~*~*~ 2 weeks later ~*~*~

Rick stood in the kitchen, holding the contents of the priority mail envelope that had arrived for him today. He felt his stomach drop to the floor and a wave of nausea smacked him out of nowhere. Groping for a barstool, he sank to a seat and willed the dizziness to stop.

He hadn't expected this.

They knew the blackmailer would contact them; they'd been anxiously waiting for two weeks for the proverbial bomb to drop. Nothing. Until today. When he saw the large envelope addressed to him in block letters, no return address, he knew this was it. But, this was not how he thought it would happen at all. He wasn't prepared.

He rubbed his face wearily and dropped the material to the island, staring at it as though it would disintegrate before his eyes. No such luck. Voices drifted to him across the loft – laughing, carefree voices. His heart sank even further. Kate had been doing so well; they'd really been making some progress with their trust issues. She panicked less, seemed to feel more at home wherever he was, and was actually starting to get into this whole fake wedding planning thing. In fact, right now, she and Alexis were holed up in his daughter's room, looking at bridal magazines, trying to find the perfect dress.

How was he going to break this to her? What would this do to her? To them?

He didn't want to know. But he knew it was unavoidable.

Slowly, as though weighted down by some unseen force, he trudged upstairs to Alexis' room. Leaning against the doorjamb, he watched in silence for a moment, smiling at the picture the two made. Both lay horizontally across the younger girl's bed, legs bent at the knees, stocking feet up in the air, their heads close together as they laughed at some tacky dress they had just seen. The radio played in the background, and he couldn't stop a quiet chuckle as both sets of feet began bobbing to the latest song.

The sound alerted them to his presence, and Kate craned her neck toward the door to grace him with a dazzling smile. "Hi! Did you get any writing done?"

"A bit." He hesitated and saw the instant that realization shadowed Kate's face. "Alexis, can I steal Kate from you for a few minutes? I promise I'll send her back."

"Sure," Alexis glanced back and forth between the couple's somber faces. "I was going to make some snarky comment about not making so much noise this time, but you're not stealing her for …that…are you?"

Rick shook his head. "No. It's … case-related."

The redhead nodded soberly and bit her lip. "I was hoping the blackmail would never come. That they'd skip you guys or something." She shifted from her stomach to lie on her side. "I never thought I'd say this but I wish you were taking her for a quickie."

"Me too, kiddo," her father answered, squeezing Kate's arm as she passed him on her exit from the room. After a second thought, he stuck his head back in Alexis' doorway. "I don't want to know how you know what a quickie is … but I could really live the rest of my life without hearing it from your lips again. 'Kay?"

Alexis rewarded him with a sad smile. "No problem."

He trailed after Kate, finding her in his office. Shutting the door behind them, he leaned against it with dread.

"Kate."

"It's okay, Rick. Whatever it is, you can tell me. It's not going to change the way I feel about you."

"It's not about me."

Her face scrunched in surprise, and she reached for the papers he held. "What is this?"

He didn't respond; there was really nothing to say. She'd have her answers by the time she finished reading. When she finally dropped to a seat in his desk chair, he knelt in front of her, alarmed to see how white her face had gotten.

"Kate, sweetheart… It's going to be okay."

"My dad…" She was crying now, silent tears that left damp rivulets down her ashen cheeks.

"I know." He brushed some hair from her face and leaned in to kiss her nose. "I'm sure there's an explanation."

"I don't know how he can explain this any differently than what I'm looking at in black and white, Castle." She gestured to the papers now in her lap. "Police reports, photos… you can't get much more cut and dry than this."

He nodded and held her ice-cold hands, rubbing them in an attempt to coax the blood to return. "But the police reports and the photographs and whatever other evidence this guy has… they don't tell you what your dad was going through at the time. They don't tell you why you didn't know about it."

It was her turn to nod, and he could see the wheels turning in her mind as she processed her own thoughts. "Okay," she finally said. "You need to let Gates know that it's not the way we had it figured out. They're not blackmailing the bride or groom with information about themselves. It's about the other person."

"It means they're counting on me to love you so much that I will do anything to keep you from finding out about this. Which… if it wasn't for an undercover, I would totally be tempted to do just that. That changes some of our theories, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, it does." She accepted his offered embrace and breathed in his scent, feeling it wash over her like a comforting blanket. "I'm gonna call Dad."

"Wait." He gently grabbed her wrist as she moved to leave the room. "I think we need to reverse our roles here. If you go running off to confront your dad about this, it could tip off the blackmailer that I told you about the package he or she mailed to me. It could undo all the ground work we've laid so far."

She considered his words, agreeing after a moment, knowing he was right. "Okay, but – Castle… have him call me when you're done meeting with him. I want to hear whatever he tells you from him directly. I need to hear it from him."

Holding her closer and longer than was necessary, Rick buried his nose in her hair and wished with every fiber of his being that he could take this pain away for her. It wasn't fair. He told her as much, and she clung more tightly to him as though wishing they could meld into one force that could face this together.

"I'm glad I have you, Rick," she whispered into his neck, feeling the thick swallow he gave in reaction to her words. "I'm used to going through things like this by myself."

He breathed a silent thank-you to the heavens for this small miracle. "I'm glad you don't have to go through life alone anymore, Kate."

She surprised even herself with the deluge of tears that burst forth with his words. Pulling back after a moment to brush inanely at the damp blotches that soaked his shirt, she sniffled once or twice and met his eyes.

"It's not just me, you know," she finally told him. "You don't have to handle stuff by yourself anymore, either. We have each other, right?"

Rick thought briefly about his own murder board for her mother's death – a couple of clicks of technology and he could rid himself of this secret that hung over him like a ton of iron. He debated it … but he pushed it back into the recesses of his mind for another day and simply smiled at Kate. "I like that idea."

Something flickered in her gaze at his choice of words, but he wasn't the only one that could shove things to the theoretical back burner. Nodding, she stood on her tiptoes to receive the kiss she knew he would gladly give her. She lingered as panic threatened to overtake her again. He was hiding something from her.

"Go call my dad," she told him, forcing her voice to stay light as she headed to find her own cell phone. She felt the separation keenly, a sudden chill causing a shiver to run down her spine. "I'll call Gates."