CBs

Chapter 29

"Babe, are you all right?" Kate asked as Castle laid down the phone.

Castle closed his eyes, holding Kate's hand between both of his, as a lifeline. "I'm trying to be. It's not as if I don't know my daughter isn't a virgin. She lived with Pi for months and she's had plenty of boyfriends. It's just that Balasz is a talented, brilliant, grown up man and this could be a serious relationship. I know Alexis is old enough. I'd written a best seller and was about to be a father when I was her age. She may be ready, but I'm not."

Kate pressed her head against Castle's shoulder. "I know you're not. You still want her to be the little girl in the tutu and plastic tiara. But she's a woman, Castle, whether you're ready or not. You're just going to have to call on some of Martha's acting genes and at least pretend to accept it or you'll be out both a daughter and a forensic accountant."

Castle brushed his face against her hair. "You sound like my mother."

"Well it may be unsolicited, but your mother has been known to give good advice. So I'll take that as a compliment. But it's late and we both still have a lot of work to do in the morning, so let's turn in, okay?"

Castle pulled her tightly against him, feeling her body lend the warmth of comfort to his. "Okay."

Alexis haunted Castle's dreams. He saw her first trip down the big slide, confident that he would catch her at the bottom. He did light saber battle with a tiny Princess Leia and crossed épées with his young apprentice while his mother pounded out silent movie music on the piano. He tossed beneath the covers as he saw Alexis in a cage in Paris and clinging to his hand as they ran the gauntlet of Volkov's men. Then he saw her waving goodbye and walking toward a faceless figure. He sat up, his face wet with tears. Someday, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, another man would be more important to Alexis than her father was. Just as Kate was the center of Rick's life, someone else would become that center for Alexis. For a moment he pictured Pi. At least his daughter's taste had improved - a lot.


Castle checked his email on his phone as he drank his double strength morning caffeine. He stared at the screen and enlarged the font. "I think it really might be time to get reading glasses."

"Is this about spending too much time with the Over the Hill Gang or are you feeling old because of Alexis?" Kate asked as she turned an omelet out of her Nona's frying pan.

"Actually, I don't think I've spent enough time with that gang. They really know how to get to the heart of a matter. But I am feeling old," Castle confessed, "maybe because of ending up in the hospital with pneumonia when all you did was catch a cold. Alexis is part of it too, and maybe it's because I'm having a harder time picturing myself as Derrick Storm. He was supposed to just be a bigger badder version of me. Now he's more like his graphic novel persona."

"You're still essentially Jameson Rook, especially when it comes to lighting a fire in Nikki Heat."

"Thanks," Castle smiled. "Good to know."

"So are you joining the other old men at the precinct this morning?" Kate teased.

Castle groaned. "She giveth and she taketh away. "Yes, we have a lot more questionable contracts to look into and not only will it help your case, my clients will be delighted. Anyway, the more I dig up, the less time my daughter may have to spend with Balazs. So I'll happily sit around with the other old farts."

"Really Castle? Guess I'll just have to tell Ryan to bring you all some of those bean burritos he loves so much."

Castle made a gagging noise. "You just spoiled a perfectly good breakfast."


Castle and Kate parted at the conference room where she continued on to her office. Despite the able assistance of Ray Edelson, her desk had a stack of paper all its own, mostly from 1PP. She sighed and began to work her way through.

A few hours later Castle knocked on the door frame. "I've got something. I was cross checking the projects lost by the clients Alexis snagged, with the records we have. On each of those projects there were expenditures just labeled as petty cash. But if you added them together, they were anything but petty. Then I checked social media for activities of the officials at the Capital Expenditures for any unusual activity while those projects were up for bid and just after they had been awarded. That was where I struck gold. There's a guy there, Rudy Gitano. After the first bid was awarded, his daughter had a massive sweet sixteen party. It was all over Facebook, Twitter, everywhere. Then after another one, his wife posted about a million pictures of a cruise they took. After another bid closed his wife bragged that their daughter was going to an ivy league school. As far as I can tell their were no inheritances or any other way a city official could pay for all that. But here's the topper. I called Sal Cardano. He told me that Rudy is well known for greasing wheels. Of course he didn't admit to anything about his own family, but he said the Spillanos had used Gitano to get some waste removal contracts. The man makes Bernie Madoff look clean. We need a warrant for Gitano's financials so we can match those petty cash expenditures to deposits in his accounts. And Kate, the gang found Gitano on the pipe project too. If we can tie him to Trimp, we'll have a dirt mountain you could build a ski resort on."

"So the Spillanos are involved in the case now too?" Kate asked.

Castle shook his head. "Not really, according to Sal, that family got out of the waste handling business a few years ago, at least officially. The costs got too high." Castle wiggled his brows. "They may still be doing some landfill business in the Jersey Meadows."

"We should have enough to get a warrant for Gitano's financials, Castle, but doing so will put a lot of our cards on the table. It will give Trimp a start on covering his tracks, figuring out other explanations for any money that might have passed to Gitano."

"I have to report this to my clients regardless of what the N.Y.P.D. decides to do," Castle said. "For them this is a smoking gun. Some of them have filed protests and suits before, but they never had enough evidence to get anywhere."

"Castle that's it!" Kate exclaimed. "Gitano is used to disgruntled contractors. If one of them files civil suit, they could ask for the records as discovery, based on research by Richard Castle Investigations. Or better still, put it under Hayley's name, since she consults for you. Gitano may just see it as a just another nuisance suit and not tip off Trimp. Then, as a private citizen, you decide evidence of a crime should be turned over to the N.Y.P.D.."

Castle closed the office door and pulled Kate in for a kiss. "Sneakiness truly worthy of the Castle name. I think I love you even more."