Chapter 28 – A Life Worth Killing: Part I

The third time was the charm, it seemed. The very moment the shrill beeping emitted from Esposito's pocket again, Ryan broke from his stupor. Lanie's grumbling voice rose through the static between his ears and his thoughts, muttering something about a snack from her desk before she turned and walked to the other end of the room. His partner, who seemed far more in command of his mental faculties, yanked the phone out of his pocket and immediate, painful grimace flashed across his face.

"It's from the Captain," Esposito whispered while quickly stuffing his phone into his pants pocket. "We've got our search warrant for Papa Beckett's place and… He wants to meet us there."

Ryan didn't need any more elaboration. A sick feeling thickened and tumbled down his stomach; no more than a grim nod became his reply. So it was time to see just how deep Jim Beckett was burrowed into all of this. If there was any blanket of trust he had ever created with Beckett, the thing was about to be burned to a cinder.

Grabbing his notepad from the metal slab, the young detective maneuvered around their makeshift evidence board, mindful to keep his eyes away from Lanie's. They had to leave; they had to flee before she got one good look at them. The woman was a bloodhound for these slips, these slights of character, and for better or worse, secrecy drowned any moral imperative the young Irishman had cracking the seal of thoughts. But as he turned toward the door, hoping like hell all the encumbering guilt turning his feet into sludge would fade the further he got from those damnable files, a strange feeling swept over him. He glanced back to his partner and froze.

Esposito hadn't budged a muscle; his phone still rested in the smothering clench of his fisted hand. His guilt-pocked eyes still bore the same unflagging intensity- but something was different about the man. There were signs in his face of growing exertion. Some intangible strain, fettered and weighty under the scruffy plain of his jaw, grew in breadth, in force. It was almost as though his fingers had shackled themselves to the paper-littered surface, no attempt, no urgency to sever what unseen tether gripped him so.

"She's gonna kill me for not tellin' her, bro." Esposito said in a whisper thick with guilt. "… and I honestly think I'd let her."

Ryan opened his mouth to fire out a few encouraging words, but the moment he saw the look his partner gave to the still turned form of Lanie, all of the alarm bells, all of the roars of warning ceased to puttered whimpers.

"But…" The young Irishman hissed with a scant pause. His eyes fixed to the medical examiner still far beyond earshot. "You seriously want to involve her?"

To Ryan's surprise, a strange blend of incredulity and ire swept over his partner's face.

"You don't trust her with this?" Esposito's upper body, as well as his voice, seemed to swell with indignance before his eyes.

"Javier…"

"It's Lanie, bro!" was his curt retort. "She's nothing less than Beckett's frickin' sister in all but blood."

"Jav-" Ryan hissed, but not sooner as his reprimanding voice lifted to heights he'd scarcely set upon his partner before, the diminutive form of Dr. Parish appeared next to Esposito, a clumsily opened bag of chips dangling in her clutched hand, her eyes narrowed and burning.

"You know, you two dummies can't whisper worth a damn, right?"

Crap

"What's this about not trusting me?" Lanie looked between the both of them… worriedly.

"We can't-" The Irishman moved a placating hand up only to jolt back not a fraction of a breath later when Lanie's free hand came slamming down on the metal slab.

"Are you gonna tell me what this is all about?" To Ryan's shock, the typical feisty cadence of the medical examiner's voice dissipated. She motioned to the folders still lined up over the metal slab, a single hand moving over the cold case files as slowly, as softly, as her voice. "And I mean the truth, boys… okay?"

We can't do this, Javier…

"Lanie," Javier turned to face her. Ever so slowly, he put his free hand on her shoulder and took a long, deep breath. "I need you to sit down. I'll explain as much as I'm allowed-"

"Sit down?" Lanie recoiled and promptly swatted his hand away. "I've been patient with you two. I got these files even though you two rushed in here like a herd of bulls without so much of an explanation. Oh no, I will sit down when you tell me why I've been going over the records of Dick Coonan's victims for the past hour, Javier Esposito!"

"Lanie!" Ryan shot in, quickly murmuring an apologetic grunt for his tone. "Please trust us when we say it is better if you don't know."

"Because of trust issues, I presume?" She panned, a single brow rising predatorily with each biting syllable.

"It has nothing to do with trust." Ignoring the glare radiating from his partner's eyes, he paused. Pursing his lips, he allowed his mind to hurdle through as many delicate responses as time proffered. God, what could he say that would prevent either of the two powder kegs before him from exploding?

Lanie was a lethal combination: uncanny perception, endless smarts, and a hellish drive. Her job, by its very nature, is to see things the naked, untrained eye can't. And all that he had ever witnessed from her, those virtues applied in every facet of her life. The point:

She wasn't naïve.

The moment his and Esposito's request for each of the victim's files left their mouths, Ryan had little doubt that Lanie knew exactly where this was heading. Coonan- the name was a harbinger. For them, it was a herald of helplessness; for Castle, it was a catch-22 a writer would love, but a lover would hate beyond all reason; but Lanie, for her it was a completely different monster. Since the day Dick sent his brother to her autopsy slab, anytime the name Coonan came up in conversation, all of that alchemic virtuosity swirling behind her eyes curdled with a new element.

Wrath.

It was a special brand of the most familiar deadly sin for a homicide detective. This was the kind that transcended the scores of petty imitations coming across his desk day in and day out. This one was the kind held only by a loved one, a sibling, a friend- all in one body- born only to remind its keeper they weren't there, they couldn't have been there, when they were needed most. Esposito was right- she and Kate were essentially sisters. That simple fact alone was a deal-breaker in most cases. But something was giving him pause, something ambling and ominous just beyond the clamor of his most pressing thoughts.

What if?

They didn't know what they were getting into. This thing, this case- whatever the hell it was- was bigger than them. Big enough to warrant the attention of the CIA and god knows who else. Big enough to cause Beckett to forsake her tireless crusade to protect the innocent for a trek into the unknown, and nothing- nothing- spelled what this meant more than her absence. This was it.

This was the end, her final jaunt through the maw of her 13-year long personal hell. And what scared Ryan more than any other thought since this whole thing exploded was that he knew Beckett wouldn't stop, not for any of them, not even if faced with certain death. And that could very well be the price she would pay. The thought wasn't melodramatic or him being paranoid at all- after all, those four files just a few feet away was proof of what happened to the folks that knew too much about this case. And knowledge, he mused ruefully, was the crux here.

The true intent of their involvement in this case was to be kept from Kate for a reason, a sound, albeit dangerous reason. Like Montgomery so grimly pointed out, knowledge had the possibility of being the difference between life and death where this investigation was concerned. Not just for Kate and Castle, but risk for every person involved. And no matter how heavy his guilt weighed over keeping the truth from Beckett and the full story from Lanie, the alternative had the chance to be unfathomably worse.

Chance being the key word here, Kevin, a voice sounding oddly like Jenny popped into his head.

But what if Montgomery's warning proves right, he mentally shot back. What if just the act of telling Lanie the basics of this investigation sent her to the grave? I can't do that to her. I have no idea what we're up against.

Would that stop you if it was me in Kate's position, rejoined the tiny voice.

Silence was his reply. He looked from the expectant examiner to his grim features marring his partner's face.

It didn't matter if he and Esposito knew and accepted the perilousness of this investigation; it was their job to march forward while others ran. That especially rang true for a friend. But Lanie… he knew that no measure of hell or high water would keep her from protecting Kate as much as possible. And now that the cat was peeking out of the proverbial bag, nothing would stop her from finding out either.

From where he stood, he was pretty positive that if his next words were as incendiary as the name of the man that caused these murder cases to exist in the first place, both he and Esposito would be calling Montgomery from ICU. But no matter what, no matter how much either of them would divulge to the M.E., she had to know the danger first. She had the right to know.

"It's not about trust, Lanie." He stressed again. "It does, however, have everything to do with making sure no one gets… hurt."

The moment the last word left his mouth, he wished he had been born with eloquence and knack for perfectly timed brevity like Castle. In the blink of an eye, Lanie's perturbed expression evaporated under an explosion of fright.

"Who would get hurt? Is this about wherever Kate and Castle are?" Her voice tightened. "Javier? Is she alright?"

Esposito stilled, his features fell into a deep, baleful grimace. "I don't know."

"What the hell do mean you don't-"

"Please Lanie; just… take a seat, please." The hand that was on her shoulder only moments before shot up between the detective and the bristling examiner, stretched wide in motion and desperately placating.

Lanie promptly swatted it away. "Javier Esposito, if you say that to me one more time-"

"Lanie," Ryan interrupted calmly and then sighed. "He's telling you the truth. We don't know."

"How?"

"We aren't allowed to know, and that is exactly why telling you the truth about this is pretty hard." He paused for a moment and looked to Esposito. "We weren't supposed to know about this investigation, either."

"Wait, what? How could you not? She's your damn boss!" Lanie shrieked, her voice thickened with incredulity.

"Technically, right now she isn't." He whispered and hung his head, acutely aware that he didn't realize that words could taste so sour until that moment.

Lanie was silent for what seemed an eternity. With pendular timing, her gaze swung back and forth, from the files and right back to one of them, nary a breath left her lips.

"What's going on, guys?" She finally spoke.

"Javier." With a slow, relenting nod to his partner, he threw the dice into the wind. "It's your call."

His partner looked to him for a moment, and then a faint smile glanced over his cheek. A nearly imperceptible nod was his solemn reply.

"I'll go wait in the car." He said with a small smile. With a parting wave over to the very confused medical examiner, Ryan opened the wide metal door and slipped into the hall. Behind him, a very long conversation was about to begin.

"Have you ever met Kate's father, Lanie…?"

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Castle cringed the moment a very familiar feminine voice grew to a roar somewhere down the hall to his right. Stepping away from the interrogation room door and towards the mingling chorus of shouts, he spotted Beckett and Agent Brooks some ways away; the former fuming over the latter like a waking storm.

"Lead investigator or not, do not ever put me in a position like that again," Beckett leveled a hardened gaze straight to Brooks. "Victims aren't carrots to dangle over another victim's head- and that man in there is as much a victim as his brother was!"

"Victim!" Brooks barked breathlessly with a look of incredulity blaring out his eyes. He pointed back to the interrogation room with a single jab of his finger. "You think that man in there is a damned victim? Do I need to remind you, Detective Beckett, he tried to kill you?"

"Do I need to remind you, Agent Brooks, that he said it was a case of mistaken identity?" Beckett roared back while miming his flagrant gesture.

"And you believe him?" Agent Brooks spat.

"Listen!" Beckett snapped. "Listen to that sound."

Castle gave a low sigh. He knew exactly what Beckett was implying- even from this distance, nearly the full length of the long corridor- he could still hear the ever-hoarsened cries and unintelligible curses leaving Marcus in furious, gut-piercing clarity.

"That is the sound of a man who just lost a loved one!" Beckett hissed with a growing iciness. "That is not the sound of a criminal."

"He's a damned liar, and you-"

The distant sound of a metal door slamming shut cut the shouting match to a jarring halt. Then the stamping and storming of a single pair of feet met the author's ears, growing in pace and pitch. A young man burst into view from around the hallway's corner in the midst of a wobbly slide, a single arm stretched high above his head waving frantically about. Closer and closer the figure drew, and Castle immediately noticed a small, rectangular object in his jittering grasp.

Brooks' body twisted to meet the new arrival. Beckett turned as well, though not before Castle caught one last withering glare from her burning holes into the elder agent's profile.

"This conversation isn't over." She growled and then turned her full attention to the approaching figure.

"Sir!" The figure shouted as he scurried up the hallway. "Agent Brooks, sir!"

Behind Castle, the observation room door flew open. Oliver's deep voice boomed through the hall. "Hey, what are you doing here?"

"It's fine Oliver, I sent for him." Brooks said in a gruff tone. "Get back in there and make sure that bastard doesn't do anything stupid."

"Sir, yes sir." The ogre called back, and not a moment later, Castle heard the O.R. door close quietly behind him.

"Agent Brooks, sir!" the young, incredibly winded man came to a skidding halt before them. As he bent over, bracing himself with one hand on a knee, his other hand shot up, feebly waving the object towards Brooks. "I brought… brought it."

Brought what? Castle thought feverishly. His eyes immediately darted up to the waving object, hoping to catch a better glimpse as it wobbled and brushed through the gloom of the single dim light a few feet above it. The moment a piece of it glanced the yellowy light, he knew exactly what the object was. Though turned dull and near featureless by the light's sickly hue, its darkened crimson, slightly shimmering front was unmistakable- leather, old and finely tanned leather. It was a book, quite a thick looking one at that.

Perhaps it was the blistering pace he and Beckett had been running on for what seemed ages, or his thoughts had become so centered on the enigmatic man still bawling his eyes out in the interrogation room, but no matter how much he searched his memory for some sort of reference, nothing popped. He hadn't the foggiest idea what was inside that thing. He turned to Brooks for some sort of indication, but the bemused expression on the grey haired man didn't change.

"Are you forgetting something, Agent?" Brooks said slowly.

"Sir?" The young man craned his head up, which looked like it was taking quite a bit of effort.

Brooks let out a long sigh. "Since my secretary has clearly forgotten his formalities, I'll make the introduction. Detective Beckett, Mr. Castle, this is Agent Anthony Thatcher."

"Sor… sorry, sir. Sirs! Sirs and Madame I mean! Sirs and Madame…" The young man babbled quickly. "But sir… the book?"

"Don't hand it to me, son." Brooks gave a dismissive gesture over to Beckett. "Give it to them."

Utterly confused, Castle cautiously held out his hand. The young agent quickly pushed the book into his grasp- and the fluid line of gold instantly caught the author's eye- scrawled across the front of the book in perfect calligraphy, it read: Personal Accountings. It was-

"-Senator Burbury's ledger." Beckett quietly voiced his thought.

He looked up to Brooks for confirmation, but the man was already embroiled in a fierce volley of whispers and hissed browbeating with his underling. With a small shrug, he went to look back to the ledger, but a strange feeling prickled up his spine. He looked back to the young man; a perky looking fellow that looked like he was aiming to be a younger, blonder, carbon copy of his boss from the cut of hair right down to the paisley speckled tie tucked neatly beneath his tailored vest. Perhaps it was the many hours he'd spent alongside Beckett interrogating the best liars New York had to offer, or maybe the years of pouring over psychoanalytic profiling techniques for research, but something wasn't adding up concerning their newest arrival.

Throughout his whispered replies, not once did the young man's eyes meet the steely grey of his boss. Now that wasn't anything out of the ordinary as far as Castle was concerned. Timidity around a boss, particularly one as hardened as Brooks, would certainly test the mettle of anyone's confidence. But this man, Thatcher, simply radiated idol worship- eagerness to please, to be noticed, hell, to revel just being in the same vicinity as their hero. That kind of posturing just wasn't in the man before him; instead, all he saw was meekness, subservience- eyes thick with guilt and nervous feet one tap away from springing a retreat.

"Unless you've acquired the gift of clairvoyance in the last few seconds, Castle, I think it would be more productive for us if you opened the book."

"Oh, right, right."

Drawing in a long, deep breath, he gave a soft nod and opened the book. He wasn't sure how much time had passed before he noted a slight ache pulsing in his brow from being furrowed so tightly, or his eyes straining yet stilled on the gibberish written before him. None of it made sense, absolutely none of it.

"These names, dates; they're all over the place; no chronology, no categorical context." Castle mumbled somewhat hesitantly, his eyes roving up and down the dozens upon dozens of names as though they were processing and tracing intangible lines to each new identity to no avail. It was as any self-respecting writer would concur, a complete and total mess. A more accurate description was a little hard for the author to even formulate. Each page he flipped over was the same: written in simple print; three clear columns spanning their length: a litany of names, then shorthand dates, and finally, varying sums of money lining the last column.

He craned down further to the paper almost to the point that his nose was touching it. "There's no sequence to this. It looks more like a reminder for a betting pool than an account log."

"Any recognizable names?" Beckett said.

"Oh, yeah." Castle gave a low whistle. "Plenty."

"Who?" Beckett replied eagerly. "Which ones?"

He suddenly felt a familiar warmth press against his side, and then a hint of Beckett's face slipped into the corner of his vision. Her long brown hair hung over the far right page as she craned further and further over the book, completely obscuring it from his view- not that he minded in the least. For a moment, he wondered how hard it would be to convince her to look at all evidence this way.

"So where's the link?" Beckett suddenly spoke before straightening back up and turning her focus to Brooks.

"The link?" The agent repeated.

Beckett nodded immediately. "You said on the day you met us that you had found something in Burbury's desk that linked him to Rathborne."

"Is this that 'something' you were talking about?" Castle continued for her.

"It is," was all that the agent said.

"…Well?" Beckett said slowly.

"Go to the fourth page, that's where the first set is- check lines 5." Brooks drawled.

Castle's hand was already darting toward to fuzzy edge of the page to give it a hasty flip when one of Beckett's smaller hands appeared in a flash. And no sooner as she flipped over the page, his eyes narrowed in on the most glaring part. There, highlighted in vibrant red was the link Brooks had found.

Dick Coonan, AOI Foundation Amount Given TBD

"Coonan…" Beckett sighed deeply. "Why doesn't this surprise me."

Castle's focus inched closer to the first line Coonan appeared on. "Hey, Agent Brooks? Did you highlight his name?"

Brooks looked away from his jabbering secretary and shook his head. "No, that's how we found them."

"Them?" Beckett echoed. "You mean-"

"Turn the page." Brooks motioned to the ledger before turning back to Thatcher.

Castle quickly complied, and not a moment later, he saw exactly what Brooks was referring to. Six lines down, Coonan's name appeared again. The author traced his name across to the second column. It was as if the room began to slowly turn around him, and a wave of dizziness as what he saw. There wasn't just one date across from Coonan's name, no. There was a half dozen of them, but just a few caught his eyes. Just a few were highlighted in same disgusting blood red.

5/17/95 $261,991

7/12/98 $261,991

"He's been dealing with Coonan since 1995," Castle shook his head in disbelief. "How does somebody- wait, not just somebody. How in the world does a United States Senator, who has lived under the unblinking eye of the media for 17 years get away with having ties to a drug lord?"

Beckett simply looked to him with a hardened gaze still on her face. "Simple. He had people higher up than him shutting that eye for him."

"Higher… wait, higher?" Castle sputtered as his eyes shot back down to the log book. "You mean-"

"No, Castle." Beckett rolled her eyes and snatched the book from him.

"Good," he muttered in an oddly tight voice. "I so don't want to be there to serve that arrest warrant."

"Come on, Rick, you're a writer." She said as she flipped a few pages, her eyes and lone finger speeding down page after page. "You know as well as I do that you don't need to be a politician to be as powerful as one."

"Point taken, but... May I?" Castle took the ledger back and fanned through the rest of the pages, trying his best to hide his shock at seeing every single page filled to their very brim. He closed the book for a moment, mindful to keep the tip of a finger wedging apart the page where Coonan's name first appeared, and turned it to its side. "Look at this thing; it's as thick as one of my books. There must be hundreds- thousands- of names and connections in here: politicians, entertainers, constituents, lobbying firms, donors…"

"And no discernible way to find out who are naughty or nice." She finished and gave a sigh.

"Precisely."

Beckett wordlessly motioned for the ledger, to which Castle immediately relented. As she began leafing through the book, he watched on patiently, hoping she would be able to find some semblance of a lead.

"In any event," he said after a few moments, "I have to hand it to Burbury. I honestly didn't know he was this wealthy."

Her honey brown eyes shifted to him for a moment before returning to her current page. "What do you mean?"

"Well," he said while giving the stubble on his chin a quick scratch. "Look at the amounts he was giving Coonan. A quarter of a million dollars multiple times over? I don't know how rich he was before he took office, but that is a lot of cash even by my standards."

"Sure it is, Castle." she quipped.

"No, I'm serious." Castle tapped his finger on the closest page. "I know it doesn't sound like he's breaking the bank, even if you add up every single payment to Coonan. Look over it a little more though, and I promise you that you will find dozens and dozens more charities."

After a moment, he heard a sound that was something between a growl and a panned agreement rumble up her throat. "There are two other charities on this page alone, each with much higher donations than his to Coonan's foundation. Okay, so Burbury was a philanthropist."

"Quite, but how did he afford to be one?" Castle paused for a moment, letting the question hang in the air. "We're talking tens of millions of dollars over a 17 year span."

"Agent Brooks," Beckett called out. When the surly man once again looked back to them, she motioned down to the logs. "What year did Senator Burbury get elected to the Senate?"

"1998. He served as a State Senator for two years prior to that."

"So…" she flipped back to the beginning of the ledger. "This log book was started in 1994. Sadly, I don't think that little tidbit will be useful with DeWitt."

"Well, it might…" Castle mused. "Bringing up Burbury's name certainly got DeWitt's motor running.

"Ah," Kate shook her head. "That's right. Not to mention he looked a bit shocked that Burbury was a Senator…"

"… So the next logical step is to assume that…" He began, unable to suppress the mirthful warmth fluttering in his chest when he saw the sudden burst of realization sparkle in her eyes.

"… He knew Burbury before he became a politician." They said in unison.

For a moment, Beckett stared at him a moment with an approving smile. As he began to return a glowing grin of his own in kind, to his confusion, her eyes seemed to widen for the briefest of moments. She suddenly pursed her lips and swiveled her entire face back to the ledger. "So… um, he might know what circles Burbury ran in so that we could narrow the names in here down a little.

"Do you think Burbury might have had his hands in the bad man's cookie jar for that long?" Castle asked with a slight tilt of his head.

"I'll choose to ignore the obvious innuendo there and just say no." Beckett flipped a few dozen pages over. "But, I would wager that it might be a good place to start when looking into his background."

Castle was quite content in allowing a small, lopsided grin dance up the scruffy curve of his cheek at her retort. With all gravity aside, her ability to maintain a little humor even in the midst of something as dark as this case never ceased to amaze him.

"That's strange…" Beckett suddenly murmured.

Shaking himself from his reverie, Castle looked at her for a moment and tried to trace the line of her focus down to whatever had given her pause.

"Did you find something?" He whispered as he looked to the page she was most certainly looking at, but nothing was standing out.

"Oh, nothing… I don't know." Her reply came hesitantly. "I'm just trying to figure something out. Coonan's name is all over this thing- I think I've seen his name three more times on the last two pages alone…"

"But?" Castle supplied.

"Well... the rest aren't highlighted." She explained as her eyes shifted to his. "Only his first two payments to Coonan were."

The author looked down to the ledger and his eyes immediately zeroed in on Coonan, and sure enough, it was completely untouched.

"Hmm," he paused for a moment. "Are the ones that aren't highlighted payments to Coonan as well, or are they from Coonan to him?"

Her finger traced over to the very end of one of the lines and tapped a few times on a barely visible acronym.

"AP; must be amount paid." She flipped back to the page where Coonan first appeared and immediately pointed out the same two letters right beside the six figure amount. "And the same thing here."

Nodding in agreement, he forced his eyes to look over the rest of the page again. It only took a second to find the acronyms opposite beside another set of numbers and a completely different name. "And here's an 'AR'. I guess that pretty much means he was only paying Coonan."

"I wonder what makes these so special…" She mused with a curious lilt in her voice. "These dates- 1995 and 1998- that's just so…"

"Random?" He supplied.

"I wouldn't say that," she replied. "It only seems random because we don't have the entire story…"

After a moment of silence, Castle cleared his throat.

"What?" A single inquisitive brow rose up.

"Careful, Detective," he whispered in her ear. "You're beginning to sound like me."

"Focus, Castle." She shot back and followed it with a quick elbow to his side. "Think about it for a second. Brooks said that Burbury was elected a State Senator in 1996 and a U.S. Senator in 1998, so…"

"You think that's their connection? His election?" He replied as quietly as he could and gave a low whistle. "You think Burbury was a Manchurian Candidate?"

Beckett opened her mouth to reply but promptly slammed it shut. He peered forward and the moment he looked in her eyes he knew exactly what she thought, or rather, what she had absolutely no intention of saying aloud, not in front of mixed company anyway. Castle could only bite his tongue and silently agree- the thought was more than troubling, it was nightmarish in its ramifications.

It explained the motive behind Burbury's murder well enough- when a puppet is no longer needed, its strings are simply… cut. Then that could only mean the people that the Senator was a façade for were much more powerful than he would ever be. The thought alone sent a chill clambering its way up his spine. But why did he die now? What did the Senator do to his masters?

As Beckett returned to scouring over page after page, the writer allowed his mind to mull a little. Why those dates? Why weren't the others highlighted? Obviously it implied a certain amount of significance to those particular payments, but what? Those dates weren't anywhere near the point in time Coonan was murdering people…

Right?

Castle gave a subtle shake of his head, disposing the thought. The entirety of the CIA had their hands on this book for days; they would have surely thought the same thing when checking into any dates that stood out like this, particularly regarding the dealings of a Senator with a man of Coonan's true profession. So it stood to the writer's reasoning that Brooks would have told them if those dates were linked to any cold cases.

So what could they mean? Briberies? Kickbacks? Those didn't fit either. Trying a different approach, Castle recalled Brooks' words; that this book clearly implicated Burbury was a card-carrying member of Rathborne. So, that link was certainly implied with Coonan, but it only implied a history between the two. That's it. Every possible scenario for that monster's name to even be in this book defied any logical explanation he could conjure. If Coonan was his only known link to Rathborne, why was this puppet still needed long after Coonan died? Did they still have a use for him until recently?

Then a thought occurred to him.

"Beckett?" He gave her a nudge with his shoulder.

"Yeah." She said, not taking her eyes from her task.

"Are there any other names in there highlighted?"

With a gasp and a mumbled reply that sounded oddly close to 'good one', Beckett began to fan through the ledger at eye-popping speed.

"I'm thinking that if we find any others highlighted, those dates might-"

"-Give us a better idea of what it means; gotcha." She finished for him. Just a few seconds later, her eyes grew wide. "Ah! Here's a new… name…"

"Who?" He said excitedly, his eyes darting from her profiled face to the ledger in rapid succession. "Who is it?"

No sooner as those words left his lips, the smile dancing across his face slowly died away. Her hands, still cradling the book began to shake- harder and harder.

"Beckett?" He said cautiously.

Her ironclad grasp on the ledger violently recoiled as though the book itself had burst into flames, sending it crashing to the ground with a resonating thud.

"Kate?" Castle's eyes shot down to the discarded book for what seemed only a scant moment. His trail of vision swept down to the still open-faced ledger. He bent down, his eyes straining feverishly to the lone line of red streaking its way across the left page.

"Kate, what's the-"When he looked back up, Beckett was already in a headlong sprint, the percussive blasts of her heels growing softer and softer in his ears as she rounded the corner of the hall. "Kate!"

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was sure he heard Brooks shouting as well. Yet, the words never registered. As he took off after her, there was only one thing going through the author's mind.

John… Raglan? Who in the hell is John Raglan?

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AN: As a side note, in the original outline of this story, this chapter was slated to be the point where this story most definitely earned its M rating ;)

Also a special thanks to everyone leaving some really awesome questions and theories in your reviews! Next chapter will be coming up hopefully tomorrow!