"How do you know he's connected to your shooting?" Ryan questioned and Kate looked at Castle who answered that question without missing a beat.

"He called me." The two detectives eyed the writer. "A couple days after the shooting a man contacted me telling me he was a friend of Montgomery's and that he'd struck a deal with the people behind the shooting to stay off Beckett if she stopped looking into Johanna's case. I told Beckett about it and we decided to look into it when it all had tempered down a bit. That's what we've been doing for the past few days."

"Why the hell didn't you tell us sooner?" Esposito asked, sounding accusing and if Castle was right he could also feel a bit hurt coming from him. He'd have to make a mental note to ask Kate if that was a feeling possible for them to read off people or if it was just his imagination.

Castle was starting to realize that he didn't know enough about being a werewolf to actually enjoy it happening to him. Plus, it was never his wish to be turned by anyone other than Kate herself. He wanted her to be the one wanting to turn him. He wanted her to want him to turn into one of her kind. He had even thought about the deal they made, them figuring everything out first and then she'd promised to turn him. He had already planned telling her he didn't want to be turned until she was ready to turn him, if she ever was.

"We didn't want to risk you two being within the crosshairs," Kate told the detectives and brought her partner back to the present. She'd noticed his mind wandering and was secretly wondering about what, but decided it was none of her business. They had more important things to attend to.

"Oh come on Beckett, you know we much rather are by your side," Ryan hissed with a small anger on display.

Kate nodded, of course she knew that, that had been one of the reasons why she didn't want to involve them. If she'd been in charge she hadn't involved Rick either.

"Let's go find those files," Rick said and she felt grateful for not having to stay in that apartment for any longer than she'd needed to.


They arrived at the building fifteen minutes after they'd parted for separate cars to drive there. During the car ride Kate reminded her partner to not make any hasty movements and that if he was ever unsure of what to do then just to look at her and try to copy her movements. She could tell he was nervous but didn't bring it up, she did tangle her fingers through his though to show him he could count on her to help him.

"This looks like a reception for an office," Esposito stated when they went inside and looked around.

"Yeah, looks like it's been closed for a long time though," Kate agreed, noticing the dust laying like a coat over the floor. Except there were footprints not that old leading towards the steps.

"Are you seeing that?" her partner asked and she felt her brothers look at him with questionable faces.

"Yeah, looks like someone's tossed some of the boxes in the search of something," Kate pointed towards the cabinets behind the reception counter.

While Ryan and Esposito immediately went to check it out she gave Castle a reassuring look, nodding to tell him yes, she'd seen the footprints too.

"While you two look through there we'll continue further inside," Kate said and Castle didn't hesitate to follow her as she followed the prints on the floor.

They took the steps to find the person going there had gone to the fifth floor and into an empty office with a name tag saying "Smith".

"You see that too? What is that?" Castle asked and Kate observed the change in the floor.

"Yes, there must be something under." Kate walked up to the square sticking up a bit from the rest of the floor, it would've been almost impossible to notice for human eyes unless a laser was being used to search for bumps and abnormalities in the floor.

She took out her pocket knife and started carefully cutting the mat a few centimeters away from the square until she'd cut the whole square out. Castle helped her lift off the mat piece and came face to face with a hatch. The two of them met eyes before they simultaneously bent down to open it.

"It's a safe!" Castle exclaimed and Kate jumped at his loud voice. "Sorry," he mumbled.

Kate bent down and started turning the wheel while concentrating her ears on the clicks and clunks inside the safe. Castle opened his mouth but didn't dare more than let out an exhale when she glared at him to tell him to be quiet. Once the safe clicked to indicate it was opened Kate opened it with no hesitation at all.

"Wait!" Kate pushed his hand away when he was reaching inside to pick up the files.

"Ouch," he stated and she looked up to see him rubbing his ears with his fingers, he was still getting used to his heightened senses and hadn't learned how to shift his hearing just yet.

She chuckled because he looked stupid doing so, and adorable, but quickly schooled her features. "We don't know if there's a trap attached to the files, we need to be quick but careful."

He looked closer to the files, not touching them, and nodded in agreement. If Smith was smart he would definitely have a back-up plan in case the files were about to fall into the wrong hands.

"Then how about you go over there and I'll just grab it and run," Castle said and Kate shook her head.

"Not gonna happen," she argued. "You're just recovering from a bite, not going to risk losing you over some files." She felt his eyes on her but didn't meet them. "You stay back, I'll grab them."

He argued with her and she argued back. Eventually they decided to do it together, partially because they couldn't come to an agreement but also because they could hear footsteps on their way towards them from the stairs. They could also hear their friends calling their names.

Kate looked at Castle and he gave her a nod. She bent down and grabbed a hold of the files. Silently they counted to three and she pulled the files with her as they ran for the door. There was a click and before she could think he was putting his whole body around her beside the doorway to shelter her as a loud boom sounded behind them. When she realized he'd been using his own body as a shield to protect her she quickly pushed him off and turned around to search his body for injuries.

"Beckett?!" Esposito's voice echoed through the corridor along with Ryan's. "Castle?!"

Once she's satisfied he wasn't injured she looked at the files still in her hands before slapping his arm.

"What the hell Castle, you could've gotten hurt!" she hissed.

"But I didn't," he said and looked her up and down. "And neither did you."

She bit her tongue. He was right, none of them were hurt.

The sounds of their names echoed again, this time closer, and with only a few seconds of meeting eyes they answered at the same time.

"We're here! We're fine!"

The two detectives arrived a few minutes later with their breaths in their throats.

"What the hell happened?" Ryan panted.

"Sounded like a bomb?" Esposito added with question embedded in his voice.

"It was a bomb, a trigger going off the second we pulled this up," Kate explained and showed them the files she still held.

Kate opened up the files and together they took a few papers each in order to search for anything that could help them find out who's behind it all.

"Here's the original files with Montgomery's signature," Esposito stated and a silence fell over them as they looked at the signature their former captain had later changed in order to get himself out of suspicion.

Kate felt her eyes water at the memory of him confessing to her inside that hangar right before he died to save her. She still couldn't quite believe he'd been a part of it all, he had been her mentor and taken care of her for so long that she'd thought he was the perfect captain. She'd always looked up to him and prayed she'd become as good as he was. Now she knew that he had some dark past, but at the same time he'd worked harder than anyone else to redeem all the things he'd done. Besides, it hadn't been him pulling the trigger.

"This can't be right."

The sudden surprise in her partner's voice made them all turn to look at him in search of finding out what he's found.

"What?" Kate said when he didn't say anything more, just stared at the papers in his hands.

"It says here the man behind the account getting money from Raglan, Montgomery and McCallister is none other than William H. Bracken," Castle read.

"William Bracken?!" Ryan asked.

"The senator?" Kate's shock was immediate. How could the senator be behind it all?

"It says so right here," her partner showed them the papers.

They all stared at the words, none of them really believing the words. If the senator was behind it all then how the hell were they going to do this? Who could they trust? Well, they could've trusted Montgomery with all this but the new captain? Captain Victoria Gates? What if she was a part of it all?

Kate turned around in frustration, her hand running through her hair. She couldn't stop the growl from rumbling her throat and soon enough she's counting to ten silently to try and control her frustration.

"Is this enough to arrest him?" Castle asked as he started to look through the rest of the papers. "I mean it connects him to the stuff Montgomery and his buddies were up to."

"Yeah, but that doesn't prove he was the one ordering my mother's murder," Kate grumbled and thought about the werewolf who bit her partner. The fact that he'd been able to sneak into the apartment without her hearing him was strange but not an impossible task. It had only happened a few times before, since she's a cop she had an extra good ear for her surroundings. Her dad sneaked up on her once, and so did one of the other wolves she met at one of those meetings once a year.

"Maybe there's something else that could connect him specifically to her murder," Esposito mumbled and started looking through his stack of papers again.

"We should probably bring this somewhere safe, just in case someone else is after this," Ryan suggested after a few minutes and they all agreed.

They didn't get far as they met up with cops with drawn guns coming inside the entrance, immediately calling out they were cops and that they should stand still. Slow and careful they explained they were detectives as well, obviously Castle made it confusing saying he wasn't a cop but they sorted that out too. They hid the papers and said they had also heard the sound of the bomb and gotten there as fast as they could in order to check it out. After they'd helped the cops searching the area and pretending to find the bomb-site Esposito and Ryan gestured for Kate and Castle to skedaddle with the files.

"Where are we going?" Castle asked once he realized they weren't going for Kate's apartment.

"We're going to go speak with the wolf who tried to shoot me and bit you," she growled with displeasure. She already knew she'd have to restrain herself from throwing herself at him.