss anything.

After a couple of minutes of Petturi, Gates, and Castle talking about strategies they could use to enter wherever Kate was being held, Ryan and Esposito walked back over to Kate's desk and put down a pad of paper with a few street names written on it in down on the desk in front of Castle.

"We found a few possibilities: Grand Street, Jackson Street, Gouverneur Street, and Jefferson Street," Ryan informed them.

"Since we don't know whether the second street was a 'J' or a 'G' we were cautious and just looked at possibilities for either," Esposito explained to Petturi who hadn't heard the conversation with Kate on the phone earlier.

Castle glanced at the list before he pulled up a map of New York and started thinking aloud to try and narrow down potential locations. "Grand Street is a pretty major road I don't think they would take her there with so much traffic going by it would be risky," he commented out loud. Then he looked at Gates waiting to hear what she thought about this.

"I agree with Castle I don't think these guys are the type that would hide in plain sight," Gates said in approval of Castle's thinking.

Ryan and Esposito also agreed, nodding their heads to show this. Petturi didn't say anything in response.

"Jackson looks like it's probably our best bet," Ryan said as he pointed it out on the map. "There are a few abandoned houses there and it looks like it's pretty secluded."

Petturi spoke up and said, "What about Jefferson? Couldn't that also be a possibility also?"

"I doubt it," Esposito replied. "The only things on Jefferson are public buildings like the World Buddhist Center and The Educational Alliance," he said as he showed them those places.

"Then what about Gouverneur?" Petturi offered up.

"There's a middle school near there so that most likely isn't the right place either," Ryan said.

"That leaves us with Jackson," Castle said with finality as he stood up from his chair ready to move.

"Shouldn't we inform the Guardians?" Petturi said hesitantly.

So he did know they were involved. Strange that they had kept him along. "We've decided against that. We're taking this into our own hands," Gates said cautiously knowing they needed Petturi to also think this was for the best so he didn't tell the Guardians what was going on.

"I see," Petturi said thoughtfully. "Alright but we must bring the information they want just in case they demand that we trade it for Detective Beckett. That way we can give it to them and assure her safety while allowing them to think they can escape and once they give her to us we can take them down."

Ryan, Esposito, Gates, and Castle all nodded in agreement.

"Let's go," Castle said knowing they could not waste any time. They had slightly over 20 minutes before their deadline was up. It was a good thing Madison and Jackson was only about 5 minutes away because that would give them time to canvas the area and have some time for strategizing before they went to Kate's rescue.

They all went to Ryan's police cruiser before realizing there were five people that needed to fit into the car. Gates simply put her hand out towards Ryan and he gave her the keys. It ended up being Gates driving with Petturi in the passenger seat and Ryan, Castle, and Esposito being squished together in the back seat.

"This is some quality bonding time," Castle said to Ryan and Esposito when they got on either side of him trying to lighten the mood a little bit. They both gave him annoyed looks but they did slightly smile.

Everyone was completely silent for the five minute drive that felt more like a five hour one as they were all lost in thought. They didn't know what they would find at their destination. When they got to the street, they drove slowly down Jackson and looked at buildings that would fit a kidnapper's requirements. They found what they were looking for when they saw a house that looked as if it had been abandoned for decades. The windows were boarded up and the grass was wild, clearly not having been maintained for quite a while. Gates parked the car several houses down; far enough that the kidnappers wouldn't see it and be alerted to their presence but close enough that they could reach it in time if they had to escape on the run.

When the car was shut off, everyone sat in silence for a few brief moments before Castle said, "Alright this is it. Let's go."

"Right," he heard Ryan and Esposito say on both sides of him before they got out of the car followed by Castle.

They all got out their police vests and handed Petturi an extra one that said "Police" on it while Castle took out his "Writer" vest. Castle took a moment to think how poetic it was that the writer was off to save the muse. Esposito handed Castle and Petturi each a gun so they could defend themselves.

They walked in a group down the sidewalk towards the building they had targeted but when they got to the house next door to it, Ryan felt the barrel of a gun being pressed against his back and gasped in shock. This made everyone turn around to see what was going on. Their faces displayed shock as Petturi said, "Give me the contact list or he dies."

End Author's Note: Mwahaha this ending makes me feel evil. This is probably what Marlowe feels like when he does something like this to us. By the way, Petturi's name means "traitor" in Finnish but I doubt anyone would ever notice something like that which is why I did it. Just a little detail that I wanted to add in there for funsies.