My Grandmother was a Witch
Chapter 12
Kate was trying to listen to what her grandmother had told her only it wasn't that easy.
Castle wagered Espo and Ryan that he and Kate could solve their case first. At least until Kate found out about it and then doubled down on the bet. Followed by a young model was found dead, killed by her jealous boyfriend. But it allowed Alexis to reconnect with an old babysitter. Next a con lady was leading them on a wild goose chase and Kate was back to having fun with Castle as her partner. At that point Castle was offered the opportunity of a lifetime: write for James Bond in England.
Next came a vampire and possibly a real vampire that bit Rick. But neither of them were real vampires. A loved rock star artist was found hanging dead upside down. However, at the end it allowed Kate and Alexis spend some time bonding.
Alexis answered the door. "Detective Beckett? Dad isn't here."
"That's fine I wanted to talk to you if you have the time." Kate was nervous. She was no fool; Castle and Alexis were bound at the hip. If one hated her they would both end up hating her.
"Sure, I was just doing some reading for a class." Alexis let her in. "Would you like something to drink? We have lots of choices. Dad's on a juice binge at the moment. I have no idea why he wants to drink this stuff. Knowing him either Nikki or Rook is drinking them so he has to as well so he can make it real."
"A Coke would be fine, thank you." Kate chose to sit in the living room and look around. It really was a nice place. Castle clearly had money.
"I only have Diet." Alexis handed over a glass with ice in it.
"Thanks, that's fine. Diet's all I order anyway. I think it's a woman thing or something," Kate commented.
"Calories, we're always counting them. So what are we talking about?" Alexis sat down next to her but far enough away that there was no chance of them touching.
"Your mother if that's okay and then maybe Gina. Of course if you don't want to..." Kate trailed off since if Alexis didn't want to talk that was fine.
"Mom. Her name is Meredith. She thinks she's an actress and lives in LA somewhere. Even I don't know exactly where. Dad told me what had happened when he thought I was old enough to understand it all.
"Dad got Mom pregnant and she flipped out at first. He talked her into keeping me. Talked her into marrying him, too. Nice big ring and all that. Then after I was born Dad came home from something, he didn't tell me what. I was out in the living room on a sofa crying loudly. Wailing might be more accurate.
"After changing my diaper and getting a bottle ready he went in search of my mom since she was supposed to be watching me. He found her in their bed with a producer. She was on top having sex." Alexis stopped when Kate said something.
"OH GOD!" Kate couldn't imagine what Castle must have been thinking.
"As I understand it he bodily threw the guy out, still naked, followed by his clothes. And then started yelling at my mom who yelled back. Something about it was just sex. He had a part she wanted.
"Two days later she filed for divorce. She got money and Dad got me. Mom has no standing over where I can go or any say in how I'm raised. She signed over all rights for me to Dad.
"I spent a few years asking Dad why my mom never showed up. Why my mom never loved me. Why she never kept her promises." Alexis stopped again.
"I'm so sorry, Alexis. My mother turned into my best friend till she was killed. I'm so sorry." Kate couldn't understand Meredith. How could any mother do that?
"Now she just randomly shows up, like 30 seconds from now. Every time she does, she and Dad fight. Still Dad lets her stay and then poof she's gone again. She isn't here for me. It's almost as if she's here to make sure Dad's still single but I don't know.
"As for Gina, I'm not sure I can tell you much about her. She was Dad's editor before he married her and still is. Dad says she's good at her job. I don't really know. They were married a year when Dad found out she was cheating on him."
"OH NO!" Not again? Kate couldn't believe all this. What was so wrong with Castle? Besides him being a jackass occasionally. But he had made her job a little fun. She had been turning herself into a robot and she knew it. Thanks to her grandmother she was working on that.
Alexis told her what she knew. "Dad divorced her. It cost him 2 million dollars which for all I know is what Gina wanted in the first place. His money. Gina isn't the most warm and affectionate person you'll ever meet. She's all business. You already know about her and Paula's idea about making him a playboy. I don't like it but he doesn't listen to me."
"I'm still very sorry, Alexis. I can't imagine going through that." Kate felt like hugging her but she was too far away.
"I've had Dad. He's been amazing. He's my best friend. We only tell each other the truth. No matter how difficult or how it might hurt at the time, we tell the truth. That doesn't mean I don't have secrets, but I tell him only the truth. Now when puberty came along Dad did his best.
Alexis rolled her eyes. "Would you believe I told him more than he was trying to tell me? I read all about it and knew what to do. I just didn't have the experience. I even already knew about the cramps I might get."
"Puberty." Kate chuckled. "It's just blood but you would think it was the single most gross thing on the planet for guys." Kate listened to Alexis laugh.
"Then my very first date. Dad had this bloody shirt and I think a weapon of some type. He was going to scare him to death before we even made it out the door. I put a stop to that. Dad was not happy." Alexis started laughing.
"How did your date go?" Kate inquired.
"It was amazing! I didn't know you could have this much fun with another person like a boy. Boys were always—"
"Yucky, full of themselves, full of hormones," Kate offered.
"Pretty much." Alexis laughed again. "Dad likes working with you, Detective. He killed off Derrick Storm and I don't think he had anything to replace him with. I know Gina was angry with him. Then you showed up and he came up with an idea."
"Nikki Heat. I hate that name. I tried to get him to change it but he refused. Then I threatened him but that didn't work either. I don't think I want to know what people are going to think after it comes out and they read it." Kate just knew she was in trouble. Just didn't know how much trouble.
"That's Dad. He knows how to have fun and he grew up without money. So now that he has money he just up and decides to use it. You watch if you tell him that you need a bed or something, he'll buy the single most expensive bed he can find and have it delivered and they'll take away your old one. He won't ask you, he'll just do it and he'll think it was the greatest thing and that you'll love it," Alexis warned her.
Kate frowned. "I think I would shoot him if he did that."
"Please don't. He's the only dad I have and I love him," Alexis asked her. "OH!" Alexis got it and simply smiled.
"Well I have my answers and thanks for the Coke." Kate put the empty glass down after making sure it is empty.
"Any time, Detective." Alexis was happy to get to talk to her.
"My name is Kate, Alexis." Kate thought she should use it.
"I'll try," Alexis promised.
_/\_
A bike messenger carrying a package to Detective Roy Montgomery at the 64th was run down and the package was stolen. That case was followed by one where the assistant district attorney was killed. It turned out a call girl killed him to get the client list. Then the next case was about a dead man being found stuffed in a garbage chute.
An art gallery shooting had a missing 5th bullet which turned out to be in a man. He had amnesia, was divorced, and he couldn't remember ever being married in the first place.
After that came a hard one for Kate. Kyra, one of Castle's first loves, showed up and was a suspect in a murder. Castle defended her and said she didn't do it but he had no evidence to support that. But Kate had a picture of them kissing and for reasons she was having trouble with, she found that that hurt. He was kissing someone and it wasn't her. She liked him and was beginning to really like him.
At that moment the unexpected happened. Kate was watching Castle and Kyra talking in a side room behind a closed door. Then she bent down to kiss him on his cheek. Suddenly Kyra was leaving and Kate who had been spying on them needed to look busy suddenly so she grabbed something.
"He's all yours," Kyra told her since Kyra wasn't blind. She knew these two had something. She could see it in both of their eyes. Besides she had seen Kate watching the two of them and suddenly looked busy as she was leaving him.
Mine!? Was Castle hers? Did she want him to be hers? She did like him but did she really like him that much?
Next was a really hard case. It involved her mother and it was hitting really close to home. Yes, she had been angry at Castle for poking into her mother's case but she was over that. Now he was involved again.
Kate showed up at Castle's place and found herself being hugged by Martha. "Hang in there, kiddo. Leftovers are in the fridge. You need us and we'll be in the bedroom." Martha grabbed Alexis's hand and dragged her behind her. Just Alexis didn't want to go.
Rick offered all of his help or no help at all. "I can do everything or nothing if that's what you want, Kate."
"What I want is to find my mother's killer," Kate told him.
"Then we need to break Johnny Vong," Rick said.
Kate was in. "Then let's break him."
_/\_
"There was no Rathborne, that was you." Kate with Castle's help and his donated $100 grand had worked out who had killed her mother.
"Smart girl," Coonan smirked and suddenly he had an officer's weapon and that weapon was pressed against Castle. "I will put a round in this man's liver and he will die in considerable pain," Coonan threatened since even he could tell that she really liked Castle.
Castle headbutted him and broke his nose which had him staggering long enough for Kate to draw her weapon and shoot him once right in the chest. He even had a look on his face that he had been shot and was actually dead.
_/\_
Kate was doing CPR on him. He may have killed her mother but he had said it wasn't personal, it was just a job. Meaning he had been paid to kill her. He knew who had ordered her dead and she needed him alive.
Rick stopped her since it was over. Kate gave up on CPR and just sat there and cried. But she had one final card to play.
_/\_
Kate said the words and went back one hour. She knew what she knew but no one else did. Even though she knew somehow Coonan ended up with a weapon and it all played out just like it had the first time.
_/\_
"I came to apologize. I overstepped. I can't shadow you any longer. If it wasn't for me..." Rick had screwed up everything somehow.
"If it wasn't for you I wouldn't know who killed my mother. And one of these days I'm going to find out who ordered Coonan to kill her. When I do I want you to be there. And if you tell anyone what I'm about to say, there's going to be another shooting.
"But I've gotten use to you pulling on my pigtails. I have a hard job, Castle, and having you around makes it a little more fun." Kate was falling for him and she knew it. He had done something no one else had or had even tried to do. He had succeeded where she had failed for years.
"Your secret is safe with me." Rick would stay and he would continue to shadow her. He was pretty sure he was in love with her, but he knew she wasn't ready to hear that. She would simply run.
They were both smiling at each other. They both thought they were making progress toward each other.
_/\_
Next case was a dead body in a little girl's room. However, that same morning Castle made it to number 9 in the most eligible bachelor list. But under that was a blurb about him being romantically involved with Homicide Detective Beckett and he might not even be a bachelor for next year's list.
Alexis shook her head when she read it. "Beckett's not going to like this, Dad."
Yes, when Kate read it she was angry but she ultimately forgave him and even went to Remy's for a burger and shake after the case.
_/\_
Next up was a former baseball player being murdered. Followed by a domination mistress found dead. She was hanging upside down by bondage cuffs in a public park.
_/\_
Kate had a new fan and this one she really didn't want. "He dedicated this killing to me." Kate had moved the bullets around to spell NIKKI. "That's why he called me."
"Doesn't he know Nikki Heat is not a real person?" Roy asked both of them.
"Most everyone knows she's based on Detective Beckett. If he's delusional enough he might be able to confuse the two," Rick said grimly.
Ryan showed up. "Beckett, there's a guy on the phone asking for Detective Heat."
_/\_
"Either a UFO just landed in this park." Rick and Kate watched as a series of black standard FBI SUVs drove up.
"Or the FBI is here to claim jurisdiction over this case." Kate just knew she wasn't going to like this.
_/\_
"So if you're not sleeping with him why do you keep him around?" Shaw inquired.
"He's proven to be surprisingly helpful," Kate had to admit.
"I'll have to take your word for that. …PUT. THE. TASER. DOWN." Shaw looked in the rearview mirror at him. That made Kate grin since Shaw was only just being introduced to Castle. Jordan had so much to learn.
_/\_
"He wants us to drop our guard. Nikki will burn." Rick looked at Martha and Alexis.
"OH GOD!" Martha was keeping up and so was Alexis.
"Voicemail. Call the precinct after you lock this door." Rick raced to Kate's place.
"What, Castle?" Couldn't she at least take a shower in peace?
"It wasn't Ben Conrad! The killer's still alive. The killer is still alive!" Rick was running for the front of her building after catching a cab and paying him an extra thousand to ignore all the laws.
"Good bye, Nikki." Kate heard a voice and ran. Rick got to watch her apartment on the top floor explode, sending the roof and glass and the clock everywhere.
_/\_
"Beckett? Beckett?" The front door was mostly gone. There was a little fire everywhere and lots of debris.
"Castle?" Kate started coughing.
"You're alive! …And naked." Rick turned away even if he wanted to see.
"Towel… Robe… Give me your jacket." Kate carefully stepped into his jacket.
_/\_
"Looks like the same stuff but we'll know for sure by morning." Shaw was in what was left of Kate's apartment along with a lot of other people. "How did you know?" She was lucky to be alive.
"I didn't. Castle did." Kate was finally dressed in NYPD stuff and turned to look at Castle. He had saved her life yet again and she owed him everything yet again.
Rick explained why he knew to rush to Kate's "Our killer is left handed, yet Ben Conrad is right handed. What we saw in the window was Ben holding the gun in his left hand. He didn't have time to change hands."
"So our killer is still out there. It also means he was in that apartment the entire time and we missed him. How did we manage to do that?" Jordan was beyond angry. She had him. She and her entire team went all over that place and didn't find him.
"Let's find out," Rick said, determined to end this.
_/\_
"He's in jail and I don't have anywhere to live." They had the killer and her beautiful apartment had been blown up.
"Yes, you do," Rick countered.
"No, Castle." She wasn't moving in with him.
"It's a secure building with a doorman and I have a spare bedroom that has your name written all over it. AND I'm not taking no for an answer. You need a safe place to sleep that isn't a motel room and I have one. So it's settled," Rick informed her.
_/\_
"My dad's watch." Kate took it from him. He had found her mother's ring but not her dad's watch.
"I found what was left of it and took it to a watchmaker I know. He put it back together and got it to work. Simple." Rick was proud of himself. And he knew Kate had the two things that were most dear to her. That ring and that watch and he wasn't going to fail her.
"Thanks, Castle." This watch meant so much to her. She knew she was falling for him. She just didn't know what to do about it.