A/N: Yay, new chapter is ready for you to read xD I'm having just as much fun writing about the case as I have with writing about our beloved Caskett. I promise you, I have some very nice stuff planned, just be patient =) I want to savour all of the moments and that takes time ;)

Thank you so much for reading and reviewing, I'm glad you seem to like it and I hope you'll stick with me ;)

Now I don't want to say much more than ENJOY READING =)

xx

Oh, I hope I got all the typos out..sorry if I didn't, am still a non-native speaker xD

SOOOOOORRRY guys! I totally forgot to put in the lines that divided the different paragraphs... silly me! Gee, how could I...must have been tired...I hope it's easier to read now! (Yeah, hit me please...my stupidity hurts right now...-.-")

Oh, and there is a little phrase in there that I could not resist to write and it's from another book xDD Who can find it?

Chapter 5

She was already in the precinct craving for coffee when Castle came. She heard the elevator and saw him walking towards her with the two coffees in hand. It made her smile. He always had the perfect timing.

"Good morning," he greeted with a knowing smile.

When he'd woken up this morning he had had this feeling of having had a strange dream. He had dreamt that a text message had arrived in the middle of the night. He'd checked his phone to make sure it was a dream and when he saw that the text was in fact real he almost fell out of his bed. Kate Beckett having a dream that made her think of him?

He pulled up his chair, sat down and placed the coffee in front of her at the same time.

"So tell me, what was that dream about then?" he asked without hesitation and wiggled his eyebrows.

Beckett, who had just picked up the coffee and was about to drink from it, put it back on her desk, looking at Castle. She had not expected him to address that topic first thing in the morning. But then again, it was Castle she was thinking about so it should not have surprised her.

"Uhm. I don't know, it was just…kinda weird. You know, the weird you would come up with."

"Come on Beckett, you can't tease me at 3am with a text like that and then tell me nothing about it!"

She still looked at him, his teasing smile driving her almost crazy.

"Fine then…" she very nearly complained. "I was a teenager again in the dream and I think I met you and your family in a café…"

Castle raised an eyebrow and blinked at her. "Serioulsy? Real or not real?"

"I have no clue. That's why I said it reminded me of you. It could have been real but I'm not sure. It's like when you come up with a theory. I kinda have to work around it to find out with what you might be right and what might just be your imagination."

Beckett and Castle didn't hear one of the other two detectives arriving, they had, like so often, been caught up in their own little world where no one but them seemed to exist. Castle had leaned in over the desk and also Beckett was leaning on her elbows, facing him. They were just a few inches apart from each other.

"I'm interrupting again, aren't I?" they heard the rhetorical question Ryan asked from just a few steps to Beckett's right. They both turned their heads, not quite sure what was going on and saw Ryan nod in answer to his own question and turn around to come back later.

"Ryan, wait!" Beckett woke from her state of mind. "You got anything?"

He came back with a raised eyebrow. "I do. Because we had no idea where the boy had been the night he was killed I tried to track him down via observation cameras. He was with someone before he went into that alley. I don't know who but she might have seen something. Come take a look," he said and they followed him to the tech room.

Esposito was already there, looking at the screen as Ryan let the tape play. They all watched the street and the people walking on the pavement.

"Here we go…" Ryan said just before Matty turned around the corner. He had seen the video so often that he pretty much knew it by heart.

All four of them stared at the screen and saw someone running after Matty, grabbing his arm. They couldn't see yet who it was because that person was standing in the shadow. Matthew drew his arm away gesticulating wildly and then walked away fast. As he came closer to the camera they all leaned in closer again as not to miss the other person that again came running after the boy.

"Freeze right there!" Beckett and Castle both said loudly and in perfect unison as they both recognised the boy's pursuer.

Ryan pressed pause, the shock making his reaction quite fast. "You recognise the girl?" he asked surprised as both nodded.

Castle looked at Beckett. "I must ask Alexis if she's in the drama class…she seemed genuinely surprised yesterday…"

"I think we need to get her down here as well…"

"Yo, you two, over here? Two detectives waiting for some information!" Esposito said as he and Ryan both looked clueless at Castle and Beckett.

"It's Nicole, his sister…" Beckett cleared it up for them and the boys looked back at the monitor where the girl with dreadlocks that was holding her brother's arm again was seen on the still screen.

She wasn't 18 yet so she needed her legal guardian to be with her. On paper that was still her mother and since they wanted the mother in for questioning as well it seemed to be a good arrangement. But Nicole wasn't at all happy with it so now she was sitting in Interrogation 1 with her father, Castle and Beckett while her mother was in one of the interview lounges with Ryan and Esposito.

Nicole's eyes looked from Castle to Beckett to her father and never rested. She was very nervous and Beckett knew it wouldn't take that long.

"Nicole, you know why you're here?" she asked.

Nicole shook her head but then changed her mind. "You have questions of some sort?"

"Yes, we do," Beckett said and took the still out of her folder and laid it in front of the girl and her father. It was herself, holding her brothers arm and as she laid eyes on the picture she froze and went pale. Her father needed some more time to make the connection but he didn't pale, he rather gained some colour. If from anger or from embarrassment was not obvious yet.

"Nicole?"

The girl lifted her head and tried to look at her father. "I'm…dad…I…I'm…sorry!" she stuttered, put her sleeves over her hands and folded her arms in protection.

"I…I didn't know…I mean, I was going to…I swear, I had no idea!"

"This doesn't look like you had no idea."

Nicole turned back towards Beckett and sighed. "Look, I had only just found out a week ago! I…went back to mom's to get some more stuff back. She wasn't there and I couldn't find what I was looking for so I went through her boxes and found this envelope with a scrap of paper inside. All it said was "I'm alive" and there was the name tag bracelet he'd had from the day he was born."

"Why am I here?" The penetrant high pitched voice of was already getting on the two detectives nerves and they hadn't even started yet.

", this is Detective Esposito and I am Detective Ryan. There are still some open questions left that we have to ask you," the Detective introduced themselves and answered her question. He normally didn't do that since they were the ones asking the questions but this wasn't an interrogation, just a formal interview in a formal setting.

"I already told the other two that I have nothing to say. I put this whole story behind me years ago, I buried my son years ago, I moved on years ago. Period."

"And we are very sorry to dig it up again. But your son was murdered so this is standard procedure."

The woman shrugged her shoulders and it was obvious that she didn't like the situation at all.

"Fine then," she finally said.

"Can you tell us again about the circumstances the night Matthew went missing?" Esposito now asked and sighed.

"Can't you read that in your reports?"

"Yes, but we would like to get a better feel for it and that is easier when we have our information first hand."

"We didn't think he was missing. Nicole was worried when he didn't show up for dinner but she was just a kid herself back then, she was just twelve years old. We came home later, it must have been around 9pm and Matthew never came home that late. He knew we didn't like it. It was mid-summer so the possibility was there that he disobeyed and when we called his friends parents they all said their children were still out with their nannies. We still called the cops and I know that they normally get involved quickly when a child is missing but in our case they didn't. Since his friends hadn't been back yet they assumed he must be with them."

"I could hardly sleep that night. I blamed myself. I was supposed to be watching him but I left him with his friends and their nannies so that I could leave with my own friends. I told him to be home early enough for dinner. I didn't want mom and dad finding out I had left him alone…" Nicole hardly ever held eye contact, she was fiddling with the hem of her sleeves and constantly biting her lip piercing. She was definitely nervous.

Beckett and Castle had listened to the same story as Ryan and Esposito and both felt kind of sorry for her. The girl had only ever wanted to be a normal twelve year old that didn't have to watch her little brother and be responsible for him. And it just fired backwards. She had to grow up much faster than a lot of other girls her age.

"They always said it wasn't my fault but I blame myself every time I think about him. When we got the letter I…I was very close to running away, chasing the bastards that took my brother. And I was just twelve years old… It was the last time that we got a sign of life from Matty until that letter I found at my mother's place…"

"How come you found him the night he was killed?" Beckett asked.

"I didn't. I mean, when I saw that message I didn't know how old it was. It could have been from the year he disappeared or form just a few weeks ago. I took it with me just because I thought it would maybe help me. He was after all my baby brother…"

She shrugged her shoulders, unsure of what to do or what to say next.

"It was coincidence that I saw him that day. I was on my way home from a friend's birthday party that had gone slightly wrong. I managed to get away before it got worse and when I was almost home I saw him. He was lingering around and something about him looked so familiar to me. As I approached him I realised why he looked familiar. He had the same features as my brother, just older. Remembering the note in my mom's apartment made me realise that it must have been true and I called after him…I called him Matty and he turned his head, looking at me. He must have recognized me too cause his face dropped and he stuttered that Matty wasn't his name, that he was called Cain and he walked away. I ran after him, I wanted to talk to him so badly!"

Nicole was close to tears now and Castle felt sorry for her. The girl was the same age as Alexis but the stuff that she had been going through since her brother went missing was more than he ever wished for any child to experience.

He looked at her and gave her an encouraging smile. She met his gaze and smiled back sadly but went on.

"He shook me off when I reached him again. He said I should leave and forget what I thought I had seen - that I had seen him - and that I was never to tell anyone about any of this to anyone.

I have no idea what was wrong with him but I he kind of acknowledged to me that I was right with the assumption that he was my brother. I mean…I haven't seen anything but him hanging around in our neighbourhood for no apparent reason so why was I to keep a secret? I don't know, I thought that maybe he was trying to find the courage to go see our father."

She looked at Frederick then and he looked at his daughter almost as if she were a stranger. He had a hard time understanding why she had kept this from him. He had always been the only one of the family to believe that his son was still alive somewhere and it would have meant so much to him and Nicole knew that. At least he had thought that she knew.

"I'm sorry, dad…" Nicole almost whispered and then looked at Beckett. "The weird thing is that he seemed worried about something. I asked him again if he really was my brother, I needed to hear it. He almost screamed at me saying and I quote: "I am NOT your brother! Just leave me alone!" and then he ran away leaving me there, not believing a single word and I swear this is the only time I saw him!"

Beckett exchanged a look with Castle. They were both a little confused with this story. There was absolutely no doubt that the boy Nicole had met was in fact her brother but his behaviour seemed odd.

"Nicole, I have to ask you this. Where were you after Matthew left you?"

"You're asking for my alibi?" she asked surprised and Beckett nodded.

"It seems like you were the last one to have seen him alive so we just need to know."

"Well, I went straight home after that…"

"?" Beckett addressed the girl's father.

"I wouldn't know. I wasn't home that night…"

"Where were you then?"

"I…was out with some colleagues from the company, we had a business meeting and continued that even after it was long over. We were out till very late in the night."

"We're going to need the names of those colleagues," Beckett said and Mr Downing nodded, writing them down on the piece of paper Beckett gave him.

"May we go now?" he asked. He didn't like the interrogation room, he felt like being watched all the time and it had a confining atmosphere that he wasn't at all fond of.

"Yes, this is all for now. But please keep yourself available, we might have some more questions."

He nodded and got up. "Come on Nicole, let's go."

"Thank you, ."

The voice of Detective Esposito carried over to the interrogation room and when Castle and Beckett followed Mr Downing and his daughter out of the room and turned around the corner they saw Mrs Downing coming out of the interview room.

Nicole was rooted to the spot when she saw her mother and Beckett looked from one woman to the other with a look of confusion. She had not thought that the reason for Nicole leaving her mother's place was a loathing between the two but it seemed a lot like that. The girl turned around, grabbing her father's arm.

"Come on dad, let's take the stairs" she said toneless.

"Nicole! Please!" her mother called out for her daughter.

"No, mother!" she replied and the way she emphasised the word "mother" made Beckett shiver.

"I am not talking to you! You kept secrets from me all my life, I can't even look you in the eyes anymore, so just f***ing leave me alone!"

The mother flinched at the swear word. "You told her?" she now almost screamed, looking at Frederick Downing.

"Told her what? I didn't have to tell her anything! Whatever you think I told her, she found out all by herself. That comes from leaving your stuff lying around in that cave of yours!"

"Oh, you're blaming me again! Awesome! I am so glad that we could clear this up!"

The whole precinct had gone quiet, all the detectives, uniforms and even Captain Gates had stopped their work and were listening to the family's fight.

"Well, you were the one who knew! You should have told me!"

"Tell you what?" Mrs Downing seemed confused now. "You knew just as well as I did…"

"That Matty was alive all these years? I most certainly did not know that or I would have done something! Unlike you! You seemed not to care!"

"What? I didn't know that either! Whatever you saw, Nicole," she addressed her daughter again, "it was not real!"

"Just leave me alone, Carrie!" Nicole shouted and made her way down the stairs with her father following her.

Carrie Downing was still standing there, watching her family go and it was the first time that any of the people present saw her show any emotion that seemed genuine. She looked sadder and more tired than before and she didn't hide any of it.

"Good day, detectives," she then said and left for the elevator.

"And I thought my family was the broken and insane one…" Castle uttered under his breath and earned an astonished look from Beckett. He shrugged his shoulders.

"It's true…Have you looked at my family? The only people still sticking together are Alexis, mother and I. And I sometimes even doubt the sanity of the three of us. But this? We seem like a completely normal family compared to this."

Beckett gave him a lips-pressed-together-smile with a raised eyebrow. "I still wouldn't say normal, but you are definitely not a broken family," she reassured him and gave him a slight nudge with the elbow and her words made him grin a little.

"Come on, we've got work to do. Nicole doesn't have an alibi, Mr Downing's has to be checked and I want to know what Ryan and Espo got from Mrs Downing."

They walked into the bull pen together where Captain Gates was waiting for them.

"What was that all about?" she asked Beckett who just shrugged her shoulders.

"We're about to find out," she answered and picked up a white board marker to bring the murder board up to date. Captain Gates looked at her with a stern expression. She didn't like not getting the answers she wanted to.

"We have to check the alibies first but I'll have Ryan and Esposito take a closer look at Mrs Downing. She still seems to be hiding something. In fact, both her and her ex-husband seem to be hiding something…"

The Captain nodded, for now satisfied with the answer, and went back into her office.

Beckett slightly shook her head and Castle smiled. He knew that Kate didn't dislike the Captain but she had her issues with her and things like this could greatly annoy her. She was used to be able to work at her own pace and not with her superior breathing down her neck.

Ryan and Esposito had walked into the bull pen when she'd mentioned them and came up to the murder board now.

"You want us to do a back ground check on Carrie Downing?"

"Yes. I want to know why her daughter seems to hate her so much that she calls her by her first name. Who knows, something might pop up."

They both nodded.

"Did you find out anything new while interviewing her?"

Both detectives shook their heads. "Nothing more than you already told us," Esposito said and Ryan continued: "She was reserved, calm and seemed to have been fine with the situation. She told us how she and Mr Downing broke up."

"Apparently she had tried to convince him to let the thought of Matthew still being alive go and to carry on with their lives. She'd said that to him this had been a betrayal of trust and of love towards their son and that basically was the moment they knew it wouldn't work anymore. Nicole went with her because, knowing her mother was done with the subject, she knew that she wouldn't get blamed by her for the disappearance of her brother whereas with her father she would always feel guilty. didn't say why Nicole had changed her mind after six years…"

Beckett nodded. "Fine, let's dig deeper now. You guys check out Carrie Downing, Castle and I will check some alibies. Oh, that reminds me, did you ask her about hers?"

"Yes we did. She said she was at home sleeping, we should ask her doorman."

The female detective nodded again and then all four of them went back to work.

Well, well...where will all this lead to... Liked it, didn't like it? Hit the review button, I'm always happy for some feedback =)

Which reminds me: In case you haven't read it and are in dear need of some Casketty goodness in his long (yes, it is long for me...xD) hiatus, read my One-Shot "Happily Ever After?"

Or, if you are a Castle and Bones fan, my lovely AppleNatasa is writing a crossover called "Secrets of the Statue of Liberty" ;)

And who found the phrase I smuggeled in here?

Soooo sorry about the missing Names! I don't know why it did that, in my word-document they're still there...