Playing Hard to Get
Chapter 11
Rick walked toward her car just as she parked and got out. "Morning. One grande skim latte with two pumps of sugar-free vanilla and a bear claw."
"Castle, what are you doing here?" He should either be home or at the Precinct. He didn't do site visits.
Rick shrugged. "All I can say is that Montgomery called me and said come down immediately, so it must be gruesome."
Kate rolled her eyes. "Try not to be so giddy every time you go to a crime scene, okay? Oh, and if you think I'm grumpy about you being here and sounding happy someone is dead, try being grumpy over the cover art for your Nikki Heat novel." Kate had seen it, and if being called Nikki Heat wasn't bad enough, there was the cover art.
"That's only available on my... Oh, my god! You subscribe to my website?" Rick was shocked.
Kate realized she had opened her big mouth and walked away to get to this crime scene.
"Sir, what's going on?" Roy was here, so at least that was something.
"A two-year-old girl went missing about 8:00 this morning."
"Where did they find the body?" Kate queried.
Roy looked grim. "They haven't found her body. She was abducted."
"I don't understand, Sir. If there isn't a body, why am I here?" She did dead bodies. She was Homicide, not Missing Persons.
Roy had no real idea why except... "The Feds asked for you to be attached to the task force."
It was Rick's turn. "Then why am I here?"
"Because I like pissing off the FBI," Roy told him. "Plus, you think outside the box, and we might need that to find her."
Kate huffed an annoyed breath and really hoped she was wrong. "Who's the special agent in charge?"
"Sorenson."
"I thought he was in..."
Roy finished for her. "Boston. Not anymore, he's here."
"Who's Sorenson?" Rick inquired.
"This isn't going to be a problem, is it, Beckett? That little girl doesn't care about your history with Sorenson."
"No, Sir." Kate wouldn't like it, but she would do her job.
Rick tried again. "Who's Sorenson?"
Kate looked around. "Where is he?"
"Right over there, talking to the family." Roy pointed to him and left.
Will showed up now that he was spotted. "Hello, Kate."
She eyed him with annoyance. "Will. How long have you been back?"
He shrugged. "A couple months, give or take."
"Something wrong with Boston?" He had left her for Boston.
"Fresh lobster gets old fast. You look good, Kate." Just like he remembered her.
Kate ignored what he had to say and introduced her partner. "Agent Sorenson, this is Richard Castle."
"Captain Montgomery filled me in on your little arrangement. I have no problem with it so long as he isn't involved in my investigation."
"Goodbye, Will. Good luck finding that little girl." And Kate turned to leave.
"Hey, wait! You're assigned to my task force. You can't leave." He didn't want to pull rank and maybe have her fired, but he would if she made him.
"Castle is my partner here, not you. You will do a lot more than put up with Castle, or I walk. Is there any part of what I said that you don't understand? ...Will?"
Will caved. He needed her here, or he might never get a chance at getting her back. "No, I get it, Kate. This is Angela Candela, two years old." He pulled out a picture of her and proceeded to tell them both what little he knew so far.
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"Six months," Kate told him in the elevator on the way back to her desk. "We dated for six months."
Rick looked a little bewildered. "I didn't even ask."
"Yeah, well, you were not asking very loudly."
Not much later, Beckett got a phone call. "Looks like it wasn't a creepy crawler after all. They just got a ransom call." Kate hung up her phone, and shortly she and Rick were headed back to the site they had just left.
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Their only lead and all of them were in the Precinct. "Ready?" Will asked Kate.
"Come on, Castle." He had been with her on all the others.
"No!" Will almost snarled. "I don't care how close you two are, he doesn't go in, and that isn't going to change."
"Fine!" Kate slapped the folder she had into his chest. "Castle and I will watch from Observation. You're on your own." Kate took Castle by his arm and led him to Observation.
"KATE!?" That wasn't how this was supposed to go. But he watched both of them leave, so he went inside. Alone.
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"You like him," Will stated as he and Kate stood there getting coffee, and finally, they were talking without Castle around and in his way.
"Yes, I do, actually." Kate had just come to that realization. "A whole lot more than I like you."
"I meant to call. Must have picked up the phone a dozen times."
"Yes, you meant to do a lot of things. That's why you dumped me for a job. A job that you don't even have any longer," Kate pointed out.
"You could have come, you know."
"You gave me one whole day to make a life choice. ONE, WILL! One whole stinking day, when you had what? Weeks? You dumped me for a job. If you got me assigned to try and get me back, I'll save you the trouble.
"I'll work this job, WITH CASTLE, and then you will disappear again because if you don't, I swear I will make you suffer. One word from me to your boss in New York City instead of Boston, and you'll be transferred to Anchorage if the FBI even has an office there.
"Get over it, Will. I'm over you. So back off and leave Castle alone. Or your suffering has only just started." And she as left, she said, "Castle isn't you."
But the only thing Will really got out of that was he would make Castle suffer. It sounded like he had his girl, and he wasn't okay with that. Kate deserved better.
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"What do you want, Castle?" She thought he went home to come in tomorrow morning.
"My mother told me something that couldn't wait."
"You live with your mother?" Will's thoughts of Castle just sank even lower.
"Yes, apparently, we're two peas in a pod. Anyway, Angela is adopted."
"So?" Kate didn't see where he was going. And her fight with Will wasn't helping.
"So, prior to giving up her baby, the birth mother would have to know if the Candelas could support the child."
"Knowledge of finances." Now she was following where Castle was going.
"Really, Kate?" She was going to listen to this idiot? Will didn't see what she saw in that fool.
"Let me quote you, Sorenson. When a child's life is at stake, we have to be sure. Which means we have to question everything we think we know." Rick had finished making his point.
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"We can't send the father, he'll screw it all up." Will knew he couldn't make the drop.
Kate was beyond frustrated. "What choice do we have?"
"Me!" Rick offered. "I'm not a cop, and I'm not emotional."
"Absolutely not!" Will shot that idea down instantly.
"What choice do you have? The NYPD already has a signed waiver from me. My family can't sue if anything happens to me, and you're out of time." Rick knew they had no alternative.
"Castle's right," Kate agreed quickly.
"You cannot be serious!" Will looked at Kate and then pointed at him. "He's a writer of cheap books!"
"You can go fuck yourself all you want when this is over but I'm not losing this child because of you. Not again. Once was enough. Castle's right and even you'd know it if you would take your dick out of your mouth." Kate was still angry at him and if they lost this child she was going to make him suffer.
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"It was advertised as being an art piece and identical bags were sent out for them to use. We've got nothing again." Kate couldn't believe this shit.
Rick spoke up. "Not necessarily. I put the phone I was using into the backpack. Can't you trace its location? That should tell you where the backpack is and maybe where Angela is."
"I could kiss you, Castle." Kate was so proud of him.
Not much later, Will came up to them. "We just lost the signal from the phone. They must have found it and taken the batteries out."
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Kate was at the Candelas, and Rick was home looking at pictures of their home, desperately trying to find something, anything, that would help them find the little girl.
Alexis came downstairs and was surprised when she saw him. "Hey, why are you still up, Dad? I have a test tomorrow, so I have an excuse."
"Looking for a white rabbit," Rick told her, trying to focus.
"What did I tell you about taking phone photos of a crime scene?" Alexis demanded.
"I don't know. Was I listening at the time?" Rick ignored her comment. Alexis smiled and knelt to look at herself.
Rick was reliving Alexis' past in this photo. "See all the stuffed animals on the bed?"
"It looks just like what mine used to." Alexis smiled. That was years ago, and she was so different back then.
"If by that, you mean Monkey Bunkey, he's been washed so many times that he looks like road kill now. Perhaps I should... OW, OW, OW!" Alexis took hold of his ear and twisted it hard.
"Don't you dare!" Alexis warned him. If he did, he really would know pain.
"I won't, I won't!" Rick promised. He would do anything to get her to let go of his ear.
"See that you don't," Alexis told him. "Do you think the bunny has something to do with the case?"
"I'll let you know when I go down the rabbit hole," Rick told her. At that moment things clicked, and he got an idea. "Or maybe I just did."
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Kate was sitting in the child's room, searching for inspiration. Only now, Castle was crawling around the floor with a flashlight. "Why are you here, Castle?"
"Go back to sleep, Beckett."
"What are you doing?" She didn't understand.
"When Alexis was little, I got her this stuffed monkey. Monkey Bunkey, she named it. One day it got left behind, so I bought her a new one. It looked exactly like it, but she knew it wasn't her monkey."
"So?" Kate pleaded with him with her eyes to tell her something that would solve this case.
"See this picture?" Rick questioned her. "Angela's clutching a rabbit. Every picture of her has her holding this rabbit. So where's the rabbit? It's not anywhere in this house."
"You really think whoever knew her, knew her well enough to take the bunny too? But we already checked out all the sitters." She wasn't following him again, and she was beginning to hate that.
"Not all sitters are teenagers, Beckett. Some are emergency family members. When did we lose the phone?"
The light bulb lit up. "Right after we told the Candelas. OH, CASTLE!" If he was right, one of the parents had kidnapped her.
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"Hello, Angela. I'm so happy to see you. Do you want to go see Mommy?" Kate picked her up to take her home.
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The father listened to all the reasons she hated him. Sadly she had a point, and he knew it. But he was truly doing his best. "You really hate me that much?"
"You made it easy!" she shouted at him.
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"Go home, Will, wherever that home happens to be. New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Phoenix. You'll take whichever transfer you think advances your career. Just know that I will never be there. Castle found her, not you. Not you or your FBI playbook. If not for Castle and Monkey Bunkey, we might never have found her." Kate watched him walk away. Maybe now he would stay away for good.
That was the thing about this case. Kate hadn't found the toddler either, and she needed to come to terms with that.
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Suddenly, Castle was sitting in that chair. "How are you feeling?" They had dated for six months. She had to feel something.
"Better. Where are you taking me on this date?" She was curious. At last, Will was out of the picture, and he finally accepted she didn't want him. She just needed to figure out if Castle was the man she wanted. But at least he wasn't going to up and chase after a job and leave her behind. And if Alexis was right, he wasn't a Playboy either.
She might still end up a notch on his bedpost, but if she was, it was because she put it there herself.
"Lunch tomorrow? There's this little burger place down the street. I was thinking a nice, fat, juicy cheeseburger and maybe a shake." Rick waited patiently for her decision.
Kate started smiling. She was a little afraid he would want her back in that dress so he could take her to a place where you had to pay to get in, let alone the hundreds of dollars for a meal that didn't fill a person up.
"Strawberry? So I can dip my fries into it?"
Rick made a face. "Ooo, yuk!"
"Don't knock it till you try it, Castle. And if you stay here much longer, you'll to have to put this on." Kate picked up his monitoring device.
"Really!?" Hadn't he just helped solve a case? Didn't that earn him anything? "Fine, I'm going home. At least someone there loves me." Rick got up and left her.
However, he left a shocked Kate behind him. "Love him?"
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"A stabbing, Rick? Isn't that a little pedestrian for you?" Rick usually called him for something far more interesting. "Last time, you asked me what happened if you put a head in a microwave."
"This one isn't one that I made up. The victim is the mother of that detective I've been helping," Rick told him. "The case has been cold for ten years, and I just thought that since you were the premier forensic pathologist in the city, you might find something no one else can."
"You know reality isn't fiction. To find anyone's killer after ten years..." He shook his head. In his opinion, it was nearly impossible.
"Astronomical." Rick spread his arms wide. "But I would appreciate it if you took a look. Fresh eyes and all that."
"I'll do what I can. Just don't go making any promises I can't keep," he warned him.
"No one even knows you're looking, only you and I," Rick assured him. He shook his hand and shut the door just as his mother came down the stairs.
"What was Dr. Death doing here?" Martha had caught him, and boy, did he look guilty.
"Just a little consulting." Rick tried to make it no big deal.
Martha began to warn him anyway. "It looked to me like you were digging into Katherine's private life."
Rick clenched his jaw. "Must you always eavesdrop?"
"Eavesdropping suggests that I knew ahead of time." Martha defended herself. "Can I help it if I saw the two of you digging into Katherine's past? Did you ever stop to think that you're invading her privacy?"
But Rick saw a difference. "I'm not poking through her underwear drawer. I'm trying to help her find her mother's murderer."
"You're digging up her past without her permission, Richard! Either tell her or leave it alone. If she finds out what you're doing, she may very well kick you out again."
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Rick had arrived at the Precinct and just placed his foot on her desk for his ball and chain. "Not this time."
His jaw dropped. "You're letting me come!?"
"We're going to Impound instead of the streets, and I figure you can't get into that much trouble. Let's go." Kate got up and noticed Lilly on Captain Montgomery's desk, so she was okay. "You coming, Castle?"
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"Car was towed in a few hours ago. Parking violations. The attendant went to look for the VIN number and found our vic slumped over with a bag over his head." They crowded in close and took a look.
"Six parking tickets and a tow sticker, and no one bothers to look inside?" Rick commented.
"Welcome to New York City, Castle. Got an ID?" Kate looked him over, as did Lanie.
"Yeah, Doctor Joshua Leads, 37. According to the cards in his wallet, he's a plastic surgeon," Espo reported.
"From the state of decay, he's been like this for about a week," Lanie told her. Preliminary suggests strangulation, but I'll know better once I get him back to the lab.
"Pretty thin bag. I wonder why he didn't just rip it off?" Espo queried.
"He must have been restrained," Kate suggested.
"That's only half the story. His fingernails have all been removed." Lanie held up his hand to show her. "Also, each finger shows signs of having been broken perimortem, meaning he was alive and conscious when they did it," Lanie added. "If I had to guess, I would say our good doctor was tortured before he was killed."
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"Have you thought about looking into your mother's case? I could help you, you know. I do know people."
Kate stopped dead in her tracks, and anger exploded. She hated him for even bringing up her mother's case. She thought they were making progress, and suddenly he did this? "What are you doing, Castle?" She really didn't want to think what she was thinking. "Let me make it clear to you. You touch my mom's case, and you and I are done. I won't just ban you from the 12th again, I'll start looking into your background, and if I find something, I will arrest you. I'll talk Montgomery into allowing me to press federal charges over those documents you stole.
"You and I will never talk to each other again. Are we clear, Castle?"
"Okay." Rick was suddenly very worried since he had already started. "May I ask why?"
"Last time, Castle. You even mention her case again, and I'll throw you out of this building so fast it'll make your head spin. And you can forget that date you want to take me out on. We're not dating again. Maybe ever." Kate walked away from him.
Kate got into the elevator and held up her hand when Rick tried to enter. "You get to stay here. Leave this building, and I'll put your monitor back on your leg. Just when I thought I could start to trust you, you do this. STAY, Castle." Kate pushed a button and watched the doors close on him.
Kate was so pissed off that she was lucky she could think straight.
SHIT! All he wanted to do was help her. Her mother's case meant so much to her, so if he helped her solve it, she might learn to like him. He wasn't even thinking of the warning his mother had given him. That conversation was long gone.
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"At the very least, she should be arrested for violating the laws of nature." Roy had never seen a picture of a woman like her before. Ever.
"Her husband had her committed for her little obsession over her..." Espo used his finger to circle his face. "Guess who testified and recommended that she be committed?"
"Doctor Leads," Kate stated.
Espo nodded. "She underwent a mandatory one-month examination. She was released three days before our doctor went missing."
"Get her in here," Roy ordered and headed for his office.
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"Where was she?" Roy took her picture off the board. Which was a shame since she looked good for it.
"She was in the hospital." And Kate was uncomfortable talking about it.
"More surgery? What's she got left to operate on?" She had already touched everything, her face, her breasts, everything."
Kate groaned and willed him to know what she didn't want to say.
"OH, NO!" She didn't mean what he thought she meant, did she?
"Oh, yes," Kate said.
Roy didn't believe it. "What the hell can she do down there?"
"Apparently, a lot," Kate told him. She was still very uncomfortable about talking about it. Why any woman would do that to herself, let alone down there, was offensive. Distasteful.
"Surgeon with broken fingers. That's someone sending a message. Okay, cut her loose. She needed him alive to make changes. Woo, boy." Roy shook his head.
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"Please, she already has body issues. Everyone has something that they absolutely hate. Their hands are too small, their feet are too big, their hair is too straight or too curly, their ears stick out her... Oh, god. Their butt is too flat." Martha slapped her own flat butt.
"Their nose is too big, and you know nothing you say can change how we feel. What men don't understand is the right clothes, shoes, and makeup hide the flaws we think we have. Then we look beautiful to ourselves. When we can accomplish that, we look beautiful to others. To the man we want look at us, to make him love us, to want us.
"Tell Katherine she is beautiful. Every woman wants to know she is beautiful to someone, to know that someone wants them, that they are worth loving. They, in turn, will love you back."
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"A nine-hour mystery operation that he didn't want even his own staff to know anything about?" Roy didn't like the implications.
Ryan showed up. "The hospital can't find the file. It's like it never happened."
"Who did you talk to?" Rick inquired.
"Patient information." Who else was there to ask?
"That was your first mistake. If you want to learn something from a hospital, you talk to where absolutely nothing falls through the cracks. Billing! Someone had to pay for it, right?" Rick would start there.
That had Kate looking at Roy and smiling. They had a lead.
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"Looks like our patient's bill was paid promptly and in full," Kate told Rick as he handed her coffee to her.
Rick frowned. "By who?"
"Wire transfer. Espo, see what you can find out about this account number." She handed him a piece of paper.
About twenty minutes later, Espo was off the phone. "You're never going to believe this one."
"What did you find?" It was their one and only lead.
"It belongs to the US Attorney's office. Uncle Sam paid for whatever he did," Espo revealed.
"Guess that rules out boob job," Rick said and got looks from everyone which he ignored.
Kate sighed and shook her head. "There's only one reason – changing someone's identity."
"Witness protection. Ask Hard Candy? Good luck with that." Ryan sucked in a breath; he didn't want to be the one to even try.
"Candice Robinson. She makes mobsters cry," Espo explained to Rick, who raised both eyebrows since that sounded impossible.