Okay I have to apologize for how long this took to post. I have been trying to reach my goal of posting once a week and I am posting every two weeks. Summer is a very busy time for me and I am so drained at the end of most days that I can't even think straight. I did the best I can to bring this update to you. I hope I can get started on the next chapter this weekend. So here is the next chapter. And I would like to give a big thanks to SpeedyMouse for being my beta for this chapter. Enjoy.

Again I do not own Castle.

Chapter 4

Holliday steps off of the elevator and walks down the hallway of the Medical Examiner's office. She notices the silence in the morgue and thinks that it is a little too quiet, even for a morgue. She walks into the examination room and finds Dr. Perlmutter finishing up the autopsy on Caleb Brown.

"So what do you have for me, Doc?" Asks Holliday, she figures that she might as well get down to business. And since Perlmutter has yet to look up from the examine table, she's made the right choice.

"So what? No hello?" was Perlmutter's response. Or maybe not, she thought.

"I figured you weren't the type for pleasantries, Doc. Do you have an official COD?" Holliday asks. Now that she sees Brown on the table, chest open and organs out on display. She stares at him and sees him as nothing. Just another body on the table. "You know other than the obvious?"

"Official COD is exsanguination due to two gunshot wounds to the chest. Captain Beckett's a better shot than Mr. Brown here." Perlmutter tells her.

"Well, he was a good enough shot to land Captain Beckett and her husband in the ICU." Responds Holliday.

"But not good enough to kill them, But knowing the two of them it would take a nuclear explosion" Perlmutter counters back. He still doesn't like Castle, but he never wanted the guy hurt in any way.

"Good point, Doc. Were you also able to get the test results on the DNA I sent you?" Holliday asks him. She really wants to know if her hunch played out. Mainly because she wants to rub it in Rita's face about the fact that her hunches are starting to pay out.

"I did It was a match. The DNA that you supplied me with was a familial match to this man we know as Caleb Brown. They are father and son." Perlmutter relays the information to Holliday. "Whose DNA was it that I matched?" he asked.

"That would be the DNA of one Mason Wood. Now the question is, do you think that we can find Mr. Brown's true identity?" is the next question that Holliday asks him.

"Well, there are a few tests that I can conduct that can determine where he's been during his lifetime." Perlmutter tells her. The only reason that he tells her this is because of the fact that he finally gets to test out one of the new toys that was just set up in his lab.

"How the hell can you do that?" Holliday had to asks because it's the first time that she's heard of something like that.

"Well, all I will have to do is pull a tooth and pulverize it. I then would use the machine back there to study the isotopes and determine where he came from." Perlmutter tells her.

"That's actually possible?" Holliday's looking at him in disbelief because she has only seen that kind of thing done in the movies.

"Yes it can be done. It'll take a few hours but it will help with your case." The Medical Examiner tells her. Holliday looks at him and then back at the body on the slab, still trying to figure out who he really is. And if this test can get her one step closer to her answers, then she's willing to do it.

"Okay then. Go for it. And call me with the results." As she turns to walk out she walks right into Dr. Lanie Parish, who still has a look of anger on her face. Perlmutter turns and sees Dr. Parish at the door and holds his hand up to stop her.

"Do not come any further, Dr. Parish. You're not supposed to be here." He tells her. He was always one for protocol and he doesn't need any tainted evidence because she decided to enter the room. Dr. Parish knows the rules. She knows that she's not supposed to be here. The case is too personal for her and she also knows that the case is in good hands with Dr. Perlmutter. Even if he really is a big pain in the ass most of the time.

"You need to go." orders Perlmutter. He's never been one to take a chance of screwing up a case. Lanie was about to take another step towards him when Holliday intervenes.

"He's got it, Dr. Parish. I was hoping I could talk to you for a minute outside." Holliday does her best to distract Lanie from the current situation and more importantly, the body on autopsy table. Lanie locks eyes with the Lieutenant and nods. She turns and walks out the door. Holliday follows her out into the hall.

Lanie steps into the hall and Holliday joins her. Her mind was still reeling from the events of the last twenty-four hours. She needed to focus on something else for and the moment and her mind went to the face of the Lieutenant in front of her. Lanie was expecting someone a little bit older than who stood before her. Someone in their early to mid-forties, not someone ten years younger than that. She wasn't expecting someone younger than her.

"You're a little young to be a Lieutenant." Was the first thing that she could say, not the best thing she could say but if was something.

"Yeah well, I get that a lot." Holliday responds with. She knows that she's a little young to be at the rank she's at now, but she's knows that she has accomplished at both the LAPD and with the Navy. And when she took this job for the NYPD she was able to take a promotion as well. "I figured you would still be at the hospital with the family."

"There wasn't much I could do. Alexis went with her grandmother back to her apartment to rest and I needed to do something." Lanie tells her as she slowly walks down the hallway. Holliday follows.

"How are you holding up?" Holliday asks her.

"I feel like I'm in a nightmare." Says Lanie as she finds the bench behind her and sits down. She leans forward and holds her head in her hands. Holliday leans against the wall in front of her.

"It's not your nightmare." is Holliday's response. She understands the doctor's pain. Her friends are hurt and there is nothing she can do. She's helpless. "Why are you really here, Dr. Parish?"

"I just wanted to make sure he was dead." She needed to see the body. She wanted to be able to tell Kate that she seen the bastard's corpse lying on the metal slab. She wanted to tell her that she got him.

"Well, he's dead. Captain Beckett's a damn good shot. This thing is over." Holliday tells her. Holliday sees the anger radiate off of her, and the fear. The fear of what has happened in the past twenty-four hours. The fear what can happen in the next few days, even the next few weeks or even months.

"What makes you so sure?" Lanie says as she looks up at Holliday. She sees the certainty in the young Lieutenant's eyes. It gives her some hope that Holliday believes that this might actually be over and done with.

"Brown would've had backup with him if it was a designated hit. The fact that it was just him tells me that it was a last desperate attempt of freedom." Holliday tells her.

"What do you mean freedom?" Holliday had more of Lanie's attention with that last statement.

"Brown, or whatever the hell his name is, wanted to disappear. He wanted to be free of this whole thing. He originally faked his death in order to do that." Holliday tells Lanie. Lanie nods in understanding.

"So the burned body from yesterday…" Lanie starts.

"Was a part of the escape plan, a plan that was supposed to end Beckett and her husband's investigation once and for all." Holliday adds, filling in the blanks for Lanie.

"But the DNA came back as Caleb Brown." Lanie was trying to wrap her head around that fact. She heard of people being able to switch dental records, but DNA was a hell of a lot harder to pull off, especially if all of your resources were seized.

"That's because the body belonged to a Caleb Brown." Holliday tells her. It was then that Lanie picked up on what Holliday had said.

"He stole the man's identity?" Lanie asks the Lieutenant. She nods in response.

"Now the question is, was he already dead when the car was set on fire or was he held captive and then killed?" Holliday asks, more to herself at the moment than to Lanie. But Lanie hears the question and decides that she can find the answer for it.

"Now that is something that I can do." Lanie says to Holliday as she stands up from the bench. Holliday moves away from the wall when her phone starts to ring. She takes out her phone, she doesn't recognize the number but the first three digits tell her that it is from 1PP. "Excuse me, I have to take this." Holliday answers the call and steps away from Lanie and moves a few steps down the hall. "This is Holliday."

"You're looking into the shooting of Captain Beckett and her husband, Lieutenant." The voice says over the phone. Holliday doesn't recognize the voice of the woman on the other end of the phone.

"Who is this?" Holliday asks. She doesn't like being messed with and right now she's starting to feel like she is being messed with.

"Someone who is taking a keen interest in the case, especially since the case involves LokSat and people that were killed because of it." the female voice on the other end tells her.

"Is there anything else that I need to be looking for?" Holliday has a feeling that the person on the other end is looking for answers as well. She can almost hear the fear in her voice. Like the woman on the other end is risking everything making this phone call.

"You need to look into the death of Assistant AG Allison Hyde and the AG task force team that was killed ten months ago." the woman tells her.

"Are their deaths connected to LokSat?" Holliday asks the woman on the other end. This was one of the reasons she quit the spy game. The cloak and dagger stuff that she had to go through always pissed her off.

"Yes and if you want another set of charges to file against Mason Wood and his associates, I would look into it." The voice on the phones tells Holliday and then hangs up. Holliday looks at the phone and then puts the phone back into her back pocket. She turns a looks back at Lanie, who was looking though a file cabinet that was in the hallway. She is more than likely looking at the file of the burned body that kick started this end game in the first place.

"Dr. Parish." Holliday get calls out and gets her attention. Lanie turns and walks back towards the Lieutenant.

"Yes, Lieutenant?" she asks as she walks with the Caleb Brown file in her hand.

"Your office dealt with the death of Allison Hyde?" Holliday asks her. Lanie had to actually had to think about it for a moment since it wasn't her case.

"It was originally ruled a suicide. Gunshot wound to the head." Laine remembers from the report that she read.

"Was your office sure that it was a self-inflicted?" There had to be a reason that the woman on the phone wanted her to take a second look at it.

"I only read the final report; I would have to take a look at the autopsy file itself." Lanie tells her.

"Would you mind looking at it for me, it might be connected to my case." Holliday informs her.

"I can pull the file for you." Lanie tells her, grateful for the distraction for the time being.

"And you can go over it at the hospital." Holliday tells her. Lanie looks up at Holliday as she continues. "You are not going to be able to focus here if you are worried about your friend. You'll feel better when you see her and then you'll be able to look through that file and see if the Medical examiner assigned to the case missed anything." Holliday has quickly learned about Dr. Parish's reputation and work ethic. She's good, very good. She's been able to find anomalies in cold cases that were able to crack them wide open. Holliday needs to keep her focused. If there's any truth to Allison Hyde's death being a murder and not a suicide.

"Okay." Is all that Lanie says. Holliday sees the exhaustion start to set in with the good doctor and decides to head out.

"I will meet up with you later at the hospital. Right now I need to check up on another lead." explains Holliday and she begins to head towards the exit. As she walks towards the stairwell, Holliday takes out her phone and dials. Holliday is the first to speak as the person on the other end answers. "It's me. I need your help."