Author's Note: This chapter is pretty close to the actual storyline here, but from here on out, I'll be deviating a bit. Still don't own these characters or this universe, of which my bank account reminds me daily. Please review!
Three weeks later…
With the Ethan Slaughter mess behind them – it was a surprisingly quick affair once Internal Affairs and the DA's office got a hold of the security tape – life settled into a bit of a routine for Kate and Ricki. They solved murders together, Ricki wrapped up the first draft of Naked Heat, and Alexis was enjoying her summer vacation.
If participating in a summer camp at nearby Columbia University for gifted youngsters could be considered a vacation.
They'd even solved a case the previous week that Ricki had loved – one in which a self-proclaimed psychic was killed in her own office, and the perpetrator made it seem like she had predicted her own demise.
This is so going in the next book! Ricki had exclaimed.
True to form, Kate and Ricki found themselves in an alley on a surprisingly chilly New York morning, each clutching cups of coffee. The body was already on a gurney by the time they got there, Lanie Parish jotting down notes on her clipboard and Detectives Ryan and Esposito worked a preliminary canvass to direct CSU.
"Starting without us?" Ricki reluctantly let go of Kate's hand once they were within earshot of Lanie.
The ME arched an eyebrow. "It's not my fault you two couldn't keep your hands off each other before the call came in."
Cop and writer exchanged a glance. "Was it that obvious?"
"Girl, you know I can read you like a book." Lanie gave Kate one of those smiles before tucking her pen into her right ear and pointing at the bloody corpse on the mobile slab. "Vic's name is Hasim Farouk, Saudi national in the States to study at Columbia."
Ricki arched a brow, examining both the blood all over the mangled body and the pavement. "Cause of death?"
Esposito approached. "Runaway van." He glanced down at his notepad. "Eyewitnesses say they heard gunshots and a low-rumbling engine in the vicinity of this alley at about two in the morning last night."
Kate frowned, examining the handgun packaged away in an evidence bag laying on top of the body. "That Hasim's?"
"We don't know yet." Ryan joined the group, shaking his head. "But…there were security cameras in the area. I've already asked them to provide all of the footage from last night. Should be there by the time we get back to the precinct."
Ricki cocked her head to the side, free hand tucked against Kate's. "Looks like someone tried to get his Jack Bauer on."
Rolling her eyes and trying not to smile, Kate shook her head and took a step closer to the body. She studied the blood stains in his clothes, the way the baggy garments hid his injuries. Other than the blood, Hasim didn't look like someone who'd been run over, and Kate was anxious to see the security video.
"I hope not." Kate shook her head. "Last thing we need is this place crawling with feds."
The Twelfth…
"Security tape shows just what we thought," Ryan explained, punching a series of keys on a keyboard before the sequence played again on the flatscreen monitor. The victim burst into the middle of an alley, emptying his gun into the fast-moving van before the white vehicle plowed into him.
"Can you get plates on the van?" Kate squinted.
Ryan shook his head. "Angle's too sharp."
"We may not need them," Kate said as she glanced over her shoulder at Ricki, and the two women shared a smile before the writer sipped at her coffee. "Ryan, check other cameras in the area. As hard as that van hit Hasim, there should be some front-end damage and maybe even blood spatter."
"On it." Ryan's fingers deftly worked the keyboard, almost as quickly as Ricki's whenever she was in the zone writing a new chapter, before the image shifted to a street corner, where the van – crumpled front bumper and all – sat at a stoplight. The glare of a nearby street light made the plate impossible to read.
Kate saw Ricki staring at her phone with a frown. "What's wrong?"
"Hm?" Ricki looked up, pocketing her phone. "Oh, it's nothing. Just…I talked to Alexis last night, and she said she'd call today, but I haven't heard anything yet."
Kate gave Ricki's hand a squeeze. "It's not even noon yet, Castle. I'm sure everything's fine."
The van sat idle for almost a minute before the side door burst open. The two detectives and the writer gasped in surprise, just as a woman poured out of the van with a panicked look on her face. Kate leaned in, her mouth agape. A masked man emerged from the van, wrapping an arm around the woman's waist and dragging her back into the van.
Ryan froze the footage just before she disappeared again.
"That van had a hostage…" Kate shook her head.
"Ryan squinted. "Son of a bitch…"
Esposito burst into the tech room, shaking his head. "Just got back from Hasim's apartment. For a college student, this guy had some awful fancy weaponry. I'm talking Grade A military arsenal…" His eyes followed the others' to the monitor, and his frown deepened. "That the van that killed Hasim?"
"Looks like Hasim was trying to save that girl." Ricki took another sip of coffee.
"Ryan, Espo…" Kate stood, approaching the monitor. "Find out who that girl is."
Two hours later…
The woman in the video was later identified as Sara El-Masri, the 14-year-old daughter of Saudi businessman Anwar El-Masri and his wife Lina. Kate and the others were no closer to identifying those in the van who took Sara, nor were they able to discern why Hasim had tried to save her – or why he had access to military-grade weaponry.
Running Hasim's name through federal and international databases had yielded no results.
Which meant, for the time being, that Kate's best bet was to talk to Sara's parents – something she dreaded doing, no matter how many times she had to be the bearer of bad news to loved ones. Having been on the receiving end of that conversation, Kate always felt her heart break a little when she had to have one.
Her only solace this time is that Sara was still alive. At least, that was her hope.
"Mr. and Mrs. El-Masri, we're sorry that you're experiencing this ordeal." Kate leaned in, glad to have Ricki by her side. "But I'm afraid there are some questions I need to ask you."
"Of course." Even in this difficult time, Anwar sat upright, purposefully holding his head high while his hands cupped his wife's.
"Mr. El-Masri, do you have any enemies?"
Anwar shrugged. "A man of my stature and wealth, I've…rubbed some people the wrong way over the years." He heaved a sigh, the bags under his eyes combining with his white goatee to show his age. "In fact, that's why we hired Hasim to look after her."
"Sara hated the idea of having a bodyguard." Lina shook her head. "But we insisted."
Kate and Ricki exchanged a look, before Kate produced a photograph of Hasim that Lanie had taken in the morgue. Sliding the picture across the table in the dimly-lit conference room, Kate arched a brow. "This Hasim?"
Anwar swallowed thickly and nodded. "Yes, that's him."
"We believe he was killed trying to save your daughter." Kate put the photograph back in her folder. "The van carrying Sara ran him over."
"Mr. Anwar…" Ricki cleared her throat. "When did you last speak with your daughter?"
Kate caught something in the tone of Ricki's voice, arching a brow even as she tried to ignore it. Instead, she focused her gaze on the El-Masris, cocking her head to the side, the tip of her pen trained against the notepad under her arm.
"Yesterday afternoon." Lina nodded. "She's participating in the summer program at Columbia for gifted incoming high school students. She called us excited because she was going to hear a presentation on renewable energy last night."
Kate and Ricki exchanged another look, and something flashed in the writer's eyes. Kate gave her hand a squeeze under the table, certain this was just a coincidence.
"Do either of you remember the name of the speaker?"
Columbia University…
"Yes, Dr. Garcia gave a presentation on renewable energy last night." The lanky bald man wearing wire-rim glasses led Kate and Ricki into an empty conference room, rows upon rows of blue chairs lines up on either side of the room. "She had a fantastic dialogue with the children."
"Mr. Ferguson, do you have a list of the students who were in attendance last night?"
The man offered an amicable smile. "Of course. I'll be just a moment."
When the man walked off to fetch the aforementioned list, Kate turned to Ricki, stopping when she saw the furrowed brow on the writer's face. Kate cocked her head to the side, her fingers intertwining with Ricki's.
"What is it, Castle?"
The writer shook her head. "I just can't imagine what the El-Masris are going through right now." Ricki sighed, glancing down at her hand intertwined with Kate's. "Your worst fear as a parent coming true…"
Kate squeezed Ricki's hand in encouragement. "We'll find Sara."
"When Alexis was four…" Ricki shook her head. "…we went Christmas shopping at some mall in White Plains. I was trying on some…charcoal fedora. I turn around, she is gone. Vanished. I looked everywhere. So did mall security. So did the police. We searched for an hour." Ricki sighed. "Don't have to be a novelist to think of all the worst-case scenarios."
Kate kept her hand on Ricki's. "Where'd you find her?"
"Behind a rack of winter coats. She'd gotten bored." Ricki smirked and shook her head again. "She crawled underneath there and went to sleep." The writer looked up to see the bald man return. "To this day, I still dream about that."
Kate gave Ricki's hand one last squeeze before taking the sheet from Mr. Ferguson. "Thank you."
The detective and the writer both let their eyes scan over the document, pouring over name after generic, senseless name. Kate glanced up after the first pass through the list. "Mr. Ferguson, do you know any of these students? Would you be able to tell us if Sara El-Masri was here?"
The bald man's face lit up. "Oh, yes, Sara was here last night. She was with a friend she met earlier in the day. Redheaded girl, cute as a button."
Ricki tore her gaze from the paper, frowning. "Redhead?" The writer fished her phone out of her pocket, her thumb swiping over the device before she turned it toward Mr. Ferguson, a photo of a bright, smiling Alexis on the screen. "This her?"
Mr. Ferguson squinted, then nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, that's her."
Ricki and Kate looked down at the paper again, their eyes taking their time in going over the names again. Sure enough, Sara El-Masri's name was on the list, but the pang of familiarity hit Ricki again.
Alexis Castle.
"Alexis was here." Ricki gave Kate a glance, before her thumb swiped over her phone again. "Alexis was here! With Sara! Beckett…she might've been the last person to see Sara before she was taken."
"Castle, we need to talk to her."
Ricki pressed the phone to her ear. "Already on it."
But once the phone started ringing, Ricki turned around with a frown. Kate's movements matched her own, and the two women exchanged a confused glance before Ricki pulled the phone away from her ear. From the far side of the room, Ricki could hear Alexis' ringtone – the one she chose specifically for whenever Ricki called her.
The writer and the detective approached the source of the sound, a small cardboard box labeled Lost and Found. On top of the pile in the box, there sat Alexis' phone, Ricki's picture on the screen as the ringtone continued to play.
Ricki ended the call, her hand shaking. Before she could turn to look at Kate, she felt the detective's arms wrapping around her shoulders. Ricki leaned against her girlfriend, closing her eyes and swallowing back dread and bile.
The reality was sinking in, and it pressed into her gut like a stone.
"Beckett…"
The arms around her squeezed. "I know."
Ricki's voice caught in her throat, and her knees wobbled. "They took her…they took Alexis…"
