A/N: Well, it has been a long time since we've visited this Castle and Beckett story. I was completely distracted by Knockout and everything that happened in that episode and was completely entranced by writing For Her. I've also started uni again, so my writing time has been shortened.

In regards to the time line of this fic, it's obviously set in the future, but Knockout didn't happen because we still have Montgomery in here. I did consider going back and removing him from the story - but I felt that was an awful thing to do.

I still don't own anything you recognise, I wish I did.

Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Chapter Seven

"I have a theory."

Beckett turned her head slightly towards him as she unconsciously rolled her eyes, she couldn't help it, it was a force of habit, a habit formed in response to many CIA conspiracies put forward by the man seated next to her in her Crown Vic – most of them wildly inappropriate.

"You know my theories are sometimes helpful." Castle replied with a pout, "They aren't always wildly inappropriate."

Beckett felt her chin drop ever so slightly, "How did?" she began before she smiled, how hadn't she learnt by now that Castle could read her mind.

Castle grinned a wide smile, before he began to speak, "My theory centres on Cassandra Peterman."

"Yes obviously Castle." Beckett interrupted, "She is after all the murder victim." She added as she weaved the car in between a black town car and cab that had its back door open.

"But who was Cassandra Peterman? Was she one of us? Was she someone who was sent to America on special business to investigate more than what meets the eye? Counterfeiting? Racketeering? And how does Maggie fit into all of this? Was she in on the secret operation?"

Beckett turned towards him again and stared with a puzzled look, how on earth did he not think that this wasn't one of his wildly inappropriate theories? Cassandra Peterman a cop? Somehow she didn't think that was possible. "Really?" she questioned him.

"Did you ever meet her?"

"No," Beckett began, "and you did. I get that, but did you get the 'I am an undercover cop vibe' from her?"

"Not at the time, no."

"So why now do you think that she was?" Beckett said with a laugh.

"It sounds better than, nice girl killed a long way from home for no reason, or for a stupid reason." Castle said with a shrug, "Or girl, killed by man I failed to send to jail when he killed his wife."

Beckett sighed and moved one of her hands from the steering wheel to rest upon one of his. "We failed Castle, not just you. We are partners remember." She watched as the corners of Castle's mouth turned upwards.

"So I'm not just your plucky sidekick then?" he questioned still smiling.

"I think we crossed that line awhile ago." Beckett said as she giggled slightly, feeling a telltale blush creep up her neck.

"Would this have been about the same time that we managed to get caught in the elevator?" Castle questioned as he ran his thumb over the palm of her hand.

Beckett smiled and began to speak; however the ringing of her phone interrupted her. Slowly she slipped her hand out from underneath Castle's fingers and answered the phone, "Beckett." She said sharply.

Castle watched as Beckett nodded towards him with a wink, he smiled, obviously he was right about the elevator moment, it was pretty important to him too. For a moment he let his thoughts wander, wandering back to the elevator and wandering back to the scene he was writing for his next book. He may have added something similar to his latest chapter but it wasn't Rook and Nikki caught in the elevator but Lauren and Ochoa.

He was certain Beckett would murder him if he ever wrote what happened in the elevator between Nikki and Rook but Lauren and Ochoa should be okay, hopefully.

"Castle." Beckett said interrupting his thoughts. "That was Montgomery. Tech managed to trace where the majority of Cassandra's calls were made."

"So we have an address?"

Beckett nodded as she pulled the car into a side street and swung a u-turn over a double line – sometimes there were perks to being a cop.

"Yo." Esposito said by way of greeting as Castle and Beckett entered the lobby of the building where Cassandra had lived.

"Spoke to this guy here," Ryan said, "he has a typical New York attitude, 'he didn't know her, he hasn't seen her recently and he doesn't know who she was friends with'."

"What he did know," Esposito began, "is that our boy Honey Milk here needs a vest that makes him look less Justin and more Clooney."

Castle laughed as Esposito held out his hand and Castle slapped his hand against it, "Nice work, my friend, nice work."

Ryan groaned and turned towards Beckett, giving her a pleading sort of look.

"Leave the vest alone," Beckett began sounding as if she was about to reprimand Castle and Esposito, "it's not Ryan's fault that his wife likes to dress him like a Ken doll." She added with a perfectly straight face, before she began to laugh.

"That's our girl." Esposito said with a laugh, "That might have even been a better joke than mine."

"It was." Castle replied, "Yours needed some work in the delivery. We knew you were going to end with a punch line before you'd even finished and with Beckett here, well she had a straight face all the way through. Didn't you?" Castle questioned turning to where Beckett had been standing – she wasn't there.

"We have a murder to solve." Beckett called from the stairwell, "I'll be searching the victim's apartment while you decide who has a better delivery of jokes."

The three men laughed and quickly gained pace to follow her. She turned as she reached the first landing, "Mine was better though." She added with a smirk.

"It was in the comedic timing." Castle added, "She learnt that from me."

Beckett rolled her eyes, "No Castle, you learnt that from me."

Ryan and Esposito turned and looked at one another, "Always the banter yo, always the banter." Esposito stated as Ryan nodded in agreement. Castle and Beckett simply smiled knowing smiles at each other; their friends were unknowingly saying a word that was very important to them. One of them had even had the word inscribed on an item of jewellery, but that was a story for another time.

The four of them approached the apartment door still smiling and talking with each other, until Beckett noticed that the lock on the door was missing. Immediately she was quiet and signalled towards the three men, using two fingers to point towards her eyes and then towards the door, she then reached for her weapon and held it in front of her.

It was Esposito who reacted to her instructions first; he immediately reached for his weapon and unclipped it from its holster. Ryan reacted next and followed the same routine as both Esposito and Beckett had. Castle slipped in behind the three of them and they approached the open door.

Esposito walked in first, "Police!" he called as Beckett and Ryan followed him inside, Castle hung back slightly, waiting a few seconds before he to entered the apartment.

All the laughter and banter of the past few minutes had been forgotten, they moved as the perfect team that they had become, their teamwork for the most part was impeccable.

"Police." Beckett called, but there was no reply. The apartment was empty. Empty, but someone had made their presence known.

"Empty." Ryan stated as he re-holstered his gun and the four of them studied the apartment carefully. Each of them slipped on gloves and moved to a different section of the room.

Ryan headed for the small bathroom and Esposito approached the closet.

"She had good reading taste." Castle said with a smile, holding up a copy of both Heat Wave and Heat Rises. "Is it strange of me to wonder if she had Naked Heat?"

"Yes." Ryan called from the bathroom, "but I wouldn't worry, she's got it in here. It's by the bath."

"The bath huh?" Esposito questioned, "Girl had style."

Beckett smiled to herself as she stepped over a broken photo frame; slowly she bent down and picked it up from the floor, dusting glass to the floor. It was a collage of four photographs, each of them featuring a smiling Cassandra and a smiling man.

In one Cassandra was planting a kiss on the man's cheek, the other featured the opposite – Cassandra's cheek was the one being kissed, the final two made Beckett smile wistfully, one of them was the two of them hamming it up with silly faces and the final one was the two of them kissing.

Castle was standing a few steps away from Beckett and had found a small leather bound book resting open on the bed, carefully he picked it up and opened it to the first page.

Beckett turned towards Castle and held the photographs up to him: Castle smiled in response. "I think I know who he is." He replied.

"Don't tell me, you've met him too." Ryan answered from the bathroom.

"No." Castle replied, "I found this." He added, holding up the book.

"'Dear Cassie,'" Castle read in his best voice – the voice he used for his book readings, "'I bought you this so that you can stop writing notes on small pieces of paper and then losing them and blaming me for it. I love you baby. All my love, Johnny.'"

Beckett moved towards Castle and looked at the handwritten note, there was one of the same photos stuck underneath the note and in different handwriting was written Johnny and me – St Kilda Beach – our anniversary. Beckett smiled, "They look happy together," she said, her tone sad. "I wonder where he is?" she questioned.

"I think this might hold the answer." Castle explained as he flicked forwards in the book, "It starts with her writing about Johnny and then by the end she's writing to him. But there are several pages missing from the middle."

"'Dear Johnny,' " Beckett began reading aloud, "'I arrived in New York today. It is everything that we dreamt it would be. I miss you more today than I have for a long time. We were supposed to be here together, it's so unfair that I have to be here without you. Sophia told me that it would get easier, but it's not.

'By chance there was a spare seat next to me on the plane; I wished that you had been sitting next to me. I even dreamt about you. I miss you so much. The only positive is that my ankle seems to be strengthening. I walked around the city for four hours this afternoon and it hardly hurt. I wish I could share this all with you. It just doesn't seem fair.' Wow." Beckett added, before she turned to look at Castle.

Castle looked forlorn, "She had a nice way with words."

"Is it just me or does she sound like she's writing to someone who's dead?" Ryan asked.

"Sounds like it to me." Beckett replied, "You've found yourself your next task Ryan. We need to know who this Johnny is or was."

"There's more," Castle said, "this entry mentions Paulette." He added, pointing out another entry hidden a few pages from the one that Beckett had read aloud and began reading again.

"'Dear Johnny, today was my third day at work. So far it has been fun. Swift's has some really nice clients and Mr Swift is a sweetheart, he thinks my accent is hilarious.

'I said 'whilst' today and he laughed for about half an hour. The strangest part of the day was when an elderly woman called me Paulette and then said she thought I'd been murdered.

'I asked Maggie about it and she told me she'd tell me later – I have a feeling she won't. She didn't talk to me for the rest of the day; we didn't even have lunch together. I don't know if I'll ask her again.'"

"There are quite a few pages missing in between her starting at Swift's and her most recent entries." Castle stated as he flicked through the ripped pages and found the final entry.

"What does the last one say?" Ryan asked as he left the bathroom and leant against the wall near Esposito.

"Your wish is my command." Castle replied and he began to read once more, "'Dear Johnny, today I met Richard Castle.'"

"Nice joke bro." Esposito said with a laugh, "but what does it really say?"

"I'm serious," Castle replied, "It says, 'Dear Johnny, today I met Richard Castle. He came into the shop this afternoon. He was a really sweet guy. I didn't tell him that you introduced me to his books and that you bought one for my birthday. I even found room to bring all three of them with me.

'Sophia said I was crazy, she told me that I was taking up precious present room by bringing books. We laughed for hours. I miss her more than I thought I would, but at least I can pick up the phone and call her when I need to, it's not like you.

'Richard Castle was buying a present for someone who he really loved. I wonder if you smiled like that when you bought me my ring. I feel like I am getting used to the idea of you being gone, being here maybe helps. I'm meeting new people, different people. I think I need to call Sophia, I need her advice.' See Esposito, I wasn't joking, she thought I was sweet."

"The more we learn about Cassandra the more I like her." Beckett said.

"You just like her because she said nice things about Castle." Esposito said with a grin.

Beckett rolled her eyes, "For that Esposito it's your job to track down Sophia. Start by going through the phone records. I'd assume that she's in Australia by the way Cassandra wrote about her – but you never know." Esposito nodded and Beckett continued, "Castle and I will speak to Mr Un-helpful downstairs, surely he must have seen something, perhaps we can persuade him to co-operate."

"I'll contact CSU," Ryan said as he pulled his phone from his pocket, "hopefully whoever broke in left some evidence behind."

Beckett nodded, everyone had their own tasks, they had more evidence than before and they had good leads, perhaps they were on their way to finding out what had happened to Cassandra.

A/N: So we've got Johnny and Sophia making their first appearances and yes, Johnny is named after Nathan Fillion's character in Two Guys and a Girl ;) and Sophia is after my special American big sister.