We are so really sorry that we haven't updated this fic in… 3 months? Wow, that has been a long time. Seems like winter and spring is the time when everybody suddenly get busy. Brett and I have been working our writer-asses off, so there is a little time left for writing. Now, finally we got another chapter done. We really hope you guys like it.
Thanks for Shena and lv2bnsb and my German minions who have been looking over this chapter. You are awesome. Shh, don't tell them we said that.
Silence embraces the dimly lit bullpen. The only sounds that disturb the serenity are the muffled sounds from the tech room and Beckett's fast clicking of the mouse. She is checking the victim's financials again. They need to figure out who the mysterious killer is before the next strike. Since they just found out that the shooting wasn't the cause of death in this case, they need to know why he was poisoned and who might have been behind it.
"Oh my god, this guy was a freak," Castle exclaims, breaking the silence hanging around them. He is sitting next to Beckett's desk, the victim's computer placed on his lap as he furiously searches through the files.
"What did you find?" Beckett asks in monotone voice without even bothering to look away from her screen.
"There are so many... oh. What the-?" he starts to say but gets derailed by the pictures he hadn't seen before that are suddenly emerging on the screen.
"Castle..." Beckett groans out loud.
He has been like this for an hour. As soon as the boys left for the tech room and she and Castle settled down at her desk, he has been trying to test her nerves by announcing every little bit of information he finds. Okay, she must admit that crazy e-mail from one of victim's ex-girlfriends was interesting, but in the end, it didn't get them anywhere. She was getting tired. And pissed. And there were still no clues whatsoever about the killer.
"Look at that!" he rouses from the seat and turns the small laptop towards Beckett. There is a picture of a naked woman, bound and gagged, seemingly in the midst of some weird ritual.
"What is that?" she gasps. She wasn't expecting to see pornographic photos on the screen.
"It's on the computer. Look..." he closes the picture and the folder appears, containing hundreds of similar pictures. "The whole folder is full of them."
"And?" she asks. "It's porn. Every man watches porn."
"Look at them!" he scrolls down. "There are hundreds of them... all showing women being gagged and tortured! This is not normal!"
She is silent for a second, looking at the gruesome pictures on the screen.
"That's gross," she exhales when he stumbles upon one of the torture pictures. She shudders.
"Kalev seems to have some kind of fetish," she finally says out loud, "by the looks of it."
"I think so too," Castle notes. After making his point to her, nods and settles back in his chair, pulling the laptop to his lap. "Just look at it all, it's just too much for the one man-"
"Castle!" She stops his flow of words before she gets annoyed again and gives him pointed stare. "That doesn't help us right now."
Shaking her head, she directs her attention back to the computer again.
"It does, at least a bit," Castle raises his glance from the screen, smirking at her. He loves when she is annoyed. Especially when he is the one to rile her up.
She turns her gaze back on him and arches an eyebrow questioningly, challenging him.
Castle licks his lips and - leaning towards her slightly - gets ready to tell a story, a smug grin on his face.
"It may be the reason Kalev was killed. If he loved these kind of…" he glances at the screen for a second, "...activities so much, maybe he was participating in such things in real life too?"
Beckett nods as he pauses briefly between the words. It seems plausible.
Naturally, he continues.
"If somebody found out about it, it would have very well been a reason for revenge. Because, if you think about it... shooting is an act of passion, a decision made in a moment of anger. As we found out, Kaarel Voorman ordered Kalev's shooting in a swirl of anger and disappointment. He wanted to make a point. He wanted to make everything go away quickly and painlessly. But poisoning somebody... that's an act of revenge. It implies that a lot of time and labour was put into the planning. The killer must be smart - very smart - to go such lengths to actually get the poison first. Because - if you think about it - it's a very rare poison that is not easily available in the US," he stops rambling for a moment and looks at her intently.
She nods in agreement, "Yes, it's very rare."
"And it must have required weeks, maybe even months of planning in order to get the chemicals into the country without the authorities noticing. She must have had everything planned out from the beginning," he muses.
"How do you know the killer is a she?" Beckett sarcastically disturbs his philosophizing.
"It would fit the profile," he retorts nonchalantly. "People who poison others are usually females."
Beckett just gapes at him.
"That is such a stereotypical view," she scowls. "Just because our victim was poisoned doesn't automatically mean that the killer was a female."
"Oh, come on, that would make so much sense," Castle objects, "and it would be such a better story!"
Beckett rolls her eyes at his crazy talk. "How does that make sense? And do you have any proof?" she asks, looking at him intently, waiting for an answer.
The joyful expression of discovery that was on his face fades after her question.
Defeated, he finally huffs out a "No".
"It's only a theory, Castle," she tries to amend her previous rough statement. "We need to find evidence first. You know that."
"I do," he answers softly.
"Then get on it," she says and points at the laptop sitting on his knees. He nods in surrender and returns his attention to the laptop.
And the silence envelops them once again.
A bowl of Doritos and a couple of sodas rest between Ryan and Esposito, the former is at the controls of the video archive of the traffic cameras, the ones from the street outside the UN. Ryan is a picture of concentration as he scours every person entering a car. Esposito is casually leaning back in his chair, arms behind his head, and feet on the desk, happily allowing his partner to do this part of the grunt work.
"Okay. This looks like his limo," says Ryan as he leans closer to the screen. Esposito sits up, and takes a closer look. "Wait no, I'm wrong. Unless Kalev was wearing a tribal African outfit."
"Dude, I was comfy. Don't give me false hope like that," Esposito resumes his former position, and noisily crunches on some Doritos.
"We are in the window where Kalev should have gotten into a limo. Where is he... where is he..." Ryan says out loud but mostly to himself.
Then they fall into a quiet again, as they are both scanning the screen with their eyes. Suddenly, the silence is broken by Ryan's phone ringing, a fast paced Irish ditty. Esposito looks at him curiously, barely being able to maintain a straight expression.
"What?" says Ryan slightly embarrassed. "Jenny and I are both Irish descent. Seemed fitting."
He gathers himself and hits the answer icon. "Hi, honey, how are you?" He pauses for a second listening to his wife's description of her day.
"Yeah, I'll be home tonight. Emily still in town?" Ryan smiles and smirks at Espo. "She is? Great. Wait... let me put this on speaker, I have my hands full." Esposito rolls his eyes as Ryan places the phone down on the desk between them. "Oh Javi is here too. Say hi Javi?"
"Hey Jenny, how ya doing?" Esposito smiles widely.
"Great thanks, Javi, you looking after my man?" Jenny replies in a beautiful sweet voice.
"Oh sure, a few running gun battles, high speed chases, the usual day." To his credit, Esposito keeps a calm tone to his voice.
"What? You are serious?" Jenny's voice has gone up an octave already, and Ryan senses that she is about to launch into something.
"Relax, sweetie, he is kidding around. The usual boring day, apart from arresting a large Estonian man, who gave us some minor grief.
Esposito whispers silently to Ryan "Minor? Yeah right..."
"So Jenny, "Ryan continues. "Since Emily is coming over tonight, you want me to invite Castle?" He looks over at Espo, and mouths the words "Remember, lunches for a week...", and gives him the OK sign.
"Actually Emily already invited Castle over. He says he will probably be tied up though. Javi, if you aren't busy, do you want to make it a foursome?"
Esposito's look of dismay instantly changes and says quickly, "I would love to."
Ryan looks nonplussed how that backfired on him.
"Okay, honey, gotta get back to work. Love you, and will see you later." Ryan mumbles in a low voice.
"Later honey, love you." Jenny is oblivious to her husband's demeanor and cheerfully hangs up.
Esposito looks at his crestfallen partner, smugly grinning, "Well that went well."
"Oh shut up. You haven't won the bet yet. My money is still on Castle and Emily," Ryan collects his thoughts and continues hunting the video footage for the elusive Kalev.
Esposito stares at the screen, "Well my money is on that being Kalev walking to that limo. Stop the video."
Ryan pauses the feed and zooms in on the man. "Can we get that any cleaner?"
"Wait, there is a closer camera to that particular location. Let's bring that up now..." Ryan and Esposito wait patiently for the time base of the video to catch up. "Let's check this one. Okay, that's him!"
Esposito takes up the commentary. "Yep... there's Kalev walking towards the limo. Okay, who is that?"
They both look closely at the screen and observe an Asian man shaking Kalev's hand, talking briefly, and then walking off. Kalev then enters the limo.
"Well that was anti-climatic," Ryan notes to his partner.
Esposito, though, has a suspicious look. "Play back that scene again between the two."
Ryan rewinds the feed and plays it again. "You see that? After the handshake?"
Ryan concentrates on the moment of the handshake, "Yeah, Kalev shakes his hand after it, like it hurt. Think that is suspicious though?"
"I am not sure. Let's see what Beckett and Castle have to say about it."
"Okay," Ryan answers. As they get up from their seats, he makes his way to the printer, "Let me print it out."
After ten minutes of intense clicking through the database, Beckett is certain she spotted something weird. Something that doesn't make any sense. Even though they had gone through the victim's financials already, they hadn't looked very intently, as she is doing now. At roughly the same time, she sees Castle shifting in his chair, and judging by the grin on his face, he has found something too.
"Did you find something?" she asks, knowing it was probably what he was waiting for.
"Oh, I think I did," he grins.
"Show me," Kate tells him and he props the laptop onto the table, shifting his chair closer to hers.
Their knees bump together and it makes her instantly aware that his body is so very close to hers. She throws a glance at him and sees him looking at her, staring at her neck. She can't stop the blush creeping across her cheeks. He is smirking now, settling snugly against her. The closeness is affecting him too. She takes a deep breath and turns her attention back to the computer in front of her, trying to ignore his broad frame against her as much as she can. They are at work.
"Look," he points at the screen, breaking the flow of her thoughts.
"I was going through his inbox and I found these letters." He opens up the first letter. It is a message written in broken English demanding money in exchange for silence.
'You send me 10 000 dollars or I will tell story to media.'
"Judging by his inbox, he gets weird mail all the time," he continues. "But this one stood out. Look at who sent it as well as the timestamp."
Again he points at the computer screen, directing her attention to the e-mail address gigaveeri and the timestamp showing UTC +7 hours and the arrival time of the message was 3:13am.
"Why-" she starts to ask, but Castle is faster than her.
"Before you say anything, I did a web search to check my theory." He opens up a webpage. "See... the e-mail provider is an Indonesian based company, and the time difference is roughly the same between Jakarta and New York."
"How do you know?" she inquires.
"I looked it up on my World Clock app," he smiles, taking his iPhone out and sliding his fingers over it. "God I love this thing."
She watches him stroke the phone, his fingers trailing the smooth screen ever so slowly. She feels a shiver run up her spine remembering how those fingers traced the soft edges of her face not so long ago. How good it- Focus, Kate... she snaps herself out of the thought.
Pointedly ignoring the soft caresses that he is sharing with his phone, Beckett asks, utterly confused, "But Indonesia? Why would the mail come from Indonesia? And wh..." she stops mid-sentence, remembering the odd numbers and dates from the data she just had looked through. "Wait a minute..."
She rolls her chair back in front of her computer and glances at the financial documents displayed on the screen. She's determined, looking for something within the numbers there.
He is looking at her intently, letting his eyes roam across her back for a second, and taking in the sight of her, as her attention is fixated on the screen. It wasn't so long ago, when he was holding her body in his arms, kissing her senseless... Stop it, Castle, he mentally slaps himself.
"Here," she exhales when she spots what she was looking for. She sharply turns her head to look at him.
He takes in a gulp of air. Her eyes are sparkling, probably due to her excitement of finding new clues and making progress on the case. She's so beautiful and it takes a lot of effort for him to turn his attention towards the numbers on the screen. He squints his eyes and tries to understand what he is seeing.
"What am I looking at?" he asks.
"Look at the dates. Here," she points at the numbers on her screen, "and here."
"The times match," he finally says after a long moment of silence (and an effort to focus back on the case).
"The message was sent to Kalev at 3:13am. The sum of…" he checks the sum from the other end of the screen, "...10,000 US dollars was deposited into this account," he points at the numbers on the monitor, "roughly twelve hours after he received the e-mail!"
"Yes, exactly," she nods. "But it's not the first time he has accessed that account. Kalev has wired money to that account at least three other times. Look."
Beckett clicks on the number on screen and the account history appears. Sure enough, there it is, in black and white - Kalev had deposited various amounts of money into that particular account on several occasions.
"Can you check if there are more e-mails from that same address?" Beckett asks.
"Sure," Castle nods and he turns his attention to his laptop to search in the inbox.
In a few short moments, the e-mails appear on the screen, showing that the same person had sent at least five more messages to Kalev. The first one was short, indicating that Kalev had known the blackmailer since 2009. Other e-mails included messages asking for money in exchange for information that the blackmailer had. Turns out, he has been blackmailing Kalev since 2011.
"The dates correlate with the money transfers," Beckett confirms her suspicions. "And look, the last e-mail was sent only... five days before Kalev was murdered."
She throws a quick glance at her computer screen, "But there is no money trail this time."
"Nothing?" Castle asks, eyes wide. That doesn't make any sense. Why had Kalev been paying the blackmailer and then, all of a sudden, stopped?
"This person sounds more and more like a suspect to me," Beckett points out. "He coerces money out of Kalev until..."
"... Kalev has had enough and doesn't pay anymore," he finishes the sentence.
"And then the person decides to…" she continues.
"... poison him, instead of setting the truth free?" he offers.
"Yeah, but why would they do that... " she wonders out loud trailing off with her idea. Her words slowly falter as she notices how close they have gotten during their little verbal foreplay.
He is only inches away from her, his face unreadable, his blue eyes fixed on her. She begins to feel the heat rising in her cheeks. She doesn't remember moving closer to him, but there he is... right in front of her. She finds herself staring at his lips and when she looks up to his eyes again, she discovers that he noticed this as well. She needs to break this energy zapping between them before she can't control herself.
"Uh... let me see... if ... I can find out who owns the bank account," she murmurs.
"Uh... yes... you should," he seems to wake up from his momentary euphoria, backing away from her.
Her body instantly misses his proximity. She clears her throat and types the bank account number into the database, while Castle leans back in his chair, smirking softly and watching her out of the corner of his eye, enjoying the fact he managed to fluster her for a moment.
"Here it is," she breathes out, relief flooding her senses, when the name pops up on her computer screen. "Alfred Tirta Maneni."
"Sounds weird," Castle hums, nodding.
"Do we have a picture to go with the name?"
"Not yet," she shakes her head. "I'm working on it."
As soon as she types the name into the immigration database, her phone chirps. She opens the incoming message and scans it quickly.
"It's Lanie. She says that she finished the autopsy and the report is ready for us to collect. And..." she pauses, scrolling down the screen of her phone. "Oh, Lanie also says that she found a faint puncture wound on his right palm."
"It would probably be the..." Castle can't finish his sentence as the tech room door opens and Esposito walks out from the tech room, Ryan on his tail.
"Hey Beckett, we think we may have found something," he says, closing in on the desk.
Both Beckett and Castle turn their heads toward the boys.
"What did you find, Espo?"
"I think we have a screenshot of the possible suspect," he says with a serious face and motioning Ryan to show the close up shot they just printed out. Ryan steps forward and gives the paper to Beckett.
"The Asian looking guy?" Beckett specifies so that she understands correctly.
"Yes," Esposito nods. "Look at the other one."
Ryan gives her the other picture. Two guys shaking hands. One positively Asian, one positively Northern European looking.
"They are shaking hands?" Castle asks, peeking at the picture in Beckett's hands. "Beckett..., do you-?"
Castle and Beckett share intense look between each other, one that makes Esposito and Ryan furrow their eyebrows.
Beckett finally nods and decides to put the guys out of their misery, "Lanie just called. She said that Kalev had a puncture wound on his right palm."
The light bulb switches on in both Ryan and Esposito's heads.
"They are shaking hands..." they say almost in unison.
Before she can nod in agreement, Beckett's computer beeps, indicating the end of the search in the immigration database. One name has popped up.
Beckett scoots closer to the computer and clicks on the name. The full profile pops up, revealing Alfred's picture with it.
Castle gasps.
Beckett raises the close up shot in her hand to the level of the screen. The faces match.
Finally, Esposito voices the reaction everybody has in their head.
"Gotcha, you son of a bitch."
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