Beckett appears to be deep in thought in front of the murder board as Castle is in the break room form making another coffee for his partner. 'Partner?' he thinks to himself quietly. A small smile emanates across his face as he muses on the thought. Partner, he reaffirms the idea is his mind and decides it would be a pleasant experience.
A pleasant experience? He starts to think introspectively about what Beckett really means to him. He shuffles through the memories of their first assignment together, the awkwardness between them, her obvious reluctance to the new working relationship. Random thoughts drift through his mind, of the many close shaves they have shared together, the bond they have forged since then.
He looks at Beckett... Kate... once more, noting that adorable little frown she wears when she is putting jumbled facts together in her head.
A pleasant experience... No. No. He stares at the coffee in his hand without actually looking at it, his mind completely in another place. This is not another of his dates he is prone... uh, correction ...was prone to in the past. This is something more, so much more. Today will be defining for them, no doubt about that. But where will it lead? Is she in this as well?
Castle is still mulling about this when Beckett appears at the break room door. She observes the manly form of the writer for a second before she opens her mouth.
"Castle."
He jumps slightly, spilling a little coffee from the cup he has in his hand. Beckett smirks at his predicament.
"Where was your mind?"
"Well...err...I was just..."
Where is that rapier wit now? Castle chastises himself. "I was... just... thinking... about the murder," he ends lamely, sounding completely unconvincing, even in his own head.
"Uh-huh," she hums and arches her eyebrow, not really believing that was the case. Smirking, she breaks the tension and gives him his out of this situation. "Come on, I think I have this figured out."
Castle follows Beckett to the murder board, sighing to himself and making a promise not to daydream as much. At least not in front of her. He hands her the coffee, which she takes gladly and is rewarded with the beautiful smile she shares only with him.
"Okay, to business, Castle."
The smile is gone and all of her attention is directed at the puzzle in front of her. He really loves the determination she throws into cases, the single-mindedness that the job requires. When she gets her teeth into it, she can expel all other thoughts and focus on the job at hand better than anyone else he knows.
"With me here, Castle?" she disrupts his thoughts again.
"Yes, totally. Why do you ask?" Castle looks at her innocently.
"Well you look out of it," she raises an eyebrow and smirks. "Concentration... problems?"
"Nope, I'm good," he says a little bit too fast. Castle suddenly looks up and gapes at her as he realizes her implication. Beckett smirks and gives him a look and stifles a laugh as she begins to run through her thoughts at the white board.
"Kalev, an Estonian diplomat, being escorted in a limo back to the Consulate, gets shot repeatedly through his car door, killing him more or less instantly by an unidentified motorcyclist who fled the scene," she pauses.
Castle nods. He is already caught up in the story, keeping the conversation going, as they so often did.
"Right, then we had a cavalcade of Kalev admirers claim to kill him, including the former CG's lover, an angry, drug addled brother and a mother and daughter who could have stepped off the set of The Housewives of Jersey Shore. None of which could genuinely claim they did it, amazingly enough."
"So we check Kalev's apartment, find his laptop..." Beckett seamlessly continues, "And find some incriminating receipts and e-mails, not only from Kalev, but Kaarel himself. Quite the clever person was our Kalev, to use an embassy laptop to hack into his predecessor's computer. Now..." Beckett is interrupted by the familiar text tone of her phone in the jacket pocket. She grabs it, checks the screen, and quips to Castle, "It's Ryan. They're coming in now."
Esposito shoves Igor against the wall and gives him over to the officer standing close by. Exchanging some words with the uniformed man, Igor is taken away. He turns to Beckett, saying, "Got you a nice Easter present, Beckett. Better nail the damn bastard."
"What happened to you guys? And where is Kaarel?" she gapes at Esposito's bloody nose and then turns her attention to the bloody gash on Ryan's cheek.
Ryan looks angrily at the Estonian bodyguard disappearing to the interrogation room. "Kaarel has done a runner. And that psycho..." points to the giant man, "...tried to kill us," is all he says to her before he takes off to the men's room.
Beckett looks at Ryan leaving and then turns her attention back at Esposito. He nods as an affirmation to his partner's words.
"This man is crazy. You have to get him good, at least for what he did to us."
"I don't think it will be a problem," she answers, raising a hand with a folder and shaking it, "Got some pretty hard evidence here. Now talk me through it, what happened out there?"
"We were going to make an arrest after you called, but he escaped down the fire escape. He almost broke my nose and then hit Ryan with a gate. I chased him down the street, but no luck. This man is an animal of some sort, fast as hell," he breathes in harshly as he breaks the flow of words. Beckett only nods, not wanting to interrupt him.
"Ryan finally got in the car and chased him down. Igor, there, hit the car pretty bad. I think he made a dent into Chad's hood. That bastard," he growls angrily, stuffing the tissue into his nose. "Get him good, Beckett, make him pay."
"Espo, calm down, we got him. Go clean yourself up." Turning her attention to Castle standing next to her, she huffs, "Let's go, Castle."
Castle pushes himself away from the wall he was leaning against and catches up with Beckett who is walking down the hallway. Before he completely disappears around the corner, Castle turns around and eyes Esposito.
He can't suppress the smirk, "Looks like the Estonian Viking got you good."
"Shut up, Castle!" Espo growls at him as he is readjusting the piece of tissue in his right nostril. Castle ducks away from the pen flying towards his head and almost crashes into Beckett, who is standing in front of the interrogation room door.
"Castle," she turns to face him and places her hand on his chest. He raises his eyes to meet hers. She's got his full attention. "No messing around in there. We need to do this right."
"Understood," is all he answers, nodding.
She smiles, bringing her hand to his face, caressing his fresh stubble with her fingers. He can feel the electricity in her fingertips, making his skin burn under her touch. That's all it takes. A look, a slight caress and she's got him. She has him for good.
"Let's go then," she whispers and drops her hand, turning around.
Castle breathes in and brings his fingers to slide over the surface she touched. Yes, she has him for good.
She stops and opens the door, stepping in.
"Sit down," Beckett barks to the gigantic man standing in the middle of the interrogation room, his arms handcuffed behind his back. He seems furious and dangerous up close. The man huffs out a breath but refuses to sit down.
"Sit down, or I will make you sit down," she growls to him again as the man is not reacting to her at all. Castle flinches hearing that tone. She doesn't use that very often, but when she does, it's scary.
Igor shifts his eyes to the door. He sees two uniformed men standing right behind the door, ready to come in any second. He huffs out another breath and sits down.
"There we go," she says. "Now, talk."
She is mad now. Definitely mad. Her whole demeanor and posture changed as soon as she saw Esposito's bloody face and the fresh gash on Ryan's cheek. She is very protective of her team. No one touches them.
"About what?"
"Oh, I don't know? How about... why did you run? Why did you beat up two of my partners?" she snapped, her voice full of sarcasm.
"They ran into a door?" He tries to be funny, but fails horribly.
"Ha ha." She is annoyed and smoothly changes the subject. "Did you kill Kalev Järvesoo?"
"What?" His eyes widen, not understanding where the accusation comes from. "I didn't kill that rat bastard."
"You're lying!" she raises her voice.
"Wha- ? I didn't...!" is all Igor can get out of his mouth before Beckett slams the folder she is holding on to the table. She leans forward and opens the folder.
"Where were you on the 12th of April?" she gives him a stern look, the one that penetrates your very depths and gives the sensation that she can see right through you.
"I..." he tries to say something. "I was with my master, Mr. Voorman. The whole day."
"Funny. Where is he at the moment?" she wrinkles her nose. "Can he verify your alibi?"
"No, my master is on his way to Estonia by now. His plane left thirty minutes ago."
"So, your alibi has no grounds?" Beckett tries to steer him to a confession.
"I guess..." he says. "But neither he nor I have anything to do with Kalev."
"Tell me then, why do we have a trail of e-mails and receipts that suggest otherwise?" she bores her eyes into Igor again.
"E-mails?" his eyes wide with fear. Obviously he isn't very smart. His face certainly shows that he knows something, but he still tries to deny everything.
"We have e-mails sent between you and your boss, ordering you to kill Kalev. We also have the receipts for your purchase of a black motorcycle outfit, as well as a silencer," she sifts through the documents in the folder, pulling out a photograph. "Tell me that it isn't you in this picture?"
"I..., I..." he stutters, trying to breathe normally.
"This is a picture of you at the Guns 'n Friends store on Wythe Ave. We can place you in the shop buying the same silencer we found in the trash at the apartment," she continues, taking out another street camera picture. "And this is you seconds before the shooting incident... very close to the vicinity of Kalev's car."
The air whooshes out of Igor's lungs. He can't believe they have these photos. "That's not me," he tries to save what's left of his dignity.
"Come on!" Beckett growls again. "Is that all you've got?"
"It's not me!"
Castle decides to open his mouth. Beckett's harsh approach with the suspect doesn't seem to be working and he sees an opportunity to go at Igor from a different angle.
"Igor," Castle says calmly, "I think you can quit playing now."
"I'm not playing!" Igor still presses through, shifting around in his chair.
Beckett turns her attention to Castle and tries to understand what he is doing, her eyebrows arched up. Castle ignores her pointed gaze and continues.
"We have your fingerprints on the silencer," he bluffs.
If Beckett's gaze could kill, Castle would be dead by now. She stares at him, knowing very well that it's not true. Castle has taken a huge gamble as the fingerprint analysis report hasn't come back yet. So there is no way to know if the fingerprints would be there.
Beckett sighs; she understands it's a thin rope he is walking on, but she resigns and keeps silent, if only to see where it leads. Maybe it will do well in the end.
Igor opens his mouth and closes it. And opens it again. But no sound comes out. His mind processes the details Castle has just shared. After a lengthy silence, he sighs and slumps back in his chair. Castle and Beckett observe him in silence and finally he opens his mouth.
"Ok, it was me," is all he says, looking at the table, avoiding the gazes of the detective and the writer.
"How does Kaarel Voorman fit in all of this?" Beckett asks, her voice calmer now. They have him now - it's only a matter how much he confesses. "Did he order the shooting?"
Igor doesn't raise his head and just nods in agreement. "Yes."
"Why did he order the shooting?" Castle asks now, trying to steer the bodyguard to reveal more details.
Igor sighs again. He knows they've got him. "He asked me one day if I would agree to do it. He promised me ten grand. I needed the money... so I thought, 'why the hell not?' This 'new employee' was destroying him day by day. I understand why he wanted Kalev dead." He breathes in and continues, "He was dirty scum."
"How Kalev was destroying Mr. Voorman's life?" Castle inquires.
"A few weeks ago, Mr. Voorman figured out that Kalev had been poisoning him with arsenic. His health was deteriorating, his eyesight was failing. When he finally got the results of his blood test, he decided to do something about it. But since Kalev was really smart, he couldn't do this any other way but by surprise. So, he asked me to kill Kalev and I agreed. Later, he e-mailed me the details of Kalev's schedule and gave me the OK to do it. There, that's the story," he sighed. He knew he was done.
Beckett stares at the body-guard for a minute and then straightens herself. They got what they needed, case closed.
"Igor Tammik, you are under arrest for the murder of Kalev Järvesoo."
She signals the two uniforms to come in and get the man who was now hunched in the chair. Without any further words, she leaves the interrogation room and makes her way to the bullpen, Castle at her heels.
The boys are sitting behind their desks. Espo is anxiously shifting in his chair. It's understandable. He did want revenge for his bloody nose and now blackened eyes.
"We got him," Beckett announces to the boys.
"Good." Espo raises his eyes to look up to her.
"He confessed to everything. I think we can finally close the case," she sighs. All of them are getting tired of this long case. So many suspects, so much action, and finally they have a resolution.
"But we still need to get to Kaarel Voorman somehow," she states, voice barely there. She is tired. She wants to go home and sleep. Or...
No! Focus, Beckett!
"How do we do that? Isn't he out of the country right now?" Ryan asks, looking questioningly at Beckett and then shifts his glance to Castle.
"Yeah, he is flying to Estonia as we speak. We need to get into contact with Estonian authorities," she says. "I need to talk to Gates."
She starts walking towards Gates' office when the phone in her pocket starts vibrating and chiming a jolly tune. She fishes her iPhone out of her pocket and answers, "Beckett."
She covers the microphone with her hand for a moment, whispering "It's Lanie," for Castle who is eyeing her questioningly.
"What do you mean something weird?" she asks the M.E.
The strong voice of Lanie carries through the speaker and the guys can clearly make out her words, "Well, if you get your butt down here, I'll show you!"
"Okay, we'll be there in a minute."
"You guys go speak to Gates," she barks an order to her injured mates. "We need to get Kaarel. Make it right."
With that, she turns around and starts walking towards the elevator with a hurried pace. Castle isn't quite at her heels. She stops and looks back. He is still standing in front of Espo's desk, looking at her go. What's this about?
"Castle, you coming?" she asks, voice annoyedly playful.
He quickly finds his feet and covers the distance between them in a hurry. "Uh... yeah," he mutters.
Author's Note
Trinxy:I am seriously thankful for those awesome guest-reviews that people have left us. The most beautiful ones. I sincerely thank you for your kind words. They mean so very much. Also, for an answer to one guest – I think we are not writing "the talk" in to this fanfiction. If you are searching that, please check my other fictions too, I have played through "the talk" at least 2 times. But in the end, never say never, who knows what the last 5 chapters of the fic can create.
Brett:Thanks guys for your kind words. This has been fun so far making up a story about a truly great TV show. Wish I had Marlowe's brains. Any suggestion you have, we love to hear. Positive feedback most welcomed. For single ladies my number is 555...
Special thanks to our editors Shena and Lv2bnsb … they are just plain awesome!