A/N: I seem to be on a roll–that, or I've been extremely lazy before. Aaaanyway, hope you enjoy.

As a little reminder where we are (since that was requested the after the last chapter), Beckett and Castle have just returned with what they suspect to be Preston's phone. After handing it to Ryan, Castle's gone home to shower and change, while Beckett heads upstairs to the precinct's gym.

Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial

His phone? How could they have found his phone? There was no doubt in the man's mind that the detectives were talking about Preston. He fumed inwardly. Time and again I've told him to get rid of it, should he be cornered. But does he listen? Probably thought he could fight his way out.

He watched the detectives and the writer from across the floor, leaning against the wall next to the break room. His relaxed stance and the police uniform he wore, with the cap pulled down to shade his eyes, made him look like he belonged there, among the other cops. None of them had a clue of what was really going on, except the people he was focusing his attention on. And not even they knew much, they just had the tiniest of ideas. But now, everything could change.

When his phone had rung the night before, shortly before midnight, he'd known that nothing good was going on. In the space of three, four sentences he'd learned all he needed to know about the situation.

Get into the twelfth precinct in the morning, find out what exactly they know and make sure they don't find any connection, the voice on the other end of the line had told him.

He'd never met his employer, always received his orders by phone and his payments arrived via wired transfer to one of his accounts. It was better that way. The less he knew about his employer, the better.

He knew everything about Preston's connection with his employer. Naturally, since he'd been the one to suggest him for the job. He'd believed that Preston would be experienced enough for the job, but judging from what the detectives had found out, he had made a number of mistakes. Most of them were negligible for him and his employer, since they had only resulted in Preston's arrest. He wouldn't talk to the cops, he knew what would happen to him. But the last, and from his point of view the largest, mistake threatened to expose his employer. And him right along.

For someone else, it might have been strange to stand across the room from the person he'd been ordered to shoot only half a year before. Of course, had his employer really wanted her dead, she wouldn't be standing there, now. She'd be lying six feet under cold ground. It seemed that that decision had been a little off, too. Not that he really cared. If he wanted, he could retire at any moment and spend the rest of his life on a sunny little Caribbean island. Or wherever he wanted. His employer was a generous man after all. But he liked his job, liked the rush of adrenaline right before a kill, the feeling of power when his target lay dead on the ground. He wouldn't ever give that up.

Free of emotion he watched as first Ryan disappeared into the elevator, going to get the phone hacked, and then Castle leaving too. Going home to get cleaned up, as the writer said. Beckett lingered for a moment after the elevator doors closed. It would have been so easy to just walk up to her, snap her neck and be done with it. But he knew that he'd never make it out of the precinct alive. He was good, just not that good. And she wasn't any longer the only driving force, he reminded himself. Even if she died, the writer would be determined to go on. As would the two detectives. And their determination might just be enough to make the difference. Plus, there still was the old man who was blackmailing his employer to leave Beckett alone. It irritated him that to date he still hadn't found out anything about his identity.

One thing at a time. He decided to wait until Ryan returned and then to go down to the tech lab and extract the phone.

Beckett finally took the stairs to the gym on the floor above. After ten minutes without a sign of Ryan returning, he decided to go down and see what was going on. He knew it was prudent to avoid killing anyone inside a police precinct. At least if he planned to leave the building alive. But if he had to knock out a few technicians and a detective, well, so be it.

…

Ryan had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach from the moment he received the evidence bag from Beckett. He wasn't really sure what caused it, but he felt watched, in some sort of way. Which was ridiculous. He was in the middle of the Twelfth, surrounded by cops. The only one who could actually be watching them was Gates, but he tried to convince himself that that was just his paranoia talking. She didn't know anything was amiss. He just had to keep his cool, and they would get the whole thing wrapped up without her learning anything about Montgomery.

Walking through the door to the main tech lab, he quickly spotted his "favorite" technician, a man of medium height with graying hair and a slight paunch.

"Hey, Dave," he called.

"Ryan," the man returned with a sigh, turning around to the detective. "I told you I would call if we have news about the laptop."

"Forget the laptop," Ryan replied. "I'm here for this." He dangled the evidence bag in front of Dave's eyes.

Dave took the bag from his hands and examined the phone through the plastic.

"Looks like your average burner phone, if I'm not mistaken."

"Guess so," Ryan replied.

"And it's switched off," Dave observed.

"A hundred dollars for the man who can guess what I want," Ryan joked.

"You want it turned on, I'd say. And the PIN cracked."

"Smart guy. How long?"

"Unless someone tampered with it, like with the laptop, I should have it unlocked in ten minutes. I'll call you when I'm done."

"Nah, I'll wait," Ryan replied.

"Fine. As long as you don't breathe down my neck."

Twelve minutes later, the technician called him over to his workstation and handed him the phone back, contained in a fresh plastic bag.

"Completely at your disposal," he said.

Ryan thanked him and turned to leave, but Dave caught his arm.

"Wait. I've printed out the address book," he said, handing Ryan a sheet of paper. "Isn't much in it, and there are no recent calls."

"Thanks, Dave," Ryan replied, folding and stuffing the paper in his pocket while he hurried out.

…

He was impatient. Why did I have to take the elevator? he asked himself for the third time as it stopped on the third floor in a row. He probably would've been faster if he'd taken the stairs. To his chagrin, by the time he approached the floor on which the tech lab was situated, there was still another uniformed policeman in the car with him. He'd hoped to make it there unnoticed. This way, he might need to take a detour down another corridor, at least until the elevator was gone, carrying the cop to the underground parking garage.

He forced himself to remain calm as the bell chimed, announcing the arrival on his destination floor. He wasn't the rushing sort of person, rather the opposite, actually. Calm, controlled and calculating. Those guidelines had served him well over the years that he'd done this job, and before.

The doors opened, and he found himself face to face with the detective he'd been looking for. He froze, quickly running through his options. There weren't many.

One, he could step out, try to distract him with a question until the car was gone, and then take him out with a surprise attack. Although that could work, it depended on Ryan letting himself be distracted. The look on the detective's face spoke of hurry, so he didn't think that this approach had high chances of success.

Two, he could stay in the elevator, ride down the two floors, hope that nobody else enter and then take Ryan. Again, that plan was contingent on an uncontrollable outside factor. As was getting out, waiting for the car to come back up and then getting in.

"Excuse me?" Ryan's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Are you getting out?"

"You going down, Detective?" asked the uniform behind him.

"Up."

"Might want to take the stairs, then. "

"Damn," the detective muttered, then turned and headed for the stairs.

He snapped out of his daze and got out of the elevator, taking a turn to the other side, mentally cursing himself for not acting quicker.

There was a witness, he told himself. If you're going to attack a cop inside a hole full of cops, do it with the least amount of witnesses around. Especially armed witnesses.

He moved slowly, waiting until he heard the elevator doors shut with a creaking noise, before he spun around and swiftly marched back to the stairs.

He wouldn't have waited ten minutes down here if he didn't have the phone now, he thought. Which means they've cracked the PIN and now have the number. I bet that the guys in tech have made a copy of the data… Gotta pay them a visit. But first things first.

He jogged up the stairs, his hands subconsciously checking the gun on his hip and the knife that was hidden up his sleeve.

…

"And you're sure? … Yes. … Thank you."

Smith hung up and let out a curse. How was he supposed to keep Beckett alive if she did everything she could to escalate the situation? And why wasn't Castle doing his part in keeping her away from the case? He had to know that this was it. Smith knew the man had been asking questions, working the case on his own after the police had abandoned it. He had let him, since protecting him wasn't part of the deal. Of course, had anything happened to Castle because of this, Beckett would've been at it again head over heels. But that was a gamble he'd had to make, because although Smith was resourceful, even he had his limits.

Trusting Castle with this had, apparently, been a mistake. Now everything was on the verge of spiraling out of control, and fast. Damn.

If he was to even try to gain control of the situation again, he'd have to find out how much Beckett knew, how close she'd gotten to getting herself–and everyone around her–killed. The only information his source in the hospital had only been able to share was that she had brought a man named Anthony Preston in after a shooting, in the course of which not only Preston but also another police detective had been injured.

It hadn't been the arrested man's name that had rattled Smith, but rather his description. He vividly remembered seeing the man, and the context of it answered the question he'd been trying to answer for the last couple of days. Everything fit together now. Not that he had any real proof, but he was certain that he was right.

Saturday afternoon, Smith had been sitting in a crowded cafe in the middle of Manhattan, sipping his coffee while he'd waited. Over an hour after his arrival, the man he'd come to meet had showed up. Gray hair, suit, briefcase, and a face just the way Smith had imagined it would look like from the older photographs he'd seen.

It had taken Smith an inordinate amount of time and work, not to mention calling in old favors and promising new ones, to get a hold of this man. Small wonder, given that, to the public eye, he hadn't existed in over two decades. He had looked rather well for being the proverbial ghost, Smith had had to admit.

He had been reluctant to share information, at first. It had taken persuasion, assurances and a few choice pieces of evidence to loosen his tongue, but once Smith had succeeded in establishing a little rapport between them, Weston had spilled a lot. Smith was certain that it wasn't nearly all that the man he was after, the man Weston had worked for all the years that he'd been off grid now, had been involved in, but it was more than enough. Everything from political intrigue over extortion to weapons dealing was there, and yet he'd managed to steer clear of prosecution.

Apply pressure to the right points, and offer a helping hand to others, and you're on your way to rule them all, Smith thought.

It had taken him half a year to get everything together, but on New Year's Eve Smith had been ready to fulfill a dead man's last wish, and to repay the debt he'd owed him for a long time. Winning Weston over had been the last key piece, enabling him to start planning the dragon's downfall.

He had told Richard Castle just as much as the man had needed to know. Yes, keeping Beckett alive had been part of Montgomery's last request to his old friend, but to Smith is wasn't so much keeping her alive as keeping her out of the whole affair. He'd never met her, and even though she'd apparently meant a lot to Montgomery, he wasn't too concerned about her life. Not because he was heartless, but because he knew what was at stake. Because he knew how many lives hinged on his success. Hers was just one among them, but it was the most volatile. The one most likely to cause trouble, and if there was one thing Smith had no use for, then it was trouble.

However, all his plans had come to nothing on New Year's Day. When Weston hadn't shown up for their meeting, Smith had grown anxious. After waiting in the park for two hours, he'd gone home and started to rearrange his plans. He might have overreacted then, but in hindsight, he had been right to assume the worst. He'd listened in on the police radio all night, and had received confirmation in the early hours of Monday morning.

Already at night he'd gone through his memory, trying to remember if he'd seen anything suspicious, anyone watching him and Weston at the cafe, or following either of them. And he had.

He'd recalled a white male, tall, with an army-style haircut entering the cafe about ten minutes after Weston had arrived. Smith had taken note of him because of the air that had surrounded him, exuding self-certainty to the point of condescension. He'd only had a cup of coffee while his eyes had been taking in the whole room, always in motion, never lingering, and yet Smith had the feeling that he'd been watching only Weston and him the whole time.

The man had left after he'd finished his coffee, but he'd been outside, across the street, when Weston had left. And if Smith wasn't mistaken–and he rarely was–then he had been following Weston.

Smith had no idea what Weston had wanted in the part of Manhattan where his body had been found, and so far he didn't even know if he'd been killed where he'd been found. That was something he needed to remedy. At least it was still early, barely past eight a.m.

…

Ryan was taking the stairs two at a time as he raced up to homicide. The single phone number in the burner phone's contact book could be the breakthrough they had been waiting for. Not just since Monday, but rather all the time since the summer. Hell, if Beckett and Castle were correct, and this case was tied to Beckett's mother's murder, then it could be the break she'd been waiting for ever since she became a cop.

His heart was hammering in his chest, and he knew that it wasn't just the exertion from running up several flights of stairs. One floor beneath homicide he paused, taking a couple of deep breaths in an attempt to look at least a little collected. To the world outside of their team, this was just another case. Nothing extraordinary, nothing to warrant such haste.

Heavy footsteps rang on the stairs underneath. Someone else was taking the stairs, probably after having waited too long for the elevator, he thought. Then he remembered the strange encounter with the uniform. The man had basically frozen in place when he'd acknowledged Ryan's presence, as if he recognized him, though Ryan couldn't say that he knew him. And he knew all the uniforms that worked in homicide by face and name. It was a matter of respect to know the names of the people who put their lives on the line next to his on a daily basis.

Dismissing the thought, he resumed his ascension, though more slowly now. By the time he reached the platform in the middle of the stairs, he heard the slightly labored breathing a little below him, but thought nothing of it.

He'd just taken two steps onto his floor and in the direction of the bull pen when he felt the muzzle of a gun being pressed into his lower back.

…

Why does he have to hurry so much? the man cursed to himself as he jogged up the stairs. The little head start that Ryan had had on him was almost gone now, yet it seemed that it was just enough. Once the detective was on his floor, surrounded by his fellow cops, there would be little chance to retrieve–or destroy–the phone without drawing attention to himself. And as the stairs were passing by underneath his feet, it seemed that there was little he could do about it.

Turning on the platform in the middle between homicide and the floor below, he spotted Ryan three quarters up the last remaining flight of stairs. He knew then that the deal was sealed. It was highly unlikely that he would be able to get his hands on the phone and make it out of the building. Considering that, he could just have turned around and left, pulled the money from his accounts and set off to somewhere else. Somewhere his employer wouldn't easily find him, in case he got out of this mess in one piece.

There were just two things keeping him from pursuing that course of action. First, however important self-interest was in his profession, he did feel a sense of loyalty toward his employer. Or for the money that he paid, at least. It wasn't anything like a bad conscience, but it would always feel like a personal failure to him if he gave up and ran now. Second, he really did like a challenge, and this was by far the greatest that he'd encountered. Much greater than shooting a police officer at her late captain's funeral. From a distance, that is.

Then an idea occurred to him. A way he might get out in the end. Assuming that these cops were as reluctant to sacrifice one of their own as normal cops. He pulled the gun from his holster, flipped the safety and raced up the remaining steps, three at a time. He reached the floor just a step behind Ryan, and, catching up to him, pressed the muzzle of the gun to his lower back, directly over the right kidney.

"Not a word," he growled, keeping his voice low. "We're going for a ride, Detective."

Ryan froze. He couldn't see his attacker, and he didn't recognize the voice. Nobody had noticed their arrival on the floor yet, but it was only a matter of time. There was just too much business on this floor for everyone to sit still and stare at their paperwork. But what would the others do once they noticed? He was being held at gunpoint, so there wasn't really anything they could do without putting him in danger.

"Give me the phone," the man grumbled.

Ryan swallowed, trying to think of a way to stall. It was clear to him that if he left the floor without anyone noticing, he would be very lucky to survive. Someone who dared to point a gun at a cop inside of a police precinct was either mad, desperate or very sure of himself. His attacker's voice was calm and collected, and Ryan didn't hear any shuffling sounds coming from him, so he had to stand calmly, too. Nothing suggested that he was mad, and if he was desperate, then he did a very good job of concealing it.

Just as the man prodded him with the gun, Officer Hughes rounded the corner, carrying a stack of papers. He looked up at Ryan, nodded in greeting, and then dropped his load, his hands flying to his gun, when he noticed the little flash of light reflecting off of the gun at Ryan's back and the detective's awkward, slightly cramped stance.

Next thing Ryan knew, an arm was locked around his throat and the pressure of the muzzle was removed from his back. Then he heard the shot.

Before he could even begin to struggle, the gun was being pressed to his temple. He saw Hughes lying on the floor between the papers he'd been carrying, blood spreading out underneath him.

Then, within moments, the whole floor was up and about. The five remaining uniforms hurried to form a semicircle facing Ryan and his attacker, guns drawn, shouting at him to drop his gun. Somewhere in the back someone was busy on the phone, alerting the building and reporting the officer down. Gates, gun in hand, stepped out of her office and took up position behind the uniforms.

"Drop your weapon!" she thundered. "I said drop. Your. Weapon."

"Not happening, Lady," the man said. "Here's the deal. My buddy here and I are gonna leave this building, unchallenged, and nobody else'll get hurt. Clear?"

If anything, Gates' glare only became colder. "I don't think you understand," she said calmly. "You just gunned down one of my officers. Hell'll freeze over before I let you walk out of this building with another one as your hostage."

"Except there's nothing you can do about it, can you now?" the man shot back, grinning smugly. "'Cause you're not going to risk letting me put a bullet in his head."

Gates' features tightened another notch, her eyes reduced to mere slits, but she had no immediate reply.

…

Smith closed the email that had cost him another favor. At least he now had photographs of Beckett's murder board, and he'd studied them. Judging the information he could glean from them, it looked like a real stroke of luck that the team had been able to identify and apprehend Preston. Too much so, in fact. Smith wondered how much Castle had actually been able to find out.

Still, the information on the board suggested that they had nothing on the dragon. Their only connection to him was Preston, and that was a fragile one. Smith was sure that Preston wouldn't talk, that he wouldn't rat out his employer. Why would he? Even professional killers have something resembling a code of honor, he thought.

Then again, it was better to be safe than sorry. Considering what he'd learned of the murder, and the arrest, Smith knew that Preston was one hot-headed and bad-tempered man. There are numerous ways to render a body unidentifiable, which was probably the reason for the violent way in which Weston had been killed, and the way that Preston had chosen revealed a lot about his personality.

Coming to a decision, he picked up his phone off of the table. The screen shortly flashed to life, the clock reading 12 p.m., before he switched it off. He would take no chances.

…

Beckett felt wonderfully clean and relaxed as she stepped out of the shower and dried off. Although she'd kept it short, of course, she wasn't above admitting that she'd needed the break. Only to herself, of course. And she hadn't desperately needed it. She dressed in her spare clothes and was just busy toweling her wet hair when she heard a loud noise from downstairs. It took her a moment to place it, and once she did, her eyes grew wide. Dropping the towel, she jumped to her locker, fumbling with the lock.

It took her entirely too long for her liking to turn it to the right combination. She threw the metal door open and grabbed her gun from the holster and hurried out of the room, not bothering to close her locker or put on her boots.

Upon reaching the top of the stairwell, Beckett slowed and dropped to a crouch. She slowly descended the steps, carefully pointing the gun, safety still engaged, straight ahead.

Adrenaline pounded through her veins as she stood on the platform halfway down the stairs, taking in the sight of the floor below. She saw five uniforms and Gates standing in a semicircle around a sixth uniformed man, pointing their guns at him, while he held his own gun as if he was pressing it to the head of a hostage, who would be hidden from her by the man's sheer size.

He was standing with his back to the stairs heading down, the staircase's metal rungs running between him and her. She quickly dismissed the thought of taking her shot at him. Yes, it was a distance of only a handful of feet, and yes, she was a good shot, but if anything went wrong, if she missed… She dared not continue the thought, afraid for whoever was the man's unfortunate hostage.

So, instead of taking the shot, she carefully ventured down another two steps, silently praying that her colleagues were mindful enough not to give her approach away. Thankfully they were all completely focused on the man and his hostage, so she stayed unnoticed. Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself in the face of the risk she was about to take.

"Drop your gun, or I drop you!" she said, her voice threateningly hard and cold.

He flinched. What the– Completely reflexively he spun around, his right arm straightening, pointing the gun at the source of the voice, crouching there behind the rungs on the other side of the stairwell.

In the blink of an eye he recognized her, and in the same moment he realized he'd made a mistake. While his reflexes had so often saved his life, now they were his doom. He couldn't even make his finger pull the trigger before the bullet broke through the side of his skull, penetrating deep into his brain, ending all of his thoughts.

His muscles slackened as he dropped dead to the floor.

Beckett did a double take as Ryan stumbled away from the fallen attacker, barely stifling a gasp as she realized her friend had been the man's hostage. They were professionals, had guns pointed at them before, but this, now, was different somehow. Ryan was supposed to get married in not even a week. She swallowed, pushing back the dread thoughts of what could've happened. It's over. At least for now.

The uniforms dispersed, two of them checking that the man was really dead, the other three running off to the fallen Officer Hughes. Gates lowered her weapon, still glaring at the dead man. She exchanged a look with Ryan, and when he answered with a nod, saying that he was alright, she allowed herself a tight, and brief, smile. Then she turned her attention to the little crowd that had gathered around Hughes.

Beckett took the final steps down and squeezed Ryan's arm, smiling at him, beyond glad that he was okay. When he didn't look back at her, but instead stared to where the uniforms had just run, she followed his gaze and gasped as she saw the uniformed officer lying in a pool of blood.

Only moments later the elevator opened and paramedics spilled onto the floor, shoving the cops aside to tend to the fallen one.

Beckett's grip on Ryan's arm tightened as memories of a little more than half a year before flashed through her. The shock of the bullet entering her, the sudden, dull pain spreading from her chest over her whole body, flaring up with every fraction of a second that passed. Castle tackling her down. Castle holding her head. Castle–Castle saying that–that he loved her.

She noticed that she was shaking as the medics wheeled the gurney with the unconscious officer on it into the elevator.

At least they're not carrying him out in a body bag, she thought. "Who…?"

"Hughes," Ryan replied.

Beckett closed her eyes. God. Not him. He'd joined the squad in the fall, as fresh out of the academy as they come. He'd always been rather quiet, reserved, but still had had a smile for her every morning, be it in here or out at a crime scene.

Reason told her that she'd feel just the same if any of the other ones had been in his place. But she refused that logic. Of course they all knew what they'd signed up for the day they'd gotten their badges, but she couldn't shake the feeling that of all people on this floor, she was the one who really knew what this job could cost a person. Who knew first hand in how many ways it could kill you, metaphorically as well as literally. If Hughes survived this, then he'd know it, too. At least one of the literal ways.

Gates came up to Beckett and Ryan, her gun already handed off to one of the uniforms, who'd bagged it, ready for IA to take it with them. Their investigation would only be a formality, though, given the seven cops who had witnessed the scene. Still, regulations require an internal investigation after any shooting that involves a cop, and if anyone would insist on regulations being followed to the letter, it was Gates.

"What the hell was all this about?" she asked.

Beckett and Ryan shared a look, then Ryan answered.

"He was after this–" he held up the phone "–but we have no idea who he was or why he would want it."

"Whose phone is that?"

"It belongs to the man that we arrested last night," said Beckett. "Castle and I found it just about an hour ago in a dumpster behind his apartment building. It looks like he dropped it off of the roof before he attacked Esposito."

"Have you confirmed that? Are his prints on it?"

"Actually, no, Sir," Beckett conceded. "But–"

"No 'but', Detective," Gates said, cutting her off. "You are going to have that confirmed before you take another step. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Sir," Beckett said grudgingly.

"Good," Gates replied, then added, "And do it right now. After you've put some shoes on."

With that, she returned to her office, leaving the two detectives to their jobs.

"I'll go and take that down to tech," Ryan said.

He hadn't taken more than two steps before he slapped his forehead with his free hand and turned around, fumbling in his pocket. He passed Beckett the printout that Dave had given him.

"Here, that's the only number that's stored on this phone," he said.

She gingerly took the sheet from him. "Go. I'll run this while you get confirmation."

She went to her computer and entered the number into the search mask before locking her screen and jogging upstairs to pull on her boots and replace the holster to her hip. When she returned to her desk, the computer had already found a registered owner for the phone number.

Although the rational portion of her mind told her that at this point it was nothing but speculation, she couldn't help but think that this was the name that she'd been looking for for almost thirteen years. The name of the man who was responsible for her mother's murder, Montgomery's, and so many, maybe countless, others'.

…

"I'll see what I can do," Esposito said into his phone before hanging up.

He actually had slept well, or at least as well as possible after an experience like he'd had the previous night, and thanks to the painkillers his leg felt almost normal aside from a certain numbness. He checked his gun, which he'd kept on him during the night, then heaved himself off of the bed and limped out of his room. Out on the corridor he turned right, heading toward the two uniformed officers that stood guard in front of Preston's room. As he came nearer, Esposito waved their offers of help away.

"I think it's time you had a break," he said to them. "Why don't you go and get some coffee?"

The meaning behind his words was clear, and the two officers neither objected nor hesitated as they left. As they rounded the corner on their way to the elevators, he opened the door and stepped into the room.

"Good morning, Mr Preston," he said, dropping into the chair that stood next to the bed.

Preston just stared back at him. His right forearm and shoulder were wrapped in thick bandages, and both of his wrists were cuffed to the bed's metal rungs.

"I'd like to talk to you about your employer," Esposito went on, "Mr… Garving, I think."

Preston didn't flinch, and someone else would have come to the conclusion that he didn't know the name. But Esposito noticed how Preston's eyes subtly widened, and that was answer enough for him. He grinned as he pushed himself up and stood.

"Thank you, Mr Preston. Have a nice time in prison."

Restraining his suddenly flaring anger, he turned and left the room without another word. He wanted to kill that bastard. Not for putting a knife in his leg and trying to kill him, no. That was nothing. Okay, he was mad because of that, too, but it wasn't enough to make him contemplate going back in and putting a bullet between the man's eyes. That the guy was in league with the man that was responsible for Beckett's mom's murder, Montgomery's death and Beckett being shot almost was. The only thing that restrained him from actually doing it was the knowledge that a slime bag like Preston wasn't worth going to prison for.

He took his phone out of his pocket after he was back in his room and pressed the callback button.

"It's him," he said as soon as the person on the other side picked up, bypassing any greeting. "Just be careful, okay?"

…

In scrubs and a lab coat, Smith looked like he belonged. The clipboard he carried, which he'd snatched from a stack of prepared examination forms, rounded off his appearance. He calmly strode through the corridors, took the elevator up to the third floor, and once there slowly made his way to his target. He kept his right hand loosely in the pocket of his coat, making sure the latex gloves and syringe were still there.

He knew there would be guards stationed outside of the room, but he had a plan for that. Going through the lines he'd prepared one final time, he rounded the corner to the corridor in question, and stopped. There was nobody out there. He checked that he was in fact on the right floor before he proceeded to the room. Looking down the corridor one last time, he pulled on the gloves before he opened the door and entered.

He instantly recognized Preston, even though he'd only seen him once before. The man's eyes were open, and staring at him. Smith was tempted to smile as he saw recognition flash across Preston's features, the pieces coming together in the man's mind.

Preston knew that he was not going to live much longer, since the cop had been in a couple of minutes ago, confronting him with the name of his employer. If they knew that much, then he was as good as dead. He doubted they really could get to him, but he knew that Garving would find out that Preston was responsible for the cops finding out about him, and that meant his certain death.

As did this man's sudden appearance. Preston remembered having seen him together with Weston, and he could see in the man's eyes that the visit was deliberate. In all likelihood, he was here to kill him.

Might as well get it over with now, he thought, swallowing as the man stepped up to the bed, placing the clipboard on the chair.

"Hello Mr Preston," Smith said with a false, polite smile. "My name is Dr Smith, and I'm going to check up on you."

Smith took one look at the IV bag that hung above the bed, then closed the drip and disconnected the tube from the bag. Holding it in one hand, he shoved the other into his pocket and retrieved the syringe.

"This will help you sleep," he said as he plugged the syringe into the free end of the tube, and quickly emptied it.

Then he reaffixed the tube to the IV bag and opened the drip again.

"Goodbye, Mr Preston," he said, putting the syringe back into his pocket and picking up the clipboard before he left.

There was still nobody on the corridor as Smith came out again. Good. The injection would work within a minute or two, much sooner than anyone would notice. His feeling of getting a handle on the situation being restored, Smith slipped out onto the stairwell.