Hello! It's that time of the week. This chapter is a little short, so apologies for that.
To address a concern about the last chapter, I did realize that I was stealing a lot of dialogue directly from the episode. Lazy writing, I know, but the only thing different in these scenes was Castle's absence. I felt that the only way to be true to the story was to keep a lot of it the same. The good news is that the plot of this fic is beginning to diverge from the original, so that won't be happening again. :)
Thank you for all of the continued support and to suz24, my rock. The wind beneath my wings. The cream in my coffee. Anyways, story time.
His heart begins to race as the doorknob jiggles. What will she think when she realizes the door is open? How will she react when she finds him back in her apartment?
She comes striding through the doorway, not even acknowledging his quip about dinner. "I've reconsidered your offer, and you were right. I do need your help."
He can't help but preen from his seat at her dinner table. Everything's falling into place a lot faster than expected. "Now, what brought on this change of heart?"
"Listen, are you gonna help me or not?" she hisses, fists clenching.
"Of course. Yes, good," he answers, unsure of what else to say. His exchanges with this woman, Kate Beckett, have been the most extensive conversations he's had in nineteen years. He's out of practice. "I was sorry to hear about John Raglan."
"No you weren't," Beckett accuses, eyes narrowed. He has to agree.
"No, not really. Seemed like the right thing to say."
"And since when do you care about the right thing?"
There's a long pause before he responds. "Since always."
She sighs, clearly disgusted by his answer and probably by herself too. "Right. Serial killer, epitome of morals."
"Serial vigilante," he corrects. But he doesn't want to give her the chance to reconsider, so he launches back into business. "I'll need all of your mother's files. Not just the autopsy reports and crime scene photos. I need your research, old cases that your mother might have been working on, anything that could help."
"It's Vulcan Simmons. He killed my mother."
She seems so certain as she tells him, but Vulcan Simmons? The drug lord? "And just how do you know that?"
"I had him in interrogation," says Beckett. His eyes are drawn to a long, blue vein in her neck that seems to pulsate in time with her anger. He wants to touch...wait, what? Stay focused. "He practically confessed."
Practically? "But you don't know for sure."
"What?"
"He's not in prison. You wouldn't come to me if he was."
"I didn't come to you. You broke into my apartment. Again." She gestures to the ridiculous spread of wine and pizza.
Fair point. "Touché, but Simmons was let go. I'm guessing you didn't have enough evidence to convict him."
"Well, that's where you come in, isn't it? We had to let him go because...because I lost my cool," she berates herself. He thought she might accept his assistance with this case now that John Raglan's been murdered - that's why he came - but it looks like Vulcan Simmons is the root of her reconsideration. "I'm telling you, it's him. So what's the issue?"
"Detective, I don't think you understand what I do here. This isn't a hit man service. I don't murder for hire. It's a delicate process that requires hours of research and planning. Weeks and months. I need-"
"I'm not asking you to kill him, Castle," she interrupts, horrified. "I just need the evidence to convict him, and I can't gather it while I'm off the case. I don't have the resources. And I certainly can't barge into his home without backup to arrest him. He's a drug dealer with a lot of dangerous friends. That's why I want your help."
"I still need more than just your gut instinct. Even if he lives." But why would anyone want that? "So go, Kate. Get me the files."
When she gets back with the box from her closet, Richard Castle's in the midst of burning his tongue on a slice of pizza, hissing as the cheese slides out of his mouth and onto the paper plate in front of him. Her nose wrinkles in distaste.
He looks up as she approaches and almost appears to be blushing. "It was hot," he explains sheepishly.
"Whatever." She sets the files on the table, the movement causing a visible cloud of dust to rise from the cardboard. "Here it is. Everything there is to know about my mother's case."
He mops sauce from his lip with a napkin. "Feel free to help yourself."
"I don't think so." Even though it does smell nice. Who knows where any of it came from?
"There's nothing wrong with it. Who do you think I am?" Uh, maybe a serial killer. "It's not like I drugged your wine. Look." He pours some of the red liquid from her glass to his and then takes a sip to prove his point.
"The fact that you have to convince me that you didn't drug my wine should be answer enough, Castle."
"Fine." If she didn't know better, she'd think he was pouting. "But it's good wine. At least, I think it's good. I don't really know much about fine dining."
"Where do you even get the money to afford anything? Can't imagine murder is the most profitable profession."
"Well, the wine was a gift. I have side jobs here and there. Nothing drastic, just investigative work." He leans toward her, blue eyes dancing. "You might find it hard to believe, Detective Beckett, but I have some friends in high places."
She takes the seat across from him and crosses her arms. "Or low places."
"You say potato, I say...well, that's not true. Does anyone say potahto? You get the point. I get by."
They spend the next half an hour in silence, rifling through old photos and casework, before she starts to get frustrated.
"There's nothing in her appointment book about Vulcan Simmons."
"Why don't you tell me why you thought it was Vulcan Simmons in the first place?" he asks.
It doesn't feel right to be sharing all of this with him but- "After John Raglan was shot, we called in one of his old cop buddies, Gary McCallister. He told us that Raglan was a gambler, buried deep in debt. McCallister seemed to think that Simmons offered to relieve some of that debt, and in exchange, Raglan had to run drugs from his cop car. It made sense."
"And your mother's involvement?"
"She and her coworkers were running a Take Back the Neighborhood campaign to get drug dealers off the street in Washington Heights. Vulcan Simmons' territory."
"Ah." He rubs his chin in thought. "What did you think this was about before you talked to McCallister? Before Raglan came to you."
"Speaking of," Kate starts. "Raglan. You visited him. What the hell, Castle? You don't just get to run around doing stuff like that, bullying people for me. I could get arrested."
"Okay, sorry. No more bullying without your permission," he mumbles around his fourth slice of pizza, but he seems distracted. "These photos. You look so...young."
She looks at what he's holding, and it's pictures of her from the last Christmas her mother was alive. Trimming the tree, opening presents, lacing up her ice skates. "Give me those."
"What? Why?" He presses them to his chest and sticks a hand out to block her. "I'm just looking."
"Don't make me break your nose again," Beckett threatens, entirely serious. There are very few people that she lets close enough to see her personal things, and the Copycat Vigilante is certainly not one of them. "I mean it."
Castle sighs and hands over the photos. "How is your shoulder, by the way?"
"It's fine," she grunts. After a whole month of desk duty. "No thanks to you."
"I told you I didn't want to hurt you." Then, he reaches into the box and pulls out the film negatives. Seriously?
"No. Give it here."
He shoos her hand away. "Beckett, I think I just figured something out."
"What?" She rounds the table to stare at the row of shots he's pointing to, holding the sheet to the light above her table.
"There was twenty-four exposures on this roll. I counted twenty pictures. Look."
They take the negatives and scan them at Beckett's computer. She taps the mouse impatiently, but then the pictures show up on the screen, and she gasps. "This is where my mom was murdered. But I don't understand. These pictures were developed a week before she was killed."
He turns towards her with a grin. "And that's our next lead."
Next week's update might be on Tuesday, just a heads up, to avoid from updating on Thanksgiving. But thanks for reading! Leave your questions and comments below. Have a wonderful day.