Chapter 4

Six hours before Philadelphia...

Kate Beckett has barely gotten her front door open when Rick pounces, pushing his hips hard into hers and using his momentum to guide them into her apartment. They collapse onto the foyer carpet, a tangle of lips and limbs.

"I should warn you," he says, in between moving from her mouth to her neck, "that we're not going to be able to remain discreet if you grab my crotch in the station again."

"I didn't hear you complaining then."

"I'm not complaining now. Just stating." One hand comes off the carpet to snake under her jacket.

"State less. Or later, just ... no talking. And kick the door shut please."

He does as she has asked, and then slowly crawls his way back up her body as she lays on the floor. She arches her back in what he hopes is anticipation. A month of this, he thinks. A month without work, without mothers and daughters, without chapter deadlines...

Without clothes...

But as he smiles at that thought and reaches for her mouth, she turns away and pushes off of him and the floor. She is standing, moving frantically, before he's quite gathers that she's left.

"Kate, what?"

"Someone's been here, Castle."

He turns and props himself on an elbow to look around. She is right - the room had been ransacked. Castle gets to his feet as Kate goes into the bedroom.

Unlike the modern opulence of his place, Kate's apartment tends towards organized clutter. Whomever has broken in has used this fact to maximum effect. It appears that their goal was less towards theft and more towards creating as much chaos and damage as possible. Castle looks around at the sliced couch cushions, a broken coffee table, a scattered spice rack. He picks a black object up off the floor - the upper half of a stuffed raven lays mangled in his hand.

"It's the same in the bedroom," Kate says, walking back to him.

"What did they take? Can you tell?"

"Nothing. It's like they just destroyed ... oh!"

She walks over to her window, throws open the shutters. The window is bare - her ersatz murderboard gone.

"Bracken," she says, the word coming out like a swear.

"I guess he didn't take the deal then," he says, wincing before it is all the way out of his mouth. Kate gives him a reproachful look, but doesn't comment.

"He must've known I was bluffing."

"Hmmm..."

"What, Castle?"

"Nothing."

"No," she says, hands on hips, "spit it out."

"What if he didn't? What if he just didn't care?"

"That doesn't make any sense. The man is a Senator. He's got way too much to lose."

"Does he? I mean... what if he knew all along that we couldn't touch him?"

She goes to protest again, so he raises his hand to stop her. "Think about it, Kate. The Captain and Smith had this information for years, and they didn't do anything with it. Maybe because they knew it wasn't enough."

"They sat on it to keep Roy's family safe, to keep me safe."

"Then maybe they had enough at one point. Maybe Bracken does the deal to keep them out of his hair, and then he works behind the scenes to remove the foundation out from under them. Coonan and Lockwood and Roy and Smith are all gone. He left us alone for a year. I'm guessing he used that time to become untouchable," he says the last in a rush, realizing as he says it that he's been thinking it for a few days. Why take the deal and spend a year leaving them alone to just magically come after them again without prompting? Something has changed, they just don't know what yet.

"So I'm dead, that's what you're saying."

Castle starts and stops. He realizes that's exactly what he's said, but he doesn't know an answer that backs off the essential fact, either for him or her. So he says nothing. She stares at him for a moment and he stares back, knowing there are no answers on his face. After a moment, she blows out a short breath and shrugs.

He watches her wander through her apartment for a moment, randomly toeing things she'd once owned but are now junk.

"We need to get you out of here, Kate."

"And go where, Castle?"

"My place."

"No."

"You can't stay here."

"I'm not making you a target too, which is what would happen if we went to your place."

"I'm already a target if you are. Bracken's shown tha..."

"Then your mother," she interrupts. "Alexis. I'm not making them targets."

"They're," he starts to say and stops. Alexis and his mother are in Europe for the month. But will that be enough? He has no idea what kind of timeframe they are dealing with, now.

"Right," she says, watching his internal dialogue. "I'm going to call the boys ..." she drifts off. They both know, with their most recent case, the boys are no longer a single entity.

"I'll call Ryan, you call Espo," he says, to fill the hole.

"Yeah. Yeah," she says, and pulls her phone from her pocket. He watchs her for a second, then calls Kevin Ryan at the station. Ryan has a number of questions that Castle can't answer, and so they end the call both unsatisfied. He then calls his mother, whom he also really can't tell anything, but when he suggests that his two redheads stay in Europe an extra few weeks, his mother agrees with a minimum of fuss. She is getting used to his dangerous lifestyle, he realizes.

He can't say that is a good thing.

He finds Kate in her bedroom after his calls, packing a bag with some clothes.

"Got Ryan up to speed," he says. "At least, as much as I could." He looks at her open gun safe, embedded in the wall next to her bed. It's open and empty.

"They broke that open too, got my personal piece."

He has no answer for that. "I told my mother to stay out of town for a few extra days too."

"If they want us, Castle ... I can't think that a few extra days is going to matter much."

"It might."

She pushes past him and grabs more clothes from the wardrobe. There is too much to talk about and nothing at all, so he keeps quiet, for once.

"Espo wants us to go visit a friend of his," she said finally, "Some military friend named Dwzytowski. Says it's the guy that recruited him into the army."

"Maddox was military."

"I mentioned that. Espo doesn't think he and his friend ever ran in the same circles. Said this guy was a quartermaster."

"Quartermaster?"

"The guy who makes sure the unit has enough cheese slices and socks and stuff," she replies, and he can tell by the way she says it that she is quoting Espo. "He has a place outside of Philly. Espo thinks ... might be able to give us a place to stay for a day or two, get our bearings, build a plan."

Friend of a friend of a friend, deep out of town... Castle can see how it might be safe, might be at least an illusion of safe, for a day or two. It doesn't seem the greatest plan, but he can't help but notice that she is making the plan for both of them, not just running off on her own. He'll take a bad plan that includes both of them over watching her run out the door on her own any day.

"Then let's go," he says.

Kate lifts her bag in agreement, and he follows her out the door and back into the living room. She freezes there and he almost walks into her. He looks over her shoulder - she is staring at her kitchen counter. The second half of the message to them is resting there.

Two long thin bullets, still in their cartridges, are standing on their tails in the center of the counter, separated by a few inches of clear space from the flotsam that covers the rest of the room. Two bullets. A new message.

Bracken is coming for both of them.