Monday, October 27th, 2011
7:32 AM, Montauk, NY

Autumn embraced the approach of Halloween. It went so far as to bring its own costume.

Most of October had been relatively mild, but over the past few days the season had popped in a smile full of wintry fangs. As the holiday loomed, the mother of all tricks was played in the form of a massive hurricane barreling towards the New York Metropolitan area. Monday's temperature was slated for a high in the mid forties, but dawn arrived during the two-hour drive from the city without a glint of sunlight escaping the overcast. It was a dismal day to be doing anything responsible.

Detective Katherine Beckett found the southern fork of Long Island's tip to be no exception.

An offshore wind tore across the lowland peninsula at twenty-five miles per hour. It smelled like the forests which largely ruled the region. On the bare coastline, buffeting gusts threatened the bun Kate's brunette hair was pinned into and flung the drape of her burgundy overcoat as she walked. She teetered on the two-inch heels of her boots while clambering down the sandy bluffs which hugged the cove and promptly fell on her ass with a clipped squawk. Both to-go cups of coffee she was carrying became immediate casualties. It was by a very slim margin she didn't end up wearing them.

The sudden splattering effectively soured an already dubious morning.

Right back at you, Monday.

Turtle Cove wasn't a frequented tourist spot, hence the lack of easy access. It was, however, a semi-popular haven for local sports fisherman and surfers. It was the latter's time to shine; the usually sedate little inlet was being brutalized by waves cresting between six and a fearsome nine feet.

Amidst the near-freezing morning, a few people-shaped blobs were apparent in the water. A pair stood onshore at the fringes of an illegal campsite. Two low-lying tents shuddered against their moorings. Pale streamers of smoke wafted from the charred remains of a fire-pit. They were cut apart in the wind almost immediately above the coals.

The wide-open stretch of coast leading there threatened the grasp Kate's belly had on her breakfast. There was nowhere to hide. Long, easy sight-lines in three of the four principal directions. It was a splendid place to stage the crime if an assassin wanted a second shot at her.

Beckett grit her teeth and advanced. Each exhale was a quick, noisy gust. That calmed as she progressed. The skittering of her pulse was less obedient. Control was still difficult to wrest from PTSD. It felt like alternative lengths of wiring had been threaded throughout her body and brain. Therapy had done much to reset the breaker. Emotion and thought zapped along their rightful currents. But she was still capable of carrying signals to an instant, mindless hysteria—capable and keenly aware of it.

Closing the distance revealed the pair ashore to be young women. Both were clutching wool blankets, legs and shoulders otherwise bare.

"Hey," Beckett volleyed as she closed within a dozen feet.

The duo turned to look at her. Both appeared to be in their early to mid-twenties, both wearing bikini tops and shorts beneath their makeshift shawls. The one on the left was a gorgeous blonde who stood a leggy 5'10". The other was a brunette, also pretty and a head shorter. Neither seemed fazed by the detective's sudden arrival on the scene.

"Hey," the blonde returned mildly by way of greeting. Her friend offered a polite smile and combed a wave of windblown hair from her cheek. Thoroughly stoned, Kate added to her assessment of them after noting telltale indicators. "You a cop?"

Beckett frowned and looked herself over. Decadently expensive Burberry coat, charcoal-hued slim-fit sweater, designer jeans, and admittedly knock-off but still cute calf-length boots. "You're kidding me."

A cant of the blonde's head indicated the distant, paralleling highway. "We saw you in your car the first time you drove by. Too fugly to be anything but official. No offense."

"Oh, thank god. None taken then."

"Are we in trouble?"

"For the illegal campsite, making me shiver just looking at you, or the wake-and-bake?" She shook her head afterward and showcased a wan smile to set them at ease. The pair giggled. Combined with their blankets and ill-suited attire, it made them both look terribly young and vulnerable.

The blonde said, "I'm Kally, and this is Dina."

"Kate. Nice to meet you. Listen, I'm actually here looking for someone. Richard Castle? I stopped by his place and there was a note on the door that said he'd be here." Technically the note had been left for his housekeeper. She didn't see the need to go overboard by sharing that.

"Dunno 'im," Dina said.

The other girl shook her head as well but then lit with a flicker of realization. "Oh, wait. She means Sway, Deen. Sorry," she added for Kate's benefit. "People pick up their monikers in this scene," a couple digits pointed vaguely towards the furious ocean, "and those stick better."

A pinging of curiosity arose and Kate heard herself ask, "Do either of you know him well?" Curiosity, not doubt. That's what she told herself and brooked no argument.

The blonde shrugged in her blanket which set it to slipping down well-tanned arms. "Nah. Not that he's a bad guy or anything. Maybe it's the age gap. Sway doesn't really socialize with the usual crowd."

The brunette grinned and gave an indelicate little snort from the back of her throat. "Yeah," she said with a nudge of an elbow at her companion's middle, "and it's not like some of us haven't tried to include him."

"Dina!" the other yowled. "Shut up."

"Wha'? He's only, like, forty-something, right? That's no biggie. Summer was very kind to him. Mmm-mmm."

Beckett's gaze jerked involuntarily towards the water where the surfers were visible. Two of them were sitting up straddling their boards, bobbing in place at a fair distance from one another. A third was cutting his way across a breaking wave. None of them struck her as familiar at that distance.

"Anyway," Kally drawled with a squint at her fellow before regarding Kate, "he's out there too, yeah. That's him on the far left, marking the hazards for Goose."

Once it was pointed out, Beckett could see the dispersal for what it was. The pair awaiting their turns were drifting at roughly parallel positions with about fifty yards between them. Both were bobbing nearby jutting rocks that were only visible between waves. The unobstructed shoreline between them, though significant, seemed as narrow as a tightrope given the punishment waiting if the gap was missed.

As she was watching, the guy currently riding—Goose, she presumed—was swallowed up under the curl of frothing sea foam at the wave head. The thunder of its impact into the sea made her cringe on his behalf.

"Brutal," Kally sympathized, but her tone was businesslike.

The guy who fell surfaced within a handful of moments. The forcefulness of the surf propelled him safely between the rocks and well inward towards the shore before he managed to regain his board. He waved off Castle, who'd started paddling his way, giving the all-clear with a waggled shaka.

"Classy," Kally continued in succinct commentary and nodded in approval.

"This bitch is really rolling," Dina observed with an encompassing look over the cove. "Goose isn't ready for these kinds of swells. Your boy's up, Kate," she added with the hand clutching her blanket rising to point. Beyond them, the rotation shifted and the next surfer was paddling farther out to sea. Even with Castle having been pointed out there wasn't enough clarity to be certain. As if privy to her doubts the brunette observed, "It's easy to pick him out of a lineup this time of year. Sway doesn't bag it."

Beckett's eyebrows soared. "Excuse me?"

"He doesn't—oh. Right. Um, he doesn't wear a wet-suit."

"Oh." She hunched her shoulders and tucked her hands into her coat pockets. "He's not my boy, by the way. I mean, man. We work, er, used to work together." Beneath the words lay a sheltered yearning that both corrections were a mistake on her part. Thankfully, neither of the young women were disposed to go digging for underlying meanings.

"He says he doesn't like anything between him and the sea," the blonde tacked on instead, lagging a little behind in the conversation, and then sighed. "Suits me. No pun intended."

Dina giggled. "Summer was very kind." Only a second later she squinted with sudden seriousness and leaned forward. "Ah, crap. Kally, look'it your tourist."

"Stop calling him that. Boomer's—oops. Well shit."

Beckett turned as well, watching as the other surfer who had been waiting also began paddling towards the break-line, apparently out of turn. Goose, laid prone on his surfboard, was paddling back out to their general area. He seemed to be trying without success to flag his friend down.

"Do something, Kally!"

The blonde's lips pursed and spread in a plump line of sedate disapproval. "Like what? Smoke signals? He's already moving. There's nothing we can do about it."

"That paddlepuss is gonna get smeared, by Sway if not those trips."

Kally shrugged one bare shoulder. "I told him to stay in the tent until it calmed some. Let 'im learn."

It seemed like their concern would prove unnecessary at first. Both men turned on what the girls deemed an eight-footer and popped up well apart from one another. It was surprisingly easy to get lost in watching Castle move out there. Truth be told, the act in and of itself only served to make him less recognizable; he'd never mentioned the hobby before. The author wove a sinuous trail across the wave that alternated here and there with swift, almost elegant little turns against it.

"I could watch that all day," Dina remarked.

"Carves a wave like a Thanksgiving turkey," Kally agreed. She pointed as if Kate wasn't already watching and explained, "That little backward cut he makes when he's pumping for speed? That's where he got his name. Everyone does it, but not the same way. Most people work a hard slash. It's downright surgical at the pro level where speed really counts. But your boy there more glides through the water, like a lover rather than a fighter."

Dina guffawed at the choice of words and her friend mantled a light pink.

Beckett was surprised she had enough shame to do so. "He's not my—

The collision between both surfers happened fast. Kate didn't even notice where the other one had come in from. All three women jerked in surprised unison, watching as the pair tumbled head over heels and were promptly rolled by the wave. Another pounded mercilessly in after it and then a third.

"Oh shit," Dina fretted, dropping her blanket, but paused in the act of stepping towards the shore when someone surfaced.

Beckett squinted, her heart thumping, but it was an unrecognizable blob of a person at that distance. Then even that much vanished under the next wave. Instinct flared, seeking to propel her forward like a load being shot from a cannon, but the sudden tension of anxiety alone made her chest ache. Swimming against waves like those was beyond her capability.

"Come on," Kally groaned and pressed her fists against her stomach while her blanket also fell to the sand.

"There!" Dina spouted moments later, pointing to their left. Both men were visible. They had been propelled towards the shore fast, thankfully in the gap between the larger rocks. The young women hurried down the shore towards them and Kate followed along as hastily as she could in her boots.

Castle became recognizable as the distance lessened. Yeesh. That is, he was and wasn't. 'Summer was kind' Dina had said. That was no exaggeration in the spirit with which the observation had been made. During the five months that they had been apart, the writer had carved more than waves. He was dragging the other surfer by the stretchy scruff of his wet-suit, hauling him towards the shore while the poor guy coughed and sputtered.

Beckett's hazel eyes snagged on the bulging bicep of the arm doing the hauling. They skimmed across different kinds of swells at the abdominal rack, hard and wet above his black board shorts, and on up to pectoral meat wrought into steely shelves and a glistening valley. Every inch of him was still summertime bronze. Dark bristles, a few full days' worth, marred the view of features that had likewise slimmed. At 6'2" and weighing two-hundred pounds or more, he'd always been a big man. Paternal gentleness, good humor, and an at-times boyish exuberance had often mitigated any intimidation size allowed to be inferred. The well-muscled, streamlined version of the novelist loomed with a threat level commensurate to the violent sea out of which he'd tumbled.

What happened to you?

Castle dropped his burden with an unceremonious splash into the knee-deep water nearer to shore and kept moving sluggishly onward without so much as a backward glance.

The girls had stopped ahead still some distance from the pair. Beckett did the same, compelled into cessation as her eyes roved over her partner's form.

Boomer, the guy resembling the catch of the day, laboriously rose. He was similar to the girls' ages, mid-twenties maybe, with a lean swimmer's build and shaggy dark hair. "Hey!" he fired at Castle. "Get your own fuckin' wave, bro!" The next moment he flew at his rescuer, slamming both palms into the other's back in a shove that stumbled Castle a few steps forward.

Beckett tensed within.

Richard turned slowly, as stoic as the morning was grey. The lack of reaction was somehow more unsettling than anger might have been. His opponent seemed to think so too because he didn't try anything else during the brief stare-down that ensued. Rick turned without a word and sloshed back out towards the sea. A long orange and white surfboard was pulled out of the waves. He carried it back to its owner, looked Boomer square in the eye, and snapped it in half over his right knee.

The sound was like a gunshot on the cold air.

Beckett and the duo nearby twitched at the report. Dina murmured a breathy, "Fuck."

It was barely audible above the surf, but she heard Castle say, "Drop in on me again and it won't just be the board to feel the consequences." He thrust the halves into the younger man's chest and turned away. Boomer didn't follow him with anything more than his eyes, which were wide at first, then sheepish, and at the last somewhat put-out as he regarded his shattered ride.

"See?" Kally asked with surprising seriousness. "There's no better teacher than experience."

"He didn't ask to be—shouldn't have to be," Dina replied, frowning.

The blonde walked on ahead. "Boomer, what the fuck?" she screeched and started kicking at the water, splashing the shaggy-haired surfer. "What was that? I told you how this works!"

Her victim lifted his broken board like a shield to fend off the watery assault and then the slapping of the young woman's hands when she went right out into the shallows to get at him. "Alright already!"

"Ah, young lust," Dina observed dryly. "Looks like Goose has had enough too. Good. Thank Sway for me, would you, Kate?"

"Uh. Yeah, sure. See ya, Dina." She watched the group a moment longer before switching to the broad back of the man she'd come looking for. His shortboard was being swept inexorably in by the tide a little further along. Kate half jogged after him, still mentally replaying the scene in her mind.

Castle stopped ahead but she closed to within a handful of feet before realizing as much and jerkily doing the same. He turned at the sound of her approach, frowning at first, surely expecting more trouble. The expression faded swiftly, gone as if it had never been.

For a moment, she found wide-open glimpses of the cerulean skies denied thus far that morning. "Beckett?"