Two weeks.

They passed so quickly.

Kate spent most of her time the first week stretched out on the couch watching television (mostly reruns of Temptation Lane, Castle noticed). And Castle spent most of his time on the couch right next to her, because, being a writer, he could move his entire base of operations by simply taking his laptop out of his office and setting it on his lap. Alexis worked through her final days of senior year. The boys were at his place almost every other day. Lanie visited often, too – when this happened, she and Kate would often banish him to his office so he wouldn't bother them (despite the fact that it was his home, they were completely in control). Jim Beckett came over for dinner every once in a while.

On the third day, Ryan and Esposito arrived at the loft around noon, triumphantly announcing that they'd found Charlotte O'Malley's killer.

"What?" Castle set his laptop down on the coffee table and got up to meet them; Kate tried to do the same, struggling to push herself up, but he held out a hand to her and she relaxed.

"Who was it?" he asked.

"Angela Duchamp herself," Ryan declared proudly.

Kate frowned. "The girl Charlotte O'Malley was dressed up to look like?"

"The very same."

"So – what?" Castle asked. "Angela killed her and then gave her the jewelry to make it look like she was the victim?"

"Not exactly," Esposito replied. "Charlotte deliberately got the jewelry from Angela and put it on. That's why she had it in the footage from the Starbucks – she was already pretending to be Angela."

"Why?"

"What," Kate asked cynically, "no crazy theories?"

"I've got plenty of crazy theories. I want to hear the real story."

There was a pause as Ryan and Esposito stood there, not speaking, drawing out the silence to create a sort of dramatic effect. Naturally, it was Ryan who broke first under Kate's impatient gaze.

"It was a jewel heist," he blurted.

Another few seconds of silence before Kate replied, "A what?"

"I had quite a few theories," Castle murmured, "but that did not make the list."

"A jewel heist," Ryan repeated. "Angela and Charlotte were working together to rob a jewelry store."

"Remember Angela's annoying roommate, Ret?" Esposito asked Castle. "She was in on it, too."

"Knew there was something off about her," Castle mused. "How'd you guys figure this out?"

"Guy from Robbery helped out," Ryan replied. "He and his partner were working on a burglary at a jewelry store. Turned out, the thief wasn't as careful as she meant to be. There were no fingerprints anywhere on the cases or doorknobs or places where you normally find prints."

"But she did drop a charm bracelet on her way out," Esposito supplemented. "And guess whose print they found on it?"

"Angela Duchamp's," Castle breathed.

"Bingo," Ryan agreed.

"Angela was the one pulling off the actual theft," Esposito said. "Charlotte was the alibi – she dressed up to make it look like she was Angela and deliberately went someplace where she was in full view of a security camera. Ret was tech support – she shut down all the security cameras so Angela could get in and out without being seen."

"Good plan, really," Ryan added. "Except for the fact that Angela got worried that her friend's good nature would get the better of her and killed her to shut her up."

"She got rid of the only person who might've told on them, and, by making it look like the victim was actually Angela herself, she made it so no one could suspect her for either crime. No one was looking for her."

"Nice." Castle nodded approvingly. "Angela told you all this?"

"Yeah," Ryan replied. "Found her hiding out in her parent's house in the Hamptons along with most of the jewelry that was stolen."

"As soon as we got her in the interrogation room, she talked," Esposito said. "Full confession, including everything about Ret's participation. Found the rest of the jewelry in her dorm room, arrested them both."

"Nice job," Kate said appreciatively, and the boys bumped fists; she cleared her throat, asking, "Um, anything new on..." She trailed off, leaving the rest of her question unspoken, but everyone could tell where she was going.

"Nothing," Esposito replied. "It's like she's hiding out in the woods somewhere. She's not using her credit cards, her cell phone, nothing. She's probably not even using her own face anymore. She's completely off the grid."

"How could she manage that?" Kate mused, dropping her eyes to her lap and placing the tip of her thumb between her teeth and biting down, the side of her pointer finger brushing against her upper lip. "She's on the run. She didn't bring any clothes expect what she was wearing – that's money. She needs to eat – that's money." She shook her head. "If she's not using her back account, where's that money coming from?"

"Cash," Ryan suggested, but Kate just shook her head again. "No. She had ten grand in a duffel bag under her bed – if she was using cash, she would've brought that."

She sighed, dropping her hand to her side. "It doesn't make sense. None of it. There's something else going on here."

"Okay," Esposito said. "You got any theories as to what?"

Once again, she shook her head. "I have no idea," she replied sadly. "It just… doesn't add up." She looked up, her wide eyes meeting Ryan's, then flicking over to Esposito's. "We have to find her."

"Beckett, we're doing our best," Ryan told her.

"Did you put out her picture?"

"'Course," Esposito replied. "But if she's got any sense at all, the first thing she would've done after running is completely change her look. Makeup, new hairstyle, maybe even a new hair color."

"Money," Kate pointed out. "That's money. All of this takes money, more money than she should have access to." Another shake of her head. "It's coming from somewhere. We need to figure out where."

"Probably the same place that the ten G under her bed came from," Esposito reasoned.

"Right," Kate agreed. "You checked the bag for prints?"

"Yeah. It's clean."

"Damn," she swore softly. "This is more than it seems. This is more than just – just Cordelia." The name felt rough and harsh, sharp and out-of-place, grating against the flesh inside her mouth and throat, making it raw and sore. "She's got friends, allies, funding, whatever you want to call it. Someone's helping her."

"You can't know that," Castle murmured. His first contribution to the conversation, and it's barely audible. It was almost like the voice he used when he knew something he shouldn't, when he was keeping something from her, but not quite. Maybe she was just imagining it. Whatever it was, it worried her.

"Yes," she told him, "I can." She turned back to Ryan and Esposito. "She's psychotic, but she's smart. She'll probably know she can't fly, so don't bother looking at airports. Check out nearby train stations, bus terminals, taxi services, any other way she could've possibly gotten out of town."

"Got it," Ryan agreed; Esposito, on the other hand, replied with, "And what if we don't find anything?"

"Then you check airports," she instructed. "If she's changed her appearance drastically enough and she's operating under a false identity, it's possible that she could've gotten past security without being recognized." She paused. "Maybe. If the other means of transportation don't turn anything up, it's worth a shot."

"And then what?" Ryan asked. "If she's managed to get on a plane. She could be on the other side of the country by now. She could be halfway around the world. Then what?"

"Then at least we'll have something," Kate said passionately. "We've got nothing right now."

"Beckett –"

"Ryan," she interrupted, and the strain in her voice stopped him in his tracks. "Just find her."

He paused, then nodded. "Yeah."

-0-0-0-

Two weeks

They passed so quickly.

Beckett's suggestion, that they should check vacation spots and other family residences, led Ryan and Esposito straight to where Angela Duchamp was hiding, trying to stay under the radar at her family's Hamptons beach house as she looked for ways to pawn off the jewelry she'd stolen. Predictably, she ran when she saw them. It didn't take them long to catch a panicked teenage girl (in high-heeled flip-flops, no less!), and as soon as they got her back to the precinct and started questioning her, her entire plan unraveled. She spun a story for them worthy of Richard Castle, a story of deceit and bribery and rivalry and greed, the story of one girl who wanted to run away and two friends who helped her to do it. Angela, preppy schoolgirl gone wrong, hadn't wanted the life her parents had planned out for her. She'd been planning to run away for months, but had encountered one significant problem: she didn't have the money. So she hatched a plan – she would steal it. Robbing a bank was too high-profile. No, a jewelry store would do just fine. She brought Ret, her tough-as-nails roommate, in on the plan. Ret was the sort who lived on the edge; she'd broken the law plenty of times before, computer crimes mostly, but had never been caught. So they planned it all out together. Ret would hack the security camera feeds, action-movie-style, and Angela would get in and out without being seen. Still, she wanted one thing the plan didn't give her. She wanted an airtight alibi.

And conveniently, she had a friend who, aside from her face, looked virtually identical to Angela.

So they brought Charlotte in on the plan. She was reluctant at first, but through a combination of reasoning, begging, threats, and bribery, they eventually convinced her to help. It'll be easy, they said. Just stay in sight of a security camera, any security camera, and make it look like you're Angela. They'll never connect you to the crime. It'll be a cinch.

The theft went off without a hitch – except that Angela wasn't careful as she thought she was, and she didn't noticed she'd left behind a charm bracelet with her prints on it. And as she made her way to the established rendezvous point with Charlotte and Ret – the Empire State Building – she had doubts. She worried that Charlotte, sweet girl that she was, would feel guilty for participating in a robbery and would go to the cops. So instead of taking that risk, she met her friend before she reached the rendezvous point and promptly shot her in the face. Now not only would the operation stay a secret, but no one would be looking for her – after all, to the best of everyone's knowledge, she was dead. In the mind of a panicking seventeen-year-old, it was the perfect plan.

Except now that she was on the spot, she blurted out everything. The girl who spent months planning and deceiving and spinning elaborate falsehoods could not tell a lie when it mattered the most.

So Ryan and Esposito locked her up and closed the case that had been their unfortunate distraction from the search for Beckett.

The rest of the next two weeks passed uneventfully. They visited Castle and Beckett whenever they could. They solved a few basic cases, nothing unusual or weird or Beckett-flavored. They kept diligently searching for Cordelia Evans, but turned up nothing. The girl was a ghost.

Until exactly fourteen days after they found Beckett, when a woman approached them, saying, "I'm looking for Detectives Ryan and Esposito."

"You found them," Ryan replied. "Can we help you with something?"

She was tall and skinny, not bad-looking, with elbow-length tangled orange hair tied back in a low ponytail. Her eyes were murky brown, she wore jeans and a gray sleeveless turtleneck sweater, and she dragged a purple suitcase with one hand. When she put her free hand on her hip, she pushed the hem of her shirt up, revealing the gold badge on her belt.

"Special Agent Holly Weisfelt," she greeted. "I'm here to report a murder."