In the early years, he'd still had a glimmer of light left in his eyes. Still met her icy stare for longer than just a few seconds during each meeting. It didn't last that way for long.
It was just some feeble hope of his that his fame or his money would get him off scot-free, she surmised. His speeches were more impassioned then, too. For the first few years, it was the desperate cries of a desperate man.
"Kate. Kate, please. I have a daughter. Her name is Alexis. I could - I could try to bring pictures next time. She's six years old now. She's only six, Kate, and she needs me. I can't be in here. They can't keep me locked up. I didn't do it. I didn't kill your mom. I swear to you. I could never hurt someone like that. I could never hurt you - "
She still remembers, even today, the way her jaw had tightly clenched that day, involuntarily snapping together and cringing with it. His words. It was day eleven. Nearly a year after his conviction. She'd stood up in a hurry, slammed her chair into the table, making him jump in his own seat.
"Kate," he'd called after her, his voice choked with emotion. "Please."
She stood tall, turned around, and much more calmly proceeded to the door.
She didn't let herself fall to pieces until she was two doors down the hall, sliding to the floor, her cheeks stained with tears.
Her favorite author killed her mother.
It was nearly a year later and she just couldn't understand why.
Why wouldn't he tell her why?
There was a paradigm shift after she became a detective, some years later. Once she had learned the ropes and been trained by a mentor who was, by all accounts, the best in the field. She put everything she had into the job. She couldn't find answers for herself, no matter that it had been five years and the same, gradually weakening reply from the author. His appeals were always rejected. He had trouble finding lawyers willing to take his case. After five years, he'd lost that spark in his eye. The glimmer of hope that had once shined so brightly.
No, she couldn't get answers for herself. Not yet. But she could find answers for other victims. For the families left behind.
"I heard you became a detective," he'd said that day, flopping down gracelessly into the seat he'd become so well accustomed to. "One of the best they've had in years."
She wanted to scoff. To spit in his face. What was with him? This sick sense of pride in his voice. Pride in her.
Pride in her? He killed her mother. How the hell could he feel pride for her? How dare he -
"That's great, Kate. Really great. You look good. I'm so - "
He'd smiled, just briefly, and then he caught himself. Ducked his head.
"I'm glad you're doing well. Really glad. You deserve to be - "
She didn't let him finish the thought.
"Why are you doing this?" she growled out, standing from her chair, hackles raised like a frightened, wild animal.
"I - What?"
"It's been five years. Five years. You murdered her. You killed my mother and you still don't have the balls to look me in the eye and tell me why. You sit here every time, rambling on and on about your daughter and your mother...what about mine? She's gone. You took her away from me. And now you're complimenting me? You're happy for me? What kind of a monster are you, Rick Castle?"
She was bristling, seething with anger. After sixty visits, five years, she'd finally let her carefully maintained composure completely snap. In five years, she'd never given him anything beyond an hour of her time each day. A single word in question, an icy stare. He would talk. Oh, how he'd talk to her, but never about the things she'd wanted to hear. Sometimes she'd get up and storm off. Other times, she listened intently. But this was the first time that she'd ever allowed herself to respond back. To unleash her fury.
"Not a monster," he said at length, solemnly, shrinking into his seat. "Just a lonely guy locked away for a crime he didn't commit, trying to make conversation."
Then she did allow herself to scoff.
"You deserve to be lonely. I hope you're miserable in here. I can't wait for the day you finally start rotting away."
Her words were vicious, venom-laced. She could hardly believe them herself. She'd had it pent up for years and now it was like an explosion, her pain and anger the magma to an emotional volcano.
But when he looked up at her next, his eyes shining with tears that now flowed freely down his cheeks, she felt as though a fist and been thrown into her gut. It wasn't the reaction she'd expected from him. Not from her mother's cold-blooded killer.
This shell of a man was nothing like the one she'd seen put behind bars.
"That's fair," he said, lips trembling. He wet the chapped skin with his tongue, a gesture to buy himself time to speak, compose himself.
"To you, I'm just a guilty man. A killer. I'm everything the evidence says I am."
Her jaw tensed. Was this it? Was this the day when he finally unburdened himself, confessed his sins to her?
"But I'm not that guy. I'm not who the cops and the prosecutors say I am. I'm not who you think I am. The evidence isn't the whole story."
"Then what's your story?" she asked, voice pleading. She was so tired of this. So drained. It had been five years and nothing. He'd given her nothing.
Richard Castle wiped his tears with the sleeve of his navy blue prison jumpsuit, and gave her a watery smile.
"I wish I knew, Detective. I've spent the last five years of my life stuck in this place trying to figure it out on my own, but I get the feeling now that you're my only hope in knowing."