Love's Gift
Chapter 14
Just as Castle and Kate arrive in the Hamptons, texts flash from the screens of their cell phones. Roderick Murphy is back at the FBI and Jordan, Avery and their team are watching his every move, recording every call, capturing every email and preserving every scrap of paper the mole touches. So far there has been no evidence of contact with Bracken. Jordan will be arriving at the beach house as fast as she can get there without attracting undue attention.
Castle glances at his watch. In the best case, Jordan's drive will take 90 minutes. In heavy traffic, it will be closer to three hours. He and Kate can fill the time by organizing all the documentation she's found on Murphy's suspected black-widowerhood. Castle will also return to his investigation of the members of the Pen and Saber Society who might be involved with Bracken or Murphy.
He can also check on what provisions Greta, the part-time housekeeper, has stocked in the refrigerator. The hearty woman usually assumes that an army or other ravenous horde will be arriving and lays in supplies accordingly. He's hoping that whatever is there will be more than enough to nourish a mother-to-be and her precious passenger. He could use a little comfort food himself.
Greta came through with piles of sliced roast beef, and an assortment of side dishes including the mustardy potato salad that Castle expects will appeal to Kate. She usually has an appetite for the hot and spicy - even more so since she's been pregnant.
Castle focuses his research on Corey Blackwell, a member of the Society who's risen to CEO of a generic pharmaceutical company. Most of the drugs are made overseas. Shipments would form a perfect cover for importing illegal ones into the United States, perhaps to supplement the route through the Philippines. Corey does not appear to have any dead spouses, but his academic career after leaving Murchison is unusual. He attended an MBA program at the Matheson Business School - not strange for a man with executive ambitions - but left before obtaining his degree. No reason is cited in anything Castle can find, but there is an undercurrent that Corey's departure was not voluntary.
Corey worked as a salesman for over a decade before being accepted to a program at another school that had just taken on U.S. as a board member. After rapidly completing the program, Corey experienced a meteoric rise, when his company received accelerated approval to market the generic form of a freshly off-patent drug, with truncated proof of chemical equivalence. Bracken sat on the committee that helped push the approval through. Castle has no doubt that Corey Blackwell owes Bracken - big time. Castle wonders how many other Coreys there are, but at least he hasn't uncovered anymore that might be dangerous to Kate.
Jordan welcomes Kate's information on Murphy and Castle's discoveries about Corey. They're not proof of anything, but they do suggest patterns and those are something that judges consider. She assures both Castle and Kate that her team will be doing their best to prevent Murphy from passing on any more information until they have enough to nail him and suggests that as long as the two of them at the beach, they use the time to decompress. Castle can feel the tension and lack of sleep catching up with him and is worried about what worse effects it will have on Kate and the baby. He declares that Jordan has a terrific idea.
He hasn't gotten around to uncovering the pool and making sure that the passive solar heating has done its job. After Jordan departs is as good a time as any. A snack followed by a laze by the pool may be just what the doctor - or the FBI agent - ordered.
Castle is enjoying watching Kate float on the surface of the water when the buzz of his cellphone on the table adjoining his chaise lounge demands attention. The email is from Lanie. It's short, just saying there's something he has to see immediately, but there's a document attached. Opening it on his computer will be easier than trying to read the PDF on his small screen. He hates to disturb Kate, but his habits as a father are ingrained enough to keep him from leaving anyone alone in his pool - especially the mother-to-be of his child. He dives in and presses his slightly chlorinated lips to hers as an apology for cutting her soak short.
Toweled only partially dry, they drip their way back into the house to open the laptop on the desk in the master bedroom. The report Lanie sent cites several incidences where DNA that is a parental match to Castle's was found at crime scenes where the victims had been killed, and in some cases tortured as well. Castle can feel bile rising in his throat. Is that what his father does for the CIA? While having a license to kill is exciting for a fictional character like James Bond, to have a father who does it in real life is more than he can get his mind around.
When he tells Kate that he needs to take a walk, she insists on going with him. He usually finds the sounds of the ocean calming, but at that moment the proximity of the waves is of no comfort. Kate's hand in his is his only lifeline, but even that brings dark thoughts. What kind of genes is he passing on to their child?
Kate insists that she has rarely met anyone as kind and compassionate as Castle - or Alexis for that matter. She'll be proud of anything their child gets from its father. She points out that she's killed, but only for the right reasons. She's sure that whatever Castle's father did, he did in the service of his country. Soldiers kill for their countries every day and they are hailed as heroes. Castle's father may be a hero too.
Castle knows that one of Morty's operatives is watching them from somewhere, but as he wraps his arms around Kate at that moment, he doesn't care. They need no words. The beach robes that cover their swimsuits are left behind on the sand as clinging to each other they wade together into the surf.
Unseen beneath the water, the barriers to their joining are pushed down or aside. The sea is cool, but warms around them, the taste of salt on their lips. The waves tug at their bodies, threatening to push them shoreward, but the only pull they feel is for each other. Their arousal is a rising tide swamping anything but pure need. They're in the center of their own perfect storm.
With little strength left to swim when the force of the gale has ebbed, the couple lets the waves sweep them back to shore, not far from where their cover-ups still lie. They carry the sandy garments rather than coating their damp bodies with grit and rinse off under the outdoor shower near the pool before re-entering the beach house. The king-sized bed has never beckoned more loudly. Collapsing atop the satiny duvet, they spoon, drifting into slumber.
Castle's dreamscape is filled with sunlight and water lapping at a peaceful shore, but a shadow rises from the rocks, morphing into a tall man with eyes like emerald blades. As Castle gazes up at the figure, a red fog surrounds them with droplets falling from the tips of their fingers to form red stains on the pristine sand. Castle cries out in horror.