Chapter XVII
12th Precinct, New York City
Everything moved forward at lightning speed after he'd come back home from Alexis's opening night.
After Alexis received a standing ovation, both he and Martha had gone backstage to give his daughter a congratulatory hug and then ducked out while Alexis went out to celebrate with the cast and crew.
He'd come back with his mother and hadn't expected to find Kate pacing in his kitchen and telling him that they'd traced the vehicle. That they had to be at the 12th precinct first thing tomorrow morning, where they'd be briefed on her partner's findings.
She'd been unnerved by the cryptic call and he'd been both elated that they finally had a lead, and oddly disappointed that this meant he couldn't have her here all to himself for another day or two.
They'd gone to sleep in their separate bedrooms because neither of them had been ready to explain things to his mother yet. But sleep had eluded him and judging from the shadows under Kate's eyes when they both got up at 4;30am, not long after his daughter got home, she'd spent the bulk of the night awake as well.
He'd pulled her in for a kiss, wishing she'd snuck into his bedroom last night.
"I'll be ready in fifteen," she'd mumbled, clearly not ready for conversation, stifling a yawn and pushing several wild strands of hair out of her face with one hand while holding a mug of coffee with the other.
Sexy. Even half awake, and pre-caffeine-cranky she was still so damn sexy. And the nerd in him had been duly impressed that she'd figured out how to use his needlessly complex coffee machine all her own.
"Want company in the shower?"
She'd raised one skeptical eyebrow, then took another deep sip of coffee and yanked him into the bathroom.
She'd alternated the temperature of the water between steaming hot to ice cold and back to hot, he'd suddenly felt more awake than if he'd slept ten hours.
"It's a trick I learned at the police academy," she'd told him after he'd helped to towel her off. "We had only three minutes to take a shower. One minute hot, one minute cold, then one minute hot."
"I might need a few more lessons, to make sure I get it right."
Then she'd whacked him with the towel.
Less than twenty minutes later, they'd been on the road, hopefully having left early enough that they could make good time and avoid the bulk of the morning rush-hour traffic.
They'd debated taking two cars, so he'd have the option of going back to the Hamptons tonight, but then settled on both going in hers. He'd wanted her company on the ride to Manhattan and could always stay at the loft or take a car service back to the Hamptons.
They'd stopped at her apartment on the Lower East Side before heading to the precinct, so she could change into something more professional than the summer dress she'd worn to see him. While she did that, he'd explored her living space, surprised at some of the bold and creative choices he found there, including a giant floor-to-ceiling surrealist painting of a woman running over a bridge, underneath a dark and ominous sky, full of planes about to dive into her.
It was a chilling piece for someone who'd spent the last few months with the knowledge that a professional killer was after her.
No wonder she had nightmares.
The rest of the apartment was inviting, in an edgy, industrial kind of way. Full of nooks and crannies. A staircase leading to what was probably a roof garden, lined with books along its steps. A guitar sitting in a corner near the entrance. A spacious, colourful couch full of quirky pillows.
He'd hoped she'd invite him back here, because like so much about her, it had sparked his curiosity and she was way too fast and efficient to give him the time he needed to catalogue it all and let it soak into his memory.
Now they were at the 12th Precinct, and that too was another revelation that made him want to take notes.
Beckett introduced him to both her partners, Detective Javier Esposito, who'd gripped his hand like a Marine and had absolutely no qualms about looking him up and down to make sure he checked out, and Detective Kevin Ryan, who had a decidedly gentler grip and a pair of warm blue eyes that harboured far less distrust than those of his partner. Of the two men, it was Ryan that he liked instantly, even though he appreciated the other man looking out for Kate.
"Are you gonna tell us what you found out," Beckett asked Ryan. "Or do I have to yank it out of you? You can't hang up on me this time."
She was interrupted by a shorter, black woman who appeared out of nowhere and made all three of them straighten their backs.
It had to be Captain Gates.
"Detective," Gates eyed Beckett. "How are you doing?"
"I'm good, Sir."
"I asked you to come in this morning because this is your case. Because we wouldn't have tracked this woman down without you getting those details when the car hit you, but this does not mean you're back at work. You still have three days of leave after this morning and you're here strictly in an observatory capacity. Is that clear?"
Castle could literally see Beckett biting her tongue.
"Yes, Sir."
Then the captain turned to him. "As for you, Mr. Castle. Anything that you are going to hear in my office during this briefing is confidential and cannot leave this precinct. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Sir."
Sir? Why was he calling her Sir?
"If it does, charges can and will be brought against you. Is that also clear? I have several witnesses here to confirm what I'm telling you."
She was hardcore and he was starting to understand why Beckett had panicked the night she'd missed her Breathalyzer test. "Clear as a bell."
"Come into my office," Gates told them all.
Ryan carried a lap top and placed it on the far side of her desk, giving all of them a view of the screen. He sat down and didn't waste a moment.
A low-resolution photo popped up on the screen. Obvious street-camera footage.
"We believe this is the car that hit Detective Beckett four days ago. It's a silver Honda Civic. I scanned thirteen cameras covering a twenty-block radius during the sixty minutes after her hit and run. I spotted twenty-one Civics but this vehicle was the only car that matched all the required details: the make, the colour, the last letter H in the license plate, and the feasibility of being in the location it was after leaving Castle's apartment at the time that it did."
"Well done, Detective," Gates interrupted.
"So we traced the plate and found out the vehicle is registered to a Maria del Carmen Alvarado aka Maria del Carmen Alvarado Ojeda. She is usually leaves off her married name."
Castle's heart skipped a beat. So this was the woman who'd made his life hell for several months and nearly killed the last two women he'd been with.
"Do you recognize the name, Mr. Castle?" Gates asked him.
He shook his head, wishing he did. "No."
"I thought I saw a man behind the wheel," Beckett mumbled. "But it could have been a woman."
"Not necessarily," Gates pointed out. "We also learned she has five other vehicles registered in her name, all of which list other family members as second drivers for insurance purposes. In fact, Mrs. Ojeda seems to be the only person with vehicle registrations in her family."
"That's not normal. What's her deal?" Beckett wanted to know.
"Does the name Ramon Ojeda ring a bell?" Ryan asked her, with a look that told her she did. Told her to think.
Castle could see the wheels turning in her head.
"Ramon "The Snake" Ojeda? No way…"
"Si," Esposito chimed in. "El Serpiente."
Castle watched Beckett's eyes widen in shock, not fully understanding any of what was going on yet.
"The car that hit me was registered to the head of a Mexican gang lord? Are you kidding me?"
"No, to his wife." Ryan corrected her. "In fact, most of what he owns is registered in either her name or in that of one of his daughters, Alejandra. It's part of why he stays clean. On paper."
"Can someone fill me in on who this is and how this is connected to my stalker and to Beckett nearly getting run over?" Castle wanted to know.
"Ramon Ojeda is the suspected head of one of the three biggest drug cartels based in Chiapas state, in southern Mexico. He's super smart and he's actually…not Mexican," Ryan corrected Beckett. "Born in France to a French mother and a Spanish father. He returned to Madrid in his teens and was raised by a low-life uncle. Did two years in prison for assault and extortion before he said adios to Spain and left to for Mexico, where he successfully weaseled himself into a local cartel. Rumour has it he killed two heirs, married the daughter of a rival kingpin and merged the two families. Here in the US he keeps low profile, unlike a lot of the cocky bastards in his line of work. Because of it we've never been able to bust him on much of anything that stuck, but we have reason to believe that he has huge amounts of capital squirreled away in phantom corporations and offshore bank accounts."
"So he's a drug smuggler?" Castle asked.
"Drugs, money laundering, you name it. OCCB also suspects that he's involved in some major human trafficking."
"OCCB?"
"Organized Crime," Esposito told him. "It's a dying unit of the NYPD. Rumors are it won't be around much longer. The FBI already handles most organized crime cases in the country."
Castle was soaking it all in. The atmosphere in the room. The body language. The pecking order among them. It reminded him how woefully unequipped he still was to write a novel about an NYPD detective that rang true beyond its main character. He needed to do the kinds of research that he used to do for his Derrick Storm novels, when he'd gotten rare inside access into the CIA.
He also realized that Nikki Heat needed a partner. Or two.
"I still don't understand how this relates to my stalker. Or are you saying I'm being stalked by the wife of a crime lord?"
"We were hoping you could help us with that, Mr. Castle." Gates told him. "Have you ever had any dealings with the Ojeda family?"
"No. Not that I know of."
"As Detective Ryan said, they keep a low profile. But we do have some photos of them to show you, to see if they trigger any recollection for you. Your social circles may have crossed paths at some point."
He doubted it but went along. "Okay."
"Here's Ramon in a rare photo caught with his wife, Maria."
Castle stared at the slightly blurry image of a medium height man, in his late fifties or early sixties, with thick dark hair and eyes, thin lips and broad shoulders. His wife, Maria who looked younger than he, was a tiny creature. Long hair, huge eyes,and a large gold crucifix necklace around her neck. She barely reached his shoulders.
Ryan showed him some more photos. One of Ramon walking off a yacht, turning towards the camera he clearly didn't know was there, and two more of Maria. One at a wedding, wearing a green dress that hugged her petite frame, and another one at a horse race, where an elaborate hat hid half of her pretty face. She didn't look happy in any of them.
"No. Nothing's ringing a bell," he reiterated.
"They have four children," Ryan continued, and Castle raised his brows. He couldn't imagine that four humans had come from someone as tiny as Maria Del Carmen Alvarado Ojeda.
"The eldest is Oscar. We believe he's being groomed to take over the cartel. He's flashier than his Dad, and doesn't seem to be as bright. He likes fast cars and big parties. We have more photos of him."
The photos showed a younger, slimmer, and slightly taller version of Ramon Ojeda, but still no one that Castle recognized.
"The oldest daughter, Sara, seems to have nothing to do with the family. She's a nurse in Houston, married to a dentist. They have two kids."
More photos of a slim, petite woman with short hair. One at a wedding and a second candid shot, taken at a hospital fundraiser. So far, she was the only member of the Ojeda family who was smiling in any of the photos.
But he didn't recognize her either.
"The second daughter, Alejandra, is believed to be involved in the financial side of her father's business."
Ryan pulled up three photos of an attractive young woman who shared her mother's good looks but none of her timidity. She appeared confident and self-assured, and Castle was intrigued by her, but she too didn't look familiar.
"His youngest son, Salvador Leon Jesus is-"
"Wait…" Castle cut him off. Stunned. "I know him."
"You do?" Beckett was startled. "From where?"
"He looks younger and thinner in this photo but it's him. It's Sal."
"Sal?"
"One of my gardeners. I hire a handful of gardeners every summer to take care of the grounds of my Hamptons home."
Gates looked as shocked as Beckett did. "You're sure?"
Castle stepped closer to the screen. "Yes. I'm sure. I hire the gardeners from a company in Sag Harbour. They send me whoever's available, so I don't know all the guys personally, but there are a few regulars that work more than one season, Sal is…" He thought back. "He's one of them. He's been working on my grounds since last summer. He barely speaks English…"
"Or so you thought." Ryan stated.
Gates was oblivious to his response and turned her stone-faced expression in Beckett's direction. "How can it be a gardener when you ran background checks on everyone who set foot on his grounds, Detective?"
Shit. Castle's stomach did a flip when he thought back to one of her first few days out on the Hamptons. Beckett did check the gardeners, but he'd pressured her to stop. Telling her it was pointless and uncalled for.
"Sir, I…"
But Beckett cut him off with an icy glare that told him not to dare. "I did run background checks but most of them were using false IDs and false social security numbers. I was getting nowhere…half of them weren't here legally."
Gates stepped closer to Beckett, still incredulous. "So you overlooked them because it wasn't convenient? What the hell kind of outfit was Montgomery running here?"
"I wasn't out there to catch illegal immigrants," Beckett shot back.
"Don't you give me attitude right now, Detective. Not when you had this guy under your nose and let him slip away." She took a deep breath. "You'll stay behind after this meeting but for now we're going to move ahead. Detective Ryan, tell us what we know about Salvador Ojeda."
For a few tense seconds no one spoke and then Ryan turned back to his computer screen and scrolled down to reveal another photo. A slightly older one than the previous one he'd shown Castle, verifying that it was the same man who'd tended to his grounds that last two summers. The shy, awkward man who barely seemed able to string a few sentences of English together.
Castle stared at the photo. Are you really the same psychopath who wrote me those disturbing e-mails? Who poisoned Sherine and almost killed Kate less than a week ago?
Thinking about that man inside his house sent an ice-cold chill down his spine.
And it suddenly reminded him of something else. Alexis. His mother.
"My daughter's still there, in my Hamptons home!' he blurted out just as Ryan was about to say something. A different kind of chill ran down his spine now.
Gates evaluated what he was telling her. "If he's still there, I don't want to spook him. We could lose him real quick." She shot another glare in Beckett's direction. "Let's not do that twice. Do you have any reason to think they're in danger?" she asked Castle.
"No, but I don't want to make that call. The guy's obviously unstable, who knows where else he'll lash out next."
"The only people threatening him so far have been people that are romantically involved, or…" Ryan stopped himself. "Or that he believes are romantically involved with Mr. Castle."
"I agree," Gates said. "We have no reason to believe that your daughter and mother are in danger. But it's your family and your call. You can alert them. I can send for officers to bring them back here into the city. Or I can reach out to the East Hampton PD and have an officer keep an eye on them. What would you prefer?"
Castle turned to Beckett, wishing he could discuss this with her without having three other sets of eyes in the room. He didn't know these people, but he trusted her. However, Beckett's expression gave nothing away, letting him know this was his decision alone.
What he really wanted was to bring them here and lock them both in a panic room until this guy was behind bars. But he forced himself to think rationally. "You're right. I don't think they're in danger, but it would mean a lot if you could have an officer keep an eye on the house."
Internally, he still debated whether to tell Alexis what they knew.
"When's the last time he was at your house?" Esposito asked. "Do you remember?"
"It's been…more than a week. He was there one time when Beckett was there. But not since we came back from Philly. Not since he hit her with the car."
"Maybe he realized he got in over his head," Ryan suggested.
"Or he got spooked and is deciding to lay low for a while."
Gates had already stepped away to reach out to her counterpart in the Hamptons and it shot a jolt of relief through his veins.
"Tell us more about Salvador Ojeda," Beckett prompted Ryan again.
"There's not much to tell. From what I can tell he's not involved in the family business. He doesn't even seem to appear at social functions."
"Because he's a psychopath?"
"Nah…" Ryan chuckled. "That'd be a bonus in their line of work. More like he's a liability somehow. He's unstable. Maybe an addict, or someone with a mental or a personality disorder. Could be something as simple as a lack of social skills. Family like that, with vultures coming at them from all directions, image is everything."
"Anything solid to back up a mental disorder or an addiction?" Beckett questioned.
"You mean besides poisoning and attempted murder?" Castle quipped.
Castle watched as Ryan, typing furiously, pulled up several new screens on this lap top. "He has no record. No surprise there. Except, wait…" He kept typing. "Check this out."
Castle only started to read the legal notice that popped up on screen. "A restraining order?"
"Not quite, it looks like," Beckett corrected him. "Looks like someone filed one but it never went through in court. It was withdrawn. I'm surprised it's even showing up in your search."
Esposito snickered. "How much you wanna bet that someone was paid off?"
"All the Ojeda kids attended some sort of fancy private school, but not Salvador. He was home schooled and there's no record of any job or career. Not under his name, anyway."
"We're gonna contact the gardening company and see if they can tell us anything more. We'll at least get a contact number and hopefully a home address. Maybe when and where's he's scheduled to work next. Once we track down his current location, we'll have officers in place."
"I have the name of the guy that runs the gardening company." Beckett added. "I'll call-"
"You're off duty," Gates cut her off. "Give Detectives Ryan and Esposito the information. I want you two on it right away." Then she turned back to Castle. "Mr. Castle, if you can think back to your interactions with Salvador Ojeda. If there was anything he said that could be useful."
"We…we barely spoke. I didn't think he spoke much English. There's a small table on our back porch when the gardeners work, with lemonade and granola bars for them. Sometimes I make small talk with them and they use the downstairs bathroom."
"In other words. Salvador Ojeda had full access to your house."
Castle swallowed, feeling like a fool. The stalker had been there all along, under his roof, playing a role worthy of an Oscar. He vaguely remembered the man thanking him for the snacks and the lemonade. He might have seen him chatting with Lurenda, his cleaning lady, and he wondered whether she was somehow complicit too. Suddenly, he no longer trusted anyone who worked in his Hamptons home.
"Don't think you could have known," Gates told him, as if reading his mind. "Men like Ojeda spend their whole lives deceiving others, and this one has the resources to do it well."
"But why me?" Castle wondered out loud. "Why is some mobster's kid obsessed with me?"
"Hopefully, he can answer that question once we haul his ass in here."
"If you don't mind, Mr. Castle, I'd like a word alone with Detective Beckett."
Castle had barely noticed that Beckett's two partners were already back outside at their open desks, Esposito on the phone and Ryan back on his lap top.
He stole another glance at Beckett, who gave him a subtle shake of her head that told him not even to try arguing on her behalf.
"Yes. Of course," was all he said before he closed the door behind him.
Outside, her two partners briefly stopped what they were doing and all three of them turned in the direction of Gates' office. Even though the blinds were half closed and they couldn't hear a thing, they saw enough in the body language between the two women to see that Beckett was getting chewed out.
It made Castle wince. "It's my fault," he told the two detectives.
"What's your fault?" Esposito wanted to know. Asking as though he'd pounce on him after he answered.
Castle didn't care. "I'm the one who told Kate to drop the background checks on the gardeners. Gates needs to know that."
"Are you crazy?" Ryan piped up. "You telling her to drop the background checks had nothing to do with her actually dropping the background checks. You know that, right?"
"What?"
"She's a cop," Esposito explained. "She's not gonna let a civilian tell her what to do in an investigation. If she decided to drop it, it's because she decided it was a waste of time."
"I can be pretty persuasive."
Esposito and Ryan looked at each other and grinned. As if laughing at the absurdity of him talking Beckett out of anything. "Trust us, bro. This one's not on you."
"What's Gates gonna do?" he asked them.
"She'll get a slap on the wrist," Ryan told him. "Gates has to toe the line, even though she'd probably have done the same thing."
"She and Beckett, they butt heads, but Gates knows Beckett's the best we have. She's not gonna punish her over this." Esposito, whose attention was on Gates's office too, didn't look as convinced as he sounded.
"You know the sniper who terrorized Manhattan a couple of months ago? Beckett's the one who figured out he had a limp." Ryan told him. "It's what cracked that case. Most people have no idea what that freak had planned when we stopped him. No idea how many lives were saved. But that case was hard for her. It cost her."
"I know…" Castle murmured, still staring towards the Captain's office. Still wanting to go in there and set the record straight.
Esposito was suspicious again. "You know? She told you?"
There was a hint of accusation in his voice. If Beckett didn't have a big brother then this particular partner had obviously decided to step in and Castle had no idea how much she wanted this quasi-sibling to know. "I mean…I heard she was shot by a sniper herself not so long ago. It was…in the news. I assume it must've been hard."
"Right," Esposito mumbled, accepting his response.
When Beckett walked out of the office, all three of them pretended to be intensely occupied. Castle yanked out his phone, Esposito a drawer in his desk, and Ryan's focus was back on his lap top screen.
It made Beckett roll her eyes.
"Hey…" Esposito started. Nonchalant. "Everything cool?"
"Completely cool," she shot back and turned to Ryan. "I gotta be a good cop and stay home until Monday. But if you don't keep me posted I'm gonna call Jenny every five minutes, is that clear?"
"Crystal."
She cocked her head in his direction. "Castle, you comin'?"
He gave her partners a smirk and then trailed after her.
"Everything really okay?" he asked after the elevator doors closed.
"You mean aside from me screwing up again and letting this guy into your home right under my nose? Yeah, great."
"Kate-"
"Don't." She raised her hand and stopped him. "The last thing I need is you telling me not to beat myself up over this." All the anger she'd hidden so well in the bullpen was written all over her beautiful face now. "We could have had this guy over two weeks ago."
Then maybe last night wouldn't have happened.
It was the first thought that jumped into his head and he felt guilty for it.
"All right then. If beating yourself up helps, then who am I to stop you?"
She crossed her arms and they rode the rest of the way down in silence. It wasn't until the door opened that Castle realized he wasn't sure where he was going next. Of what would happen next.
He might have written a handful of crime thrillers, but he'd never been at the centre of a police investigation before.
He asked her as much.
"Gates says it's up to you. If you want to return to the Hamptons, she can't stop you. There's already a discreet detail on your house there and if you stay here, she'll put one on the loft."
They stepped back out into the heat of the city, assaulted by the late morning glare of the sun. "What do you think?"
"I think…you should stay here until this guy's in custody. It's easier to guard you at the loft and if Ojeda's still out in the Hamptons…I think it's better that you're away from him."
"What about Alexis and my mother?"
"Call Alexis and tell her what we know, and to go on as normal. The most important thing is that we don't spook him. That he doesn't know we're on to him before we find him."
Castle stopped before crossing 49th Street. "And what about you?"
She'd put her sunglasses on and he noticed that she was particularly squirrelly, scoping out the landscape as though expecting danger to come hurtling from all directions. Like that terrifying painting in her loft. "I'll take you to the loft. Make sure you're safe."
"That's not what I asked. What about you? About us? Is our charade over now because we know who it is?"
He still wasn't moving and because of it, neither was she. And standing still in the endless sea of motion that was Manhattan came with its own risks. No less than two pedestrians bumped into them and one of them muttered, "For fuck's sake."
"Gates suggested we should continue until we have him in custody." She gave him a little push away from the flow of people. "It's her way of hinting that it would allow me to keep an eye on you. Without, you know, actually putting me back on duty yet. But it's up to you. It's not necessary if…if you don't want to."
"I want to."
His unexpected eagerness finally elicited a hard-won smile from her. "All right. Let's grab my things at my place and head back to yours."
Kate Beckett brought a duffel bag of overnight clothes and her police-issue lap top over to his loft, saying she wanted to find out more about Salvador Ojeda.
Castle had been more concerned with getting the cab to stop at Balthazar for a bag full of sandwiches, a couple of salads, and a half dozen French pastries. To make up for the fact that his fridge was woefully empty after his most recent stay at the Hamptons.
If he was going to be trapped at home until Ojeda was in custody, they'd need nourishment.
He'd called Alexis and had a lengthy conversation with her about what he'd learned. Told her about the detail they'd put on the Hamptons home. Not to leave the house. But not to panic either.
And meanwhile, Beckett, after making sure the apartment was secure and the drapes were closed, was on her lap top digging up everything she could on the guy.
He'd left her alone at first, even though he wanted to join her. Because he too wanted to know why this man had become obsessed with him. But then he decided to give her the space she so obviously needed and he'd let her brood and channel her anger into becoming an expert on all things Salvador Ojeda.
He just didn't expect her to still be at it over four hours later, while the croissant sandwich he'd left on the table for her lay in the same spot, untouched.
Enough, he thought. If they were going to have a chance at any sort of relationship it couldn't start like this. With her putting up a wall and shutting him out the second she hit a roadblock.
He pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. "Hey…"
She turned to him with glazed eyes that radiated with pain. Between using her wrist for several hours and staring at the screen, she had to be hurting. "Hey…"
Definitely enough, he thought with a wince. Castle closed her lap top.
"Hey!"
"You done punishing yourself yet?"
"I'm tryin' to get what we can on this guy! Since I let him slip out of our fingers."
"Can you still make out the words that are swimming in front of you?"
She rubbed her eyes and sighed, no longer angry enough to fight him. "Mostly. Until you closed the screen. Jerk."
He pushed the sandwich towards her. "You haven't had a thing to eat since we stopped at that donut shop at the crack of dawn."
She gave him a lopsided smile. "You keep feeding me."
"I'd like to keep doing it, if you'll let me." He pushed the sandwich even closer. "Eat."
She did and when she was done, he pulled her up from the chair, turned off the lights, and led her to his corner sofa in the living room.
"What are you doing?"
"Relaxing. With you."
He scooted into the sofa's soft corner cushions and pulled her down towards him. Let her body sink into his and adjusting their positions until she was comfortable. Until he could feel the tension ease out of her shoulders.
He kissed the top of her head, not expecting her arm to snake up around his neck. She looked up at him with tired eyes and a lazy smile. "Thanks. It's nice…"
"Me?"
"This. The dark. Your comfy couch…but yeah, you too."
"A distant third. Ouch."
She exhaled. "I'm sorry. I've been a jerk since we left the precinct."
He ran his hand through her hair and she responded with a purring sound that he wanted to hear again. "You kinda have been."
She turned her head to look up at him. Serious. "Can I confess something?"
"Always."
"I really, really, wanted a drink when we got here."
"Oh…"
"I wanted something to dull the things I was feeling. Maybe if I'd gone to my place, I would have. I don't know."
His fingers still threaded through her hair. He was already getting way too used to the feel of it on his skin. "I don't think you would have," he told her.
She turned around. "You don't? Why?"
"Because…you worked too hard to get this far." His fingers trailed her hairline now, itching to explore elsewhere too. Beneath her blouse. But he tamped down the powerful urge. Because this was too important to gloss over with sex. No matter how much he wanted her on a primal level. "Tell me next time, okay? I figured you were channelling something dark into those intense hours on the computer, but I wasn't sure what."
"Thanks," she added. "For not pushing."
"I won't push. But maybe I could've helped." He rested his eager fingers on her arms.
"Being here. Around you. It helped."
"Okay." He'd accept that. For now. "How's your headache?"
She closed her eyes. "Don't ask."
"Let me get you something for it."
She curled her long, elegant fingers around his wrist. "Not now. Just wanna stay here like this. With you. In the dark."
"Okay," one of his thumbs ghosted across her eyelids, applying the slightest amount of pressure onto that silky soft flesh. "Tell me what you found out about Salvador Ojeda. I want to know."
"He's a cypher, Castle. Like he doesn't exist beyond being homeschooled by his mobster family. Or at least not under his real name or the fake one he used at that landscaping company. I've tracked one parking ticket back to his license plate, that's it. There's nothing else on record. No higher education, no job history, no social security number, no relationships, no social media activity – although I'm sure we'll find some once we get him and his devices. His driver's license is on the registration too, for insurance purposes, and it's listed as Leon Jesus, his two middle names, but it connects to an address where no one's lived for over two years."
"But you don't think he's been living under his real identity, right?"
"No. Definitely not."
"Once you find that identity, you'll find a trail."
"I would think so. But first we need to find him."
"Is the phone number the landscape company has for him a burner?"
"Yeah."
"So we can't trace the phone."
"It's not impossible, even with a burner. But it's harder and that's plan B, if he doesn't show up tomorrow."
"Are you not bringing the mother in because you don't want to spook him?"
"Yes." He could feel her body tensing again. "But if we don't get him in the next 24 hours, we'll have no choice. Her name is registered to the car that's central to an attempted-murder investigation. We can't not bring her in. Even if it does spook him."
"So we gotta get him in the next 24 hours."
She stifled a yawn. "More or less."
The weight and warmth of her on him was starting to make him sleepy too. Mid-afternoon naps on hot summer days were something he hadn't indulged in for a while now. "While you were digging for dirt on Salvador, I went on my website. There's a forum there and one of the threads is full of fan photos from book signings. I went through a few hundred photos, trying to see if I could spot him, now that we know who we're looking for."
She pushed herself off the couch and eyed him with surprise. "That is… a great idea."
"I'm clever like that. You lucked out, Katherine Beckett."
She chuckled. "I did."
"Except nothing came up."
She turned around, lying on her stomach now, her head resting on his chest, while she toyed with the collar of his short-sleeved shirt. "I'll tell our IT guys to check out the forums on your site too. Can you reach my phone?"
He didn't budge. He'd heard her call her partners at least half a dozen times the last four hours. He was surprised that they hadn't ignored her calls yet and saw it as a testament to how much they cared for her. "It's not pressing. Plus, I'm napping."
To his surprise she didn't budge either and her voice was fading. She wouldn't be awake much longer. "Are you?"
"Uh huh…"
"And afterwards?"
"We could…nap some more. But with less clothes."
A smile curled her lips even though her eyes were already closed. "You're so full of good ideas."