Moment in Time 3

Chapter 1

XY Part 1

Fingers sticky with frosting, Kate pulls the platinum bracelet out of her cake. "It's beautiful, Babe."

"Did you see the engraving?" Rick asks. "Always is our word. I've agreed, reluctantly, not to be at the 12th with you now that you're the captain. But it would take an act of God, maybe all the gods, to wrench me from your side the rest of the time, and …" Kate's cell sounds off. "Damn! Who's calling this early? I thought the boys would be going out on bodies by themselves now."

"They will – most of the time. Maybe it's a wrong number." Kate's teeth sink into her lip as she listens and quickly ends the call.

"So?" Rick presses.

"It was a telemarketer. Idiot wanted to sell me a car warranty."

"The car's in my name, and it's still under the original warranty," Rick notes.

"I know," Kate acknowledges. "He was probably just calling numbers at random. But anyway, I have to go."

"Getting an early start at the precinct?"

"No, I, uh, have a meeting at 1PP."

"Oh, an early start on bureaucracy. Well, I have to take care of a paper matter myself. After blowing all that money on remodeling my PI office, I need to take some cases so I can write it off. And if I can't be at the station with you, I need something to do."

"I thought you were working on a new book."

"Something to do for procrastination. See you later at dinner? We can at least compare notes."

"Yeah, sure, Babe, I'll see you later."

Fishing in his pocket for the office key, Rick notices it's already unlocked. "Someone trying to rip off a PI's office?" he mutters to himself. Cautiously, he cracks the door open wide enough to see the redhead at the desk then strides in the rest of the way. Alexis, what are you doing here?"

Rick's daughter looks up, her expression a mix of pride and guilt. "Remember you gave me the key so I could let contractors in? While I was here, a guy showed up looking for you to take his case. So, I sort of jumped in and told him I was your associate. It wasn't that big a deal, just a skip trace. I did the whole thing on the computer. But I guess I got hooked. I've solved four cases so far."

"Four? That's more than I did."

"Well, the set-up is better now. The contractors put in everything you wanted, and I had some ideas too. For one thing, I arranged an upgrade on your wi-fi. It was coming in on ancient copper wires. So I switched you over to optical fiber like the loft. You can run searches a lot faster now."

"How about the safe room?"

"You mean your Batcave?" She pushes out from behind the desk and pulls on a volume in the bookcase behind her. "Collected Works of Poe, and there you are."

Rick charges into the concealed chamber. "This is so much better than I thought and …." His cell emits an Irish jig. "That's Ryan. Why's he calling me?"

"Castle, where's Beckett?" the slim detective demands. "We need to get her authorization on some surveillance, and she's not picking up her cell."

"She probably has it off. She told me she has a meeting at 1PP this morning."

"No, Espo just took a call from Deputy Chief Gates, looking for her. Beckett isn't at 1PP. According to Gates, she was supposed to report in after she had a look at her schedule this morning. She didn't."

Rick's guts clench. "Maybe she stumbled on a case and hasn't had a chance to report in yet. I'll be right there."

Alexis puts her hand on Rick's arm. "Dad, what's going on?"

Rick swallows. "Probably nothing. But I'm going to the precinct to check it out."

"We got a call while you were on the way in," Ryan explains. "Multiple dead bodies at the Hill theater. Espo and I thought Beckett might show up to put her hand in. You want to come?"

"Yeah, sure," Rick agrees. "She'll probably beat us there."

Rick looks around hopefully at the murder scene. "From the angles of the wounds, some of the shots came from above," Lanie reports.

"Looks like two of them from the same weapon," Esposito adds. "A Sig Sauer P226 could have done it."

"That's what Kate carries now," Rick recalls.

"Along with about 25% of the NYPD," Esposito reminds him.

"I need to have a look around," Rick declares, carefully walking the crime scene as Kate taught him. "Hey guys, look, blood." He catches sight of something shiny, almost hidden beneath the darkening pool, and sticks in his pen to retrieve it. Acid rises in his throat as he makes out the word: Always. "Oh God, no! This is Beckett's. I gave it to her this morning. Could she have been shot? There's so much blood!"

Lanie comes over and lays a hand on his shoulder. "It's not as much as you think, Castle. Most people can lose a pint and still function normally. So even if it is Kate's, she could be all right."

"All right!" Rick explodes. "Bleeding from a bullet wound? What the hell was she doing here, and where is she now?"

Ryan holds up his phone. "Just got a report. Unis found a woman locked in the back of a van."

"Beckett?"

"No. Lady owns a dry cleaner a mile from here. But she said a woman with blood on her clothes and a man came and locked her in there."

Rick runs for the door. "That had to be Kate. That bastard must have abducted her."

Esposito catches up, grabbing Rick's arm. "Come with us, Castle. With lights and siren, we can be there in a minute."

"That woman was no prisoner," the dry cleaner swears. "She was in charge. And she had the gun. She asked me for a needle and thread to sew herself up and wanted something sweet for her friend. He was dizzy, sick. I gave him a soda. Then they locked me in the van."

"The woman," Castle presses. "Was she OK? I mean, was she weak or something?"

"If she was, I didn't see it. Her buddy said something about her being lucky she was only grazed."

Rick blows out a sigh of relief. "Maybe it's an undercover operation that went wrong, and Beckett's keeping up her cover."

"An undercover operation?" Esposito repeats. "Why would Beckett be in an undercover operation the first morning she's supposed to take charge of the 12th Precinct?"

"It doesn't make much sense, Castle," Ryan adds.

"But sometimes those assignments are sleepers that can be activated on a minute's notice, right?" Rick insists. "This whole thing started when she got a call this morning. She told me it was a telemarketer. I didn't think much of it then, but telemarketers don't call that early unless they want to thoroughly piss off potential marks. And after the call was when Kate told me she had a meeting. Up until that moment, she hadn't mentioned it. We need to look at her phone records and see where that call originated."

"All right, Castle. We'll do that," Ryan agrees. "But Beckett's never been involved in an NYPD operation like that. Not that she's told us about."

"Maybe she wasn't allowed to tell you about it," Rick suggests. "And maybe it wasn't NYPD," his mind adds silently. Rick thinks back to when he and Kate got into a case involving the CIA – and Sophia Turner. Kate could never tell the boys what really happened with that. But Rick knew. If anything, he still knows a lot more about the CIA than Kate does. Or perhaps he only thinks he does. He doesn't have a clue about Kate working undercover for them or any intelligence agency. But there was stuff she worked on in DC that she couldn't ever tell him about. That was years ago, but some secrets never die. They just fester until the truth busts loose, trashing everything in its path. He knows that too well. And if Kate's in that kind of trouble, there isn't much the NYPD can do to help her. Rick might be on his own.