The Long Game: Chapter 23
DISCLAIMER: None of these characters are mine, but they are memorable. Thank you Mr. Marlowe.
On the Porch of Richard Castle's Hamptons Home, 6:35 p.m., Thursday evening, March 22, 2012
Roy Montgomery has just left the beach home of Richard Castle, heading up north to his family in New Hampshire. Castle had to laugh at his disguise, which consisted of a graying beard and a short afro wig with heavy gray on the sides. He looked fifteen years older, which obviously was his intent. Still, he looked more like a caricature than anything else, which probably was the intent as well. He looked nothing like the Roy Montgomery that Castle remembers.
"He doesn't like spending much time too far away from Evelyn and the girls," Kate had told them after he has left the house. "He will call me tomorrow."
Now, as nightfall is less than an hour away, somehow groups have been formed as everyone waits for Chinese food to be delivered. Normally one to cook for any group, this day has been a bit too much for one Richard Castle, who has opted not to fire up the grill or the oven and – instead – picked up the phone and ordered food for everyone.
Now, Jackson Hunt sits on the back porch area looking out over the water in the distance. Martha sits alongside him, in silence until Hunt breaks the awkward moment.
"I don't get to do this very often," Hunt comments as he gazes out toward the ocean.
"Do what?" Martha asks, sipping on the freshly made lemonade that she has spiked with a dash of vodka and orange slices.
"Be myself," he tells her. "No mask. No disguise. Just sit in the open and relax. No worries about hiding my past, and actually allowing my past and present to merge."
"It's a life you chose," she reminds him, somewhat callously. She has, for the past few days, been a contradiction of emotions with the return of Jackson Hunt. On one hand, she can't deny the old emotions that the man has stirred. On the other, she can't deny the heartache she remembers when he left, even though they parted on good terms. And then there's his job. She hasn't seen any of it in person – firsthand - mind you, but she's not stupid. She sees the results.
"Don't remind me," he snickers, glancing at the red-headed matriarch.
"Having regrets?" she asks, risking a sideways glance out of the corner of her eye, a bit of a smirk on her face.
"I always have regrets," he laughs, brushing a hand through his hair. "This isn't a life. It isn't even an existence. It's just one big, long, never-ending mission."
He notes the look she gives him as he adds, "Don't feel sorry for me, though."
"I don't" she offers, evenly, causing his laughter to grow louder and longer, as he remembers the feisty woman who briefly captured his heart. After a few seconds of silence, he points out toward the surf at the couple sitting along the water's edge.
"What do you suppose they are talking about?" he wonders aloud.
"I honestly have no idea," she admits, taking another sip of spiked lemonade, her eyes following his pointed finger at the couple sitting in the sand in the distance.
Next to the surf at Richard Castle's Hamptons Home, 6:40 p.m., Thursday evening, March 22, 2012
Richard Castle sits in the cold sand, cross-legged and, for the first time today, somewhat relaxed. A Jamaican Me Happy wine cooler dangles in his left hand, threatening to drop to the sand at any moment. His pants legs are rolled up comfortably four or five inches above his ankles. Next to him sits Kate Beckett, holding the sister bottle from the four-pack. Not normally a wine cooler kind of woman, she finds the drink oddly refreshing on this relatively cool evening. He wears a Columbia windbreaker, while she wears a Harvard sweatshirt over her blouse, given to her by Castle from his house stash.
The cool, brisk ocean mist gently slaps their faces, and Kate muses that under other circumstances – circumstances that she would gladly welcome, she would be sitting closer to the writer next to her, and his arm would be around her, her head resting against his shoulders. The image is both comforting, and somewhat surprising to the detective. For the past month, she has had great difficulty ignoring the feeling of loss at the gap between them, since the Magic campaign.
Part of her wishes that they could go back to how things were before Scott Dunn's rampage of terror. But the other part actually welcomes the shredded lies lying on the floor, because it gives them an opportunity to actually build something meaningful, and honest. She simply doesn't know where to begin. Call it fear, call it self-preservation, but the words – for almost a year – have never come to her.
Now, however, without warning, she just starts talking, as the words tumble from her lips.
"I wanted to reach out to you. After I got shot, I mean. I wanted to so many times, Castle," she tells him wistfully. "So many times."
She doesn't look at him. In fact, she consciously avoids his eyes, choosing instead to focus on the continuing crashing of the waves in front of them, and the surf that is roughly ten feet away. She glances down at her feet, no shoes and now wearing a pair of red Christmas socks from Castle. The last hundred or so yards walking through the surf with Hunt left her with ice cold feet. Once Castle suggested watching the sunset on the beach, she had agreed on the condition of him loaning her some heavy socks. She laughed as he brought out the festive pair of socks, immediately realizing she should have been a wee bit more specific.
"Tough to see a sunset from a beach facing east, isn't it Castle?" she had kidded him as they sat down five minutes ago.
"Gee, Beckett, even with a fantastic beach view of the Atlantic, I get complaints from you," he had chuckled, giving a soft elbow to her arm.
Now he considers her admission of wishing to have contacted him with trepidation of the approaching conversation. He senses they are at a make or break moment, with the powerful yet beautiful ocean as a comforting backdrop.
"Why didn't you?" he asks. It's such a simple question. He wonders immediately why he hasn't pressed her on this before.
"Roy," she says simply, as if no further explanation is needed. Instead, she continues with another admission.
"I wanted to bring you in to what Roy and I were doing, what we were running," she tells him, still staring ahead at the horizon over the water. "I hated keeping you out of it. Roy and I had a number of long arguments on that one," she muses sadly. "He wouldn't allow it. Now I wish I had pushed back more."
"When did Roy Montgomery control what Kate Beckett did and did not do," Castle asks, this time turning his head away from the beautiful woman sitting next to him. "Kind of find that hard to believe about you, Beckett."
"Turns out I've been doing exactly what Roy Montgomery wanted me to do for years now, Castle," she says softly. "I guess I have just grown accustomed to it, without realizing it. And it wasn't just you," she adds. "I wanted to bring Javi and Kevin into it as well, but – again – Roy strongly pushed back on the whole idea of anyone else knowing what was going on. Said that this was the most important covert op of his life, and he was only sharing this with those he trusted. That included Evelyn and the girls, Smith and me. End of list."
Castle doesn't say a word, instead simply absorbing her admissions and filing them away. Too many thoughts are fighting for dominance right now. And on top of that, he's got to pay attention because she's still talking!
"Even dad seemed to be in Roy's corner on this one," Kate continues. "He told me that it wasn't my secret to share. Roy being alive, that is. It didn't make sense to put Roy's family in danger simply to make my life easier. I think those were dad's exact words. And I realized there was no way I'd be able to tell you what I was doing, and not also, at some point, tell you that Roy was alive. Because there is no way I could do this all by myself, and I knew you'd realize that pretty quickly."
If Castle agrees or understands or doesn't understand, he doesn't let on. So she continues, as now the words bubble forth, water rushing rapidly downhill towards the waterfall cliffs.
"Then there was my visit to your cell," she says, now her voice dropping. Now she turns her head to face him. "My heart broke, and I mean broke in two, when I saw you behind bars. It was so confusing, because I just knew you didn't do this. I kept telling myself this. But I also kept going back a year ago to when we found you over two dead bodies after the summer. Back then you were profusely proclaiming your innocence to anyone who would listen, even as you had a gun in your hand," she laughs, and he finds himself chuckling along with her.
"It just didn't add up. This time," she continues, "you seemed to want to go to jail. You clearly didn't want me there. And I kept thinking about what Dunn did to Alexis, and I know no one is more important to you than her. I couldn't understand why you would be willing to leave her – especially now."
Castle still remains quiet, which somehow Kate takes as an encouragement to continue.
"I wanted to help, I asked Captain Gates about assigning an attorney. She laughed in my face. Told me you probably had the best firm in the city on retainer or on speed dial. Not much we could offer there," Kate adds, shaking her head, remembering the conversation clearly.
"I wanted so badly to stay at the jail, be there for you."
"Again," Castle comments after a few seconds of silence, "why didn't you then?"
"Roy. Again," she states, matter-of-factly, and notices Castle wince at her using Roy as her excuse. Again.
"He really made a compelling argument, Castle," she almost pleads. "He was adamant that I limit my visit to one visit, and just a few minutes. He kept saying that given the last month, and now the last couple of weeks, I would have blown everything, I would have given it all away just to get back into your good graces. He worried that I would tell you about Bracken, that he was behind everything. He worried that I would tell you everything we found about, and that you'd be able to use that as a bargaining chip to gain your freedom. Or that at least you would try to. And if you did that, then all of us – Alexis, Martha, my dad, you . . . me . . . all of us would be in danger."
She sees Castle turn his head, eyeing her now, and so despite herself, she turns and faces him. This face-to-face is necessary, she tells herself. No more hiding.
"And then you asked why I was there. I thought that to be an odd question. A dumb question, really," she recalls. "Where else would I be? And you called me 'detective'. You were trying to tell me something, weren't you?"
He doesn't respond. Instead, he keeps his eyes on the waves in front of them, on the advancing surf that gets closer and closer each minute. She continues on.
"Anyway, Roy reminded me, Rick, that I had kept you safe for almost a year because of my silence, because of your ignorance to what we were doing. And he reminded me that if you didn't do this, if you didn't kill Dunn, then you have enough money to get off. And even if you did do it, you might have enough money never to do any time, anyway."
"Then why bring Roy into it now?" Castle asks. "Why bring him to my home? Why break the ruse now?"
"When you were shot," she answers immediately, "Roy thought that odd. I mean, Castle, who wants to kill an author. I mean, really, your books aren't that bad," she laughs. She's disappointed when he doesn't join in.
"But when the second attempt on your life was made," she continues, "Roy got nervous. He figured that somehow you started poking and digging again. That you had found something, but left a cookie trail leading back to you."
Castle opens his mouth to tell her that he had dropped her mother's case completely, especially in the past month. She interrupts, holding her hand up.
"Hear me out. Roy reached out to Smith, who had told you to cease and desist, and to keep me away from the case. Smith's whole reason for doing this wasn't to protect me. That's what Roy was doing. Smith was protecting you. Keeping me off the case hopefully kept you off of it as well. That was Roy's plan. But with two attempts on your life, that plan was clearly out the window, now. So Roy contacted Smith, who confirmed that Bracken was, in fact, doing something, moving against us."
She tightens her arms around her chest as a quick gust of cold air flushes against the two.
"But here's the rub," she continues. "Smith was very clear that Bracken was after you and I. Smith was clear that Bracken didn't know about Roy still being alive. So that told Roy that it was your efforts - not his or mine - that had left the trail. Because if it had been he and I, then the kill contract would have been put out for Roy as well as you and me."
She sees Castle nodding his head in agreement. "Good. Finally, we are getting somewhere," she tells herself. It gives her the courage to keep going.
"So," Kate continues, still looking at Castle, "thinking that you had done something to cause Bracken to become nervous, and not knowing that the attempts on your life were bogus – which by the way, you and I are going to talk about someday soon – Roy felt that we had to step out and warn you."
Castle nods again, and then chuckles to himself.
"What's so funny?" she asks.
"Nothing funny, really," he responds, still chuckling. "More ironic. It wasn't me that left any trail. I had dropped it cold," he tells her, his eyes never leaving hers so that she fully understands what he is saying. "It was you and Roy who left the trail."
He continues watching her eyes, looking for any reaction. Seeing none, he shakes his head, ever so subtly.
"But since Roy was, quote – dead – unquote," he continues, "he was in the clear."
"I . . . I don't understand," Kate responds, the confusion plain on her face. Just as suddenly, he sees the very second when recognition hits, when comprehension lands firm. He doesn't need to say this now. But he does anyway.
"It sounds like the only person who has never been in danger of getting killed here is Roy Montgomery."
Kate doesn't respond. She is far, far deep in thought now, reliving conversations with Roy Montgomery, reliving strategy sessions with her ex-captain.
"You think this was done on purpose," she comments. It's not a question.
"I think everything that Roy has done has been on purpose – intentional," Castle responds, his eyes darkening with the clouds coming in from the Atlantic. "Perhaps the results weren't what he intended. You getting shot, you and I coming under attack again . . . but nothing he has done has been by accident."
Kate opens her mouth, but this time no words come out. Castle nods in understanding. Yeah, she's starting to get it now.
"Since Roy is dead to the world, no trail will ever lead back to him," he tells her. "It would always look like you went investigating, or I went snooping. But it would never lead back to a dead man. Brilliant actually."
"You mean Machiavellian and ruthless," she argues, now starting to become angry.
"Yeah, that's what I meant," he nods, as he stands. "C'mon, food should be here any minute."
He stands, holding his hand down toward her. She stares at the hand for a few seconds, then back out at the ocean for an instant before standing herself, using his hand to help pull herself up. She brushes the sand off her rear and legs, and then reaches out to touch his hand, but he has already turned and is a step or two ahead of her, walking back to the house.