Hi, guys. Confession time. I kind of...made a terrible error in the last chapter. Since, I've gone back and fixed it. I don't think anyone noticed (?) and the change was very small. If you'd like to go back and reread, you can. But again, it was a small change, probably not noticeable. If you would like more elaboration on my writing failures, let me know in a review, or shoot me a PM, and we'll talk.
Self-deprecation aside, thank you all for the reviews, follows, and favorites. I couldn't do this without you. And suz24 is still awesome.
The sound of a fist banging against her front door drags her through the fog of sleep and back to consciousness. Her first thought, still glazed with unawareness, is that it's the delivery guy, and hold on hold on she's coming.
Then she shifts in place, and her mind goes blank. Pain. It's agonizing and blocks out all path of thought for those first few seconds. Feels more like an eternity. Her inner monologue begins to trickle back in as a litany of curse words. Shit, shit, damn, son of a bitch.
"Beckett, open up! Beckett, can you hear me?" Esposito's voice accompanies the knocking now, laced with worry, but she can't bring herself to respond. Couldn't get up to open the door if she wanted to.
So she watches as her door splinters and cracks open, mourns the loss of money it'll take to get it replaced. Oh well.
The boys spill in first, followed by backup and a team of paramedics. At the sight of her open eyes, Javier's shoulders slump in relief, and he holsters his weapon.
"Beckett, you all right? You with us?"
"Yeah, Espo," she croaks. "I'm okay. I'm with you."
They move aside to make room for the paramedics, dragging in a stretcher. Oh, she doesn't want-
"No," she manages, pushing herself into a slouch with her good arm. "No stretcher."
"Are you kidding me?" Esposito blurts out, letting his concern bleed into anger, and she rolls her eyes.
"Beckett," starts Ryan, ever the intermediary, "Please. You should go to the ambulance. You're bleeding."
Kate glances at the blood spattering her floor, and her hand drifts up to feel it caked on her chin from when she bit him. It's on her knuckles too.
"Not mine," she tells them. "It's not my blood, I'm fine. It's just my shoulder. Got knocked out of place."
Ignoring her refusal, the EMTs shift her gently onto the cot, lift, and then begin wheeling her to the elevator. The uniforms stay behind to inspect the scene, but Espo and Ryan follow her out, probably hoping to get a statement or at least a basic idea of what the hell just happened in there. It's embarrassing to be so prone in front of them, and she can walk, damn it. Is the stretcher really necessary?
"Hey, Beckett," the Latino breaks the silence once they approach the bus. "Dispatch said you weren't the one who called in the incident, said that they spoke to a man who wouldn't identify himself."
She can hear the unvoiced question in his statement. So Richard Castle called 911 after dislocating her shoulder and knocking her out. How considerate. "I know what you're thinking, and you're right. It was the Copycat Vigilante. He broke into my apartment."
After resetting her shoulder and putting her arm in a sling, the response team drives away. She rides to the station with the boys and gives her statement to incredulous stares.
"He offered his services?" Ryan asks in disbelief. "He wanted to work with you?"
"To solve my mother's case. Yeah, pretty much," she sighs. "For justice. To do something more."
"Sounds like he's almost as obsessed with you as you are with him," Esposito says with a smirk, only half joking.
"Shut up."
Ryan effectively keeps them on task, pen poised over his notepad. "And then you got into a struggle?"
"Well, I turned down his offer. But he was persistent, and while his guard was lowered, I saw my chance to apprehend him and took it."
"That was reckless," Javi admonishes, and she has to concede.
"Maybe. What's done is done. I tackled him. He pinned me down and managed to disarm me. I was able to regain my footing, but he dove for my legs, and that's when my shoulder was dislocated. I clocked him in the nose, probably broke it. After that, I tried to fend him off with my good arm, but he had the physical advantage. He put his hand over my mouth, and I bit him, so he twisted my shoulder. That's the last thing I remember."
The three sit in silence for a while until Ryan asks, "How is the shoulder?"
"Sore," Beckett admits. "Nothing a little Advil won't help. I'll be on desk duty for a while if the Captain gets his way, so I need you guys to do the footwork on this. I know the Feds are swarming, but now, it's personal. Will you help me?"
"Of course," Espo answers, and Ryan gives a fierce nod. She feels a wave of affection wash over for them. Her boys. It's the only team she needs.
A week passes before they discover anything at all. Disappearing off into the night without a trace seems to be Richard Castle's thing. But the FBI gets a tip, and Ryan and Esposito follow them to a foreclosure in the Bronx while Beckett grumbles over paperwork and sneaks glares at Montgomery through the office blinds.
The team busts in to find the place empty aside from a table and chair, copies of old case files littering the area, but also new material. Photos. Of Beckett outside of the precinct and even a few in her home. Esposito curses when he sees them, and Ryan feels his stomach roll. But still, no Copycat Vigilante. Unbelievable.
There's an informant on the inside, has to be. How else would he always be one step ahead of them?
Another three weeks, and she's finally out of the sling. The blessed relief after a month of riding her desk is immeasurable, but it comes all too late. The FBI believes Richard Castle to have fled the state and are supposedly pursuing leads through Pennsylvania, way out of her jurisdiction.
And then, out of the blue, she gets a phonecall while doing some PT exercises.
"Detective Beckett?"
"Yeah."
"This is John Raglan," the voice says, and Kate sucks in a breath. "I was the lead investigator on your mother's homicide twelve years ago." But he doesn't have to elaborate. She knows.
"I remember you, Detective Raglan."
They arrange a meeting at a coffee shop to discuss her mother's case. "Just you, no cops," John Raglan warns.
Against her better judgment, Beckett goes alone, doesn't tell the boys or ring the Captain. She recognizes him right away sitting in a booth with a cup of coffee and slides down into the bench across from him.
There are no friendly greetings, no pleasantries or small talk.
"Tell me what I don't know about my mom's murder."
He makes an inconsequential comment on the coffee, a nostalgic remark. She realizes what this is, why this meeting was called before he even starts explaining his condition. Lymphoma. The confession of a dying man.
"I hid a lot of sins behind my badge, and now I gotta carry them. But your mother's case, that one weighs a ton."
"Why?" she spits, twelve years doing nothing to soothe the bitterness. "Because you wrote it off as random gang violence when you knew it wasn't?"
"I did what I was told," he says. "And I kept quiet because I was afraid. I-I'm not afraid anymore." The last part seems to be more a reassurance to himself than to her.
"You don't look it," she observes, and Raglan runs a hand over his balding head.
"That's because I got a visit last night. From your pit bull." Off her confusion, he explains, "Your attack dog, Richard Castle. The Copycat Vigilante."
God damn it, wasn't he supposed to running off to the boonies of West Virginia by now? "He came to your house?"
"And threatened me," Raglan grunts. "And here, I'd always heard you were a straight shooter."
"Listen, I have no control over what Richard Castle does or says. Anything you might have heard, anything he might have told you about us working together? It's a lie. He's fixated himself on me, on this case, but I have no part in it. Understood?"
"He said as much, but you certainly have him wrapped around your finger." Well, it's not like she asked for this, but the retired cop moves on. "There was a hostage standoff in your precinct. You arrested a hitman named Dick Coonan. A month ago, Richard Castle murdered him outside his cell. It was a big deal in the papers. People noticed."
"Who hired Coonan to kill my mom?" she asks, but he shakes his head.
"You need some context here." And then the words start spilling out of his mouth. Things like nineteen years ago and bad mistake. It's stuff she hasn't heard before now. What does her mother's murder have to do with something that happened seven years before? "That started the dominoes falling, and one of them was your mom."
Then, the coffee mug in front of his mouth explodes in a rain of white ceramic, and her arms come up instinctively to shield her face.
"Everybody on the ground now!" shouts Beckett, pulling out her gun. "Back away from the window, away from the window!"
She grabs her radio as the man at her side gurgles blood, but she can't watch the window, make the call, and apply pressure to the wound at the same time. He stops moving then, and it's too late.
John Raglan is dead.
Sorry for the wait. Hope it was still enjoyable. Send me your comments or questions below.