um, wow, thanks so much for all the alerts! and thanks to all those that reviewed! Reviews and feedback really do make all the difference :)

also, I realize I didn't do a disclaimer or anything last chapter. I don't own Castle or anything, obviously, and there aren't spoilers for any seasons currently aired or airing.

enjoy!


TUESDAY

It was dark. Kate didn't know how much time had passed;

Since he'd climbed through her window, since he'd injected her with something, since she'd fled out the window and been met at the bottom of the fire escape as the world tilted crazily.

Since she'd woken up handcuffed to a ring attached to a chain hanging from the ceiling, slumped on the cold cement floor.

Since he'd brought in those people.

Kate swallowed thickly and tugged at her restraints again. They didn't budge. There was still blood pooled directly across from her. The room was small, a cold, grey square; there were no windows, her chain and the door. It was frustratingly out of reach.

He'd brought them in, one by one, a man and a woman, both sluggish and disoriented. It hadn't taken more than a few moments for her to realize they resembled herself and Castle. A hard, cold, pit of fear had slid into her stomach the same moment something hot and angry had brought tears to her eyes.

But she hadn't let them fall. She'd questioned him, even as he laid out his victims in front of her, pulling out needles and depressing clear contents into first one, then the other.

And then he'd brought out the scalpel. Or rather, scalpels plural. The fear had won out over the anger and her voice had frozen in her throat.

Then he'd started to talk. The things he said, about these poor people, about her, about Castle. What he was doing to them.

Kate closed her eyes as his words seemed to ring through the space around her, echoing loudly in her ears even though she knew logically he was gone.

He'd spoken the whole time he'd cut into the man's skin. The poor man had pleaded, with slurred words, had yelled and cried. Suffered. The woman had cried hysterically, trying to move, trying to get to this man that obviously meant so much to her.

Kate had watched silently at first, shocked into paralysis, as blood began to trickle and then flow from slice after slice. After a while, the man would stop and look at Kate, whisper cruel things to her about how this was her fault.

And then the anger had returned with a vengeance. She'd tugged at the cuffs so hard her fingers turned warm and sticky with blood. Her wrists stung and throbbed now at the memory and she could feel the blood caked under her fingernails.

It felt like days before the man stopped crying, stopped bleeding, stopped breathing. Stopped living.

The woman was so pale she looked dead herself, whatever cocktail she'd been given wearing off enough for her to crawl closer to her man. The bullet to her heart stopped her progress and made Kate's ears ring.

The man had put the gun back in his pocket and turned to Kate, smiled, actually smiled, as tears streamed down her face, and reached out to hold her face in one of his hands.

"See what happens when people get in the way? Make sure you remember their names now."

"Fuck. You." It hadn't sounded nearly as strong as she'd wanted it to.

"We'll see." he'd said, before undoing her restraints and backing away.

She'd been torn between running for the door, for the amused man or to the couple laying on the floor, bleeding. She'd thrown herself towards the couple first, pressing on wounds and feeing for a pulse before turning to the woman and doing the same.

The man had let her go on for a few moments before taking the three steps towards her and pulling her back by her hair and pushing her against the wall and her chains.

He'd pulled out another needle. She remembered trying to wriggle away from his grasp, but there was nowhere to go.

And as she'd slid into chemical darkness, he'd whispered two names. Told her to remember.

Sam and Tori Bright. One pair, two people.

So here she sat now, still groggy and still in darkness, although this was from a blindfold and not a needle. They must have put it on her while she was out.

The door slid open and heavy footsteps came in. They stopped in front of her before she heard the shuffling of someone kneeling before her and a large hand gripping her jaw.

"Are you going to be good girl and walk or do I have to drug and drag you? One will hurt less than the other." His voice wasn't completely malicious, just firm.

Kate swallowed and licked her dry lips. Whatever they kept giving her was making her beyond thirsty.

As if summoned by thought, a cool metal surface met her lips and cold water sloshed against her mouth. She opened after a moment's hesitation and drank the water until only a drop rolled out of the cup.

"Better? Will you be good and not fight me now?"

It sounded like a test, one designed and thought out and she felt as if she were being trained for something. But her head hurt and her wrists hurt and her legs ached for movement and she really needed to use the bathroom.

She nodded.


"Where are we?" Castle said as soon as he arrived in the precinct at exactly 7am.

"Same place we were yesterday. Nowhere." Esposito threw down the folder in his hands and scrubbed hands over his tired face.

"Well, Lanie said she found traces of some kind of sedative in the Brights' systems, so that's something," Ryan pointed out, trying to be optimistic.

Castle slumped into his chair and turned to face Ryan and shared a look and all silently agreed it really wasn't very much to go on. The elevator dinged and the doors slid open to reveal Lanie, who looked just as tired as the rest of them but carrying a folder with a determined stride.

"Lanie, you found something?" Castle hoped, ready to jump up from the chair.

"Maybe. The chemical compound in their bloodstreams weren't in the medical database, and I've never come across anything like it; it's a cocktail of sorts. Sedatives and muscle relaxants mostly."

"Isn't that dangerous?" Ryan pointed out the obvious.

"Very. Mixing medications is never a good idea, but this guy's doing it anyway. And doing it well. Those two did not die from the injection and don't show any signs of side effects from it. Granted, we didn't exactly get to see if they were disoriented or hallucinating," Lanie trailed off.

"Do you think this is the same thing he used on Beckett?" Esposito asked after a moment.

Lanie really didn't want to think about something this dangerous being used on her best friend, her sister, but it wasn't entirely outside the realm of possibility. "Could be. You think she was drugged too?"

"Do you see this guy getting her out of the apartment without ruining the rest of her apartment any other way?" Castle asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Right." Lanie nodded once, choosing to accept the fact that her girl had been drugged with professional disgust rather than personal fear. "Also, the particulates found on their clothes were mostly from the alley, nothing too specific to tell us where they were killed."

None of them voiced the rest of the sentence, which was 'or where Kate is'.

"Okay. So, first we need to bring in the next of kin. Samuel's sister Maggie Winslow and Victoria's father Jack Spencer." Esposito said. "I'll pick up the sister, Ryan you find the father."

They detectives grabbed their jackets and stood, preparing to leave. Castle stood too, before realizing that he hadn't been giving a direction. "Wait, what about me?"

The boys exchanged a look. "Look, Castle, we know you want to help, but-,"

"But nothing. I'm either going with one of you or I'm finding something else to do. Which would you rather?"

Lanie piped up. "This guy's targeting both of you, right? Samuel and Victoria look like you and Kate. If he was just after her, Samuel wouldn't be there. Why don't you get on your fan sites and social networking accounts and see if anyone's talking or taking credit?"

"Sounds like a plan. You do not follow any leads you come across without telling us, you hear me bro?" Esposito pointed firmly at Castle, who raised his hands and sat at Beckett's desk, adjusting her chair.

In that small gesture, the four of them stopped, looked down at the chair. If Beckett were here, Castle would be twisting in pain as Kate pinched his ear by now. Her absence was starting to feel like a physical thing.

Ryan recovered first and cleared his throat. "Okay, let's go."


Three hours searching his fan sites and Twitter and Facebook accounts and Castle had found nothing; the only subjects ranged from his books to his social and love life. Nobody mentioned Beckett by name, except those following it closely by 'muse' or 'girlfriend'.

He sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair again. Ryan and Esposito had come back with the families of the victims an hour ago and were currently talking to them separately.

A hand appeared with a cup of coffee, breaking Castle's concentration and he started before realizing the dark skin wasn't Beckett's.

"Sorry, writer boy." Lanie said, setting the cup down in front of him. "Just taking a break."

Castle sighed again and forced a smile before taking the cup, sipping carefully at the hot liquid.

"How's it going up here?" She asked, motioning with her head to the computer screen. Her own coffee came up to her mouth and she sipped.

"Slow. So slow, it's stopped moving. There's nothing here. It was a long shot anyway, but I still hoped for something. Anything," Castle admitted.

"I keep thinking she's just gonna come through those elevator doors, walking tall in those heels, having saved herself. I forget she's not actually invincible."

Castle smirked a little. "I have the same thought. She just seems so, indomitable."

"She's good at that," Lanie commented quietly. "Castle, tell me she's gonna be okay, that we're gonna find her."

Castle reached over and squeezed one of Lanie's hands. "We'll find her. We have to."

They both knew he hadn't just forgot to say that Beckett would be fine; there was a very real possibility she wouldn't be.


The boys came out of the conference rooms an hour later, armed with some information.

"Tori and Sam Bright were married two years. He's been married three times and has two kids, both in high school, and she's never been married. No kids. They met at work, which is a law firm upstate and were dating for three years before they tied the knot." Ryan gave the background info as he settled into his desk and started pulling up the financial records of the Brights.

"Neither family member can think of anyone who would want to hurt either of them; the three ex-wives have all supposedly moved on, in three different states, and neither are very high up in the office." Esposito said.

"Any connection to Beckett?" Castle asked.

"None. Both Jack Spencer and Maggie Winslow said they'd never seen or heard of Beckett before today. Neither Sam or Tori has been arrested or done jury duty or been a witness. Far as I know, Beckett's never been to the law firm upstate."

"So, there's nothing tying them together except the look alike factor," Lanie summarized.

"Pretty much. Mr. Spencer said his daughter and Sam were going out to a show at the local community centre, they were both active members."

"There weren't any tickets or pamphlets on them when they were found," Lanie pointed out. "Maybe they didn't make it to the show,"

"Well, anything they did yesterday, they paid cash for. There aren't any credit card purchases after Saturday morning. A few debit transactions, a small withdrawal, $60, and then they were dead." Ryan said from his place sorting through the financials.

"Anything in the phone logs?" Castle asked, leaning back in his chair.

"Nothing, no calls after 8:32 on Sunday night. No calls to the precinct, Beckett's numbers, nothing."

They were just repeating information now, going over what they already knew. Which wasn't much.

"So now what do we do?" Lanie asked. Her coffee finished, she dropped it into the garbage can under Beckett's desk.

"We question any other friends or family who had any motive." Esposito said.

"Uh, that might be difficult." Ryan said from his desk.

"Why?"

"Well, Sam's sister Maggie and father Gerry are the only family he has and Tori has her father and a brother, Steven, who's teaching abroad in Europe. That's it. Any friends are from the law firm, according to the families, and the only extracurriculars they did involved the community centre. They were involved mostly behind the scenes."

"So, they were private people," Lanie said, sliding a look to Castle.

"Basically, square one."

"Pretty much."

Lunch came in the form of Montgomery bringing Chinese food and forcing them to take a break.

"We need to do more." Castle announced over his plate of food.

"Like what, bro? There's no connection between Beckett and the Brights. No more contact from the kidnapper. No credit for the murders being claimed. No solid evidence that they're even connected." Esposito said sharply.

He'd been thinking the same thing all morning. Beckett was like his sister, he was barely containing himself and forcing himself to work this right. She'd be proud of him. Esposito knew full well that after 24 hours, things usually went downhill. Beckett's 24 hours were up.

He also knew that Castle wasn't trained to handle this, someone they cared about being taken.

"Well, we need to do better." Castle bit off. He was getting mad now, the fear falling away into solid angry.

"See, what I'm hearing is 'you' need to do better. As in, my partner and I." Ryan said. Their nerves were all fraying here and while he was usually the cool headed one, he hadn't slept well the night before. Any sense of playing neutral and cooling off an argument was gone.

"Well maybe you should be doing more," Castle snapped.

Silence fell over the room as all three men bit their tongues.

Castle broke the quiet first. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."

Esposito shook his head. "I know bro, but you need to go home. Get some sleep. We're all too close to this, but you," he trailed off.

"Me, what?"

"As bad as it is, we were trained for this. You keep a cool head and do as you normally would when one of your own goes missing. The whole precinct is on this, Castle, and we're going to find her."

Castle scrubbed a hand over his face again and pushed his plate away.

"Fine, fine. I'll go home and look over the phone and financial records again. I can't mess that up, right?"

Forgiveness was wordlessly exchanged as Ryan slid the folder across the table to Castle.

"We'll call when we find something,"

"You better."


Afternoon bled into evening and then into night.

Castle had spent hours poring over the records, crime scene photos, pictures of Beckett's apartment, the results of the toxicology test run by Lanie. Nothing.

Usually by now something jumped out at him, some wild theory or a case-breaking thought. But everything was quiet. Even the apartment was silent.

Martha was out at a play with some friends and Alexis was out with Ashley at a music festival.

Castle closed his eyes and rested his head on the back of the couch. He had nothing left; no energy, no ideas, nothing. He hadn't slept the night before at all and the stress and fear and anxiety and anger was starting to get to him. He needed her, he realized, needed her so much.

With great effort, he pulled himself off the couch and forced his feet into the kitchen, pulled down a bowl and the cereal.

And then his cell phone rang.

University Heights. A couple found murdered. Male is tall, solid, dark hair, blue eyes, nice suit. Female is tall, slim, dark hair, hazel eyes, heels.


As soon as he gets there, adrenaline is fully circling his system. Ryan and Esposito are already on the scene, having been called in by the detectives who caught it from the 52nd precinct. It technically wasn't their jurisdiction, but the detectives gladly handed the case over when they realized it was connected to the missing detective from the 12th.

"So?" Castle asked breathlessly. Lanie was already crouched tiredly over the bodies, posed the same way Sam and Tori Bright were. The resemblance between the Brights, and in turn Beckett and himself was startling.

"Same as the Brights. Wallets, cash and cards gone, only driver's licenses left behind. Jack Young, 31, and Sydney Logan, 39. No rings, so we're assuming they're not married. The guy didn't take the rings from the Brights." Ryan reported, watching Castle carefully.

"Cause of death?"

"Same as the Brights; Jack Young from blood loss, Sydney Logan from a GSW to the chest, through and through. Both have injection sites. Both are still relatively warm. Dead maybe two hours." Lanie answered from her place by the victims.

"Four bodies in 24 hours. Two of them look like Beckett, but there's no sign of her and two of them look like me, but nobody's coming after me. What's the motive here?" Castle paced and ran a hand through his hair in a now familiar gesture.

"Not to mention the locations. Two different boroughs; first Manhattan and now the Bronx? Where does that put our perp's comfort zone?" Esposito huffed, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

"Maybe these two will give us more clues than the other two." Lanie said.

Within minutes, CSU was photographing the bodies one last time before they were lifted into body bags and into the truck.


Beckett tried to breathe evenly. The man had left a while ago, with the bodies, but she couldn't breathe. This man had suffered like the last, this woman had cried like the last. The room smelled like blood again, thicker than before, and she wished the blindfold was back over her eyes so she wouldn't have to see it pooling across from her.

He'd cut into him, Jack Young, remember the names, and he'd done it just as slow as he'd done to Sam Bright.

After she'd been unbound from the cuffs and the blindfold was still secure, she'd been led by the arm down a short, echoing hallway and into a small bathroom. He had uncuffed and then re-bound Beckett's hands in front of her, and left the blindfold on. The door shutting sounded like the stalls in public bathrooms...

She'd used the bathroom and he'd washed her hands, dried them carefully. And then a twist...

The heavy footsteps retreated and the door opened and closed. Lighter footsteps came closer and smaller, softer hands pulled up her sleeve and pressed a needle to her arm. The small hands maneuvered her old clothes off and new ones on with efficiency and decency. It was strange.

Beckett knew her clothes were probably ruined, the leggings and long sleeved shirt she'd worn to bed dirty and covered in sweat and blood from her chapped wrists. The clothes the small hands put on her were light, more leggings, a sweater. No socks though, no shoes. No running, at least not without some pain.

She wanted to revolt, to refuse them because, hello, kidnapper, but why not take them? It would keep her warmer and stop her from catching a chill...

The small hands had helped her, more like dragged her after the cocktail kicked in, back to the room where she was chained again.

It was then, as the cuffs closed once again on her wrists, that she'd pictured Castle's face. She'd thought it was strange, thinking of him now, through all this, but it made her feel better. Gave her something to focus on. Something positive and bright.

She didn't notice there were other people there until there was a muffled cry of fear.

Then the blindfold came off.

Two more. Two more lay there, waiting, tears rolling down their flushed faces. She, helpless to rescue them.

Then he'd come back. He had black hair and piercing blue eyes, a hint of stubble and perfect cheekbones. He was gorgeous, she'd morbidly admitted to herself.

And he had his scalpel.

This time she pleaded with him before the words froze in her throat. He'd turned to her, holding the scalpel close to her skin, threatening her, before turning back to his other victims.

And he'd started the day off with slice after slice after slice. Word after sentence after paragraph tumbling from his lips as easy as breath from his lungs. They made the woman cry harder, made Beckett's vision blur and her eyes burn.

Jack Young and Sydney Logan. Remember them. Follow the rules.

What Beckett knew in reality, and from the previous day's experience, was actually hours seemed like days as the torture went on. Finally he stopped. Jack had stopped crying out, stopped bleeding, stopped breathing, stopped living.

Beckett saw the gun come out and she squeezed her eyes shut, tears sliding down her cheeks to join the countless drops absorbed into her sweater, as the trigger was pulled, the woman's screams stopping mid-breath.

Blindfold. Darkness. Needle.

Two pairs, four people. Keep count. Sam and Tori Bright. Jack Young and Sydney Logan. Castle...


the plot thickens...

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