My Grandmother was a Witch
Chapter 11
It is one year later
Kate had waited for Lanie at the ferry like always. But per their deal they only waited one ferry before taking the next one in case one of them was late or had left early. Granted a phone call would work but what if Lanie had been called in early and was cutting open a body and couldn't answer the phone?
Kate had gotten around her captain's order not to stay late by getting in early. So she didn't see Lanie and when she reached her desk the place was a little empty. Her partners, just not really a partner, Kevin Ryan and Javi Esposito were not in yet. Neither was Captain Montgomery.
Ryan, she knew, had transferred to Homicide and Espo had transferred from the 54th precinct. They were getting along pretty well. Kate had been promoted to lead and these two were part of her team. They weren't the only homicide detectives in the precinct but they did have the best closure rate.
There was still one thing that weighed heavily on her mind: the fear that she was becoming a Dark Witch. She had made a small attempt at finding Will and couldn't. Did that mean he had drunk the potion and turned into who knew what? Or did it mean she simply couldn't find him without making it obvious that she was looking for him.
In addition she hadn't been out to see her grandmother in the last year or maybe more. She was really afraid just what she would say. Between that and Will she had spent the last year making sure no one ever hurt her again.
She did her job and she did it to her best ability. She also didn't date anyone and hadn't had sex in the same amount of time. She was all business. That was her life.
"Beckett," Roy called out as he passed by her.
"Morning, Captain." He may have laid down the law about staying late but she still really liked him. He was little by little helping her to be the best Homicide Detective in the city.
There was one thing about her that had changed. Well maybe two if you were that picky. Her long brown hair was gone. Now it was short and she had tried dying it red. It hadn't quite worked out how she had planned for it to work.
_/\_
No sooner than the guys had shown up that they had a new case.
Kate was walking toward the body; this one was looking to be a real challenge. The victim was a woman and likely naked. She was covered in hundreds of red rose petals and over her eyes were large sunflowers.
"I've seen this before," Kate told the others.
"You've seen this before?" Espo said incredulously since he certainly hadn't.
"Her body covered with red rose petals, sunflowers over her eyes." Kate looked at them. "Don't you guys read?" She certainly did.
Her little bookshelves were gone. She had custom-built shelves that almost reached the ceiling and they were even attached to the brick wall. She had a lot of books but still a lot of space for more books. Leaving empty spaces for more books hadn't looked right so every shelf had a least a few books on it.
She also had a lovely Persian rug on the living room floor. She'd found that armoire she wanted and put her TV into it along with a player to watch movies she rented or bought.
She even had this massive painting on one wall. Getting that thing on the wall had been a real challenge. Between the size, weight, and brick walls it hadn't been any fun getting it to stay on the wall.
_/\_
Kate was grinning as she walked. She was going to get to meet Richard Castle! Reading his books after her mother had died had really helped her. That her mother had loved his books helped. Reading them had given her a little boost to make sure she made it to Homicide Detective. The bad guy always got caught in his books.
"Richard Castle. Homicide Detective Kate Beckett of NYPD. I have a few questions for you about a murder that took place earlier today." Kate held up her badge to prove it.
Kate saw the look of shock on his face and watched the young girl dressed in red – that didn't look good on her – take the pen out of his hand. "That's different." She sat back down, ignoring both of them, and went back to her book on the bar.
_/\_
Interviewing him took her joy of getting to meet Richard Castle and put it straight into the toilet. She had read about him being a playboy. That he had sex with almost literally any woman that came his way. Just a couple of minutes interviewing him showed her that he was a JACKASS. Used to being a bad boy and getting women to swoon all over him and go to bed with him.
"I think we're done here." She didn't ever want to meet him again. He might be a man to look at but inside his personality was anything but.
_/\_
She hadn't even had the chance to go home yet when Castle was back and her captain was adding him to her team to help them solve this case. Oh, how she hated this idea! She had worked long and hard to be a homicide detective and this, this…was part of her team because her captain said so?
Worse, he was embarrassing her while interviewing Tisdale. She was enjoying trying to remove his nose while he whimpered from the pain. However, what he had learned and saw had given her a new path to catch the killer.
Then it got worse. "You have a fan," Roy told her.
"Fan, sir?" She didn't have a fan.
Montgomery clarified, "Richard Castle. He says he has a new character for a series of books. You. But he needs research."
"Sir? He's a nine-year-old on a sugar rush. He doesn't listen to any order. He's constantly in the way. He's a menace to everyone." He couldn't possibly be thinking what she thought he was thinking.
"The Mayor is happy, which makes the Commissioner happy, and that makes me happy," Roy told her, meaning she didn't have a choice.
"How long, sir?" Maybe she could get Castle to swallow a potion. Maybe he would up and turn into a skunk since he felt like one to her.
"That's up to him." Roy lifted his chin and had Kate turning around to see a grinning Castle standing there. She had tried to get rid of him but he had won out and was enjoying this.
_/\_
"My dead body can't sue you." Rick had heard the same thing repeated by this guy over and over again.
"Your heirs, Mr. Castle." He thought that was obvious. "Perhaps you should have your lawyer read all this?" Even he thought this man was an idiot.
"Are you kidding? He would never let me sign these. Lucky for me he's hired to get me out of trouble, not prevent me from getting into it." Ignoring him, Rick began signing and overheard Kate answer her cell phone.
"We've got a case?" Their first case together. He was so looking forward to this.
"NO, I have a case. You have paperwork. Enjoy signing your name." Kate grinned since she had a chance to leave him behind and maybe he would stay gone.
She hadn't even been on site long when Castle just suddenly showed up, all excited over a dead body. They had a dead body and he didn't need to be so happy about it. She was dead!
_/\_
Sadly it was Castle using his cell phone getting the girl's cell phone to ring in the bedroom. "Who's phone is this?" The wife held it up after finding it just barely under their bed.
_/\_
One girl was dead and the other was going to prison. "I think I see a divorce in his future," Rick commented, given that he hadn't killed anyone. He had simply cheated on his wife with two different young girls. Not just the nanny they were using but the nanny that was supposedly her friend.
"It's not enough. It will never be enough," Kate replied and left him.
Rick knew what it was like to be married and have someone cheat on you. It was the one non-negotiable deal breaker that would end a relationship he had with anyone. Even if it was just a kiss it would end them forever.
"Yeah." He was getting off easy save for the money he would have to send to her after the divorce.
_/\_
The cases kept piling up. One after the other and Castle was there for all of them.
A rich teenager found dead on a boat in Central Park. An NYC Councilman running for reelection. A frozen dead woman found at a construction site. A passport hidden inside a purse. Castle had actually maybe even saved her life short of her having to use her wand instead of her service weapon. Then Kate was sure Castle was trying to embarrass her with this Black Tie charity event. Yet he sent her the most beautiful dress she had ever tried on and she got to keep it. And Martha let her borrow a necklace; Kate even felt sexy but she was on the job. She got to watch Castle being embarrassed as he was sold off for a date. And no, she didn't buy him.
Sometime later a little girl was kidnapped and Kate was brought into the case by an FBI agent she had never met before. She naturally wanted to know why.
"Because you worked a case with an FBI agent before. So I thought you might be useful. Castle can stay so long as he stays out of the way." The look Rick got was stay out of the way or be locked up and disappear.
Kate was forced to admit to herself that they only solved it because of Castle, Alexis, and her Monkey Bunkey.
By now Kate had met Martha and Alexis and she had learned a lot from both of them. Alexis was incredibly smart. Her mother was or had been an actress. Just not a successful one. She had cheated on Castle and filed for divorce leaving him with a newborn baby to raise.
Kate had learned from Martha that Castle hadn't always been rich. Martha had had him after a one-night stand and loved him. She took any acting job she could find to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Castle had grown up dirt poor.
Martha was living with these two because she had been swindled out of all of her money. That told her something about Castle that she didn't know. However, she also listened to him tease Martha about moving out and he was chastised by Alexis for that comment.
Next came a plastic surgeon with a bag over his head. "You know a mobster?" Kate stared at him dumbfounded.
"When will you learn that I know a lot of people?" Rick challenged her. "Besides Sal's actually a really nice guy. I'll find out what he knows."
Once again Castle actually helped with a case. She still didn't know how he did that.
She was learning a lot about Castle. She'd had a nice long talk with Alexis about his playboy image and found out that it was mostly all to keep his name in the papers so they would buy his books.
While it wasn't all that, Alexis knew he didn't bring women home with him to have sex with. She knew why he was divorced from Meredith, though it was from Alexis that she learned why he was divorced from Gina. Who was still his editor with Black Pawn. She had cheated on him, too, and Alexis didn't really know why her dad had ever married her in the first place. But it didn't last long and she didn't miss Gina even a little.
Just when she was actually starting to like him, he dug into her mothers case and she had flipped out on him. She was ready to shoot him. So much so that she borrowed her dad's car and drove out to visit her grandmother. She needed someone on her side.
_/\_
"Katie!" She was always going to be here if Kate needed her.
"Hi, Grams." But Kate didn't sound happy to see her.
"What have you done to yourself, Katie?" Anna could tell something was different.
"I think I did something bad again, Grams," Kate admitted and landed on the sofa disgusted with herself.
"You mean the man you turned into an alligator?" Anna questioned her.
Kate jerked her head up to look at her. "You know about that?" She was out here. How would she know what she had done? "An alligator?" She hadn't expected that.
"You took another step down that dark road. I'm actually disappointed in you, Katie. Even after I warned you, you did it again." She couldn't believe what Kate was doing to herself.
"He pissed me off! He got a job somewhere else and the day he's leaving he asks me to come with him. Forget my job, forget my friends, forget I need to find out who killed Mom. He was an ass. He told me he loved me and he does that." Kate was getting angry all over again.
"So you turned him into an alligator. What am I going to do with you, Katie?" Anna actually sat next to her but the sofa cushion didn't move an inch. "What else? You look hurt or is it angry? I can't tell the difference with you sometimes."
"Castle," Kate admitted and looked at the floor.
"A real castle or his name is Castle? Wait. Are we talking about your mother's favorite author?" Anna gaped at Kate, waiting for an answer.
Kate nodded. "Yeah, that's him. He got himself attached to my team at work. He's been helping us solve murders. Just when I was starting to like him he digs into my mother's case."
"And only Kate Beckett has any right to solve who killed her. You and only you," Anna stated flatly.
"YES!" Kate yelled. She fell into the back of the sofa and switched to staring at the ceiling. "It's my mom. It's why I became a cop."
"So did he learn anything? Katie?" She was taking too long to answer her.
"Yes. He found a doctor who determined that the one stab was the killing blow and the others were all just superficial. He even suggested that it was a military knife but without the body he couldn't say for certain." Kate groaned. All this time and she had nothing and Castle found something that she hadn't.
"So now you're angry with him because he dug into YOUR case or because he actually found something?" Anna asked her.
Kate's shoulders dropped. "Both," she admitted.
"Yet you like him. So tell me what you have learned about him." Anna wanted to see if her granddaughter was falling for him or was she doing something else?
_/\_
"So he's a playboy on paper and you fell for what the papers write about him but find out different from his own daughter. Teenager, you say. Sounds like he has raised a baby by himself without any help at all. He doesn't sound like your average man. Most wouldn't even try." Anna liked what she was told.
"Yeah." Her grandmother had her there. "What am I going to do, Grams? I don't want to be a Dark Witch. But I keep getting pissed off by men."
"You mean what are you going to do about Castle?" Anna countered since the first wasn't that hard but maybe it was hard for her.
"You mean can I shoot him?" Kate asked her hopefully. "Fine! I won't shoot him." Kate saw the look she was giving her.
"You could try talking to his daughter again. She's already told you a lot. If you can get her on your side you could learn a lot. Just don't use a potion on her. Too many more steps down that road and even I can't help you," Anna warned Kate.
"Yeah." It was just Kate hadn't spent much time with children of any age. "What if she doesn't like me?"
"That's easy, Katie. Don't lie to her. Let her see you. Tell her who you are. If she doesn't like you, you'll know. And she'll make sure this Castle doesn't like you, either."
"So if I make her hate me Castle will hate me and stop following me around on my cases!" Kate smiled at her. "No?" Kate saw her shake her head. "No." Kate decided to brood now.
"Let me guess, you're going back home tomorrow." Back to being alone again.
"I used Mom's money and bought myself a place to live in. I have pictures! I left them in the car with my bag. Be right back." Kate jumped up, got her bag out of the car, and sat back down and searched it.
"Here!" Kate showed her everything she had.
"I like it, Katie. I love that clock and those bookcases. No TV?" Anna didn't see one.
"I put it in the armoire so it's hidden when I don't want it. It cost me a fortune. Fortunately with my pay being what it is now I can actually afford to live there. It was a struggle at first. Not fun. OH and my best friend bought a smaller unit a few floors down from me. Lanie is just different. She really knows how to push my buttons," Kate revealed.
Anna studied Katie's face. "So she knows how to keep you in line. What does she think of Castle?"
"She's read his books, too, and she loved him when she first met him. I think she still likes him. She keeps asking why I'm not dating him. He's supposedly handsome and rich." Kate rolled her eyes.
"So why aren't you? You said you were starting to like him." Anna waited patiently for her answer.
"There's a rule. You can't date people you work with. I could get fired and I need this job for a lot of reasons," Kate answered her.
"Oh." So much for that idea. "You'll think of something. You're smart. Just stop turning people into animals, Katie, or you'll be doing a lot more than just that for the rest of your life. Single forever, pissed off at everyone forever, broken heart, and alone forever.
"You do that and I won't be here any longer for you. So be careful," Anna cautioned her.
"I'll try, Grams, I'll try." Kate put her stuff about her home away and didn't really know what she was going to do.