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Last Chapter: Castle presses Esposito about him and Lanie. Then Ryan comes in with some news. He was working while everyone else was dealing with the whole Todd situation, and he found that the first and last victims, Bridget and Heather, had both been to the same bar with their 'romantic interests'( for lack of a better more concise phrase), but they hadn't seen it before because one of them didn't have a credit card charge there. Then Beckett does a little more digging and finds out that they were both there on Saturday nights, and seeming as captain creepy likes to keep to a schedule she thinks that he may be finding his new victims on Saturday nights. And she feels like she's on a role until Castle, who has been ...quiet up till this point, points out that even if all three other victims went to that bar, they hadn't. So, where did they fit in to the whole thing?
Okay so still kind of under recap but not quite…
So, someone admitted to being totally confused about characters and their names. I'm trying to keep it as simple as I can, but I know it's still not easy. And therefore for all of you out there who are just a smidge confused I give you….
The Handy Dandy Connection Chart
Victim - Romantic Interest - Friend/ family that was interviewed
Victim #1 Bridget - Daniel Ethens - Melanie(girl from when Espo was 'missing')
Victim #2 Caroline - Alex Kirsty - Randy(The one Espo thought was hot)
Victim #3 Heather - Sean Leary - Todd (He totally hit Espo with a table)
** Sorry if you have an alert and are getting an alert for this chapter twice, but I formatted this chart in word and forgot to reformat it when I uploaded it to fanfiction. So, to all of you who were sitting there thinking 'No Elizabeth this chart was not at all helpful' :D Hopefully now it will be... Whoops :D**
Now: if it helps you at all, for the most part you can forget the friend/family member because they won't come up too much after this, and these are really the only names that you need to know. If you want I can put this (not the whole rant just the chart) in the rest of the chapters if you think it will help. Just let me know! NOW ENOUGH OF THESE SHENANAGINS AND LET'S GET TO THIS STORY!
Chapter 38: Pieces of the Puzzle
Beckett bit her lip, and leaned back in her chair….
Good question. She thought to herself, Where do we fit in?
She hadn't really thought about them, probably for this exact reason. Because they didn't make sense next to everyone else. Sure, they fit the profile to a 'T', but still, they were different.
She sat there thinking for a few moments, but she wasn't getting anywhere very fast.
She let out a huff of air and pursed her lips,
"So, any ideas?" she asked.
He took a deep breath saying, "Not much. None of this really makes sense anymore. I thought the more pieces to his weird and demented puzzle we had, the more sense it would make, but it just makes it more confusing… But here's how I see it: Up until us, he never broke his pattern. He was precise and consistent. So the way I see it is that we have to be"
"different." Kate said, catching onto his idea and finishing his sentence, "Yeah, because if he broke the 'rules' by contacting you, who's to say he hasn't been doing it since the start." She added, leaning forward in her chair as he said,
"We could just be a crime of opportunity, so to speak…. Our guy is sitting at home alone, late one night, maybe he's watching TV or flipping through a magazine, when he spots a story about us … And he pauses for a second, maybe ripping out that article from the magazine, before he starts smiling to himself. Because he has a different plan for this Saturday night... 'Forget the bar this week.' He says to the empty room, 'Let's try something new.' And he slowly closes the magazine, turns off the TV, and still smiling at his good fortune. He begins his planning…" Castle says, trailing off at the end.
Kate pauses for a second, taking in every creepy and hair raising detail before she brings herself back to the real world.
If one thing was certain, Castle went into the right profession; that man could spin a story that had her hanging on his every word.
He was still had a musing smile on his lips, the same one that he always wore when he was concocting a story in his mind.
"Do you know how creepy it is when you do that?" she asked him.
"Make you want me huh?" he joked back.
"Not exactly what I was going for, but I'll just let you think that for now." She said, shaking her head at him, "Okay, so let's say that's true, he happened across us. So, what does he do next? Does he toy around with us and then go back to his routine? Or, does he keep escalating? Breaking more of his 'rules'? she pondered out loud.
Castle ran his fingers along his jaw, mulling over the same exact question.
"Well, he knew adding us into his little game would attract more media attention, which it did. So, if he's already got the media's attention then….. … Yeah, no I've got no clue. This guy's too much of a wack job even or me." He said giving up on trying to figure out this guy's next move.
He never gives up. Kate thought, maybe this is a far as we can get. A sign of the impending apocalypse …. Okay doubtful, but it still doesn't make me feel any better.
She got up out of her chair, leaving her thoughts behind her; she wandered over to the murder board. She was hoping it would give her some sort of divine inspiration.
She added the 11th Street Bar to the board.
And just a moment later Kate felt his presence as he casually strolled up behind her. The worst part was that she could totally tell that he was checking her out… so predictable…
She straightened up and turned around. First making sure that the coast was clear she then said, "Is there something I can help you with?" she bit her lip as she asked, turn around was fair game.
"Oh there are soo many things you could help me with, you have no idea." He said.
She smiled and turned back to the murder board. It was late, and she wanted nothing more than to just head home. Esposito came striding over to his desk, and Beckett walked over to meet him.
"Hey have you called Alex Kirsty yet?" she asked.
"No why?" he said.
"It's just too late to ask someone to come in just for an interview that probably won't get up very far. When you do call, why don't you set it up for tomorrow." She said.
"That works for me." Esposito said with a shrug.
It already felt like the longest day ever, and he was just glad that he didn't have to do this interview tonight.
A few minutes later Ryan came walking over to his desk, talking to someone on his cell phone.
He gave them a slight wave and a nod as he scribbled something down in his notebook.
Kate turned back to the murder board that seemed to be overflowing with facts, but containing no real answers.
Ryan hung up his phone and walked up next to the murder board so that he was facing the rest of the group.
"As suspected, Sean Leary confirms that he too was at the 11th Street Bar that night and coincidently he and Heather had some sort of a disagreement over the nature of their relationship that ended with her storming out of the bar late that night." Ryan reported.
Beckett nodded her head as she listened, "So, most likely we found his hunting ground…. I'm going to get a warrant for the bar's credit card transactions and security footage, and we call all start to work on that tomorrow morning." She said.
"Tomorrow morning?" Esposito asked, "Does that mean you're letting us go home?"
"No quite, but we aren't staying here." She said rather mysteriously.
Castle gave Beckett a quizzical look.
"Well, just in case I die in 3 days, I'd like us all to go out together one more time." She said sarcastically, but even in a sarcastic tone she was still effectively using the ultimate guilt trip, to make sure they all were practically bound by law to go out with her.
"Ryan I know you must be missing Jenny so why don't you just invite her to come along as well." She added, and Ryan's eyes lit up at the suggestion.
Kate wondered if Castle ever did that when she wasn't around… But then pushed it out of her head because it wasn't really an important question in the scheme of things.
"What, I don't get to invite someone?" Esposito said, feeling a little bit jipped.
" No way, not unless you want to invite Lane, but I already know she has plans. It's a Friday night for everyone else that still have lives in the real world." She said with a smile, at Esposito's obvious discomfort with the mention of Lanie.
With all they put her through on a daily basis; occasionally he deserved to squirm a little bit.
Ryan got on his cell and called Jenny. She agreed to meet them at the bar in a little while.
In the meantime Beckett had managed to file for a warrant, while Esposito pouted over at his desk.
Once her paperwork was in, for the judge to look at, Kate turned off her computer and they all grabbed their coats.
"The Old Haunt?" Beckett asked, but really whenever they went out they always, without fail, went to the Old Haunt.
The boys nodded in agreement as they got off of the elevator and stepped out into the chilled nighttime air.
Just a couple of things:
Probably what you care about the most: I am going on a rather unexpected trip, and where I'll be staying doesn't have wifi (gasps in horror- #firstworldproblems) So, I'm going to visit a nice nearby internet café to upload my chapters, but I may not be able to do it every other day. It may end up being every third day. My apologies for holding up the story, but I'll be back in less than a week and then we will be back on track.
Okay so it was only one thing but whatever… close enough :D
Let me know what you think, as always!
Elizabeth