My apologies for being incognito. My laptop died. Then my car. Thankfully things are returning to normal now. I appreciate all the kind reviews. It means the world!
Since her day had started some 36 hours ago, things had only gotten tenser, hitting a lot closer to home than she cared to admit.
And yet, Kate Beckett owed it to the rest of her team to keep her wits about her, stay straight-faced even when everything inside her threatened to crumble.
Surprisingly, for once there'd been very little she'd been able to pry out of Castle when it came to Jessop's cryptic message.
There was some sort of an old relationship going on between the leader of the Dark Shadows and Castle's mother, long buried emotions that were strong enough to cause the Civil Rights frontrunner to talk to some of his less-than-prestigious followers and convince them into defying a contractual, yet highly confidential agreement with a certain Senator-to-be.
Somewhere in this whole mess was an undisclosed payoff amount, bribery to get Esposito back in one piece, the amount apparently large enough that it required Castle to spend half the morning at his bank.
The sheer thought caused her stomach to rumble, uncomfortable with the fact that the writer had taken matters into his own hands, literally offering up his financial capital in a dangerous hostage situation.
And while she more than appreciated his efforts, Beckett was entirely clueless when it came to the matter with which they would be able to pay him back.
The city most certainly wouldn't, it was against standard operating procedure to submit to paying ransom money for kidnapped cops to begin with. Matter of fact, it would open up a whole new can of worms if word got out about this situation, causing every half-hearted criminal to consider getting rich of hostage situations that involved local law enforcement.
No, if Castle was to get compensated, it would have to be through some third-party sort of agreement and her tired mind couldn't even begin to figure that one out without tripping across several layers of carefully woven city administration red tape.
Beckett sighed quietly, her eyes trained to the warehouse ahead, the road they were watching from three different angles, pulling in resources from several departments in hopes of catching the rogue portion of Watkin's gang- just in case the hostage exchange would go awry.
Should everything go to plan, they would have sworn a pact with the devil, leaving Salvador's men to remain free, equipped with enough money to start a war of their own.
"I take it Martha couldn't convince them to hand us Steward on a silver plate?", she asked, causing a tired Castle to jerk out of his momentary state of sleepiness, then rubbing his eyes.
"They adamantly refused. It'd be bad for business if they call out their customers. This was a…ehm…a special situation."
"I take it Jessop knows that some of his…so-called freedom fighters have traded sides? Doing exactly what his…his organization vowed to fight?"
"He does…", Castle replied and ran a hand across his face, "Just like any organization, he realizes that there are different players in the field. Rather than cutting them out, he decided to keep them around, thus keeping an eye on them. I won't lie; it makes a lot of sense in the grand scheme of things."
Having a harder and harder time stifling a yawn, Beckett leaned back against the driver's seat of the unmarked Crown Victoria, feeling every last muscle in her body protest the slightest move. There was no telling how Esposito would feel by now.
Thankfully, nobody had argued when she insisted to keep an ambulance on speed dial, knowing full well that the detective would be in poor shape after helping her escape.
After a long while, she drew in a deep breath and cleared her throat before turning toward Castle, reaching forward to put a hand on his forearm.
"I never got the chance to thank you for what you did here. Everything you did. This is beyond…beyond the call of duty. Especially for somebody who isn't even on the force. I want you to know that I will ensure that you will get paid back no matter the-"
Castle reached up to put his warm hand atop of hers before she could finish her emotional monologue, his lip curling into a faint smile.
"It's the least I could do.", he said, never letting go of her.
"Well, without you…without you, I guess I don't know where we'd be at this point."
Her voice broke when she said that, the many hours of painful suspense beginning to wear on her nerves.
Realizing her struggle, Castle nodded slowly.
"It's just money. Money tends to go around. It comes, and it goes and it comes right back. But when it comes to protecting the people you care about…well, you only get so many chances. Right now, what's most important is that we get Esposito back. And then, it's time to go after our arrogant friend. He's been doing enough harm in this town for all I care."
"I like the sound of that.", Beckett whispered with a smile, desperately wanting to lean into his touch but knowing that her attention and professionalism were of the utmost importance at the moment.
Castle was about to say something when his phone rang again, the sheer notion of the caller ID turning him a shade paler.
"It's my Mother…", he gasped and held the cell to his ear, barely able to formulate a greeting before the frantic voice on the other end began to inundate him with information.
By the time he hung up the phone again, Castle pointed at the empty warehouse, his bottom lip twitching slightly.
"Martha said they dropped off the…the ehm cargo. Somehow we must have missed the van."
"Missed the van? We had all entrances covered!", Beckett argued frantically and reached for her service pistol attached to her right hip, "That's impossible."
"Well, apparently it isn't.", Castle countered, ready to follow her outside, "They said he's on the second floor, south side."