Playing Hard to Get
Chapter 2
Rick needed a new plan. He thought sure those roses would work. What woman didn't love red roses? And it was advertised as being between 60 to 70 roses of the color you wanted, provided that the color was gold, light pink, red, royal blue, or silver. Now the box didn't have to have been black. It could have been gold, silver, or white. Black had just struck him as being more dramatic. Plus, the gold lettering on the side looked better.
Roy hadn't told him what she had done with the box of roses, just that she hadn't kept them. Rick paced back and forth in his office; he needed a new plan. She was proving to be a tough nut to crack. However, his character, Nikki Heat, was one tough nut herself. Then suddenly, he had enough inspiration to write a whole new chapter.
"You're writing, Dad." Alexis caught him in his study, sitting there madly typing away but he wasn't so totally lost in what he was writing that he couldn't answer her.
"Sudden inspiration." It was enough for one chapter but nothing more. He might have been up to six chapters; unfortunately, all of these chapters were on the short side. At this rate, he would need a shit ton of chapters. What he needed was something far more substantial. But for that, he would need Beckett.
"Then you don't need Beckett." That sounded like a good thing to her.
Rick stopped, mostly because he had reached the end of that chapter. "But, I do. What woman doesn't like roses?" Rick still didn't understand that part.
"Beckett doesn't, apparently," Alexis pointed out. "She's not going to roll over to your charms. She's a homicide detective. I thought that was why you wanted to follow her around, because she was different?"
Sometimes Alexis didn't understand her dad. He was great as a dad. She loved him with all her heart, but there were moments when she honestly didn't understand him. If only he would grow up, even a little.
"That's why I like her. So how do I convince her?" Rick looked at her for some advice. "You're female. What would convince you?"
"Seventy red roses in a big black box would have done it for me. But then, I'm not a homicide detective used to chasing down criminals with a gun. And you did piss her off, Dad. More than once even," Alexis reminded him, but by now, he was no longer listening to her.
Typical, but she didn't take offense from it. Her dad was being his usual self. "Good luck." Alexis left him and decided to worry about him somewhere else. Besides, she had another test coming up, and she needed to study.
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Kate, though, wasn't thinking about Castle. She had a new case to solve. She found Ryan, who was already at the site. "So?"
"Mrs. Rosenburg from 9E comes down here to put her clothes in the dryer and finds it occupied. She comes down half an hour later and decides to take matters into her own hands," Ryan began to explain.
"Are you telling me an old lady killed someone over a busy dryer?" Kate whispered to him since Mrs. Rosenburg was still sitting right there, breathing pure oxygen since she needed it after what she had found.
"No! She tried to take the clothes out. When she does, she finds Miss Fluff-and-Fold here instead." Ryan took her to the dryer where Kate saw a young woman inside along with the rest of the clothes.
"Then let's get her out of there with some dignity. I'm guessing she lives here?" Kate asked.
"Works, 12F, she's the Nanny," Ryan explained, so that was Kate's next stop.
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Kate was still at her desk long after everyone else had gone home. It was just what she had on this case was a whole lot of lying people. Lying cheating husbands. Lying wives that lied directly to her face because she was at her lawyer's office, working on divorcing her lying, cheating husband.
Lying and cheating seemed to be the predominant theme in this case. Kate suddenly had an epiphany about this case. So what if her best friend was lying to her too? Except she couldn't do anything about it this late at night.
"Fine." Kate dropped the whiteboard marker she had been twirling between her fingers on her desk, shut down her computer, and gathered up her coat and handbag. Then she reached into her drawer to collect her weapon and went home.
Lying and cheating, lying and cheating. But she was just a kid. Granted, she was old enough to have sex, but still just a kid.
Kate found a pad the second she got home after putting her take-out dinner down and wrote down a few notes so she wouldn't forget them. Then she sat down with a glass of wine to eat her dinner.
As usual, she was all alone in her apartment. Not that she minded all that much. "Maybe I should get a dog." At least she would have someone to come home to.
Kate shook her head. "No, bad idea." She would come home to urine on the floor and poop everywhere. "Bad idea. I could get a cat." They wouldn't poop all over her apartment.
Kate shook her head again. "Still a bad idea." The cat would scratch her sofa into confetti. It would pee wherever it pleased and ignore her since that was what cats did, after all. Didn't they? Plus, this high up, who had mice way up here?
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"What's wrong, Richard?" Her son was moping around the house. She was used to him being silent and locked up in his study writing, that or dodging Gina's phone calls. Why he got married to that woman was still a mystery to her. However, he had at least seen the light of day and divorced her.
"Just trying to come up with a plan." Rick didn't need his mother's help. He could come up with a solution by himself.
Martha wasn't blind. "This wouldn't happen to have anything to do with a lovely homicide detective, would it?"
"So what would convince you to let me follow you to murder sites?" Rick actually did ask her since he had nothing.
"You don't have that much money." Martha knew the answer to that question. Ask her a hard one, why didn't he?
"Not helping, Mother." Rick thought he should have known better, but he was desperate. He didn't have another chapter in him. He needed Beckett.
"Well, you spent two or more days with her. Not to mention being in a holding cell because you got arrested." Martha watched him glare at her for that one. "So what does she like? You must have learned something about the woman. What kind of perfume does she like?"
"She doesn't wear any." Rick had long since thought of that.
Martha tried again. "Makeup, perhaps? What woman doesn't wear makeup?"
"Beckett doesn't." He hadn't even seen a hint of lipstick, let alone anything else. Besides, he was a guy! What did he know about makeup?
"You're in trouble," Martha stated since she had nothing else to suggest.
"Thank you, Mother." Rick meant the exact opposite, of course. He didn't need her to state the obvious.
"I'VE GOT IT!" Rick had the solution to his problem. "I only have to get my hands on them. That had him looking around for his cell phone to call him.
"That's wonderful, dear. What is it?" Martha could shoot him down if whatever it was was stupid.
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"Ean, who the hell's phone is this?" She found it ringing under their bed and showed it to him. That had Kate smiling at Espo, who was with her. Ryan had worked out that the video feed off the elevator camera was a few seconds off. She came from one floor but went to another.
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"What are we looking for?" the video tech queried.
"Chloe and Sarah. They each Nanny a different child. One comes back at one each time to feed her. One of them is having sex with a married father. What if both of them are and they happened to be with the same father?
"Jealousy, even at that age, is enough of a motive. She only needs access and enough time to do it," Kate explained.
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"The doorman says there's a girl in the laundry room, and she has a knife," Espo informed Kate when she arrived at the building.
"Chloe, it's Detective Beckett." Kate opened the door, easing herself inside but only as far as the door, and let it close behind her.
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Kate watched Chloe being taken away for booking. Maybe her mental health would keep her out of prison, but it wasn't enough. The husband would end up divorced. He'd end up paying alimony and child support if he paid her anything at all. Just end up another deadbeat dad, and the government would do nothing.
It wasn't enough. Ruined families, one dead girl, and it wasn't enough. He couldn't keep his dick in his pants and slept with his wife and two young girls. It wasn't enough.
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Kate made it back to her desk to start on her paperwork. They solved this case, but it was a bad one.
She saw a gold envelope on her desk with her name on it. Kate picked it up. "Someone leave this behind?" Kate waved it at everyone on the floor.
"Officer dropped it on your desk. Found it with the Desk Sergeant," was the answer she got. Kate raised her eyebrows and opened it. Inside, she found two tickets to a New York Knicks game.
She hated basketball. All they did was run up and down this little court and heave a ball at a hoop. Nothing was exciting about that game. Baseball was her game. At least in that game, a good team knew how to play baseball. They knew how to use strategy and when to work a walk to get on base. When to bunt, when to use a sacrifice fly, when to play hit and run, when to change pitchers. Now that was a game.
Basketball was... All of a sudden, it hit her. "Castle!" She didn't see his name, but she knew it had to be him. Her first thought was to take these tickets, find out where he lived and arrest him for bribing a police officer. After all, he did want something from her in exchange for two tickets to a basketball game. That constituted bribery.
"Espo." Kate walked over to his desk. "Here, you like basketball, don't you? Find yourself a date or a buddy and put these to use." Kate left him with the gold envelope and walked back to her desk.
Espo didn't get it. He knew Beckett could be a hard case, but she was also a woman and would show that now and then. But what could this be? So he opened it and pulled out two tickets.
"Knicks game!" He loved basketball; it was the greatest sport ever invented. "HEY! These are front-row tickets! Right down on the court. Where did you get these?" He would kill for tickets like these. Sit right down front, and put your feet on the same court they were playing on. He didn't even want to think how much tickets like these cost.
"These are down on the court right across from the two benches and scorers table." These babies had to cost anywhere from $4500 to $7000 each, and there were two of them.
"Beckett?" He couldn't just take these tickets! Could he?
"They're yours, Espo, compliments of Castle," Kate told him.
"Castle. Did Castle send you these? He must want to follow you around bad." Fourteen grand kind of bad.
"Yeah, well, he's just going to have to learn to be disappointed." Kate wasn't going to get bought so that Castle could lie, risk his life, her life, and everyone around him. It wasn't happening.
"Beckett, a moment," Roy called out and retreated to his desk.
"Sir?" Kate was done thinking about Castle. This was clearly something else. But she wasn't done with her paperwork or even started, so it couldn't be that.
"I got another call from Mayor Weldon," Roy started to say.
Kate rolled her eyes and groaned. "The answer is still no, Sir. If the mayor wants him here so badly, he can let Castle follow him around. I'm not taking a bullet so his buddy can stay safe. The answer is still no."
Roy began to argue with her. "You don't know…"
"THE HELL I DON'T! Castle is nine years old. To him, his word means nothing. He'll lie and say that he'll stay in the car where it's safe, and two seconds later, he's right behind you, and you have your weapon out because it's dangerous.
"If he ignores the lie long enough, it'll go away. It's what kids do. They have no concept, no idea, of what keeping your word means to people or their own lives. Only what they want right that minute.
"Ask Mayor Weldon how happy he'll be when he's standing next to Castle's hospital bed because he has a bullet in him somewhere. Ask him what the press will think of that.
"The answer is still no. It was no last time, no this time, and no next time and every time after that. I have paperwork to start." Kate turned to leave, but she paused, "Sir," and walked back to her desk, stewing the whole way there.
Why couldn't Castle take a hint? "Because he's a child who wants what he wants, that's why." Kate plopped down in her chair and stewed some more. Why did he have to make her life miserable? Why couldn't he make someone else's life miserable?
Now Roy was left with a problem. Mayor Weldon wanted this, and yes, he knew it was because of the press the NYPD could get with Castle around. And he had another reason to allow it.
Kate was good, really good. She could handle grieving family members better than anyone he had ever seen in his life. Kate didn't solve every case, but she solved damn near all of them. She had a future ahead of her, and he could see that.
But she wouldn't have a future if she burned herself out. She could be in this office after he finally retired if she wanted to be. She would be good at the job.
If Castle followed her, she might loosen up and start enjoying life instead of just living it. Trouble was she also had a point. If Castle got himself injured, the press would crucify them. Forget all the paperwork that absolved them of any financial liability. The press wouldn't care anything about that.
He just needed to figure out how to explain it to Mayor Weldon.
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"What can I help you with?" the Desk Sergeant inquired.
"I'm here to see Detective Beckett," Rick replied. He had to get past him first before he could reach the elevator. There was a locked door between him and it. Lord knows he had traveled it a few times already. Then why didn't this guy know who he was and just let him pass?
"Name?" he questioned him.
He knew his name. Hell, he recognized him from the previous times. Rick appeased the Desk Sergeant anyway, even if it was a waste of time. "Richard Castle."
"Detective Beckett, I have Richard Castle down here asking to see you," he informed her. "Yes, Ma'am. I understand, Ma'am. No, Ma'am." He heard her hang up on him.
"You can't go up," the Desk Sergeant informed him.
"What!? She has to let me up. I need to talk to her." He needed to convince her to let him follow her around. He had killed Storm, and Nikki Heat was even better than Storm ever was. He just needed Beckett to help him.
"She refused. She told me, and I quote, 'You let him up, and I'll bust you down to traffic cop.' End quote. Sorry, Sir, access is denied. Next!" He had other people to tend to, and this guy was done here.
Rick managed to step back outside. "I don't believe this." The flowers, the Knicks tickets. Right down on the court tickets. Hard to get tickets that had cost him a small fortune to get them from a buddy he knew. It wasn't just the cost. It was the favor that he now owed him.
Technically, the tickets had been free save for the favor he now owed him. Now he needed to think of something else. He wasn't used to encountering this much resistance. Certainly not from a woman. No woman could resist him. The book signings that he did had proven that women fawned all over him. He could probably sign a lot more than just chests if it wasn't so public.
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"Hi, Dad." He looked miserable. "I take it you failed again?"
"No! ...Yes. I don't get it." Those were two of his best ideas. Hell, those Knicks tickets should have gotten him laid, let alone follow her around.
"She's a homicide detective, not one of those women that you sign books for." Alexis did a possible voice characterization for him. "Oh, Mister Castle, I'm your greatest fan."
"Very funny." Sadly his own daughter sounded just like one of them.
"Better get used to it. She isn't just going to roll over and let you follow her. Have you tried calling the mayor?" Alexis knew Mayor Weldon had kept him out of jail before.
"Twice, it's not working," Rick admitted. "Don't you have school?" Why was she home in the first place?
"Teacher conference. They'll double up my homework to make up for it." Alexis was very sure of that. Still, she would finish all her homework and get A's, or her name wasn't Alexis Harper Castle.
Rick tried something else to get her to go away and not remind him about his failures with Beckett. "Violin practice?"
"Nope, I did that yesterday." Alexis was free to do what she wanted, and right now, she wanted to bug her dad.
Rick thought of one more thing she was into, partly thanks to him for this one. Violin had been all her idea. "Fencing practice?"
"Nope, you won't be there to be my opponent. Besides, I kicked your ass last time." Alexis smiled at him since she really had kicked his ass. He hadn't scored a single point.
Rick defended himself even if it was a lie. "You got lucky. I was preoccupied with something else." His daughter had gotten so much better at it than he was. About the only thing he was still kicking her ass in was Laser tag. He just wasn't in the mood to do that right now.
"Luck, riiight." Alexis didn't believe him. "If you still want to reach Beckett, Dad, think of something she's passionate about and try that. Or, you could get down on your knees and beg her." Alexis tilted her head and smiled at him sweetly.
"Why don't you go paint or something?" Rick had had enough of her teasing.
"I don't paint, but I guess I could start. Where's your wallet? I'll need paints, paint brushes, canvas, an easel to hold the canvas, a drop cloth so I don't paint the floors, something to put the paints on, whatever that's called. Oh, and I'll need an apron so that I don't get paint all over me," Alexis told him.
She watched him take it out of his wallet and hand over his credit card. Alexis snatched it and smiled wide. Catching him when he was like this was so much fun!
"Thanks, Dad!" Alexis turned and left him. She needed her purse, a taxi, and a store that carried all that stuff.
"Now, what do I paint? Landscapes, fruit, abstract. I know! I can paint NUDES!" Alexis said it just loud enough for her dad to hear her.
"ALEXIS!"Rick bellowed since he had heard her say that word. That had Alexis smiling wide and going out the door so she could go shopping with her dad's credit card.