Chapter 3

Ty walked in so hesitantly that it was clear the word was out that Detective Beckett was terrifying. He quivered, which for a man composed entirely of taut muscle and sinew in a small package, head shaved and shiny-brown, was quite an achievement.

"Name?"

"Ty – Tyson – Beauville."

"Address?"

He gave a New Jersey address.

"You drive or do you take transit?"

"Transit. You can check my journeys on the card. I don't have a car."

Word had clearly really got around the gym. Ty was spilling everything he could in order to show that he'd had an alibi.

"Who'd you live with?"

"Girlfriend, her friend, her friend's boyfriend."

"We'll be talking to them. Write down their names." He did. "Now, Arnie."

"He tried to sell me those supplements, just like he did to everyone. He was a pain in the ass about it. Far as I know, everyone turned him down."

"You sure about that?"

Ty stopped, and actually thought. Beckett kept her eyes on him, and sweat beaded on his brow. "Uh…"

Silence stretched out, almost to snapping point.

"Well, maybe Ken or Dave. They're trying to bulk up for competition, so they need protein and those whey supplements and they're really hoping to place this time" –

"Are they here?"

"No. They'll be in tomorrow again. They do mornings, mostly."

"How do you know?"

"Brian pays me. I do spotting mornings, afternoons and evenings – two out of three every day. Today was afternoon and evening. Tomorrow I'll do morning and afternoon."

"What time will they be in?"

"Soon's we open" –

"Which is when?" Beckett snapped.

"Seven."

"I'll be there."

Unseen, Espo winced. He didn't mind mornings, but he could see the evening unrolling too, and just because Beckett could live on a fifteen minute power nap once a week didn't mean he could.

"Is there anyone else here who knew Arnie?"

"No. Nobody. He was a morning guy, mostly."

"Okay. We'll see you in the morning." It sounded more like a threat than anything else. Ty cringed. "We'll see ourselves out."

"You were pretty hard on them all," Espo said, in the car.

"We need answers. There'll be five more murders on our desk before tomorrow, so we have to solve this one fast. When we get back to the precinct I want to have CSU and autopsy results."

"From this morning? You gotta be kidding, Beckett. No way. Not even Lanie can swing that for you."

"Make it happen, Espo."

"Ha-ha-ha. You're kidding, right? I can't make it happen any more than you can."

"Make. It. Happen."

Espo shut up. He wasn't going to get into a fight he wasn't going to win – and might not lose. Neither option was good. Contradicting Beckett and being right would only make her twice as angry; being wrong would…be bad for his health. While he could usually fix it with a sparring session, right now, with that nothing-to-lose look in Beckett's eyes, for the first time ever, he wasn't sure that he'd make it out uninjured.

"I'll call them as soon as we get back," he said, and the rest of the drive proceeded in silence.

Espo did call both CSU and the ME's office, to no avail. Beckett was not happy.

"You can call them yourself," he said eventually, "but I'm going to get some sleep before I see you at the gym at seven."

"Night," she growled. She was picking up her phone before he'd taken half a stride. By the time he'd reached the elevator, Beckett was listening to Lanie.

"No, Kate, I can't make it happen faster. No, those tests can't be speeded up. You know this. Stop asking for the impossible and come for a drink instead. They're all running: they won't go faster for you hollering at them. And you know that CSU have creative ways to kill you if you rile them up any more."

"I don't want a drink. I want my results."

"Then want will be your master," Lanie said irritably. "You might be my best friend but right now you're my biggest pain in the butt. Go home, get some sleep, and stop taking your broken heart out on the rest of us."

"I don't have a broken heart. I don't care what Castle does and I don't want him back here anyway."

"My ass you don't," Lanie said, which wasn't the best idea she could have had.

"There's plenty of your ass, but all of it's wrong," Beckett snapped back.

"Well, the hell with you then. You can come apologise when you've settled your temper down and found your manners." Lanie crashed off the call, an infuriating millisecond ahead of Beckett doing the same.

Beckett swore sulphurously at her phone, and then turned to her papers. If nobody else would produce anything useful, she'd do it herself. She didn't need their sympathy and she didn't need their help. She sure didn't need Castle. She just needed to work harder, keep her solve rate up, and do whatever it took to put the effort in.

Three hours later, she packed up her desk, and went up to the precinct gym for another hour, punching out her unadmitted pain and anger on the speed bag; fists and feet flying. Only after that did she go home, to bathe and soothe her bruised knuckles and aching limbs. Five hours after that, of which rather less than four had involved sleep, she left for the gym.

She was there ahead of Esposito and, rather less helpfully, ahead of whoever would open the gym up. Fortunately, there was an all-night coffee bar three stores down, where she purchased a bucket-sized latte and a double espresso. The espresso didn't touch the sides. The latte was done before Espo showed up, exactly coincident with Rafferty arriving to open up, Ty a minute or so behind him.

Beckett waited in the gym. And waited. And waited, tapping her fingers impatiently on her holster; her irritation increasing exponentially with each minute that Ken and Dave didn't arrive.

"Where are they?" she asked.

"Dunno," Ty said. "Usually they're here by now."

Several more minutes of finger tapping passed, by which time it was seven-thirty.

"They're not coming," Beckett bit. "Why not?" She fixed Ty with a piercing stare. "Did you tell them the cops had been in?"

"No!"

"What about you?" she directed at Rafferty.

"No."

"Someone did."

"Yeah," Espo agreed. "Could've been any of the gym nuts, though." He looked at Ty and Rafferty. "Who'd've tipped them off – maybe not deliberately, but who was close enough with them to say the cops had been around asking about Arnie?"

"Could've been anyone," Ty said. "They all – we all chat, you know? Probably it's on the gym group message board."

"What message board?" Beckett asked sharply. "Show us."

Rafferty pulled up the website and showed the cops. Right there was a discussion of their visit the previous day, with plenty of commentary. As she read down it, Beckett's face grew cold and hard. Espo, following her thoughts, didn't point out that all of the comments could, by a certain type of man, be considered complimentary, if crudely expressed and less than flattering to her professional ability. The comments were, however, liberally salted with a series of comments about ball-breaking bitches.

"So. Ken and Dave could have read these."

"I guess."

"Okay. Full names?"

"Ken Varen and David Blockworth."

Espo wrote them down. He thought that Beckett might snap her pen, her fingers were so tense. "Any addresses?"

"No."

"'Kay." Espo looked at Beckett. "I'll go back and start running the names. See you at the precinct."

"Yeah." Beckett looked at Ty and Rafferty as Espo departed. "If you think of anything else, let us know." She put two cards on the desk. "That's where to find me."

In her car, Beckett took some time to breathe, and tried very hard not to think that if only Castle had been with her, the crude comments on the gym group would have been massively outweighed by the expression in his eyes and the banter they could have shared. He'd have reassured her without even knowing it.

Except he'd gone off with someone else. First he'd preferred that predatory actress – or hadn't been bothered enough to resist her – and then he'd gone off with Gina. And yes, sure, she'd been with Demming, but what was she supposed to do? Sit around and wait for someone who was quite happy to mess around with anyone who flattered him? Well, anyway, obviously it hadn't been meant to be.

She couldn't care less about the comments on the gym group.

Deep in her back brain, the poisonous little maggot said just work harder, just prove you're better, harder, faster, smarter. The ideas seeped in without resistance. Work had always been her refuge and salvation.

Work had nearly killed her as she dug herself deeper into the rabbit-hole of her mother's murder, but she wasn't thinking about that. She knew the danger of her mother's case, and wouldn't go there now.

She entirely failed to see that there was more than one rabbit-hole, and more than one risk. She was Detective Kate Beckett and she solved murders. That was who she was.

Nothing else mattered.

"I've found both of those guys," Espo said as Beckett walked into the precinct.

"I found them," Ryan quibbled. "You sent me the names and I ran them before you were even back here."

"Whatever. Do you want to go pick up one of them and I'll go get the other?" There was an uncomfortable pause. "What?"

Espo wriggled. "Uh…you should take someone else with you. LT, maybe."

Beckett stared at him. "What?"

"You know that's procedure," he said. "Got to be two of you. Take LT. He could use seeing how we do it."

Beckett shrugged. "Okay. LT?"

"Yes, Detective?"

"Wanna come with me to pick up a suspect?"

"Sure'm." He ambled up. "When d'you wanna leave?"

"Now."

"Okay," he said amiably.

"Who're you getting?" Ryan asked.

"Ken." She tweaked the address out of his grasp. "Let's move."

LT scuttled after her, but Espo tugged him back for a second. "Don't let her go in alone," he whispered hurriedly. "Stay on her six."

"Okay," LT said, and ran for the elevator, getting there just as the doors opened and Beckett stalked in, not looking to ensure he was with her.

Behind them in the bullpen, Espo looked at Ryan. "You get anything from Castle yet?"

"Dumb joke, yesterday, but I told him we were slammed and I'd get back to him when I could."

"Hm."

"What?"

"Nothing – yet. Any results from Lanie or CSU?"

"Not yet. I'm not calling Lanie till later. She was pretty snippy yesterday."

"Don't think she'll be any better now. Beckett wanted her hassled, I did one call and then told Beckett to do it herself."

"I guess that didn't go well," Ryan suggested.

"If the text I got from Lanie was any guide, if I was Beckett I wouldn't go near the ME's office for a year. Those scalpels are sharp."

"Dumb."

"Guess I'll just have to go instead," Espo said, with a shit eating grin.

"That's a hardship," Ryan said cynically. "Are you two on again?"

Espo's grin widened. Ryan made a face. "'Don't wanna know."

"Let's go get this Dave guy," Espo said. "Otherwise Beckett'll beat us to the punch and we'll hear about it for a week."

"Okay, LT," Beckett said. "Ken Varen and Dave Blockworth – Ryan and Espo are picking him up – are suspects in the murder of Arnie Bukowitz, found beaten to death yesterday morning. Arnie was suspected of dealing steroids, but so far all we've found is that he was hustling vegetable extract and protein whey. We interviewed some guys at Arnie's gym, but they've got a social media board and our visit was all over it. Ken and Dave didn't show up for their usual training session this morning, which is highly suspicious."

"Yes'm," LT said, gripping the edge of his seat as Beckett hurtled through the streets.

"We're going to arrest Ken, and take him in for questioning."

"Yes'm."

"You're my back up, okay? Any trouble, you step in."

"Sure thing, Detective. I'll be on your six."

"Good." She slowed up, much to LT's relief. "We're almost here."

"It's not a good district," LT noted.

"No." She smiled, quick and vicious. "You ready?"

"Yes'm."

Varen's walk-up was reached via a grimy, originally sickly green stairwell with a wobbly, rusted banister and unpleasantly sticky concrete steps. Graffiti decorated the area. Varen's door looked considerably more solid than the rest of the doors in the building, and the hinges were almost shiny.

"Looks like he's got a new door," LT pointed out.

"Yeah. How are your door-opening skills?"

LT sized up the door. "I don't think we can break that, ma'am. Not without breaking us. We'd need the guys with a ram."

"While Varen's going down the fire escape and skipping out. Yeah. Not the plan." Beckett thought, carefully not leaning on the wall. "Okay. We'll try the easy way first – with a twist. Let's get a beat cop on the fire escape."

"I'll call now." LT wandered down the hall and spoke quietly, then returned. "They'll be there in five – we were lucky: they're just passing."

"Good. Okay, when they're in place we'll knock. No ID till he opens the door, then you keep it open and I'll identify us. After that we'll have to wing it."

"Yes'm."

Beckett knocked assertively. A few seconds passed, after which footsteps were heard, and then the door opened.

Varen took one look and tried to slam the door shut, but LT moved faster to put his large boot in the way.

"Ken Varen," Beckett said, holding up her badge, "I'm Detective Beckett, NYPD, but you clearly already know that. I want to ask you some questions about Arnie Bukowitz." She took a step forward, forcing Varen back, then another, and a third. LT followed her in, inwardly marvelling at Beckett's total composure and command of the situation where the suspect was twice her width.

"I don't know nothing," Varen blustered.

"I'll decide that. We'd like you to come down to the station with us."

Varen's eyes flickered – and he threw a punch straight at Beckett's sternum. She dodged, but even though she'd been primed for trouble he caught her arm with so much force she fell back into LT. Varen bulled past them, but LT was after him in a flash, bringing him down and cuffing him in perfectly regulation style.

"Ken Varen," LT said, "you are under arrest for assaulting a police detective," and continued with the full Miranda warning.

Beckett had sat down rather harder than she'd have liked, and prodded carefully at her upper arm. She could wiggle her fingers and bend her elbow, and it wasn't excruciating, so she guessed that it wasn't broken. She expected that she'd have one hell of a bruise, but that was irrelevant, now that they'd made an arrest. She stood up, wincing, and led LT and the cuffed Varen back down, trying not to move her left arm more than absolutely necessary.

LT put Varen in the back seat, shut the door, and regarded Beckett unhappily. "Do you want me to drive?" he asked.

Beckett moved her arms as if steering, and gasped. "Yeah. You'd better. He caught me hard."

"You want me to drop you at the ER?"

"No. It's just bruised. I'll be fine. Let's get this lowlife into Processing and then Interrogation."

Beckett reached the precinct ahead of Espo and Ryan, which gave her time to go to the restroom, strip off her shirt and examine her upper arm more closely. Poking it hurt. She stopped pressing at it, wiggled her fingers again, gasped, and decided that she'd wait till she'd finished interrogating both her suspects and then, if it still ached, she'd get it checked out at the ER. Not by Lanie. She didn't need to listen to Lanie's lectures.

She didn't need to listen to Lanie at all.

"Yo, Beckett, we got him," Espo called across the bullpen. "He's in Processing now."

"Varen too," she replied. "Get prints off to CSU."

"Dave had a signet ring. We've sent a photo of it to CSU already." Ryan grinned at their efficiency.

"Good."

In the background, LT made a gesture to Espo, who shortly joined him in the break room, ostensibly making coffees for everyone.

"Any trouble?" Espo asked quietly.

"Detective Beckett took a pretty heavy punch – aimed for her chest, got her upper arm. Really hard. She said she didn't need to go to the ER, but she let me drive back."

"You drove?"

"Yeah." LT said. "Seemed sensible when her arm hurt."

"Has it fallen off?"

"No…" LT's face creased in confusion.

"Then it's much worse hurt than she let on. I'd'a thought she'd have had to've been unconscious to let you drive."

"Your problem," LT said, and scuttled off with his coffee. Espo made Beckett a latte, took it out, put it on the corner of her desk, turned away –

"Thanks, Castle," she said unthinkingly, and then gasped.

Espo walked away, wishing he hadn't seen her face; wishing he hadn't made her coffee. Because for one minute, she'd been back to the old Beckett, and she'd been happy. And then she'd remembered, and her face had shut down again: the same look as the day Castle had left.

Beckett cursed her idiocy, and tossed the coffee back without pleasure. It didn't taste the same as it had used to, which was totally ridiculous because a machine didn't do things differently just because someone else was operating it. Her arm didn't hurt as much, though. She turned to preparing to interrogate Ken and Dave, and pushed away the memory of Castle's coffee as she pushed away the pain in her arm.

"CSU have matched the signet ring that Dave wore," Ryan said, breaking Beckett's concentration, "and I got street cam footage and while it's blurry, it's good enough to bluff with."

"Show me."

Beckett stood up and drew a sharp, pained breath as she moved her arm.

"What's up?"

"Varen swung at me. Missed my chest, hit my arm. It's just a bruise."

Ryan looked sceptically at her. "Get it checked out, huh?"

"Yeah, sure, Mom. If you're finished fussing, shall we go interrogate? You know, unless you wanna go get me a Batman Band-Aid?"

Ryan coloured up and shut up. Beckett's tone hadn't really indicated bantering. Behind her, Espo drew a finger across his throat and then placed it over his lips.

"We going to go chat to these gym rats?" Espo asked, smiling viciously. "One after the other or both at once?"

Beckett frowned thoughtfully. "I'd like to scare the shit out of both of them," she said, "but we already arrested Varen on assault, so he's got a problem. He might want to try to improve his position by rolling."

"Him first, then? Or were you going to play first to roll gets the deal?"

Beckett's smile matched and then exceeded Espo's. "I thought I'd take them alone, seeing as the message board thought I was such a hot deal."

"Poor fools," Ryan lamented.

"Yeah."

"Detectives, they're in Interrogation. Separately," LT said.

"Okay. Dave first. Let Varen sweat."

Ryan and Espo departed for Observation. Beckett strode off to Interrogation Two, where David Blockworth waited.

Dave matched his name: almost a perfect block. Thick arms corded with sinew sported tattoos ranging from beautiful to pornographic; his shoulders could have held up a house. He had no neck, and, under his sweatpants, his thighs were wider than Beckett's waist. He sat with the kind of lazy arrogance that came from never having met a man who didn't admire him or a woman who wasn't attracted to him.

Unfortunately, he'd never met Beckett before.

Thank you to all readers and reviewers.