This chapter finds Kate and Castle on their way back to Alphabet City, to see first-hand what CSU and Esposito have found inside the locked closet in the girl's apartment.

Disclaimer: Characters are the property of Andrew Marlowe and the team.

Chapter 38

Castle had his phone out and in his hand as he sat down inside the car, and was placing a call before Kate had pulled away from the curb.

"Who are you calling?" she asked, glancing over at him as she maneuvered the car into late afternoon traffic.

The call connected before he was able to answer.

"Bob, you old dog," said Castle warmly, winking over at her.

Kate quickly realized that he was taking to his friend, Mayor Robert Weldon. As soon as the Mayor answered, Castle put the phone on speaker, so that Kate could listen to the conversation along with him.

"Hey, Rick. You're calling about Paul Nelson's daughter, I assume?" replied the Mayor, and Kate's eyebrows shot up.

Castle mouthed the word Bingo! to Kate, and she shook her head in disbelief.

"No. I was actually calling to arrange another poker night," replied Castle, lying through his teeth. "It's been too long. Time I took some money off you, Bob," continued Castle, keeping things light and jovial. "Why don't you give me some dates, and I'll speak to Roy and the boys. Get some of that law enforcement muscle to take on you political boys, see who blinks first."

The Mayor laughed, lulled by Castle's convincing tone. Kate found herself seriously impressed by her partner's composure, and she made a mental note to show him just how impressed she was…later.

"Kate Beckett joining us this time, or is it boys only?" asked the Mayor.

Kate flushed, surprised to hear her own name brought up in the conversation, and now it was Castle's turn to raise an eyebrow. He placed a hand on her leg and let is slide suggestively up her thigh, just because he could, and because a surge of possessiveness coursed through him at his friend's question.

"Eh, I'll check if she's free. But…"

Castle looked over at her and her eyes grew even wider, nodding at him to finish whatever it was he had been about to say. Because, whatever it was, the suspense was killing her.

"But…? There isn't a problem with the lovely detective, is there, Rick?" asked the Mayor. "She hasn't finally found you out and kicked your ass off her team, has she?" he said, laughing to himself.

Both Castle and Kate had to stifle their own laughter. Kate put her hand over her mouth and bit down on her finger, keeping the other on the wheel.

"Because if you've messed things up with her, Rick, that's one woman I'm pretty sure I'd have no influence over. She's a firecracker, that one, just like you said."

Castle coughed, and shifted uncomfortably in his seat, suddenly worried that some other detail from their boy's only nights was about to be divulged in front of Kate. So, he decided to take control of the situation, and wind the call up.

Kate was staring at him, her eyes dangerously leaving the road, until he grabbed the steering wheel and turned them away from the curb, snapping her out of it.

"No, Detective Beckett and I are…getting along famously," said Castle, squeezing her thigh and winking. "No need for an intervention, Bob."

"Good to hear, Rick. Well, I'll check my diary, and come back to you with some dates. Give the good detective my regards."

"Will do. Oh and Bob?"

"Yes?"

"Did you say you knew Jemma Nelson's father, Paul?"

"I didn't say that, no," he replied, a note of suspicion creeping into his voice. "But, yes, as it happens, I do know him. We went to school together. He called me this afternoon, as a matter of fact."

"Oh?" asked Castle, trying hard to keep his voice neutral, his tone light.

"Yeah, he heard you had his daughter in custody. He's trying to stay hands-off for now, like she asked. Got an independent streak as wide as the Hudson, that one. Not unlike your Detective Beckett, I imagine."

Castle coughed to cover up a snigger, and Kate sucked in a breath, shocked that the Mayor would refer to her in those terms. "Your Detective Beckett?" she mouthed at Castle, who ignored her.

"But he's worried about this getting out. Asked me if I could speak to Roy. Get things expedited quietly before the press gets wind of the story. His company's about to float on the NASDAQ, and he doesn't want any negative publicity suppressing the stock price at launch."

"Right," said Castle, his voice soothing, sounding a note of agreement, though inside he was seething that Peter Nelson could cut his daughter loose for the sake of his company's market capitalization. "Yeah, that makes sense. I'm sure Roy will do all he can. Listen, I'd better go. Traffic snarl up ahead. Got to keep my eyes on the road. Get me those dates, Bob, and we'll make plans."

"Pleasure, as always, Rick. You take care, now," said the Mayor, and Castle ended the call.

"Sweet mother of…" said Kate, scarcely knowing where to begin.

Did she start with Jemma Nelson, now poor Jemma Nelson in her mind, whose father was hanging her out to dry to save his precious flotation? Or did she start with Castle, who seemed to have had fun discussing her with the Mayor, at some point in the past? Or did she go with Roy, her boss, who, when he was through being sanctimonious with her, had taken direction from the Mayor to hurry up a case that she was investigating, before she could properly ascertain the facts or interview her only witness?

"How did you know?" she asked Castle, deciding that more information would be better than less, under the circumstances, and she could always torture the other details out of him later, when they were somewhere a little more comfortable.

"I wasn't sure. But it just didn't seem like him…Roy, I mean. At first I thought he was still mad at us. But when he insisted you phoned in, to expedite her transport, if we don't find anything in Alphabet City…I don't know. It just seemed…off, you know?" he said, fingers stroking Kate's knee.

But the fact was, that she didn't know. Castle had caught this, while she had missed it entirely.

"I think I'm losing my edge, Rick. I totally missed the signs," she said, sounding a little weary.

"Hey, it's been a long day, and Roy's been on your case lately. So don't blame yourself for only listening to what he told you to do. The subtext was pretty subtle believe me. There was a lot of pressure back there…in the box with Jemma. And for what it's worth, Kate, I think you were finally starting to get through to her," said Castle, palming her cheek with his hand.

"Thanks."

"My pleasure. Hey, you think we'll still make our double-date with Alexis and Ashley tonight?" he asked, and Kate groaned, letting her head fall back against the headrest. "That appealing, huh? Look, if you're too tired, we can always take a rain check," said Castle quickly, not wanting to put her under any pressure. "Alexis will understand, and I'm pretty certain Ashley might even be relieved," he said, with a wry laugh.

"No. No. I said we'd go. As long as we get through this…whatever Espo's found, at a reasonable hour, I don't see how we can refuse her one double date. You've hardly spent any time with her lately, and it's actually kind of sweet that she's so excited to be going out with us. Most kids are mortally embarrassed by their parents," said Kate, blushing furiously as she realized how that sounded.

Castle heard her, but decided to step over the comment for Kate's sake, even though it made him want to kiss her senseless.

"Yeah, her old dad and his hot girlfriend. Who'd have thought?"

"Glad you got the adjectives in the right order there, Castle," teased Kate, grateful to him for letting her off the hook. "Not so old, though, as it turns out, are you?" said Kate, in her bedroom voice. She put the car in Park, and then leaned over the console to kiss him slowly, his lips soft and full against hers, yielding to the pressure of her tongue.

They jumped apart when Kate's phone began to ring, guilty looks on both their faces.

"It's Espo," hissed Kate, answering the call. "Hi, Javi. Yes, we just arrived. Be right up," she said quickly, hanging up and getting out of the car. "Thank god he didn't come down to meet us."

"Top floor," reminded Castle. "Small mercies."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

By the time they had made their second ascent of the day up the ten, narrow, flights of stairs, a landing splitting the staircase between each level, Kate wasn't so sure that 'old' wasn't an adjective that could describe them both.

With Alexis' illness, the case, living at the loft, and her recent injury, sex was the only regular exercise she'd been getting. She made a mental note to get back to the gym as soon as she could find a spare hour, and to seduce Castle the moment they got home tonight. But from the way he was looking at her right now, that wasn't exactly going to be a challenge.

"What?" he asked, looking down at his pants to check his zipper was pulled all the way up.

"Nothing," said Kate, a cheeky, knowing smile spreading on her face as her eyes lingered on his lips, making him blush. Oh yeah. She'd just make Richard Castle, international playboy, blush.

"You bad girl," said Castle, catching on as she continued to look him over, fixing him with hazel eyes full of lust. "You're horny, aren't you, detective," he said, leaning in close to her ear to whisper to her as they walked along the dark hallway, making her shiver, a delighted smile on his face.

"Shhhh, Mr. Castle. Later," she promised, her fingers curling around his wrist until they reached the apartment door, then letting go and instantly missing the feel of him.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Kate tapped on the door of apartment 5B, while attempting to fight off Castle, who was standing behind her, currently trying to get his fingers into her back pant's pocket, with her free hand. Soon Esposito came out into the hall to greet them, closing the door over behind him. He tackled Castle half-heartedly. The writer was still breathing slightly heavily from the climb up the stairs, and so he teased him about being out of shape. But the minute Kate asked him about the contents of the hall closet, Esposito's face changed, and he glanced back nervously at the door to Jemma's apartment.

"Espo?" said Kate, picking up on his reluctance to tell them what CSU had found, a slight edge to her voice that Castle knew well. It was the tone she used when she knew that someone was hiding something from her, and she was determined to find out what that something was. "Come on. What is it? What did you find?" she asked, frowning at him as a million different scenarios flitted through her mind.

Esposito shifted from foot to foot, until Castle couldn't take it any longer, and he clamped a large hand down on the detective's shoulder to pin him to the spot and stop him from moving.

"Answer the lady," said Castle, lips quirked into that characteristic boyish smile, fun still playing in his eyes. "Was it the boyfriend's porn stash? You not finished flicking through it yet, Javi? Is that the problem?" he joked.

But Esposito wasn't smiling, and, now, neither was Kate.

"Okay, Javi. Now you're scaring me. You didn't find another body in there, because I didn't smell anything…"

"It isn't a body," said Esposito, cutting Kate off, his voice colder than normal, no hint of the teasing and humor that usually surrounded him.

"Then what?" asked Kate, her hand on her hip as her unease developed into fear, and she made to push past him into the entryway of the apartment.

But Esposito moved faster. He caught her arm and spun her back round roughly, in a move that surprised Castle, wiping the smile off his face. Kate just stared at him in shock, too thrown of balance by the suddenness of his actions to speak up.

"What the hell, Espo? Just spit it out, man. That was uncalled for," said Castle, getting angry at the way the detective had manhandled Kate.

"Sorry. Beckett. Please. I'm sorry." He said, looking at his feet for a moment.

Then slowly, it all came tumbling out. How they'd broken the lock and opened up the closet, which turned out to be more of a small room, when you got inside. It was the same depth as the bathroom next to it and four meters wide. CSU had measured, dusted, and photographed every last inch of it.

Esposito explained that the room had been shelved out on two sides and that a clothes rail had been fitted to the back wall. The rail was on wheels, but they hadn't moved it until after Esposito had called Kate.

The shelves were filled with books, rows and rows of books, mostly non-fiction. True crime novels, a smattering of serial killer biographies in amongst them; a small collection of law books, including The Complete Idiot's Guide to the U.S. Constitution and Law 101: Everything You Need to Know About the American Legal System; and then there were several volumes on practical photography. But the one thing, that all of these book had in common, was their cataloging system. Each book had a small, neatly printed, label on its' spine, and they had been arranged in accordance with the Dewey Decimal System. The classes, 342 for Constitutional Law, for example, and 771 for Photographic Techniques, Equipment and Materials, in this instance, had been applied to each book, and then they had been filed in order on each shelf. The system was complex, used in libraries all over the world to catalogue and keep track of stock, but the fact that it had been used in this small room, to arrange this relatively small collection of books, was baffling, and somehow profoundly disturbing.

"You think maybe Joey's studying to become a librarian?" suggested Castle, trying to break the tension with humor.

When no one replied, Esposito continued his description.

In addition to the books, there were shelf loads of DVDs. Horror titles mostly, a mixture of foreign and domestic, and, almost nothing below an NC-17 rating. Other than the commercial releases, there were stacks of privately made movies with obscure titles, and blank boxes with no artwork at all. These seemed to have a cataloging system of their own, but until they got them back to the lab, CSU couldn't be sure what was on them. Porn, snuff movies? Right now it was anyone's guess.

Esposito went on to explain that the shelves also contained bottles of chemicals, 8x10" plastic photo developing trays, tongs, and an enlarger, all of which would be used in the development of 35mm film, though there was no sign of any camera equipment in the closet.

On one of the shelves they had also found a small, plastic pharmaceuticals case, containing 150ml glass vials of some kind of drug, and a batch of unused syringes. The information on the labels had been scratched off, though the pharmacy name was still partially visible on one of the bottles.

Kate listened patiently to Esposito's report. But aside from the fact that the guy owned a few books on serial killers, even her dad had been known to read a few of those, and he had some kind of drug paraphernalia in his closet, hell, she'd just busted his girlfriend for possession, so, no big surprise there either, they were short on the wow factor. The obsessive arrangement of the books and DVDs was troubling, perhaps indicating OCD or some other kind of psychological issue, but none of it truly screamed serial killer.

Esposito still looked really uncomfortable, and he clearly hadn't gotten to the point yet, so that's when Kate's patience snapped.

"Javi, this is all great, but I'm really not seeing it. We can't charge someone with possession of a few creepy books and for being overly well organized. So unless you want me to pin you to that wall, so I can go in there and see this stuff for myself, you'll step out of the way and let me pass."

Esposito didn't move from his position in front of the door, but Kate didn't raise a finger to make him move either. They each waited the other out. Esposito broke first.

"The clothes rail had some men's clothing hanging on it, jackets, pants, a few shirts, and there were some empty hangers as well, as if maybe he's taken some clothes away with him. Judging by the size of the clothing, he's a tall, slim guy. He wears a 32" waist, but his pants are all 34" long, so I'm guessing he has to be over 6 feet tall."

"Jemma must be 5'2'' in her stocking feet. How does that work?" mused Castle, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Kate gave him a dirty look to silence him and then turned her gaze back onto Esposito.

"So, we've had the fashion segment. What comes next? Cooking or horoscopes?" she asked tartly.

Esposito ignored her and carried on.

"When we rolled the clothes rail out of the room to check the stuff for fibers, hair, epithelials, trace…"

"Javi, I know the drill," interrupted Kate. "Hell, even Castle knows the drill by now. Just get on with it."

"There was something on the back wall of the closet. Stuck to it."

"Yes?"

"It's a kind of…oh, I don't know…"

"Try, Javi. A kind of what?" asked Kate, totally mystified by his reluctance to just tell them or, better yet, show them, what they'd found.

"Best I can come up with is a cross between a shrine and a murder board."

Kate and Castle just looked at him, and then they looked at each other. While his description was intriguing, it wasn't exactly detailed.

"Containing?" asked Kate, crossing her arms, one hip kicked out in a way that Castle found intensely distracting, and powerful, all at the same time.

"Containing photographs, a map, newspaper clippings, some old, some new."

"Who is in the photographs?" asked Kate, her interest piqued by what now sounded like real, probative evidence.

"There was a photograph of each of our victims, and newspaper clipping from The Ledger, following coverage of each murder and the progression of the case. There were also crime scene photographs," said Esposito, tailing off.

"Official NYPD photos?" asked Castle.

"No. These had been taken from a distance. Shot with a long lens."

Esposito let his point sink in.

"That sick son of a bitch was there, watching us work?" asked Kate.

Esposito nodded and then continued.

"Each of the victims he's killed already has a red cross drawn through their face. The only headshot without a cross is Michael Dupre."

Kate and Castle let out a breath simultaneously.

Apparently Esposito was on a roll now, so he continued, "It gets worse, I'm afraid. For you two."

Castle glanced at Kate, but she was staring at Esposito like she'd strangle him if he didn't just tell them everything and be done with it. The drip, drip, drip of information was getting on her nerves.

"The crime scene stuff…those photos seem to focus in on Beckett mostly."

"Well, Kate was there at every scene, running the command," reasoned Castle. "So, of course she would be in the photos."

"No, it's more than that. This guy was using a telephoto lens. He zoomed in so close on Beckett that you could see the color of her eyes, man."

Kate flushed a little at the unwanted attention, and Castle involuntarily found himself staring into those, oh so hard to describe, pools of greenish hazel. He looked away again when Kate glared at him.

"There were other photographs too. But these weren't taken at any of the crime scenes. They indicate that he's been watching Beckett. It explains how he knew where you were staying, where and when to send you those notes."

"So…where were the other shots taken?" asked Kate, starting to feel a little queasy, the lunchtime pizza now lying heavy in her stomach.

"There was one taken on the night of the gala. I can date it based on what you're both wearing," said Esposito, shifting uncomfortably.

"Both?" asked Kate.

"Yeah. He, eh. He took a picture of the two of you…outside the precinct. It's…you were kissing, before the briefing, I think. It's still light out and…" he rambled on, trying to cover the awkwardness of what he was saying.

Kate looked pale, but she pushed him, "Any others? I need to know everything, Javi."

"Yes," he sighed, hating this. Hating having to expose the private life he knew his boss guarded so closely. "There's another one of the two of you, sitting outside some restaurant. You're holding hands. It was sunny out. And there's one of you leaving Castle's loft…together, you're…anyway, and there's another one taken outside of your apartment building, Beckett, looks like the night he left that note under your door."

Esposito looked wiped out by the 'confession', because that's almost what it sounded like, though, clearly none of this was his fault.

Castle was uncharacteristically quiet. Kate just looked numb.

After a moment, filled with awkward silence, and only the quiet hum of conversation coming from inside the apartment, Castle was the first to speak. "Kate?" he said quietly, reaching his hand out to touch her arm.

Esposito coughed, examined his shoes, and then said, "Why don't I give you guys…?"

"No," said Kate, stopping him from leaving. "Don't go. I'm just going to…I have to…" she said, failing to finish the thought as she began to move, dazed, and glassy-eyed past Castle, towards the stairs at the end of the hall.

He reached out to stop her, but she shrugged him off.

"Kate?" he repeated, a little plaintively.

"I just need a minute. I'll be back," she promised, managing to give him a watery smile, her fingertips briefly brushing his outstretched arm.

Castle watched her go, knowing she would hate it if he tried to stop her and caused a scene. It would be the longest minute of his life.

A/N: No reviews for the last chapter, so you're all either a) hating this or b) very busy people.

I'm hoping it's: 'Answer B, Meredith. Final answer.' ;)