Chapter 21

"Hector, look at me. I am going to do everything I can to keep you here. You've lived in this country for seventeen years, you've grown up here, you went to school here. I am going to do my best to keep you here."

Kate watched the eighteen-year-old boy, so close to being a man, the fear glistening behind a curtain of tears in his eyes. Hector glanced back up at her, his baseball cap clasped in his hands. He nodded, taking in a deep breath before pushing himself out of the chair and trudging out of the office.

Kate propped her elbows on the wooden desk, head hanging between them as she ran a hand through her hair. She had been volunteering at the little non-profit for the past five months, helping give legal advice to illegal immigrants trying to get citizenship or worried about deportation. Hector was just the latest in a long line of heartaches.

When she had started taking classes in prison, she had promised herself that if she made it out alive, she would help those who didn't have a voice - those people her mother had crusaded for.

"Hey! You okay?"

Kate looked up at the woman standing across from her small desk. She nodded, blowing out a breath.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Just, Hector was here."

Selena Hernandez, the head volunteer at the center, and a retired lawyer, nodded.

"I would tell you that it will get easier but I can't promise that. The most you can do is help him get his papers in order and apply for citizenship."

"His parents are gone, his siblings are all citizens by birth, and he has been taking care of them all by himself. If only he had been born a few months later, after his parents were already on American soil, he would be fine. But now, if he's deported, his brother and sister will go into the system."

Selena stepped forward, grasping Kate's hand in her own.

"It's not fair, Kate, but at least you are giving him a fighting chance. Come on, it's five. We should get out of here."

Kate hummed in reply and attempted to shake the spiral of thoughts from her head as she gathered up her law books, shut off her light, and straightened up the desk for the next volunteer.

"How's studying going?"

"Good. It's harder to focus now that I actually have a life."

"Yes, I've heard that a life can do that to you," Selena replied. "Speaking of which… my son was asking about you again…"

"Lena…" Kate groaned as they made their way down the sidewalk. "I told you, I don't want to date anyone right now."

"Carlos is a very nice boy…" Selena hedged, hooking her arm through Kate's. "In fact, he might be my favorite son."

"He's your only son," Kate chuckled.

"Yes, well, technicality," Selena waved her free hand as they neared the small parking lot where her car was parked. "He is a good man, and he likes you. Just think about it. Have you decided where you are going to take the exam? I know you were thinking of going back to New York."

Kate ducked her head, her stomach churning.

"I don't want to go back to New York, Lena, it's not my home. The only things left for me there are a few good memories tainted by even more dark ones. I have friends here… "

Selena nodded as she reached up to pat Kate on the cheek.

"Sweetie, you have family here. Now, you be safe getting home on that death mobile of yours, and I will see you Friday. You are coming on Friday, right?"

Kate rolled her eyes at the question she had been asked at least ten times in the past few days.

"Yes, I'm coming Friday night. I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Good." Selena threw her a wink and slid into her car. "I'm bringing Carlos as my date."

Kate groaned. That woman was going to be the death of her.

Richard Castle pressed the key to type the final period of the manuscript and a smile bloomed on his lips. It was done. Finally. He had written a novel, one that would get published and passed around for the world to see. His breath caught in his chest. For her to see.

He had tried to put Kate out of his mind over the past few months, since his P.I. had sent him those pictures. He had thrown himself into a relationship with Gina, and it had been fun, but he couldn't see it going as far as he had wanted it to, as far as she wanted. They spent most of their time together talking about work or his novel, and making nicey-nice with influential people at parties. He had even met the mayor.

His gaze dropped to the word count, the number of pages at the bottom of the Word document. Pride swelled in his chest.

She would be proud, too.

His mind wandered back to the one night he and Kate had spent together, that one perfect moment in time, when they lay wrapped up in each other's arms after the rest of the world had fallen away.

"Why did you start writing?"

He stretched under her, fingers coming up to caress the back of her skull, brushing through her hair.

"Because I had to. The words would swirl around in my head and I had to get them out; saying them wasn't enough. I would speak them once and then they would be gone, or they would come out wrong. But when I wrote, I could make sure they were right. I could tell the story I wanted to tell, not the one other people wanted to hear."

She swiveled her head to look up at him.

"Why true crime? With your… passion, your creativity, you could have written anything."

"I wanted to write a novel. I tried for years," he whispered as she stared at him, splayed across his chest. His fingers tangled and untangled in her hair, unconsciously undoing complications.

"What happened?" she whispered back, not wanting to break the silence with her voice. "You're an excellent writer."

"The words wouldn't come. I had no inspiration." He sighed. "It's lying half finished in a box somewhere."

"You should finish it."

"I should." He ran a hand up her back, squeezing her to his chest in a half hug as he dipped his head to look in her eyes. "You inspire me."

He scrolled up to the beginning: chapter one. She had inspired him in more ways than he could have ever imagined when he had walked into the prison for the first time. He had expected to go in there, write a straightforward story, something to pay the bills, and walk out again. No looking back. But nothing about her or her story had been straightforward. Even if she was gone for good, she deserved to know what she had done for him.

"Hey Dad?"

Castle looked up to see his daughter leaning against the doorframe.

"Hey Pumpkin, how long have you been standing there?"

Alexis shrugged.

"A minute or two. You finished?"

"Yep, just crossed the final T." He glanced down at the clock on the screen. "Oh, it's getting late. Just give me a minute to shower and I'll be ready to go."

Alexis watched as her father brushed past her, dropping a kiss to her forehead on the way to his bedroom. She really was proud of him, the man she had watched him become over the past year. He had always put on a happy face for her, but she had seen the sadness every time another relationship had failed. Most of them he had kept separate from her, but she could still see the difference. Even with Gina, he was happier, but it wasn't the same.

Those days when he had gone to the prison, and then the few when Kate had been staying with them, she had seen it in his eyes even though she had been petty and short sighted and hadn't liked it. He had been happier with Kate than Alexis had ever seen him before.

He had been tight lipped about this novel, the one that had kept him locked up in his office for hours writing. Sliding behind his desk, she scrolled to the dedication page, her breath catching in her throat as she took in the words.

"For KB. It's never too late to be what you might have been."

Her eyes raced over the pages, the story of a young woman who became a cop after her mother was murdered, fighting for justice, not only for her mother but for others as well. She recognized the characters - Esposito, Ryan, Lanie and even her father, but mostly she recognized Kate's alter ego.

Alexis startled as her father's voice sounded from the other room.

"Hey, Alexis! Can you grab the invitation from my desk drawer? I can't remember the name of the restaurant."

"Yeah, sure," she yelled back, yanking open the drawer. She rummaged through for a moment before finding the small envelope. She moved to push the drawer closed again, but she paused as her eyes fell on a larger manila envelope.

She could still hear her father opening drawers in his room, so she grabbed the package and pulled out a stack of papers. Anger swelled in her chest as she looked at the images.

Yes, she may have hated the idea of Kate, not trusted her or her feelings for her father, but part of her had wanted to be wrong. She had hoped maybe Kate would come back and prove that she was what her father deserved – someone who made him truly happy – someone more than Gina.

Alexis crinkled her nose at the thought of the publisher. She had liked Gina in the beginning, but it had only taken a couple of months to see that Gina liked her father not for his charming wit and personality but as a potential gold mine for Black Pawn publishing. Yes, Gina might like her father, but that wasn't enough. Kate might have been more.

But this? She stared at the picture of Kate, laughing with another man's arm wrapped around her. This she had to do something about.

Kate grumbled to herself as she gathered up her hair. That was one thing about summers in Texas - the heat had her carrying an extra shirt with her in case she sweated through the first one. Even the nights offered little reprieve; there was no way she would be able to wear her hair down.

She shoved the final pin into the basic updo and wiggled her fingers in between the strands, working out the stern look of the bun. She slipped her feet into the four-inch heels, giving one final spin for the mirror. The knee-length, emerald green dress looked perfect - elegant enough for one of the nicer restaurants in town, but not overdone. Kate had to admit she was beginning to enjoy the shopping part of having money.

Tonight was Lena's sixty-fifth birthday dinner, and Kate wanted to look nice. For Lena. Not for her son, Carlos, even though she had hit it off with the pediatrician during their first meeting. A month before, he had stopped by the center to pick up his mother for lunch, a lunch that Lena had managed to talk Kate into attending. Kate hadn't recognized the setup until halfway through the meal.

He had pulled out her chair and his mother's, eyes twinkling as he told them about the antics of the kids he had seen at the free clinic that morning. When Kate had asked about his mother's former law practice, Carlos had gushed about her years as senior partner in one of the most sought after firms in Houston. Selena had already told him about Kate's past, and he read Castle's book. Despite the story, and maybe even because of it, he seemed to respect Kate.

She would be lucky to love someone like him, to be loved by someone like him. But something was missing - that spark, the butterflies that should have come when their skin accidentally brushed for the first time. She had never agreed to a date.

Kate glanced at the clock and she threw a few things into her clutch, rushing to find her keys when she saw the time.

A knock on the door startled her and she froze, her heart pounding in her chest. The anxiety attacks were mostly gone, the nightmares down to once a week; she had been doing so well. She forced her stiff arm to move, pressing the heel of her hand to her sternum. Her friends knew better than to come to her apartment unannounced.

Her fingers wrapped around the small jar of mace in her bag. She had considered buying a gun. It was Texas, it wasn't like they were hard to come by, but she had decided against it. She was still jumpy, and even if it was there for protection, the idea of having a firearm in her house made her nervous. Graham, in turn, had forced her to buy the little hot pink jar, because it was "fabulous."

"Who is it?" she called out, her heartbeat doubling when no one answered.

She inched closer to the door, her free hand reaching blindly for the knob as she leaned forward to look through the peephole.

She let out a gasp as she took in the sight of the person on the other side of the door.

How?

Stepping back, she pulled the door open.

"Alexis?"