She was just stepping off the elevator in Morgan's building when her phone rang. She grabbed for it hastily, not really in the mood for whoever was on the other end.

"Beckett," she spat testily into the receiver.

"They're gone," Lanie answered quickly.

"Gone? Gone where?" Kate replied just as quickly.

"I looked away for a minute to call the guys and when I turned back around to the monitor, the apartment was empty."

"Damn it!" Kate hissed, turning on her heel and getting back in the elevator. "I'm on my way back. Have Javi and Ryan meet me at the apartment."

They were already there when she stepped inside, obliviously having dropped everything and come running to back her up. She owed those guys a dinner. She owed them a lot more than that, but a dinner was the best she could do for payback.

"She's not using her phone and her car isn't moving. She must either be on foot or in a cab," Esposito informed her the minute she stepped inside.

"Damn it!" she hissed again, shrugging off her jacket and tossing it on one of the office chairs that served as the other furniture in the room beside the desk which held all the equipment.

"Do you think she knew we were watching her?" Ryan asked as he bounced from one foot to the other nervously.

"How could she have known? And if she did, why bring him back to her place at all?" Kate reasoned out loud, more to herself than anyone else.

"Any idea where they might have gone?" Esposito wanted to know.

"The only contact we have for her is the doctor. We haven't been watching her long enough to get anything else." Kate replied, running her hand through her hair as she started to pace restlessly.

An idea occurred to her and she grabbed her phone and pushed Castle's number on her speed dial.

It went immediately to voice mail and her heart gave a little stutter when his voice told her he wasn't available to take her call.

"We're going to check the doctor's," Ryan announced as he and Esposito prepared to depart. "We'll give you a call if we see them."

It had been hours with no word from Castle, no movement on the car and no hint as to where Morgan Daniels had taken him. Missing persons wasn't an option, neither was an APB. Castle was a grown man. He left with her willingly with no sign of a struggle.

Kate was helplessly paralyzed. He was out there somewhere, out there with her and Kate had no idea where to even begin to look for them.

A soft knock on the bedroom door brought Kate's attention to the here and now and she gave a call out for whoever it was to come in.

The petite, strawberry blond entered with a tray in her hands and a worried expression on her beautiful face. She was even paler than normal and the dark circles under her eyes were much more pronounced because of her alabaster complexion. She tried for a smile when her gaze connected with Kate's, but failed miserably. "I brought you something to eat." She told her, gesturing with the tray.

It was burdened down with a steaming plate of food and a bottle of beer so cold condensation was dribbling down it in rivers of moisture. Rick had a fridge under the bar in the living room that held two special compartments, one for chilling beer, the other for chilling wine.

Just another of his much-loved gadgets, she thought musingly, then had to check herself when she felt tears stinging her eyes. She wouldn't, couldn't let herself breakdown in front of Alexis. It was obvious the girl was barely holding it together as it was. Seeing Kate lose it would no doubt send her over the edge.

Besides, Kate reasoned with herself silently, it wasn't like he was dead. She wasn't even sure he was really in danger. Morgan had never hurt him before and she had no reason to believe that this time was any different than any other time.

It was the fact that Kate knew what was going on this time that was driving her mad. And there was also the fact that Morgan had taken him off somewhere. As far as Kate knew, she'd never done that before.

It was new, possibly an escalation, her cop sense told her logically. It was something they looked for in a case. When MO's changed, there was normally a reason for it. Sometimes the reason was simply that the perp was growing bolder, more sure of themselves. Those times meant that things were about to get worse.

But she certainly wasn't about to share those fears with Alexis so she sat up in the middle of the giant king-sized bed she recently begun sharing with Rick and forced a smile that she managed to pull off far better than the young woman had. "You shouldn't have gone through any trouble. I'm not sure I can eat, really."

"Gran said the same thing, but she managed a few bites," she said. "I just got her tucked into bed after she finished off a bottle of brandy and half of a bottle of what dad calls 'the good stuff'." She sat the tray down beside Kate and took up a spot on the other side of it. Then she gestured towards the beer. "I brought you that, but I can go get the rest of the bottle if you'd rather."

"Oh no, I think I'll let your gran take the fall for dipping into the reserve Scotch when you dad gets back. I want no part of that," Kate joked.

Alexis tried for a laugh, but it came out as more of a half-assed chuckle. Then it fell away all together. "He is coming back, right?" she asked, so quietly it was the barest of whispers.

Kate turned to her and met her eyes with all the conviction her exhausted mind could muster. "Absolutely." Then she took hold of both her hands. "All it's going to take is one phone call. One call from either of them and we've got them. I won't rest until he's back, safe and sound with you and your grandmother, where he belongs."

"And you," Alexis added. "He belongs here with you, too."

Kate felt the tears choking her yet again, but she swallowed hard and willed them away. "I'm really glad you think so. I love him very much."

"I know and he loves you. I'm glad you worked everything out between you," Alexis nodded in agreement. "You don't know how miserable he was when you weren't around. I've never seen him like that."

"I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure you never have to see him like that again," Kate assured her and meant every word.

Both women jumped as Kate's cellphone chirped from the table by the bed and Kate made a dive for it, answering it without bothering to see who it was. It was late. It could only be work or Ryan and Esposito with a lead.

"Beckett," she answered in her customary way.

"We've got a hit." Esposito told her in an excited voice that made Kate's pulse jump. "Daniels just made a call from somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Virginia."

"The state?" Kate asked, getting to her feet and pulling on clothes as she talked.

"Yeah, the state. Should we call the local authorities?"

"And tell them what. My boyfriend ran off with another woman and we want them to go get him back?" she asked sarcastically.

"We don't have to be quite that truthful," he countered. "We could just tell them she's a person of interest in an on-going case. I don't know about you, but I'm very interested in her."

"She's drugging him, remember?" She lowered her voice and stepped into the bathroom to pack a bag of essentials and the added bonus of getting out of Alexis' earshot. "What if she sees the cops closing in and suggests he protect her from them. We could be putting him in danger. I think it's better if I go down there and bring him home myself."

"You aren't going alone," he replied earnestly.

"Yes, I am. I need the two of you at the precinct taking care of our jobs. I'll bring him home. I can handle Morgan Daniels. Believe me."

She stepped back into the bedroom to find Alexis and the tray of food both gone.

"Just text me the address and let Gates know I'm taking a few personal days."

Kate was on a plane to D.C. less than an hour later. Half an hour after than, she was in a car, traveling towards the address Esposito had given her.

Almost as soon as she hit the Virginia state line, the rain that had been pelting her windshield since D.C. turned to sleet, then to snow. Now it was making it nearly impossible to see and Kate pulled into a diner on the side of the highway right inside of Elkton, Virginia.

"Welcome to the Shenandoah Valley," a bubbly, blond waitress said as she came to the booth Kate had chosen and placed a menu in front of her. "What can I get you to drink?"

"Coffee," she answered immediately. "and a glass of water."

Kate took the map she'd bought at the service station next door out of her purse and spread it out in front of her, searching it for the address she'd been given.

Ryan had called her while she was on the road and told her it belonged to Morgan Daniels' mother.

"Something I can help you find?" the waitress asked after setting her cup of steaming coffee down along side her glass of ice water.

"I'm looking for 1230 E. Madison drive," Kate mumbled distractedly.

"1230... let me see, that would be the Daniels' house, right?"

She looked up quickly and gave the waitress a brand new look over, this one much more scrutinizing. "It would, yeah. Can you tell me how to get there?"

"Sure." She smiled at her brightly and rattled off a fairly simple set of directions which Kate scratched down on the side of her map.

"Do you know the Daniels?" she asked, once she was pretty sure she had it.

"Mrs. Daniels taught me English in high school. She taught everyone English in high school for as far back as anyone can remember."

"What about her daughter, Morgan?"

"Are you a friend of Morgan's?"the waitress asked, giving Kate a once over this time.

"Yeah, we went to college together. I was hoping to look her up while I'm passing through," Kate lied.

The young woman's attention was caught by something out the window behind her and Kate shifted to see what it was. "It's really coming down out there. They say this might be the worst late season storm we've seen in years," she commented. "You have a place to stay here in town?"

"Is there a place to stay around here?"

"There's the Elkton Inn just up the street, other than that the only place to stay like that is the cabins on the mountain," she informed her.

"The mountain?"

"Massanutten Mountain," the waitress replied like Kate was an imbecile for not knowing. "But I wouldn't go there unless I had to."

"Why's that?"

"Late season storm makes the mountain even more dangerous."

Kate took her attention from the snow and turned back to the waitress. "Why is it even more dangerous now?"

The waitress glanced around the nearly empty diner, checking on the few tables she did have and deciding they were all good. Then she went to the other side of the booth and plopped herself down in the red upholstered seat tiredly. "This time of year, the mountains already started to melt after the winter. When a new batch of stuff hits the old stuff that's trying to melt, everything comes down and quick."

"Avalanches," Kate nodded in understanding. "So the Elkton Inn it is."

"That's where I'd go," she agreed. "Can I get you something to eat?"

"No, just the coffee and a few more answers."

She shifted to make herself more comfortable. "You sure have a lot of questions," she replied.

"Occupational habit," Kate mumbled. "You never said whether you knew Morgan or not."

"I knew her. She hasn't been around in years. Then just this afternoon, she turned up out of the blue."

"Did she say where she was going? Or what brought her back to town," Kate asked.

"I assume she went to see her mother. She came in here, bought three lunch specials, then left."

"Three?"

"Yeah, her mother's all alone over there. I guessed Morgan brought someone with her."

"Did you see anyone with her?"

"Nope, she came in alone and left the same way."

"How long ago was this?"

"Are a cop or something?" the girl asked, suddenly suspicious.

"What makes you ask that?" Kate hedged. She didn't want some well meaning old acquaintance tipping Morgan off to her presence.

"You really know how to ask questions," the girl shrugged.

Kate shifted in her seat causing the vinyl under her to whine in protest. "You really know how to answer them. You been questioned by a lot of cops?"

The girl smiled. "My old man is the local troublemaker around these parts. I've been talked to by my share of police officers."

"So how long ago was Morgan here?" Kate asked again.

The waitress glanced at her watch. "A while. I was just starting my shift, so eight hours or so. We were about to stop serving the special for the day, so it was around two." She got to her feet when Kate started to reach into her purse for a handful of bills to pay for the untouched coffee. "Is Morgan in some kind of trouble? I mean we haven't seen her in years, then she shows up and not long after, here you are asking a lot of questions. Sounds like she's in trouble."

Kate shoved the bills into the girl's hand. "She might be, but I need to know that she isn't going to hear about my asking questions before I'm ready for her to know."

She glanced down at her hand. "The coffee is only a dollar. There's twenty bucks here."

"Call the rest a tip, as long as I can count on your discretion."

The girl looked up at Kate in confusion.

Kate gave a inward eye roll to the local public school system. "Promise you won't tell anyone about me being here."

She pocketed the tip. "I wouldn't have said anything anyway. I can't stand that girl. The way she ran out on her mother when she had no one else. It's shameful. Whatever she did, I hope you catch her and throw the book at her."

"I never said I was a cop," Kate answered getting to her feet.

"You never said you weren't one either," the waitress answered before ambling off towards the kitchen.