You are my hiding place;
you will protect me from trouble
and surround me with songs of deliverance.
-Psalm 32 (New International Version)
"Kate! Kate, are you okay? Talk to me!"
The panic in Castle's voice brought her back to reality. She blinked her eyes open to find him hovering over her, his whole face tight with alarm.
Adrenaline still surging through her system, she sat bolt upright, then groaned as the fast movement sent pain stabbing through her skull. Castle grabbed her upper arms, steadying her.
"Whoa. Easy there, sweetheart. Hold still."
"What the hell was that?" she mumbled, seeing relief flood across Castle's features at the sound of her voice.
Greg came rushing up behind Castle, flushed and disheveled. "They got away. Damn it! Is Kate okay?"
"Are you okay?" Kate asked, looking up at Greg. A smear of blood was glistening on his forehead. "You're bleeding."
"Oh." Greg put his fingers to the spot, looked at the redness on his fingertips. "I must have touched it with this." He held up his other hand, the palm scraped and raw. "I fell on it. It's just a scratch. It's fine."
"Ma'am, are you all right?" asked a new voice. A uniformed police officer was approaching, and Kate became aware that a small crowd had gathered, pointing and murmuring.
"I'm okay," she said. Tilting her head up to look at the cop made her shoulder and head twinge with pain, and she grimaced. "I just need a minute."
"What happened here?" said a second voice. "Oh. Mr. Castle, isn't it? And Ms. Beckett." The voice sounded familiar, but Kate couldn't place it.
"Detective Gates," Castle said, sitting back on his heels and taking one hand from Kate's arm to shake the other woman's hand. "Long time no see."
"What's she doing here?" Kate wondered aloud. "This isn't a homicide."
"Attempted homicide," Greg said, scowling thunderously. "They drove straight at us."
"I was just consulting with Officer Tolliver on a case when the call came in," Gates explained. "Care to tell us what happened?"
"Castle, help me stand up," Kate requested. She felt self-conscious sitting on the sidewalk with everyone looking at her.
"Are you sure?" he asked anxiously. "You hit your head. You should sit still."
Kate mustered enough wits to give him her narrow-eyed glare, and he caved immediately, of course. "Okay, okay." He got to his feet, and then reached down to help her up. Kate swayed briefly once she was upright, but she clung to Castle's solid arm around her and steadied herself.
Greg was talking to Detective Gates, agitated, gesturing with his uninjured hand. Gates simply listened and nodded.
"Came out of nowhere," Kate heard Greg say. "It was driving straight at us, I'm telling you."
"Did you get a look at the driver?" Gates asked. Greg frowned and shook his head.
"It happened so fast. I think he had his head covered."
"You're sure it was a man?"
"Um..." Greg paused, looking surprised. "I don't know. Castle?"
"I didn't see. Sorry," Castle said. "Like he said, it all happened so fast."
The loud bloop of a siren filled the air as an ambulance pulled up next to them. Kate winced as its lights flashed across her vision. The fuzziness had faded and she felt clear-headed, but the pain lingered. She put up a hand to the back of her head, and flinched again when her fingers found a tender spot.
"Did you see anything, Ms. Beckett?" Gates asked. "The driver?"
"No." Kate frowned, trying to remember. "I think they had their head covered, like Greg said."
"I remember part of the license plate, though," Castle put in. "I think the last two digits were 47."
"Hmm." Gates made a note in her little notebook. "Not much to go on."
Officer Tolliver came back to them, holding his own notebook. "Detective, those cabbies say the car took the corner too fast and seemed to lose control. They don't think it was deliberate."
"What?" Greg demanded. "Of course it was deliberate. It came right at us."
"Stay calm, please, sir," Gates told him firmly. "We're just trying to get all of the facts."
Kate gripped Castle's arm tightly, her pulse racing. Was Greg right? Had someone just tried to kill them?
Castle insisted that the paramedics check Beckett out, although she swore that she was fine. While one paramedic was cleaning and bandaging Greg's scraped hand, the other one examined Kate's shoulder and head, looked into her eyes, and asked her a series of questions.
"The shoulder's just bruised, and no concussion," he said at last. "Here." He took out an ice pack and pressed it to the back of Kate's head, guiding her hand up so that she could hold it in place herself.
"Thanks," she said.
"Are you sure we shouldn't go to the hospital?" Castle fretted. The paramedic turned to him, shaking his head.
"I don't think it's necessary, sir. The ice and some Tylenol or Advil should take care of it. But keep your eye on her for the next day or two. Any signs of confusion, slurred speech, loss of coordination, anything like that, take her to the ER."
"Okay." He looked at Kate with concern, but she didn't seem confused, and her speech had been normal since she came to. "Okay."
Detective Gates came over to them as they exited the ambulance. "Everything all right over here?"
"I'm fine," Kate said firmly. "I just want to go home." She had swallowed the painkillers that the paramedic gave her, and was still holding the ice pack to her head.
"Of course," Gates nodded. "Well, we can check surveillance cameras in the area." She gestured around them; the crowd of onlookers had dispersed, but the theater district was still well-populated on a Tuesday night. "All these witnesses and it seems like no one saw anything useful, except that it was a silver sedan, probably a Toyota. One of the cab drivers did confirm that the person in the car had a hoodie covering their head, and dark sunglasses."
"But the cabbies think it was an accident?" Castle asked.
Gates shrugged. "That's what they seemed to say, but who knows? Your friend Mr. Garland is very much convinced that it was a deliberate attack." She fixed them both with her steely glare. "Now, why would someone want to harm you two?"
Castle wondered whether that was sarcasm. It was hard to tell with the acerbic cop. He knew that Gates hadn't been too thrilled with them investigating the murder case that she was assigned to last year - and not just investigating, but solving it before she did - but she had been professional about it, of course.
"What did Greg say?" Kate asked, evading the question.
"Just that the two of you had been looking into a personal matter for him," Gates replied, with a twist of her lips that showed she knew there was more to it than that. "But he insisted that it wasn't anything I should concern myself with."
"Well, he's right about that," Castle put in quickly. It might be skirting the edges of the truth, but it was true. Gates was a homicide detective, and this wasn't a homicide case. "Listen, Detective, the details are kind of private, but it's possible that we made someone angry."
"But angry enough to try to kill us?" Kate asked in a quiet voice. She shifted on her feet, adjusting the ice pack that she was still holding against the back of her head. "I don't know, Castle. Maybe the cabbies are right, and it was just a random accident."
Gates looked speculatively between them, and then shrugged. "Well, in any case, it's not my jurisdiction. Tolliver will bring his captain up to speed, and they'll decide how to proceed. They'll get in touch with you tomorrow."
"Thank you, Detective," Kate said.
"Yes, thanks."
Castle put his arm around Kate as Gates walked off. Greg approached them, his hand bandaged, his expression still dark and gloomy.
"I'm so sorry, guys," he began, but Kate waved him off.
"Greg, it's not your fault," she said. "Listen, let's all just get some rest, okay? We'll talk in the morning."
"Yeah. Of course," Greg agreed. "Good night, then."
"Good night."
"Night, Greg," Castle echoed. He had already called for a town car, and it was waiting for them at the curb. Kate allowed him to help her into the car, and as they pulled into traffic, Castle leaned back against the seat, his eyes glued to Kate's face.
"What?" she asked, tilting her head at him curiously.
"You pulled me out of the way of the car," he breathed, his chest filling with awe as he spoke the words. "You saved my life, Beckett."
"Don't be so dramatic," she huffed, though a tint of pink was coloring her cheeks. "It probably wouldn't have killed you."
"Okay, you saved me from possible dismemberment and disfigurement, then." He slid closer to her, taking her hand again. "Kate."
"What would I tell Martha and Alexis if I let anything happen to you?" she said, trying for levity, but he heard how her voice trembled.
"I'm fine," he said. "You're the one who got hurt trying to protect me." His heart skipped a beat at the memory of falling, unable to stop himself from landing on top of Kate.
He pushed the mental image aside and bent down to kiss Kate, sealing his mouth over hers with a sudden urgency. She let out a soft whimper and pressed into him, returning the kiss with equal fervor.
But when Kate tried to lift her hand to his neck, she flinched, her lips parting from his as she couldn't hold back a short gasp of pain. The movement must have jarred her injured shoulder.
"Oh god, I'm sorry," he said quickly. But she shook her head, her eyes fierce on his.
"Don't be," she said firmly. She picked up the ice pack, which had fallen into her lap, and moved it onto her shoulder. Castle lifted his own hand and held the ice pack in place. With his other hand he brushed a stray piece of hair back from Kate's forehead.
"I love you," he whispered.
Kate's other hand came up, gripping the back of his neck. She pulled his head down demandingly.
"I love you too," she husked, just before she claimed his mouth again.
It was hard not to give in to temptation and pour all of the passion of the moment into his kiss, but he wouldn't risk hurting Kate further. So he tried to keep it restrained, despite what Kate clearly wanted; he was grateful that they arrived at his loft quickly.
Inside, the loft was dark and quiet. Martha and Alexis must have already gone to bed. Kate went to the kitchen and put the ice pack in the freezer, then followed Castle to his bedroom.
She was unbuttoning her shirt as they went, and once they were in the bedroom, he turned to her. "Are you-"
"Castle," she interrupted, shooting him a glare. "If you ask me if I'm okay one more time, I swear."
"Okay, okay," he said, putting up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I won't." But he did step closer and help her ease the shirt down her arms. The bruise on her shoulder was large, but it didn't look too bad. Castle lowered his head to brush his lips over it, and felt Kate shiver against him.
"Come here," she rasped, her fingers curling around his ear and bringing his mouth to hers again. She tugged him toward the bed as they kissed.
"You know," he panted, gripping her hips with both hands, "I've always wondered whether life-affirming, we-almost-died sex is really as good as they make it look in the movies."
"Let's find out," Kate answered breathlessly, and she pulled him down onto the bed.
Kate woke with a strangled shout in the middle of the night, her heart pounding. The sheets were tangled around her body, damp with sweat, and she was alone in the bed.
"Kate?"
Castle appeared in the doorway, rumpled and blinking. Behind him, in his study, she could see the soft glow of his computer and the various lights on his electronic keyboard. He must have been composing again.
"I'm..." Her voice was hoarse, her breath coming fast, scraping down the length of her dry throat. "I'm okay. It was just a dream."
"Here." He padded across the bedroom to the nightstand on her side of the bed. A glass of water sat there, alongside two Tylenol capsules. Castle picked up the glass and handed it to her.
"Thanks." She sipped, feeling the cool water soothe her throat. Castle gave her the pills and she swallowed them too, washing them down with more water.
"Bad dream?" he murmured, his fingertips lightly caressing her sweaty forehead. She sighed and nodded.
"I guess so. I don't really remember." It was mostly true. She had only vague images of the car barreling down on them, Castle falling and being crushed under its wheels while she strained and struggled to reach him.
He took the empty glass from her and went into the bathroom, returning in a moment with the glass refilled. He put it back on the nightstand and sat down on the bed beside her. "Go back to sleep, sweetheart. Everything's okay."
Her eyelids felt heavy, the pillow calling out to her. But she wrapped her fingers around his forearm. "Lie with me?" she mumbled sleepily. "Or do you need to write some more?"
"It can wait," he answered, and he slid under the covers with her, letting her settle herself against him, secure in the warm curve of his arms.
Castle was up early the next morning, leaving Kate sleeping while he quickly showered and pulled on shorts and a t-shirt. It was unusual for him to be awake before her, but he figured she needed the extra rest after her injuries and the emotional shocks of yesterday.
He bustled out to the kitchen, started the coffee brewing, and set about mixing pancake batter. Moments later, Alexis came down the stairs, fresh-faced and smartly dressed, with her new backpack over one shoulder.
"Morning, Dad!"
"Good morning, pumpkin. Happy first day of school."
"Thanks." She perched on a stool in front of the kitchen island. "Can I have chocolate chips in my pancakes?"
"Of course."
Alexis was just finishing her pancakes, and Castle his second cup of coffee, when Kate emerged from the bedroom. Her hair was damp from showering and she was fully dressed. "First-day-of-school pancakes?"
"Yep," he agreed. "Want some?"
"Sure."
He studied Kate surreptitiously as she came over to pour herself a cup of coffee. Her eyes looked clear, her expression calm. The pinched look of pain and anxiety that she'd worn when her dream woke her up was gone.
"How's your head and shoulder?" he asked quietly as he bent to kiss her cheek.
"Much better," she answered calmly. "I took some more Advil just in case, but it hardly hurts at all."
"Good."
He cooked up another batch of pancakes for Kate and himself, and just as he was flipping them onto the plate, Alexis put down her glass of orange juice and stood up.
"Well, time for me to get going," she announced, retrieving her backpack from the floor.
"Have a great day," Castle said. He turned off the burner and came around the island to give his daughter a hug. "I want to hear all about it later."
"Oh, you will," Alexis replied with a grin. She hugged him back, and then turned to give Kate a quick hug as well. "Bye!"
After Alexis had left, Castle and Beckett settled in with their breakfasts.
"We've got to crack this case," Kate said after a few bites. Her forehead was creased with worry. "It's getting too messy. We need to wrap it up and put it behind us."
"Mm," he hummed in agreement. "I don't have much time today. There's a matinee and an evening show."
"I know, but we at least have the morning. We need to go back to Juilliard and talk to the professors again." Kate looked at him with determination shining in her eyes. "I know I said we shouldn't just walk in there and ask them if they've gotten blackmail letters, but maybe the direct approach is the way to go. It would get results."
Castle nodded slowly. "Do you really think the car yesterday was just a random accident?" he asked with a bit of hesitation. "It seems like a hell of a coincidence."
Kate chewed her food for a few moments, thinking it over. "I don't know," she admitted at last. "But if it was a deliberate attack, that just makes it all the more important to solve this quickly. If the blackmailer is turning to violence, that means we must be on to something."
"It would have to mean that they know we've been asking around," Castle agreed.
The chirping of his phone's ringtone cut off whatever else he might have said. Pulling it from his pocket, he saw Greg's name on the screen and quickly swiped to answer the call.
"Hi, Greg."
"Rick, good morning. How are you two? Is Kate's head okay?"
"She's fine. I'm putting you on speaker." He pressed the button and put the phone on the countertop between them.
"Hi, Greg," Kate said, sipping her coffee. "What's up?"
"Oh, hi, Kate. Listen, I just wanted to make sure you were both okay after, uh, you know, last night."
"We're fine," Kate said firmly. "Greg, you were about to say something right before the car came at us."
"Right! Yes. Uh, nothing major really. I was just going to say that I might know of a few students, I mean singers who were students at the time that the drug selling was going on. I could call them, find out what they know."
Kate pursed her lips skeptically. "Well, it couldn't hurt, but actually I think we should focus on the professors - the ones on your list." She took the list out of her pocket, the piece of paper now rumpled and smudged from all of its travels, but still legible. "Martinez, Georgi, Templeton, and Ortega."
"And Montgomery," Greg added, "but I guess we can cross him off, since you know him so well, of course, Kate."
Castle lifted his eyebrows. Of course, Greg didn't know that Roy Montgomery had received the same blackmail letters that he had. He looked at Kate, who shook her head at him, cautioning. He wasn't sure why she still didn't want Greg to know, but he shrugged and let her take the lead.
"Roy isn't the one sending the letters," she said in a tone that brooked no argument. "I really think it's one of those four, Greg. Let's take them one by one."
"Martinez," Castle said, "he was the one who told us about the drugs. He said that he participated but only for a short time."
"If he told you about it, doesn't that mean he isn't the blackmailer?" Greg asked.
"Maybe," Kate temporized. "But he could have been trying to throw us off."
"Georgi," Castle continued. "She was abrupt with Kate, maybe out of fear, or guilt. Templeton was friendly but had nothing useful to say. Ortega seemed very nervous, didn't want to talk to us."
"Lied to us," Kate corrected. "She said she didn't know anything about illegal activities at the school, but if Forrester really asked everyone, then she must have known. Though it's possible that she didn't mention it because it was so long ago and she thought we were talking about something more recent."
"So, inconclusive," Castle said. "We don't have anything to rule anyone out."
"I... I really don't know what to tell you guys," Greg said. "Knowing them all, it's just hard for me to imagine that this is any of them."
"Well," said Kate, "I think we have to assume that each of them got the letters, except for the one who sent them. So we'll start there."
"Please be careful," Greg urged, his voice low. "I can't - I mean, if you two get hurt again, it's all on me. That's not what I was asking you to sign up for when I brought this to you."
"Don't worry about us," Kate said. "Whatever we decide to do, we accept the risks. Why don't you call those other students you thought of, and we'll check in again later."
"Okay. Thank you," Greg said, and they ended the call.
"You don't really think he'll get anything useful from those former students," Castle said as they began clearing away the breakfast dishes. "You were just giving him busy-work to keep him away from the case."
"Yes," Kate said unrepentantly. "He's too volatile. I don't want him blundering around with the other professors, making a mess of things."
"Plus, we can't have him solving this thing before we do," Castle grinned. Kate rolled her eyes, but she didn't deny it.
"Let's get going," was all she said.
Castle's cell phone rang as they were walking from the subway station to the Juilliard building. "Castle," he said into it. "Oh, good morning, Officer Tolliver."
Kate listened to him mm-hmming and okaying for a couple of minutes as they ambled along the sidewalk. "No, that's fine. Thank you for letting me know," he said at last, and ended the call.
"They're not going to investigate it, are they?" Kate said. Castle grimaced and shook his head.
"He said they looked at some surveillance footage and it's impossible to tell whether the car came at us on purpose or just lost control briefly. The camera was at the wrong angle to see the license plate or the driver, and there must be thousands of silver Toyota sedans in the city, so there isn't much to go on."
"So, we're on our own," Kate concluded. That didn't bother her. She still wasn't convinced that the car incident had been a deliberate attack, but even if it was, bringing the police in would only complicate things. And she was convinced that they were going to break the case open by talking to the four professors again.
They entered the building and followed the same path they had walked on Monday. The atmosphere in the hallways was less frantic than it had been; everyone was beginning to settle down into the rhythm of the semester. There were only a handful of students at the administration desk waiting to have their questions dealt with.
As Kate and Rick passed by the administration area, he paused, touching her arm to stop her. "Hang on," he said. "Aren't those the mailboxes?"
"Castle!" she exclaimed as he skirted around the admin desk and into the tiny supply room behind it. "What are you doing?"
"I'm just - Ah!" he exclaimed. He had found the cubbyholes that served as mailboxes for the faculty, and the one labeled MONTGOMERY contained a small pile of envelopes and magazines. Castle pulled the entire stack of mail out of the compartment and began to look through it.
"Castle, you can't do that," Kate hissed. He looked up at her in surprise.
"Oh. You're right." He thrust the pile of mail into her arms. "Here. You do it."
"What?"
"You're Roy's star pupil," Castle explained. "It would be perfectly reasonable for you to come and get his mail while he's on medical leave."
"Oh." Kate blinked. That actually did make sense. She felt uncomfortable going through someone else's mail, but Castle was right; no one would question it.
She sorted quickly through the stack, pushing the magazines back into the cubby. Near the bottom of the pile she found what they were looking for: a plain white envelope, almost identical to the two that Greg had received, except that this had Roy's name written on it.
"Ha! I win," Castle exclaimed triumphantly, snatching the envelope from her. Before Kate could muster a protest, he had opened it and taken out the letter.
I HOPE YOU CAN AFFORD WHAT IT'S GOING TO COST.
DON'T GO TO THE POLICE. YOU WILL REGRET IT.
"It's the same as Greg's second letter," Kate murmured, staring at the stark black words.
"Yeah."
Kate knew that this didn't tell them anything new; they could have assumed that Roy had gotten the second letter as well as the first. But it was one thing to know that, and another thing to see the harsh words in black and white.
Castle was hunting quickly through the other mail compartments, rifling through their contents one by one, but in another moment he stepped back with a disappointed sigh. "Nothing. The rest of them must have picked up their mail already."
"Let's go see who's here to talk to us," Kate said. She put Roy's pile of mail back into his cubby, except for the blackmail letter. She stuffed that back into its envelope and put it in her purse.
The hallway that contained the faculty offices was quiet; some of the doors were open, some closed. They bypassed Professor Li, who hadn't been on staff at the time of the drug ring. Professors Templeton and Georgi were not in their offices. But Professor Ortega was in hers, and she looked up at them with a grim expression when they knocked.
"You can come in," she said in a tone of resignation. "I'm ready to confess."