'Daddy? Why you no' chew'em?'

'Hmm?'

'Why you no' chew'em?'

Castle looked over at RJ in his booster seat, spoon in hand like a gavel and watching him very carefully. 'Why am I not chewing my cold tabs?'

'Uh-huh. Mumum say, al-ways chew'em well.'

'But these aren't your Flintstone vitamins, these are especially for my cold and the doctor said it's okay because they are very tiny.'

' 'Maller than a pit-pea?'

'Even smaller than a split pea,' Castle agreed, then looked over at Shane, who was using his day off to take care of the sickies in the loft with his trademark split-pea soup and cheesy bread. 'Thought you were going to visit Alexis in Princeton?'

'No, that's next week, and I had a dentist's appointment this morning.' The doctor offered a smile that Castle knew would make most women tremble in their knees; it certainly had made Alexis flutter a little bit. 'Next week, I'm finishing days before my day off and the next day I'm only on call for nights, so I'm going to Mister-Mom it for her.'

'Shane a goo' hubby,' RJ said with a smile and a nod, dipping into his bowl, making both Shane and Castle.

'Who taught you that one, little bro-in-law?' Shane asked.

'Javi. He be nice, make soup fo' Mer-det an' she say he a goo' hubby.'

'Ah, well, that is being a good hubby,' Castle commented, then got up to find a Kleenex, adding 'Shane, can you get that?' when the houseline phone rang.

'Hello?' Shane said into the receiver, strained to hear the voice. 'Hello?'

'Shane, that you?'

'Kate?'

'Yeah it's me. I'm in the middle of Times Square with Ry-Sposito, we're on our way to get Adam Brennan!'

'Why are you calling,' he asked, visions of something wrong with the baby speeding horrifically through his mind.

'I needed to ask Rick if he's taken RJ to the doctor's?'

'Yep, and I made them lunch. You want to say a quick hello?'

'Sure!'

Shane nodded, then passed the phone to RJ first. 'Your mom's on the phone.'

'Yea!' RJ took the received and held it to his head. 'Hi-hi Mumum, how bumpy?'

'Bumpy's fine, just wanted to say I love you and take care of Omeo so his sniffles go away, okay?'

'You besha, Mumum! You gonna talk-a Daddy?'

'Please and thank you.' Beckett held her breath until Castle was on the line, and she heard his raspy, cold-infected voice. 'Hey, honey, still feeling tough?'

'Better but still crumby. What's up?'

'I'm going to question a fellow cop for and need a booster,' she told him honestly. 'Hormones and fatigue and everything are just getting to me this morning.'

'Okay. Just keep one thing in mind, that a badge doesn't make the cop. The man or woman makes the badge.'

'Damn you're good. Alright, I have to go kick some criminal ass.'

'That's my girl. Love you.'

'Love you too.'

Beckett hung up her phone, looked at Ryan and Esposito. 'Don't look at me like that, I'm not going to blow up.'

'I don't know, Kate,' Ryan replied as they climbed up the stairs to Brennan's restaurant-topping apartment near the Hard Rock Cafe. 'You looked pretty steamed when you came out of Montgomery's office a few hours ago.'

'Yeah, because IA is treating this like it's a fucking joke,' she barked. 'Not to mention it was that ass-wipe Blake Holmes was the one who was called in on it.'

'Not that I'm always one to criticize,' Esposito pointed out as they reached Brennan's floor, 'but can't the kid hear you know? Should you be cursing that much?'

'Bumpy, cover your ears sweetheart.' Beckett told her belly as she stopped, then looked Esposito and Ryan in the eye. 'I'm aware I've handled this pregnancy far more easily than with RJ, but seriously, if you don't stop with this babying the scary pregnant cop crap, I'm going to stuff a night-stick up your ass and turn you into a Puerto-Rican Popsicle, Javier.'

'Understood.'

Beckett nodded, then reined it in as she knocked on Brennan's door. All of them heard the crashing about of the hung-over inside, and Brennan's voice came through the door. 'Yeah?'

'Officer Brennan, Detectives Beckett, Ryan, and Esposito,' she announced. 'We'd like to come in and ask some questions.'

There was a sigh, then the disengagement of locks before Brennan poked his face through the crack of the door. 'Questions about what?'

'Greg and Juliet Madsen.'

'Right.' Despite the bleariness, there was cop's understanding in his eyes, so he stepped back in welcome. 'I knew this would be coming down the pipe, huh?'

'Considering you were the one Juliet was having an affair with, I'd say offhand, yah.' Esposito looked around, then at Brennan who was still in the most ridiculous underwear he'd seen in awhile - the officer's boxers were blood red with comic-book sound-effect words all over them. 'You have some clothes?'

'Oh, right, sorry.'

Esposito escorted Brennan away and they returned momentarily, Brennan dressed in black sweats and a grey t-shirt with Old Navy in orange writing. The younger officer was looking more alert now, and not hungover like they'd originally taken him for, but emotionally wrung out, like he'd been up half the night...crying.

'Okay, Adam,' Beckett used his first name, then looked around. 'Mind if we sit down in the living room?'

'Not at all.'

Beckett put herself in the comfy-looking dusty-blue armchair - he was surprisingly neat for a bachelor - and watched Adam sigh heavily as he sat down on the couch end closest to her, Esposito taking a seat between them on the coffee table. 'You know why were here, even without us saying so.'

'Yeah, and I know I should have told you about Juliet, but...I just couldn't do it, I knew how the others were going to look at me, how Lina was going to look at me. Officer Cruz, I mean, that's Lina.'

'Understood and okay, you should have told us about your real relationship with her as soon as possible, especially considering how it looks.'

'How what looks?' Brennan asked, genuinely confused.

'You and Officer Cruz were at three crime scenes where the victims all had a loose connection to you both.'

'What connection?'

'The Big Apple Bookworm foundation,' Esposito clarified and saw Brennan's eyes light with understanding. 'Ring any bells up there in Queens?'

'Oh, that. Yeah, Lina has some choice words about those bastards. Bunch of hypocrites is what they are. But it's not what it looks like, at least not the first two.'

'Juliet's different,' Beckett prompted.

'Yeah, it was. I was off duty the night she was killed, and she told me come by around nine since Greg was out of town, and while I was on my way there on the subway, Greg came home early to find her getting ready for a man that wasn't him. Their marriage was falling apart anyways, always fighting.' Brennan trailed off, sniffed deeply to keep it together. 'I was at the door when I heard them, so I broke it in, and saw him on top of her. He had the brick from his firelplace stonework in his hand, and I could tell there was no way I could talk him down.'

'The rope, was it yours, or here?' Esposito asked, getting the picture.

'Here, Greg had it extra for tarping the furniture while they worked on the living room renovations. I grabbed it, threw it around his neck to haul him off and subdue him, only I guess...I guess in my fit of rage at seeing him attacking Juliet, I pulled too hard. I got the hell out of there and tried to keep it together until I was on shift the next morning.'

'Is there anything you've got handy to show us you were on your way to the apartment?'

'Yeah, I've got my subway ticket stub in my office, and my receipt from the flower guy. I stopped to get Juliet some yellow roses after I left the subway stop near her place.'

'Ryan, go with him.'

Ryan nodded, and when they were alone, Beckett and Esposito looked at each other. 'It wash for you?'

'Yeah, it does. Guy's a mess, mourning the loss of his precious Juliet.'

'He's drinking to try and forget about it. I recognize the signs,' she started, then looked up when Ryan hollered for them.

'Beckett! Espo! Get in here!'

Esposito helped Beckett to her feet, and they went into the office where Ryan stood with a stricken look on his face, Brennan equally pale as he sat beside an open file cabinet. 'What?' Beckett demanded, followed Ryan's gaze when he simply pointed to the neatly labeled files.

And felt her knees go to water.

There, at the back of the row of files, in Brennan's painfully neat handwriting was a file that had no business being there.

Beckett, J. Hmc. Unsolved.