Monday morning comes way too fast to suit Detective Kate Beckett-Castle. She is at her desk at the awful early hour of 7:00 am working on paperwork. She skipped breakfast this morning at home because her stomach was still a little queasy from the bout of nausea over the weekend
The elevator bell chimes and her two homicide partners walk toward their desks in a heated conversation concerning opinions on the Webster case.
Ryan starts up a conversation "Beckett, Javi thinks that Webster was killed probably in a robbery and I think it would not be a robbery since he has nothing in the office of value. I think it is something related to what he does, money management. What do you think?"
"Well guys, instead of throwing Castle's theories at the wall to see what sticks why don't we look at what the evidence tells us happened?"
Esposito responds "It does look like a mob hit, if you look at the way he was killed, you know execution style. The fact that there are files missing from his office makes it look like a robbery but like you said, there is nothing of value in the files. He handles no cash in that office"
Suddenly the voice of Richard Castle fills the room "Maybe it was a CIA assassin and the files contained secret launch codes"
He enters holding a drink carrier containing coffees for all four of the group and a paper sack in the middle. He hands out the drinks to the two detectives and one for his wife and he keeps the fourth. He then takes the bag and places it in front of Kate
"What's this?" she questions
"You left before I finished breakfast so I stopped and bought you a bear claw. I haven't done that for you since before we were married. I thought you might want something sweet. You know sweets for my sweet"
"That's sweet" Kate responds causing the two detectives to stifle a chuckle for her comment
"Shut up" Kate reacts as she is looking into the bag. A smile appears on her face. She suddenly stands up and walks very quickly in the direction of the break room. She opens the door and rushes to the lunch table where they keep a basket containing left over condiment packages from decades of meals to go brought into the lunch room. She ruffles thru the many packets containing ketchup, soy sauce, mayonnaise, salad dressings of various flavors and several other extras for meals.
She finally locates what she is searching for, opens the packet, and dispenses the contents on the top of her sweet glazed pastry. After she takes the first bite her face changes into contentment and a smile can be seen spreading across her face.
Castle enters the room and asks "You OK?"
Kate looks back at her husband and speaks thru a mouthful of glazed goodness "Yes!"
When he realizes what she has just put on the pastry he comments "How in the world are you eating that? It's disgusting"
"No! It's good. Thank you. This is just what I needed"
Richard Castle is not positive he wants to say any more about what she just did, but he has never in his entire life seen anyone take a sweet donut pastry and cover it with hot spicy Asian mustard and then actually eat it.
He decides that now is not the best time to discuss her culinary selections so he continues the conversation about the Webster murder
"Kate, do you think we need to tell the guys about my message last night?"
"MURF …ugh…mumble…yeah"
"Kate. Stop talking with you mouth full"
"OK" she chokes out between bites.
The couple moves back to the bull pin and Rick tells the two detectives about the events from the weekend
"Saturday night after we got home from the science fair, someone instant messaged me and told me to stop scanning fingerprints because I was being watched"
"Did you?" Esposito asks
"Oh yeah. Immediately, but there was already one red flagged fingerprint. I copied the reference number so I could check it out later" Castle hands the paper over to Esposito who approaches his desk and enters the number. Within a few seconds the screen has a pop up window
"FILE NUMBER NOT FOUND"
Espo enters the number again to make sure there is no mistake and he gets the same results
"You sure you wrote this down correctly?" He asks while looking up at Castle
"Positive. Yeah. I copied it and then re verified the information" He answers
"How would anyone know you were scanning? You were using a link from your computers to our network. Anyone looking at the request, it would show it came from NYPD" Ryan comments
"Let's check with Tory and see what she thinks". Esposito comments as he grabs his phone. After he dials the number of the support tech she answers quickly. He tells her that he could use her help on something and she tells him she is on her way up
Listening to the conversation Kate and Rick look at one another. Both notice that there is no small amount of glee in his voice while they are speaking
It is only a few minutes later that the elevator doors open and Tory Ellis, a ravishing dark haired beauty steps onto the floor carrying her bag containing her computer.
It does not take Castle moments before he notes that Esposito is enjoying the tech support specialist's presence in the room
"Hi guys, what have you got?" She starts up
Esposito hands her a piece of paper and tells her the complete story that Rick had presented to them just few minutes ago. It was evident that Javier was not going to let anyone else fill her in on the issues.
"Let me try" Tory states as she enters the information given to her. She gets the same 'File Not Found' message that the team had already been given. "It appears the link to this number has been deleted. Someone is trying to keep you from tracing the match"
Can you retrace the event and get the information?" Kate asks
"No. It is gone from the AFIS server. Like it was never there"
"Well then can we do another scan using your machine?" Kevin questions
"We can, let me start it" Then she enters a few keys and the computer begins its assigned task "OK then what else did you say happened?"
Castle looks out the door of the conference room "Listen we were doing a little scanning using the program you loaded for my daughter's science fire project"
"You were scanning real fingerprints? I didn't set up all the security protocols in that machine because you said that you were not going to scan real prints into the AFIS system"
"UH Yeah" Castle responds
"So someone contacted you about this and that is the reference number you gave me?" The tech specialist questions
"Yeah?" Rick answers "Is that a problem?"
"You evidently triggered an alarm in whatever agency this person works for. I imagine all kind of alarms went off in DC. I am surprised you didn't get a knock on your door with men in suits and dark glasses coming to take you away"
As if on cue the elevator dings and four very large men exit onto the floor. All four are wearing dark suits and ties. It is obvious they are armed because of the bulges under their coats and not one has a happy face.
The larger man who appears to be the leader speaks out to no one in particular "Who is in charge here?"