Chapter V

Kate leapt out of bed the instant she heard the crashing sound. The gun was in her hand before her eyes were open, and the shot of adrenaline caused by the noise jolted her into wakefulness before she bolted down the stairs, two at a time.

By the time she'd spotted Martha Rodgers she was wide awake. She hadn't needed the blood- curdling scream coming from Castle's mother.

The entire drama had died down as quickly as it had arisen and her heartrate was almost back to normal by the time she'd walked into Castle's study looking for a dust pan.

Until she saw the article staring back at her from his open laptop.

Suspected gang-related killing of Manhattan lawyer, Johanna Beckett, leaves NYPD with more questions than answers

Seeing it made her stomach clench.

That nosy bastard was digging into her past. Without her knowledge or permission.

It froze her feet in place and made it almost impossible to step back outside. And when she finally did, she wanted to kill him.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"What am I doing?"

He looked like she'd caught him red-handed. Like he might try a lie to get out of it and then decided against it.

"I saw the article. On your computer."

"Look, Kate, it's not what you think. When you came here today, I thought you looked familiar," he admitted. "So I looked you up and then realized where I'd seen you before. It was on the news…you were shot by a sniper at Captain Montgomery's funeral."

"I was," she shot back. "So now you know where you've seen me before. But I'm guessing that wasn't enough to satisfy your curiosity. Why else would you be reading about my mother's murder?"

"One of the articles mentioned something…about your mother being murdered."

"Did it tell you what you want to know?"

"What I want to know? I don't know what I want to know. I was just…curious."

She didn't expect the remorse she saw on his face.

"Look, I didn't mean to offend you. I'm sorry."

"Sorry for snooping into my past or sorry that I found out?"

"Is it that horrible that I'm curious about you?" He questioned. "You come here and sleep under my roof and I don't know the first thing about you, but you…you have a file this thick…" His finger and thumb made a gap of at least three inches. "On me. You know the name and phone number of every woman I've dated the last five years."

"I'm not the one who's being stalked. Or who asked for protection from the NYPD."

"For what it's worth, I didn't either. Ask for protection from the NYPD, that is. It was Bob's idea."

Must be nice to be best buds with the mayor, she thought. To have him put the NYPD at your beck and call whenever he thought it was needed.

"The article said you're a homicide detective. Is that true? Are you?"

It's none of your goddamn business, she wanted to tell him. She was still livid at the knowledge that he'd been digging into her past. Poking around that open wound that would never heal.

"Are you?" he pressed.

"Yes," she shot back. "What does that matter exactly?" He was still probing, even after she'd made it clear how much it bothered her.

Although, she could admit that he had a point. That he too had a right to know something about the stranger who was sleeping under his roof.

"Why would they send a homicide detective to protect me? Are you being proactive, so when this freak kills me, you'll already be on the scene?"

"Not funny."

"Then why?" He was infuriatingly unrelenting. Maybe in different circumstances it would be a quality that she'd have appreciated. But not tonight.

"I…" Like hell she was going to tell him the truth. That this whole assignment was her Captain's way of punishing her. "I have the highest case closure rate at my precinct. Maybe your buddy Bob just wanted to send you the best."

"Is that right?" The way he said made it sound like didn't really believe her.

Beckett took some solace in the fact that if he did decide to snoop into the reasons behind her unexpected reassignment to the Hamptons, he'd never find out the truth. The only one who knew was Gates and she'd never admit to the mayor that she sent Beckett here as punishment to protect his writer buddy.

"That's right."

"Okay."

"If want to ask me about my qualifications, be my guest," she told him icily. "But stay away from my mother's murder. Got it?"

"Got it." He gave her a subtle nod, obviously taken aback by her reaction. But he didn't say anything else.

If seeing those articles on his computer hadn't hurt so much, she might have felt some remorse for the way she said it. Might have reminded herself that she didn't really have the right to tell him off like this.

But she was too angry to care.

Beckett left the dust pan where it was and headed back upstairs in a hurry.

Clean up your mother's mess yourself.

Back in her guest bedroom, she tossed and turned for another hour or so before she finally gave up trying to sleep and went for a run.

The sun still hadn't come out by the time she got back, sore and exhausted. The rest of the house was still fast asleep and she figured they would be, until well after sunrise.

Beckett wanted to take a shower, to soothe her aching muscles, but she also didn't want to wake Alexis and Martha who were both sleeping on the same floor. So instead she pulled up a chair and set it next to her window, grabbed a blanket from inside the closet and curled into it. Closing her eyes as she listened to the sound of the waves outside.

Life slowed down even more in the next three days, while the temperature kept climbing, signalling the start of the first heat wave of the summer.

Martha had gone back into the city and Alexis spent most of her time hanging out with the same teens who'd been at her birthday party. They were all part of a theatre group that was putting together a play about cyber bullying.

Ironic, Beckett thought.

Meanwhile, Becket had compiled a list of everyone close to Richard Castle and she'd already spoken to more than a dozen people on the lengthy list.

And apparently it was her turn to touch a nerve. Especially when she'd run a full background check on the cleaning lady who came by one a week.

"Look I appreciate your thoroughness, Detective, but you need to stop harassing the people who work here. Lurenda's been with me for over a decade!"

"I'm not harassing your staff, I'm doing my job! These people have full access to your house!

It doesn't have to be her. It could be someone in her orbit. And by default anyone who has access to these people are in a position to have access to you." She'd emphasized the last two words to hammer it in.

So she'd pushed through on the additional background checks, until that had spooked one of his gardeners into not coming back. And that had sparked another argument with Castle.

"I told them I don't care about their immigration status!"

"You think they trust the cops? Half of the people doing these jobs in the Hamptons are probably undocumented immigrants! They barely speak English!"

"So you think!"

"I'm not being stalked by the people who work on my property, Detective, All you're doing is terrifying them. Stop wasting your time."

"Stop telling me how to do my job!"

"Not until you drop this."

"Maybe at least stop letting them into the house."

But he'd been adamant. "No, I will not stop treating them like human beings."

She'd been surprised to see that he let the gardeners come in the house to use the downstairs washroom. It wasn't typical from what she'd seen here in the Hamptons. Other day labourers used port-a-potties or the local town plaza for that. The typical Hampton homeowner didn't want them inside their homes.

Not that Richard Castle was a typical Hamptons homeowner.

Not only did he let his staff into the house, but he knew them by name and she'd catch him chatting with them. Practising his Spanish.

Maybe that made him a mensch, but it made things more difficult for her.

Truth was, he was probably right, much as she hated to admit it. The chances of any of his staff being behind this were highly unlikely. And she did keep hitting dead ends when she reached out to the companies that employed them. Social security number that didn't match their names. Invalid addresses.

Most of them were probably guilty of being here illegally, but she really couldn't care less about that. Plus, it was tying her up for hours on end.

So finally, with Castle's insistence, she'd relented and decided it was a waste of time.

What she really wanted to do was go over the crime scene herself. The large, trendy Manhattan restaurant where Sherine was poisoned. It was an avenue they needed to pursue in more detail. Given their minimal findings, she was certain the initial investigators had missed something.

She'd called Gates and told her as much.

"Detectives Morelli and Chang already checked out the restaurant. They interviewed staff and checked for camera footage and found nothing."

"They're not me."

But that had only rubbed Gates the wrong way and she promptly ordered Beckett to stay put. Told her that if she wanted to focus on the crime scene then she needed to rely on the information gathered by the detectives who were first assigned the case. And then she'd hung up without another word.

It was as though Gates were purposely tying her hands. Setting her up to fail.

It made Beckett want to punch a wall.

And once she got over her irritation, she channeled here energy elsewhere.

Her gut instinct told her that this had to be a fan. A crazed, psychotic and jealous fan.

So she'd contacted Cyber Crimes and had them send her footage of some of his recent book signings. She figured that someone who was this obsessed with him wouldn't be able to resist spending time with him in person. Of course not every book signing had security camera footage that she was able to use, but his most recent one, at a mall in Boston, did.

She'd spent hours running every book signee's face through facial recognition. There were a few teenagers. But most of his fans were middle-aged women and they all looked as starstruck as she must have [all those years ago.

Thank god we're not looking at footage that far back, Beckett thought. Not that any store would still have it on tape.

By the end of the day, none of the facial recognition scans she'd run through the system had turned up a hit. Aside from a couple of women who had minor traffic offenses, not a single one had any sort of criminal record that was cause for further investigation.

"Doesn't mean they're not the stalker," she reminded herself, stifling a yawn. All the hours of staring at security footage was starting to give her a headache. This was the kind of tedious task she used to pawn off on Ryan because he was so much better at it. He actually enjoyed the fine-tooth-combing part of police work.

She reached for the giant mug of coffee she'd been sipping from all afternoon, only to frown when she saw it was empty.

Another day's effort down the drain and she was no closer to finding this stalker. And neither were the two detectives in Cyber Crimes, who'd since been assigned a new case and told to put this one on the back burner.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. Frustrated.

She understood that this was a punishment and she was meant to do her time, but all of it was so pointless that she couldn't stand it anymore. Richard Castle clearly wasn't threatened as long as he didn't get involved with anyone else while he was out here, and she couldn't run an investigation while playing bodyguard.

Beckett picked up her iPhone and dialed Gates's number for the second time today.

The captain picked up after the second ring. "Beckett?"

"Captain…"

"Yes."

She hadn't thought of how she was going to word this.

"Detective…is everything okay?

"Yes….no."

"No?"

"It's been several days and I have no leads and I know I could get so much further at the 12th. There's no indication that Mr. Castle is in any sort of danger while he's not seeing anyone."

"You have full access to everything on your police-issue laptop, don't you?"

"Yes, but-"

"The mayor has given me no indication that we can abandon this case."

"I'm not suggesting that. I'm saying there's no reason for me to be camped out here, in the Hamptons, while pursuing it."

"You're supposed to make sure nothing happens to Richard Castle. That's the reason."

"Nothing is going to happen to him!" she shot back. "We both know it! He doesn't need a damn bodyguard."

There was an unnaturally long moment of silence. It made Beckett cringe and instantly regret her outburst. It was exactly this kind of reckless impulsivity that had landed her here to begin with.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. But she wasn't really. Since when was she supposed to apologize for speaking the truth when it came to a case? She could have said it better, that's all.

"I am not ready to have you back at the 12th, is that understood?"

That was the crux of it. As she'd known all along. Beckett swallowed her anger. "Yes, Sir."

"I'll expect your Breathalyzer results at the usual time tonight and the next time you call me I hope that it's because you have a lead. I want to believe you're still one of my best cops but you're making it damn hard lately, Detective Beckett. Maybe it's your team here that makes you look good."

"Understood." It was barely audible but it didn't matter. Gates had already ended the call.

Beckett bit her lip so hard that she drew blood.

For the first time in days she craved a drink. Badly.

She could go to the Sheriff's office now and do the Breathalyzer test and then have one. Or two or three. It would be out of her system by tomorrow night.

She closed her laptop and decided to do it.

If Gates was gonna insinuate that she was a lousy cop, she might as well give her a reason.

For the third day in a row, Beckett used the Breathalyzer test at the sheriff station as an excuse to go for a run.

She took a taxi there and then ran the four miles back to Castle's Hampton home at a steady pace. By the end of this assignment, she'd manage to do both ways on foot. That was her goal.

Beckett entered the house sweaty and out of breath, and Castle's head peeked out from the kitchen when he heard her come in. "Hey…"

"Hi."

"You okay?"

She wondered why he was asking. Things had been so tense between them the last few days. They'd barely exchanged more than a few necessary words.

Then she caught a glimpse of herself in the hallway mirror. Face red, breathing hard and one arm wrapped around her midsection. She stopped holding on to her side and tried to look…less distressed. "Yeah…I'm great."

The runs still challenged her. They hurt and left her winded. But she wasn't floored by them anymore, not the way she'd been after that first one at Central Park.

"Have you had dinner yet?"

"Dinner?"

Dinner. She hadn't thought about dinner. She'd thought about having a drink, even though she wasn't sure where to get it from. But the run had already diminished that craving, and suddenly the thought of food did cross her mind. The mouth-watering smells coming from the kitchen didn't help.

"I haven't but I don't-"

"I made too much," he told her. "Why don't you help me out?"

"Look, I don't think-"

"I'd love it if you would. A peace offering…'cause I upset you on your first night here and it seems like all we've done since then is argue. And, selfishly, I'd really love some company. I know writers are supposed to be solitary creatures, but I'm not. Too much solitude drives me crazy." He sounded oddly sincere.

It lowered her defenses. "Okay. Sure."

"Come in," he led her into the kitchen. To a small table where he'd already filled a bowl of pasta for himself next to a glass of red wine. "Have a seat."

He grabbed another glass and started to pour her some, but Beckett held up her hand as an unexpected panic gripped her. She'd planned to drink tonight, but now the thought of it made her feel nauseous.

No, she corrected herself. Not just drink. You planned to drink too much tonight.

She held up her hand after he'd already filled half her glass. "No. Thank you. I can't. I'm on duty."

"Oh," he stopped pouring. "Sorry. I wasn't thinking." He eyed her glass. "Half a glass won't get you fired will it? I won't tell."

She managed a smirk. "You better not. You're an accomplice."

"You take your work seriously."

"Yes."

He set a bowl in front of her and went to grab a large skillet from the stovetop and then scooped up a generous amount of pasta into that bowl. "Runners need carbs, right?"

"I guess."

"I noticed you go running every night. How far do you run?"

She's already scooped up a forkful of pasta because it smelled so good. Chicken and mushrooms and hints of garlic, thyme and white wine. And once it was on her tongue, her taste buds enjoyed it even more than her nose. It made her realize that it had been a while since she had a home cooked meal.

She answered his question and was surprised at how easily their conversation flowed after that, while they ate together in his kitchen.

He talked about Alexis and the play she was working on, and picked her brain on more serious issues, like politics and global warming until they segued into even more heated topics like who had the best pizza in Manhattan.

He asked her personal questions too. Wanting to know how much she was able to work out after being shot and it surprised her a little that she wasn't bothered by it. That this time it didn't feel like he was prying.

"I'm not a 100% yet, but I'm getting there. Soon."

"Does it hurt to run five miles?"

"Yes. But not enough to make me want to stop."

He genuinely wanted to know more about her. But there was no agenda, no flirting.

It set her at ease and gave her a chance see a new side of him. One that clashed with some of her preconceived notions.

It struck her how incredibly observant he was. He'd not only noticed that she held her side when she got in the door tonight but he knew that she'd been up at six this morning to scope out the grounds. And he already knew how she liked her coffee. She was the reason that there was vanilla soy milk in the fridge now.

Throughout their conversation, she sipped at her wine and savored it for the vintage quality that it was.

It had been long time since she'd done that too. Have a drink because she enjoyed it, not because she craved oblivion. But because the subtle acidity of a good bottle of fermented grapes paired so perfectly with a good meal and a good conversation.

"Tell me something," she asked in turn, not protesting when he scooped some more pasta into her bowl. "Why did you kill Derrick Storm?"

Of all the things they'd discussed, that was the first topic that seemed to make him uncomfortable.

"You're asking me to give away my trade secrets?"

"Seems fair if you're going to ask me about my battle scars."

"Touché."

"Speaking of which. I owe you an apology."

"Apology?"

"The other night. The way I reacted when I saw that you knew about my mother's murder. That you'd read about it."

"I didn't mean to pry…"

"I know," she conceded. "You were right. You deserve to know something about the stranger that's sleeping under your roof. But it's not something that I'm comfortable talking about."

"Okay," he nodded with more solemnity that she thought he was capable of. "You don't owe me an apology, but I'll take it."

"Back to you." she twirled a few remaining strands of linguini onto her fork. "Come on, tell me. Derrick Storm. Why'd you kill him off?"

"You really read the books?"

Beckett bit her lip. She'd not only read them all, she had an autographed copy of one on her bookshelf back in the Lower East Side. Not that she'd ever admit to that. "Why does that surprise you? I liked Derrick. He was a good guy but wasn't boring or one-dimensional. He was fun and heroic, but never shallow, not like your typical action hero."

She didn't add that it hurt to lose him. That there'd already been enough loss in her life, that it had broken her heart to see someone who'd been her escape on dark days, succumb to darkness too. It made her a little angry, how little Castle seemed to care about that. About his fans.

But for once he didn't notice. Instead, his handsome face lit up at the compliment, surprising her again. Surely, he was used to women fawning over his books all the time.

"I can't believe you're a fan."

Beckett made a face. "Fan's a pretty strong word. Also, you're avoiding the question." She set down her sliver fork, not surprised to see that she'd finished everything in the bowl. "I would think that Derrick Storm was a cash cow for you. You could have written another ten Storm books easily."

Castle twirled the last bit of wine around in his glass. Pensive. "I could have."

"But…"

He turned his gaze back to her. "Want some dessert?"

"Wow. You are really avoiding the question."

"Maybe I'm just enjoying your company and want to enjoy it a little longer?"

She felt her cheeks flush at the unexpected compliment. Truth was, she was enjoying his company too. She couldn't remember the last time she'd gone out with a friend. She'd been so good at shutting everyone out her life after she got shot. Even her closest friend, Lanie. "All right then, blackmail me into dessert."

"I still have leftover birthday cake. That thing was huge."

He cut her a slice and they both took their plates and wine glasses out into the massive backyard, where two Adirondack chairs sat next to a small table, facing the shore.

"Oh, wow!"

The view she stepped into almost stopped her dead in her tracks.

Made her want to take out her phone and capture the image forever. As if an artist could paint such vivid streaks of coral and magenta, lavender and mauve, streaming through the sky while the sun slowly sank into an endless pool of water. Going down in a spectacular blaze of glory.

"Stunning, isn't it?"

Words couldn't do it justice, so she wasn't about to try.

"It's one of the reasons I wanted to face inland. Not just because of my fear of tsunamis, but for the sunsets. Some nights, like tonight, it makes you believe in magic."

Beckett swallowed. This was only kind of magic that she did believe in. The moments of wonder, that sometimes popped up in everyday life when you least expected them. Like this one.

"Aren't you glad you came out for dessert?"

Yes.

She sat down in one of the Adirondack chairs and kept staring at the fading colours until they blended into the encroaching darkness and then slowly disappeared.

Castle didn't say much until she was done staring and picked up her fork to dig into the leftover cake.

"So," she said quietly. "Derrick Storm?"

"I was kinda hoping the sunset would make you forget."

"Nice try."

"I bet you're a tough interrogator."

"That, is a yet another deflection. And now they're boring me." She stood back up, ready to leave. "If you're gonna play games and not hold up on your part of the deal then I'm gonna call it a night. Good night, Cas-"

"Hey, wait!" Castle raised his hand in defeat. Taken aback. "Okay…hold on. I'll tell you."

Gotcha. A smirk played at the corner of her lips. Too easy.

It took him only a second to realize he'd been played. "Wow. I was right. You are good."

She grinned. "Yes. I am. Now spill."

"I will. Will you answer me one question first? What did you think of his death?'

It hurt. "You gave him a good ending. I'll give you that."

"It wasn't meaningless or gratuitous, was it?"

"Well, you did put a bullet in his head."

"He died to save that which meant the most to him."

"That's the reason he died in the story. Now tell me the real reason. Not the one in the story."

"Because I was bored."

"Bored?"

"I'm a writer, not a book producer., Kate. I need to write characters that have stories to tell. You're right, I could've churned out another five Storm books at least, God knows it's what my publisher ex-wife wanted, but it would've felt like selling out. Storm's story was over. I didn't want to beat a dead horse."

"So it wasn't an impulse decision. Like riding a police horse naked?"

He winced and for an instant she felt bad for bringing it up,but then he grinned. "You sure that was an impulse decision? Maybe it was a well-planned afternoon of mayhem."

"My bad. I should know better than to assume."

"I was trying to impress a girl."

"Really?" She raised her brows. "And was she?"

"Never heard from her again."

Beckett laughed. "Thanks for restoring some faith in my gender."

He raised a glass in a toast. "To women. And the foolish things they inspire us to do."

"To women. Especially the ones who aren't impressed by those foolish things."

Their glasses clinked and Beckett took a sip and curled one of her legs into the chair. They talked some more and it surprised her how much he knew about – everything. From forensics to criminal profiling. And how quickly one hour became two and suddenly, inexplicably it was nearly midnight. Their glasses of wine had been replaced with mugs of herbal tea and the salty air coming off the seashore now had a distinct chill in its breeze. A million stars blinked in the night sky above them, nearly as bright as they were at her father's cabin.

He'd put a crimp in her plans to drink with the offer of dinner. And the thought of what state she'd be in right now if he hadn't sent goosebumps running up her arm.

"You cold?" Castle noticed her hugging herself. "I'll grab a blanket."

Beckett shook her head, stretched her legs and got up. "No, it's, uh…it's okay. It's late. I should get to bed."

"Right. Of course." He got up too. A gentleman. He was so full of surprises tonight.

"Thanks, Castle."

"For what?"

"For tonight."

She fell asleep easily. It was becoming normal out here in the Hampton, next to the soothing sounds of the ocean. But more than that, for the first time in a long time, she slept a full eight hours.

No drugs. No alcohol.

No nightmares.

Next day

"Kate!"

Beckett tore her attention away from the computer screen in front of her to see Castle coming into the room, holding his lap top.

"I got another one."

She was instantly alert. "Another e-mail from the stalker?"

"Think so."

He set down his lap top next to hers and clicked on an untitled e-mail. "This one."

It consisted of three short sentences. Spaced apart.

-Don't you think it's too soon to be watching sunsets with someone new?

-She won't make you happy either.

-You deserve to be happy.

They sent a chill down her spine and when she met Castle's eyes, she saw that he was thinking the same thing.

The only way this person could have known about their evening in the backyard last night was if they were here. Watching.

Either that or there were hidden cameras in the house.

A/N: Big thank you, as always, to my amazing and patient proofreader, WRTRD.