Author's note: Very interesting hypotheses, who knows which of them will come to fruition ;) To guest, could you please tell me what happens in chapter 13 that has you on the edge of your seat? Hahaha it seems like you know something I don't know yet! Thank you to everyone who's still reading this story. I'm so glad my first multiple-chapter fic is going so well. Thank you to my loyal reviewers, you guys are the best and inspire me to write.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to Andrew Marlowe, lucky him!
"Sorenson?" Castle asked, not sure whether it was his concussion that made Special Agent Will Sorenson stand in the middle of the homicide floor, or whether he was in fact very much in front of him. Last time he had seen Beckett's ex was about three years ago, around the time Castle first talked to Beckett about possible inaccuracies in her mother's case. They'd been in the hospital; Sorenson had just gotten shot. It was only a few weeks earlier that they'd met on the kidnapping case of a two-year-old girl.
"Castle" Sorenson greeted him, with his strong jawed face, stern looking as always. God, how could he have forgotten how much he despised the guy.
"What are you doing here?" Not yet willing to accept the new structure of command he was sure Sorenson's presence meant.
"Feds are taking over the case, since you're now dealing with the kidnapping of an NYPD detective."
"And you so happen to be the one on this case?"
"I see you're still here. What, four years still isn't enough inspiration to fill your next novel?" Sorenson raised his eyebrow, ignoring Castle's line of questioning. It hadn't been about the books anymore, for longer than Castle was willing to admit. But he wasn't about to tell that to Sorenson's smug little face. Thank god he didn't have to, because at that moment, Gates and a woman in suit made their way over.
"Great, I see you two have met. Mr. Castle, I'm Special Agent Cho, I will be overseeing this investigation," at that, Castle eyed Sorenson in amusement. So, he wasn't as important as he made himself out to be.
"If you have any questions concerning the investigation, please refer them to Agent Sorenson. He will be taking point," ah, maybe not a full victory on Castle's part after all. "That's all for me at this time. Agent Sorenson, if you could please start with Castle's interview, Captain Gates and I will go over the other aspects of the case. Mr. Castle, it was nice to finally meet you." Castle gave her a smile, and the two women in command left the boys to their who's got a bigger- match.
"So, an interview. Where would you like it? Be careful though, my publicist has warned me to not give away too many spoilers," Castle's joke fell flat as Sorenson started walking towards one of the empty conference rooms.
They got seated in silence after which Sorenson opened his notepad. He scraped his throat, clicked his pen before he started.
"Richard Castle, is that your real name?"
"Really, that's how you feds crack all the tough cases around here? Jeesh, if I would have known that's how easy it is, I wouldn't have had to follow Beckett around for four years."
Sorenson ignored Castle's comment, but while he had been able to remain rather stoic next to his boss, his irritation started to show.
"It's just a standard question of identification, and it made me wonder whether it's your real name."
"Ah… no, my given name is Richard Alexander Rodgers."
He nodded, flicked through the pages of his dossier.
"It says here you warned the DA that Tyson was behind Beckett's kidnapping, how's that?"
"Because Tyson visited her in her cell. But what does any of this matter, Tyson's dead. So that means someone else has Beckett."
"Any idea on who that could be? Anyone she upset recently."
"Hmm, god, upset anyone. A homicide detective who puts people in jail for a living. Let me just take a second to think who might have a personal vendetta against her."
"Listen, I understand we didn't really meet on the best of terms last time, but I used to care a great deal about her, and I still do. We need to go through these questions to see if there's something you guys might have missed. Something that could help us find Beckett, which I believe is everyone's top priority." Castle felt ashamed, and annoyed because Sorenson was right. It was time to put their personal feelings aside, and work together to save Beckett. At that moment, LT and Reggie entered the room, with a few boxes under their arms.
"I've asked some of her colleagues to dig up all your old cases that might benefit from or want to hurt Beckett. If you'll allow me, I would like for us to go over them so we can narrow down our suspects."
"Thanks LT, Reggie," Castle nodded to both men, appreciating their effort to go through what must be close to a hundred cases by now.
They'd been at it for a while now, but so far no hits. Either the perp was still in jail, deceased, or their MO didn't fit the profile of both kidnapping Beckett and torturing the initial kidnappers, which they believed to be the same guy.
"If you want we can take a break. Come back to these cases later on; I heard you guys have had it pretty rough these last couple of days," Sorenson said, eying Castle's shoulder.
"Ah… Yes, it has been pretty tough. Thanks, I- um I appreciate it. And for what's it worth, I'm sorry for how I was earlier. There's no excuse for the way I treated you, because quite frankly, I was acting like a douche."
"It's ok. We were both still fighting for her approval, even if she isn't here."
Castle couldn't agree more.
"Want me to grab you a coffee?" Castle asked as he got up, heading for the break room.
"Ye-, no wait. My wife's been nagging me I should quit drinking coffee while she has to for the baby so, um. If your machine does teas too, I would highly appreciate it."
Who would have thought, Will Sorenson, married with a baby on the way. While they had already apologized for their behavior towards each other, this last piece of information highly relieved the tension in his shoulders, and the jealousy that came with every guy who had had a longer and more intimate relationship with Beckett than him.
Having gone over possible suspects with Sorenson all morning, Castle hadn't had the time to see Ryan or Esposito yet. He found them huddled over Esposito's phone, in the breakroom.
"Yo, Lanie, Castle's here."
"Hey Lanie," Castle took the seat Ryan offered him, seeing as he was worse off than the other two.
"How'd you sleep hon? Did you put an alarm every two hours like I asked?"
"I did and slept like a baby every two hours," he lied, not wanting to dwell on his own health for too long.
"So, what have you got?"
"As I was telling the boys, Perlmutter and I agree that whoever killed 3XK, wasn't the same guy who killed and tortured those two in New Jersey. Based on liver temp, 3XK was killed around the same time as those two fellows were. Unless your killer can be at two places at once, we are dealing with two different people."
"So when we got to the warehouse-"
"Tyson had already been dead for a couple of hours, yes."
"What do we know about the ones who were tortured. Could it have been the older man their neighbor saw lurking around?"
"Whoever tortured them was a professional. He made sure to create as much pain as possible, being as minimal as possible. And he went on for a while. Ryan, you told me the woman thought the older guy had been there for an hour?"
"Yeah, about an hour."
"Then I'd say our best guess is it was him. The person that would have tortured them like that, two at the same time, might I add, was looking for something very specific from them. He would have only left after he'd gotten whatever it is he came for."
"Do we have a sketch of the guy?" Castle asked, glancing at the murder board which had Kate's face dangling from it. Not wanting to get lost in emotions, he soon returned his eyes to Ryan who responded:
"Not yet, New Jersey didn't have any sketch artists available yesterday. They've only sent one in half an hour ago. Told us they would send it over once they have it."
"Anything interesting about Tyson?" returning to Lanie who was still on the line.
"Other than the fact that he was shot from behind? Not really. He had a great physique, his fingers tips were burned off, but the scar tissue was old suggesting he did it to himself a while ago, probably to evade ever leaving any prints. The shot itself was from a 9mm, which is pretty common. The casing was unmarked, which makes it impossible to trace. That's all I have for you at this point, I'm afraid."
"Thanks Lanie," Castle said as Esposito ended the call.
"Anything else?" Castle asked desperately. While with 3XK, they didn't have any viable leads that they could use to prove his involvement, they at least knew who they were up against. Now, it seemed like the only thing they knew for a fact was that two different people were going around killing people, one of them having kidnapped Beckett in the process, the other using torture for a reason yet unclear.
"CSU's finished their sweep of the place. The only DNA samples they were able to match, were Madison, Beckett and Tyson's. Madison had been stabbed there, and he must have held Beckett hostage until it was time for her to return to Madison's apartment. They found the blueprint of his plans, everything up to the finest details of which alley he would use to drop the body, which blouse the actress and Beckett would be wearing…"
"So a whole lot of nothing, and a confirmation of the story we've been trying to tell the DA from the start. What about those two that took her? Any identification?" Castle gritted his teeth.
"Yeah, we checked with Interpol since they aren't in our system. They are Russian contract killers; Vasili and Ivgeni Ivanov. Escaped arrest about a year ago in Bucharest, must have come in on a fake passport; they've been living in the house we found them in for over 8 months. How they got involved with 3XK is still unclear. Interpol has yet to send over their files."
"Hey guys," Ryan had gone back to his desk. "The sketch's in." Esposito and Castle hurried out of the breakroom. Ryan took a paper out of the printer and placed it up on the board next to Beckett's face. The man in the drawing was in his sixties, had a light stubble of where once a goatee would have been, his nose was broad, the shape of his face vaguely resembling the old man from Pixar's Up.
"Yes, hello. This is Richard Castle?" both boys looked around as Castle was talking to his phone.
"I heard you wanted to do an interview with me?"
"What are you doing, man?" Esposito questioned. Holding his hand to the receiver, Castle said:
"Trust me, we need this. We can run this guy's face through facial recognition as much as we like but as everything else in this case, I'm willing to bet we won't find him there. It's very kind of the FBI to want to help out, but so far we've got nothing. We're back to square one. We don't know who's got Beckett, and we don't know why. We don't know whether they want something from us, or whether they will simply kill her when the occasion arises. Yes, I'm still here," he said to the voice coming from his phone.
"Perfect, I can be there in 20."
Last time he had been on the air, it had been to promote his latest Nikki Heat book. He was used to the attention, the spotlight, the gushing flirtatious questions from a lovely interviewer who was able to fuel Castle's charming ladies' man persona. But this was different; he wasn't there to promote anything, or to smile lovingly. He felt nervous, not sure whether this was the correct way to go; especially since he hadn't even run it by Gates or the FBI. Knowing how they operate, he was sure that "pleased" wasn't what they'd be. But there was no turning back now. With the sketch in his hand, a last pinch of makeup, he saw the prompter behind the camera lens count down from three to one, and then the interviewer spoke.
"I'm Kristina Coterra and I am here with a very special guest. He's the mystery novelist we all know and love; he's created our favorite characters such as special agent Derek Storm and our local NYPD detective Nikki Heat. If you haven't been living under a rock, you might know him as New York City's latest super hero, Richard Castle."
The camera panned to Castle, as he made an effort to put on a smile.
"Thanks for having me Coterra, it's always a pleasure."
"Oh please, call me Kristina. Rick, you know how much we love having you here," she said enthusiastically, batting her eyes at both the viewers at home and Castle.
"So tell us, how was it to finally bring an end to the notorious serial killer 3XK?"
Castle hesitated for a second. He knew they would want to talk about that, so he decided to be brief about it. Give them what they want, so you can get what you want, he thought to himself.
"While I have killed many criminals in my past on paper, it is very different from the real thing. It isn't in anyway glamorous or poetic. It is brutal, and it's quick, and I wouldn't wish anyone to have to go through what I did."
"But you had a reason, didn't you? He had taken your partner hostage after framing her for murder, which if I understand correctly you had been saying from the very beginning?"
"Yes indeed. We knew that when Beckett never made it to central booking that day, 3XK was behind it. We eventually found out where he operated from, and in the end, I was forced to kill him."
"That must have been so scary, hunting down a man who has killed dozens of women. And your partner, the inspiration for Nikki Heat, was she there?"
"No, sadly our raid was in vein. There was no sign of her anywhere on scene, and that's why I am here. We believe this man is involved in the kidnapping of Detective Kate Beckett," Castle gently unfolded the sketch, while the camera zoomed in on it.
"I am asking each and every one of you who has ever lost their daughter, their friend, their colleague… please, if you have any idea of the identity of this man, if you have seen him, if you have seen Beckett, please call the homicide division of the 12th precinct. I am willing to reward anyone who has any valuable information on either of their whereabouts with 100,000 dollars. Please. Help us bring her back to the people who love her."
After the interview, he had gotten a message from Paula saying how his sales were through the roof. He also had a missed phone call from Captain Gates and a message from Esposito who said Gates was absolutely fuming.
Maybe he shouldn't have asked people on national television to call the 12th precinct, well aware how many crazed Castle fans would call, just to get a glimpse of their favorite author. But this seemed like the only way to get a moving in this case. Deciding to walk back instead of taking a cab so he could delay the lecture that he knew awaited him at the precinct, Castle crossed the street into a small park. He had only taken a few steps in when a voice from behind said: "Keep moving like you don't know me and get in the car."
"Why would I-" he turned around.
"You're the guy from the sketch?" his mouth dropped, his eyes noticing the gun pointed at him, concealed underneath the man's long, beige coat.
"That's right, now keep moving and get in."
Author's note: Dun dun duuuuh.