Disclaimer:- I do not own Castle or PJO. T_T

Chapter 14

Castle's POV

"So, Mr King," Beckett began as she sat, setting the folder of evidence in front of her. I sat beside her, watching Alabaster fidgeting on the other side of the desk. Beckett had on her tough detective voice, her 'don't take advantage of me because I'm a woman' voice. I guess that was because Alabaster had been eying her since she'd opened the door.

"We understand that you have access to apartment 26B in the Jonathan Laden Apartment Complex just next door," she continued.

"Yeah, well it really belongs to my aunt so take her up on whatever's wrong with it. She makes all the payments on it," he replied sulkily.

"But she doesn't have access to it," I pointed out.

"And someone was there yesterday and from the window of your apartment shot two people with a tranquilizer gun," Beckett said suggestively.

"No, no way, that wasn't me," he said frantically. "I haven't been near the place for months! You can ask the doorman!" I knew Espo wasn't going to like that.

"Ok Alabaster, so where were you three hours ago?" Beckett asked about the time of the shooting.

"I was at an AA meeting. My buddy Carlton dragged me there. I wasn't in the apartment, I swear!"

"What if he didn't sniper the guys?" I whispered hurriedly to Beckett.

"Maybe he had a partner..." Beckett countered, eyes shining.

"What about Tuesday morning, about 7:45, where were you then?" I asked, turning back to Alabaster.

He looked disgustedly at me. "You crazy? I was asleep!"

"Still?!" Beckett exclaimed like it was impossible. Poor woman, probably never slept late a day in her life.

"Hey, I was drunk," King defended himself. "Any decent person should never be up before 10 in my eyes, so I never was. You can ask my man, Dustin. I had to crash at his house cuz I was too drunk to drive home. Heck, I was too drunk to call a cab."

Beckett closed the folder and stood, clearly not making her disappointment noticeable by Alabaster. "Thank you Mr King, we'll keep in touch."

I followed her out of the room and met Espo and Ryan coming out of the observation room.

"I don't see why we have to talk to the stupid doorman again," Javi complained.

"Well just make sure you check both alibis, I don't care how you do it," Beckett replied, heading to her desk.

Ryan and Epos sighed resolutely and began a game of rock paper scissors. Rock and scissors; Espo smirked.

"Best two of three?" Ryan asked desperately.

"No way man, that's all you. I'll even double up and check the AA meeting and this mysterious friend."

Espo hung up the phone and rolled in his chair across the room to where Beckett and I sat staring at the murder board.

"So our boy alibied out twice." Javi sighed, perching on Beckett's desk. "There was an AA meeting that day that started at 9:00 am and ended around 11:00 so he can't have been the one in the apartment. And I talked to the friend, he distinctly remembers Alabaster crashing at his place: it still reeks of vomit."

"Ugh," I said. "So maybe he just made his apartment available for this partners use and had nothing to do with Michael or the sniper attack?"

"Sure looks that way," Ryan confirmed walking up to join us at the murder board. "The doorman doesn't remember seeing Mr. Alabaster King since the Aunt Irene Shapero first introduced them when she was moving to Vietnam last year."

"So another dead end," Beckett mused, removing Alabaster's picture form the suspects list.

"We still hold him for assault, right?" Javi grumbled.

Beckett smiled one of her rare real smiles that take my breath away every time. "I guess Javi, but not long cuz I highly doubt he has anything new to tell us. Are we still waiting on information from the stores that sell the tranquilizer guns?" she added.

"Yep," Ryan said. "As soon as we get anything we'll go canvass."

I managed to stop staring at her just before she turned around.

"Hey guys," she called to the teens on the couch. "Find anything?"

"I just found the time when Annabeth and I had to get that kid Louis out of the sub car with one of Geryon's flesh eating horses in it." Percy showed a small stack to his cousins. "It got away from Hermes earlier that day," he further explained.

"What'd they file it as?" Annabeth asked.

"A stray carriage horse and a pipe bust." He grinned mischievously at them; none of them saw Beckett until she cleared her throat behind them. The demi-gods jumped.

"As interesting as it is to hear your account on the godly things that have happened," Beckett started, "we'd like to finish this case today. So would be so kind as to tell us what you've found."

"N-nothing..." Percy stammered up at her. He glanced at me, wide-eyed, as if to ask 'Is she usually like this?'

'Oh yeah,' I mouth back, nodding as Beckett headed to her desk.

"Wait!" Nico yelled after her, "floating baby on 21st, about 3 weeks ago..."

"What time is it!?" Annabeth yelled suddenly.

"5:30..." I said, glancing at my watch, "Wh-?"

"Crap!" she yelled again, jumping up, the whole Precinct watching they now. "Percy, the twins!"

"Sh*t!" Percy mimicked his girlfriend's movements, "Mom and Paul are gonna kill us."

"You telling me you two have children?!" Hastings voice floated across the room as Percy and Annabeth raced around, grabbing their stuff. They both froze, turning bright pink at the thought.

"Are your parents babysitting your kids?" another officer asked.

"No, my parents are babysitting their own kids..." Percy frowned.

"And they were supposed to go to dinner 15 minutes ago!" Annabeth started moving again, pulling Percy towards the elevator.

"What about the papers!?" Nico and Thalia called together.

"We'll come back for them later!" Percy called back just as the elevator closed.

"Yeah, they're not coming back are they...?" Nico muttered, plopping back down on the couch beside Thalia.

I'm back! Freedom from EXAMS! 😄
Hopefully I'll post more before they start, but no promises.

-S