Author's Note: I know people have been waiting for this so without further ado, Castle and Beckett find out about the cassette.

Nothing Lost

Chapter 45

Some minutes later—at least, he thought it was minutes—Castle reluctantly ended the kiss, drawing back just enough to touch his lips to the corner of her lips then her cheek and then her temple before lifting his head to meet her eyes.

Beckett looked (adorably) dazed and he felt a thrill of pure masculine smugness that he could make the cool and competent Kate Beckett lose her train of thought like this.

God, she really was beautiful. He always thought so but he had one of those brief moments where it struck him all over again just how lovely she was. She was still a little thinner than she'd used to be but one benefit of her rehab requiring her to take walks every day was that she had acquired a little tan. Standing outside as they were, the sunlight seemed to pick off glints of gold in her hair until he could almost imagine she glowed. She looked like… everything he'd ever wanted.

"Castle."

He blinked. "Hmm?"

"What is it? You're staring. Even more than you usually do," she added wryly.

Yeah, this was his Beckett, always able to keep him on his toes. "I thought you'd be used to my creepy staring by now," he managed to quip.

"And yet somehow it's still weird," she tossed him a smirk. "Come on, let's keep walking."

Something in her tone, her expression, and yes, the action in turning to walk forward, reminded him forcefully of her usual precinct self—and he belatedly remembered that there was one more thing he needed to tell her about her elephants.

At least, he thought, this shouldn't be as hard for her to hear about as her elephants being broken.

"Uh, Beckett, there's one more thing I need to tell you."

"Okay, what is it?"

"About your elephants—did you know that one of them is hollow?"

She stopped and turned to look at him. "Hollow?"

"Yeah. The boys found it out this weekend. One of the pieces that came off wasn't because it broke off but because it was made to come off, as a cover to a little compartment inside one of the elephants."

"Inside?" she repeated a little faintly.

"You didn't know about it?" he asked gently.

A faint frown creased her brows. "No, I—my mom didn't—" she paused and then went on slowly, "My mom never told me outright but I remember now she once said something about families and keeping things safe and she was holding the elephants at the time. I didn't think anything of it, wasn't really paying attention—I was young and bored, sitting in my mom's office at work while she finished a few things up before we could go to dinner. But now…"

"Maybe she was trying to tell you about it," he finished gently.

"I don't know. It might not have been important."

"Maybe not," he agreed, "but Beckett, there was something inside the hollow compartment."

She sucked in a little breath, her eyes flaring wide. "What was it?"

He had, thankfully, kept the miniature cassette in his pocket in preparation for talking to Beckett so he pulled it out now. "It was this." Beckett only stared at the cassette as if she'd never seen such a thing before, this item her mom must have secreted away inside the elephant. After a moment, he hurriedly added, more to somehow fill the silence, "No one's listened to it yet. We didn't know if you knew about it but either way, it's yours so the boys and I thought you should have it."

"I don't—"

"I brought a mini cassette player with me," he jumped in, guessing what she'd been about to say.

Her eyes widened and she flashed a look at him, momentarily diverted from staring at the cassette. "You did?"

"It's back at the cabin." And now, he kicked himself for not having also thought to bring the cassette player with him on the walk.

"Get it. Please," she added belatedly.

He handed the cassette over to her and she clasped it in her hand almost reverently. A last, unexpected connection to her mom. His heart twisted and then he turned and sprinted back to the cabin.

He only just remembered to slow to a more decorous pace when he entered the cabin so as not to alarm Jim but even so, Jim frowned a little to see him returning alone. "Rick, where's Katie? Is some—"

"Everything's fine," he hurriedly pasted on a reassuring smile. "I just forgot something, that's all. Kate's still out walking, waiting for me."

He barely paused to see Jim's expression ease before he turned to head into his bedroom and retrieved the cassette player before immediately heading back out. He offered Jim a somewhat distracted wave as he walked out of the cabin and then took off at a run.

Beckett had continued walking, he noted, had reached the fallen tree trunk and was leaning against it, studying the cassette clutched in her hand as if it really were a message from the dead, which, he supposed, it was.

She looked up at him and he felt momentarily winded, as if he'd been punched in the chest, by the sight of the tears glistening in her eyes, the painful combination of emotions in her face, grief and hope and apprehension and curiosity and more emotions he couldn't identify.

He wasn't sure why, maybe it was just the look on her face, but he felt a ripple of nervousness go through him, had the sudden impulse to tell her they didn't have to listen to the tape now or at all, could just keep the cassette as a memento of sorts. Absurd, of course, he knew that. There was no way Becket would not listen to this but he was suddenly afraid. Even hearing the recording of some moment from her childhood or some snippet of conversation between her parents would be painful, poignant. What would it be like to hear her mother's voice again on the recording?

But he didn't put any of this into words, only offered her the cassette player, but she jerked her head slightly and lifted her hand to pass the tape to him. He accepted the tape, carefully extracting the cassette from its case, and then inserting it into the player.

Beside him, Beckett tensed, curling in on herself, braced for a blow. He hesitated but then curled his arm around her, although she didn't respond, stayed stiff and unmoving within the circle of his arm.

He pressed play.

There was a crackle of static and then the sound of footsteps and the scrape of what he guessed was a chair being pushed back.

Castle was expecting to hear a woman's voice, Johanna's, or perhaps a young Kate's, or even Jim's voice but instead it was a man's voice, rough, vaguely familiar for some reason, but it was the words that hit him like a blow to the head.

Raglan, shut the door. You've got a lot of balls coming here.

Raglan—that was the name of the detective, the one who'd looked into Johanna's case, the one involved in the kidnapping scheme. He heard Beckett suck in a sharp breath.

And then it got worse because another voice spoke up. A voice he recognized, the recognition robbing him of his breath like a hard blow to his sternum.

Look, we just want to make sure we're all on the same page.

Montgomery—that was Montgomery's voice. Sounding deadly serious, a contrast to the more genial side of him Castle had been familiar with, but still recognizable. He darted a glance at Beckett to see that she was white to the lips, her breath shallow and uneven.

You took us for a lot of money, Bracken. We want assurances.

At the sound of Bracken's name—the man behind all this, that must be the unknown voice before—Beckett made a sound between a gasp and a cry and he felt her start to sag. He tightened his arm around her, making a motion with his other hand, the one holding the cassette player to stop this, give her a moment, but she jerked her hand in a sharp gesture. No, she was going to hear this out now, come what may, no matter what it did to her.

Hey, be happy I haven't busted the three of you for your little mafia extortion ring.

Whoa, relax. Montgomery's voice again.

No, no. You want assurances? Here you go. I assure you that as easily as I pinned Bob Armen's murder on Pulgatti, I can just as easily pin it on the cops that actually did the deed.

Bob Armen. Pulgatti. Those names—he remembered those names. Raglan, McCallister, and Montgomery's kidnapping scheme. The start of all this, Montgomery's criminal past. He might have already known about it but hearing it confirmed, hearing Montgomery's familiar voice and Bracken's cold one, made it somehow worse. Oh god, this was the voice of the man who'd killed Johanna Beckett. Castle had a feeling he'd be hearing Bracken's voice in his nightmares, arrogant and dangerous.

Montgomery spoke again. Pulgatti knows he's been framed. What if someone gets onto this?

Castle felt frozen in place, his entire body seemingly gone numb. He heard the next words through what seemed like a buzz in his ears, the sound of his racing blood, his heartbeat pounding. No no no…

Then I'll handle them.

You? How?

I know people, Roy. Dangerous people. Anyone gets too close, like that bitch lawyer, Johanna Beckett, that's been poking around, I'll have them killed. I've had people killed before.

Oh god! A strangled cry escaped Beckett and then she collapsed, dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He broke free of his paralysis of horror and just barely managed to catch her before her knees hit the ground, gently lowered her the rest of the way until they were both on their knees on the ground.

He'd dropped the cassette player from his nerveless fingers and it fell to the ground but it didn't matter. There was no more, just some static, a crackle, and then the player clicked off.

Silence fell, a terrible awful silence, in which he heard in his mind on repeat Bracken's voice referring to 'that bitch lawyer, Johanna Beckett'... And 'I'll have them killed'...

Oh god oh god. His mind was whirling, dizzy with the shock, the horror, of what they'd just heard.

Raglan, Montgomery—Bracken. Talking about the conspiracy that had involved them all, the kidnapping, the extortion, the blackmail. Johanna Beckett's murder.

Oh god, Beckett.

She was hunched over her knees, her hair hiding her face from him but her breathing sounding shallow, uneven, and he rubbed a careful hand over her back, a gesture that was interrupted when she fell forward, a terrible sound escaping her throat, one like nothing he'd ever heard and fervently hoped never to hear again, something between a wail and a cry—keening, yes, that was what it was. And then she broke down into sobs, her entire form shaking with ugly, jagged gasps.

It wrenched at his heart until Castle felt as if his chest was being put through a cheese grater. He desperately gathered her closer, wrapping his arms around her, half-lifting her quaking but otherwise unresponsive body until she was sagging against him, her face buried against his chest.

He could only hold her in agonizing helplessness. He wasn't even sure how aware she was of his presence, if his embrace impinged on her consciousness at all, could only hope desperately that some part of her was aware and was, if only a little, comforted.

He felt like he should be saying something, trying to comfort or reassure her—useless, asinine words like assurances that he was there, that she wasn't alone, that it would be okay—all that came to mind but he didn't say any of that, aware the words wouldn't help, couldn't help. For one of the few times in his life, he knew this was a time where there simply were no words. What could he possibly say that would make it any easier? She had all but heard the man give the order to have her mom murdered. He shuddered at the thought, tears pricking at his own eyes. He tried to imagine how he would feel hearing anyone threatening his own mother's life like that—no, he couldn't even imagine, his mind flinching away in protest.

A long-buried memory resurfaced in his mind. He'd been very young, in the bedroom of the small one-bedroom apartment, and he'd awoken to hear his mother and her then-boyfriend arguing—what had the man's name been, Bob, no, Brian, no, wait, Bruce—yes, that was it. Bruce had yelled at his mother, called her a bitch, and his mother had told him to get out and Bruce had left, slamming the door with a force that had seemed to rattle the walls. His mother had come into the bedroom a couple minutes later, with a small, reassuring smile, though he vaguely remembered that her eyes had looked damp around the edges. His mother had smoothed his hair away from his face, telling him they would never see Bruce again, which had turned out to be true.

Castle thought that might have been the first time he'd heard the word 'bitch,' certainly the first time he'd heard it used as an epithet and directed at his mother. He had forgotten about that; he understood now that his own youth and innocence had shielded him from any real understanding of the potential threat or danger involved in such a fraught situation. Oh, his younger self had been upset, yes, and scared, but it hadn't been much more than the innocent fear of a child facing a possible scolding from an angry adult. He'd had no fear of violence, not then. Now, of course, Castle could fill in too many scenarios for how the scene could so easily have turned violent—and felt a very belated chill with the knowledge of just how ugly, how brutal, the whole thing could have turned out to be.

This was different, in every way. And he could not even begin to imagine what it must be like for Beckett. He could only hold her, as securely as he could, in the desperate (and possibly futile) hope that something about his embrace, the feel of his arms around her, could provide some comfort, a tangible assurance that she wasn't alone.

He remembered with bitter regret his blithe reassurance to Beckett only minutes ago—had it really only been a matter of minutes?—that the call from the boys about her elephants being broken had nothing to do with her mom's case. He hadn't known but god, what a terrible lie that had turned out to be.

He wasn't sure how long it had been but it seemed almost too quickly that her sobs eased and slowed, her breathing still sounding uneven, but she seemed calmer, the storm of emotion past.

And afterwards, she simply stayed in his arms, quiescent in a way that was unlike her. She didn't move, didn't respond to his embrace at all, but he tried to take comfort in the fact that she was letting him hold her, could only hope that his presence helped.

His own mind was slowly starting to clear, the significance, the ramifications, of the tape starting to come clear.

This was it, the proverbial smoking gun. They had Bracken for murder now. It was his own voice, could be confirmed beyond doubt (or a clever lawyer's argument) by the sophisticated voice identification software available to law enforcement.

And it was due to Montgomery. Montgomery had done this, he must have. The words they'd heard had confirmed that and Montgomery must have worn a wire for this visit to Bracken's office, intending to get Bracken to incriminate himself. As, in fact, he had.

Castle could picture the scene easily, Bracken in his office when he was the DA, Raglan and Montgomery going to see him, Montgomery with a hidden wire to record what went on. Asking for "assurances," to get a confirmation of the blackmail and extortion scheme. Which they'd gotten—and then Bracken had gone on to make the threat against Johanna Beckett.

The tape incriminated Montgomery and Raglan too but it was also protection for them against Bracken, mutual assured destruction as a form of insurance. Only now Montgomery and Raglan were both dead. And in his last days, Montgomery had sent that packet of incriminating information to Agent Shaw, knowing it would set the ball rolling to bring Bracken down.

Except this tape hadn't been part of the packet he sent.

Castle's mind snagged on that but before he could trace the thought any further, Beckett stirred, pushing herself upright.

He studied her face, noted the lingering traces of her tears, but more than that, he saw, she was Detective Beckett again. It was in the set of her mouth, her chin, in the steely glint in her eyes. He felt a surge of emotion, love not unmixed with something like awe. As much as he adored her softer side, her Kate side, the one he'd been lucky enough to see most often in these last couple weeks at the cabin, he thought moments like this might be when he loved her most. Seeing the way she infused herself with all the strength of her character, all her determination in full view—this was the Detective Beckett he'd fallen in love with. The Detective Beckett that attracted him with a force as powerful as gravity, the side of her that had first inspired him to create Nikki Heat.

Henry V and his St. Crispin's Day speech had nothing on Beckett's ability to inspire him. We few, we happy few, indeed. Seeing her like this, he knew he would willingly go, not just into battle, but into hell with her, beside her.

He didn't say any of this. All he said, a little cautiously, was "Beckett?" Just her name but in it was the unspoken promise that he was there for anything she needed.

She met his eyes and he could almost imagine he heard an audible click as of something falling into place or maybe being locked in. Yes, it might be fanciful but he could almost imagine a chain or cuffs connecting them, as if Castle and Beckett had become Castle-and-Beckett, linked.

She shifted, straightening up, and he followed her movements, pushing himself up off his knees, hiding a grimace at the way his knees creaked as he stood up. He tried not to think about it but moments like this reminded him that he had turned 40 on his last birthday.

Once he was standing, he bent and grasped both of Beckett's hands, helping her to stand up in turn, noting the caution with which she moved and guessing that she was only now becoming aware of her side paining her. A reminder of the physical challenges she still faced, even while needing to deal with the emotional turmoil of the tape.

Even when they were standing, she retained her grip on his hands. He only wished he could be sure she was doing so out of some wish for comfort or merely because she was so focused on the cassette, she forgot to release him.

"It was Montgomery." Her voice was low but steady. She was fully in control

He blinked. They might be linked, a team, but telepathy wasn't part of that, at least not on his side. "I know," he responded carefully. "It was his voice and he must have made—"

"Made the recording, I know," she finished for him. "But what I meant was, Montgomery must have given this to my mom."

He jolted a little in surprise.

"In the hangar, that night, Montgomery said something about how he should have protected my mother." She paused, her expression and her voice faltering for a moment before she went on, "He said that when I walked into the 12th, he thought it was the hand of God giving him another chance, to protect me…"

He flinched. Oh god. "Protect you the way he didn't protect your mom," he rasped, completing the words so she wouldn't have to say out loud that Montgomery, her captain, her mentor, her friend, had failed to protect her mother, even knowing the threat.

But Montgomery had given the tape to Johanna Beckett. The tape with the threat on it—to warn her? No, not just that, Castle realized. The threat to Johanna Beckett had distracted him, obviously the most significant part of the recording now. But at the time—Pulgatti had been alive and Johanna Beckett had been working on his appeal. And this tape had Bracken admitting to framing Pulgatti.

This would have gotten Pulgatti out of prison, could have been used by Johanna Beckett in the appeal.

Oh. Montgomery had been trying to help Johanna Beckett in her work—but then Johanna had been killed.

A warning to Montgomery, Raglan, and McCallister. But Montgomery hadn't completely given up, that was why he'd compiled the file that he'd sent to Agent Shaw.

Beckett's lips trembled slightly before she pressed her lips together, once more bringing her expression under control. "The first time I met Montgomery, he said some things, about my mother's murder. He mentioned cassette recordings. I didn't know what he meant and even looking through her things, papers, didn't find any cassettes. I didn't… know about the elephants, didn't even think—"

"You couldn't have known. Your mom hid the evidence to keep it safe." His heart twisted. Johanna had probably thought, assumed, that Bracken would first send someone to search her office for her files to find out how much and what she knew so she'd thought to protect the vital piece of evidence proving Pulgatti's innocence. Castle could imagine that someone like Johanna Beckett, a good person and an idealist even with all her experience in the criminal justice system, would not—could not—have imagined someone like Bracken who would kill as a first resort and not a last.

Beckett blinked rapidly against the tears. "She did."

"And now, it's yours," he said gently. "What do you want to do?"

She set her chin and met his eyes. "We need to get this to Agent Shaw. In person, we can't trust this to the mail or through anyone else."

He nodded. "Right. Do you want to call her?"

Her mind was working now, planning with all her usual incisiveness. And he loved to see it. "I will. But not here. It's too far and wouldn't be fair to ask her to drive all this way."

"Back in the City then?"

"No!" she burst out and then blinked, having surprised herself too, he realized, by her instinctive protest. "No, it's too… loud, too crowded. I don't—I'm not ready—"

Oh. He could see in her face a flash of belated embarrassment, even shame, at her protest—of course, this was Beckett, who always expected so much of herself. "You have a point," Castle quickly concurred, shifting the reason away from Beckett's lingering panic attacks. "Meeting in the City wouldn't be smart. We know Bracken has lots of connections in the City." The way he'd killed Raglan before he could talk and then Beckett's shooting—it was all evidence of how closely Bracken had been monitoring anyone who might know about his past. "We need somewhere we can be assured of total privacy. Somewhere outside of the City—wait. I have it. My house in the Hamptons. It's not that far out of the City, it's completely private, and it's secure." And he could and would hire private security to make doubly sure of it.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. I've wanted to invite you to the Hamptons for years now. There's plenty of room for your dad too."

She tightened her grip on his hand. "Oh, my dad. Castle, he can't—we can't tell him about this, not yet, not until it's all over."

"Of course," he agreed. Certainly, they could not allow Jim to hear the recording; Jim would eventually need to be told about Bracken, yes, but to hear Bracken actually threatening his wife's life in such terms—no, that was too much. "I'll find some way to distract him or keep him busy when you talk to Agent Shaw and give her the cassette."

"We."

"We what?"

"When we talk to Agent Shaw," she corrected. "You're going to be there too, right?"

Now there was a note of uncertainty in her voice. She wanted him to be with her. "Of course," he promised. "I wouldn't miss it."

The corners of her lips eased just a little. "Okay. So we'll talk to her in the Hamptons." A quick spasm of emotion crossed her face. "We need to do this soon, Castle. It's been more than 10 years but I can't—I can't sit on this for long. I can't."

More than 10 years… And more recently, since learning Bracken's identity, it had been almost two months of waiting for Agent Shaw and her team to gather more evidence to incriminate Bracken. And he knew how much her enforced inactivity and waiting had worn on Beckett, although she hadn't said much about it. No, she should not need to wait a minute longer than necessary to finally get justice for her mother. It was time—long past time-for her to find the peace that would come with a resolution to this unhealed wound.

"This week," he blurted out recklessly, unthinkingly. He would make all this happen within the week, he vowed, no matter what he needed to do. It was Monday; he could handle that, right?

"I have an appointment to see a doctor at the hospital here on Thursday, to get clearance to start physical therapy. I can't miss that."

Oh, right, her physical therapy.

He jerked a little. "I've got it!"

"Castle?"

He waved a distracted hand at her. "Just a minute while I think through everything, make sure it'll work…"

"Castle!"

"And… it will! Beckett, I do believe I'm a genius," he announced, feeling the first tendrils of hope he'd felt in what seemed like hours.

"An annoying genius. This is my life you're planning, so spill."

"It's perfect, Beckett. It's an explanation your dad will accept for why we want to stay in the Hamptons from now on and I'm pretty sure I can get you a doctor's appointment to approve your physical therapy in the Hamptons too. The closest hospital here, it's, what, about 45 minutes away?"

"Yes, something like that, 40-45 minutes."

"Right, well, the closest hospital to my house in the Hamptons is 15-20 minutes away, a lot closer, so it'll be more convenient for your physical therapy. And I have a good friend there who's a doctor. He's a pediatrician so he can't clear you for physical therapy himself but he'll know the doctors at the hospital who can. And I'm sure he'll be able to pull some strings as a favor to me to get you an appointment this week so you won't need to miss that."

Her eyes brightened the way they usually did when the last pieces of evidence to solve a case fell into place. "That's what we can tell my dad. Going to the Hamptons for my physical therapy."

"Exactly. It's a perfect excuse to go to the Hamptons. You can call Agent Shaw and tell her we have evidence for her and ask her to come out to the Hamptons. And I can call my mother and Alexis to join us at the Hamptons and ask them to keep your dad busy on the day Agent Shaw comes."

"Your mother and Alexis won't mind?"

He loved her for thinking of his mother's and Alexis's wishes, even when it came to something as fraught and important as her mom's case. "Oh, they usually spend some time in the Hamptons every summer anyway and they haven't so far this summer so they won't think anything of it. And before you ask, there's plenty of room at the Hamptons house for you and your dad as well as me, my mother, and Alexis."

She dropped his hands and stepped away from him, starting to pace. He would have been more disappointed, not to say a little hurt, at the loss of her touch but he was distracted. Yes, this was really and truly the Detective Beckett he'd first gotten to know; she had the spark, the inner fire, that always showed when the momentum of a case, the final pieces of evidence, fell into place. The energy radiating from her so he could hear in his mind her voice announcing, I know who the killer is.

She threw him a look of distracted gratitude. "I think you've thought of everything. This should work. Call your friend, arrange for my appointment, and then we can talk to my dad about moving to the Hamptons, and I'll contact Agent Shaw."

She was his bossy Beckett again. He suppressed the stupid impulse to salute—now wasn't the time for any of his antics―but he did straighten up, feeling a jolt of her contagious energy. "I'm on it." He caught her hand in his before she could resume her restless movements, his eyes catching and holding hers. "We're going to see this through, together," he promised with sudden intensity, not sure why he felt the need to state it aloud.

The set of her lips softened a little. "I know."

It wasn't a declaration or a vow but it would do. They had a plan of action and anything personal would wait.

~To be continued…~

A/N 2: I hope I did this chapter justice. And as always, thank you to all readers and reviewers.