Haley Peters was a small, freckled redhead who was as similar to Charlotte O'Malley in demeanor as she was unlike her in looks. She was almost impossibly short – petite was a good word for her. Her face was rounded, with pink cheeks, low cheekbones, thin lips, a small button nose, and wide, light blue eyes. Her hair was reddish-orange and wildly curly, forced back into a low ponytail; it expanded outward naturally, barely contained by the elastic hair band that held it. She wore light blue skinny jeans, a gray camisole with a bit of lace around the collar, and a white cardigan with three-quarter sleeves that tied in the front. As she pushed the door to her dorm room open wide, allowing entry to the two cops and their writer sidekick, Castle noted that her eyes were not red and puffy from crying; her expression was rather blank, the expression of one struck by, not sadness, but numb shock.

"I can't believe she's actually dead," she said as she settled into a light blue armchair, the three men sitting down on the similarly colored sofa across from her. "I mean, at first they said it was Angela, and I was sad, but mostly for Char. Angela and I weren't really friends. We've only met a few times, and we never really bonded. But Char… she was like my sister. And then I hear on the news that it's her that's dead, and…" She trailed off, finishing somewhat lamely with a noncommittal shrug. "It's all kind of surreal."

"Miss Peters –"

"Haley."

"Haley," Esposito amended. "Can you think of anyone who might've wanted to hurt Charlotte? Anyone who might've had a grudge against her?"

Haley, predictably, shook her head. "No, no one. Char was just this great person. Not everyone loved her, but no one had a problem with her."

Esposito nodded. "What about Angela?"

"What?" Haley frowned. "But – why are you asking me about Angela?"

"We think Charlotte's killer tried to pass Charlotte off as Angela," Ryan told her. "Do you know if she could've possibly been into something that made someone angry enough to kill an innocent girl to make it look like Angela had died?"

"To send a message," Castle supplemented. "A pretty powerful one, all things considered."

Again, Haley shook her head. "No. I'm sorry. I told you, I barely knew Angela."

"What about Charlotte?" Esposito urged. "Has she been acting strangely at all lately?"

Yet another shake. "No. Sorry. I – I know I'm not being very helpful. But…" Once again, she trailed off, looking as though she was trying to figure out how best to phrase what she was about to say. "Can I ask you a question?"

Esposito nodded.

"Alright." Haley sucked in a deep breath, and asked, "Do you know where Angela might be?"

Ryan shook his head. "No. There's a possibility she's dead as well."

"But that doesn't make sense," Haley pointed out. "If Angela were dead, then why kill Char and make it look like she was Angela? Why not just leave the body of the real Angela lying around and leave Char alone?"

-0-0-0-

"Turns out, Angela's roommate's name is neither Rachel nor Rebecca," Ryan told them as they turned down the hallway, heading away from Haley and Charlotte's dorm and towards Angela's. "It is, in fact, Loretta."

"Loretta sounds nothing like Rachel or Rebecca," Castle commented.

"Loretta Hendricks," Ryan finished. "Apparently, she goes by Ret."

"That doesn't sound much like Rachel or Rebecca either," Castle said. "But I can see where they got the R from."

They had reached the dorm in question; Esposito raised his fist and knocked twice on the door. A few seconds passed before it was opened by a college-aged girl who looked rather annoyed to be disturbed. She was tall and supermodel-skinny, with dark skin and black hair cut close to her head, so that the tufts of dark fuzz covered her skull in a tiny, one-inch afro. Her cheekbones were as pronounced as Castle had ever seen; her nose was small but sharp, her eyes thin and dark brown, and her lips full and coated in a thick, sheer gloss. She wore extremely distressed dark jeggings, a dark red tank top, a loose, distressed white shirt with a yin-yang on the front, and a green denim cropped jacket. In one hand, she held a textbook; in the other, a can of Coke Zero. Muffled rock music could be heard playing inside the dorm.

"You boys mind?" she demanded. "Got a test tomorrow and I'm trying to study. So unless it's really important –"

Esposito lifted his badge. "Loretta Hendricks?"

"It's Ret," she replied, stretching a hand out of sight; when she brought it back into view, the Coke Zero had vanished. "You're here about Angela?"

Ryan nodded; Ret nodded back. "Okay. I can spare a few minutes. Come on in." She stepped out of the way, and the three men walked into the room. The basic style was the same as it had been in Haley's room, but the walls were coated with posters and album covers, the lighting was dimmer, and it was a good bit messier. Ret dropped her textbook onto a rather large pile of papers on her desk, tossed a few pillows onto the floor to make room on the couch, and dropped onto the cushions, splayed across the entirety of the sofa. Ryan, Esposito, and Castle were left standing.

"I've seen crime dramas," Ret began. "I know where this is going. First off, I really didn't know Charlotte O'Malley. I knew that she was Angela's friend, but she and me, we didn't hang. She was kind of annoying, you know? The way she was so nice to everybody. It was weird. I don't think she ever said an unkind word in her life, which is just plain unnatural. But I didn't really mind her. She hung with her crowd and I hung with mine, and we were fine with that. Angela was the oddball who lived with one foot in my world and one foot in Charlotte's.

"Next, I wouldn't know if Charlotte had been acting weird. Like I said, we didn't hang. And I wouldn't be able to tell you if Angela was acting off, either, because she always acted off. That chick was paranoid. Always looking over her shoulders, closing the blinds, locking the door like she thought she had a stalker. The only thing that was different about her recently was that she didn't really seem to care. She was always a good student, relatively speaking, but she never displayed any extreme interest in fashion. Some of my friends and me, we'll stay up all night talking about it and watching reruns of Project Runway. Not Angela. Lately, it was like she wasn't even going to pretend like she cared. Fake it 'till you make it – that was Angie's motto, that and 'make it work'. She wasn't sticking to it, though.

"Finally, do I think that Angela could have been into something dangerous, possibly something illegal? Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I do. It wouldn't be the first time. She's not exactly a perfect little princess, is she? She likes to have fun, and she's got a weird definition of the word. And she doesn't really respect authority. Or rules. Or laws, for that matter. So yeah, she might've gotten into something illegal. I wouldn't know, though. Angie's always been good with secrets and lies. If she didn't want people to know about something, they wouldn't know about it. So she might've been up to something. But I wouldn't know."

Looking rather satisfied with herself, Ret stood up, retrieved her Coke Zero from a table next to the door, and returned to the couch. Her gaze flickered from Ryan to Esposito to Castle. "That all you boys needed to know."

"Yeah, that should do it," Ryan replied.

"Great." She gestured flamboyantly to the door. "You can let yourselves out."

-0-0-0-

Day one. Kate turned up missing. They checked out the crime scene. They were pulled away to investigate the Charlotte O'Malley – or, at that time, the Angela Duchamp – case.

Day two. They discovered that Angela was actually Charlotte. They found Amelia Trudeau. They found Keera Aubrey Logan. They ended up no closer to Kate than they had been on day one.

The chances of finding a kidnapped child alive decrease significantly after forty-eight hours. Would that rule apply to kidnapped adults as well?

If so, their forty-eight hours were up.

Castle poured the contents of his glass down his throat and set the glass down on his desk. He had been home nearly three hours now, and still had not done anything remotely productive. He kept checking his phone, as though waiting for something – the impossible, a call from Kate, perhaps – but all he had were several angry texts from Gina, urging him to hurry up and work on Frozen Heat. But he couldn't write. He couldn't spit words out into the universe, directed at Kate's picture, and hope that somehow she heard them. He couldn't watch zombie movies with his daughter.

He certainly couldn't sleep.

So he created a new storyboard, again with Kate's face in the center. But the people around the outside were different this time… Amelia Trudeau… Keera Aubrey Logan… Cordelia and Davis Evans…

He would find her. He had to find her. If he did not find her…

Terrible things would happen if he did not find her.

Nothing would ever be alright again if he did not find her.

He was sure that, if he looked over the evidence enough, if he imitated Kate and sat in front of his makeshift murder board with his coffee held between both hands, if he stared at the faces and the writing on the screen, if he processed everything he knew about her disappearance and allowed his writer's brain to run wild, making connections that would otherwise go unnoticed, he would figure something out. He had done it countless times before – surely, when it mattered most, this tried-and-true process would not fail him. It could not fail him. Nothing would ever be alright again if it failed him.

He could find her.

He would find her.

Nothing but divine intervention could stop him when it came to this.