Chapter 2
The Hispanic man flashes a badge at him and he catches the NYPD logo.
"Mr. Castle?" he says and Rick nods in confirmation, his eyes questioning and his eyebrows drawn together in a concerned frown. "I am Detective Esposito with the NYPD, this is Detective Ryan. We have to ask you some questions about a kidnapping that took place earlier today. Can we come in?"
"I… uh, yeah, of course," Rick says, confused, and he takes a step back to let the detectives through. "How can I help you?"
"Do you know this woman?" Detective Ryan asks as he shows him a photo of the woman that left his apartment hours earlier.
"Who is she?" Rick asks without thinking.
"Do you know her?" the Hispanic detective asks with a little more urgency in his tone.
"I – Yes," Rick says. "I met her last night at a bar, but I don't know her name."
"Just like Grant said," Detective Ryan mutters to his partner, then to Rick, "The barman said you left together?"
"Yes, we did. She left earlier this morning, around seven. My daughter came downstairs right after she left and she always gets downstairs just after seven. That's how I know the time." He sees Detective Esposito jot down the time and decides to give them a little more information, as far as he can. "She left in a hurry, but I did manage to give her some coffee. She said that she had to go to work, I assume she's a lawyer or something."
"Thank you, Mr. Castle," Detective Ryan says. He seems disappointed, maybe he hoped to get more information out of him.
"What happened to her?" Rick asks in a sudden rush of concern. The two detectives look at him in surprise.
"Do you even care?" Detective Esposito says.
"Of course I care! She's… she's –" He can't finish that thought because he doesn't know what she is to him.
"You met her yesterday, you said?" the Hispanic man inquiries.
"Yes, who is she?"
"Her name is Kate Beckett, she's a homicide detective at the twelfth precinct, Mr. Castle," Detective Ryan says. "She went missing this morning."
The news hits Rick like a train at full speed. He staggers backwards and feels the couch behind his thighs, he leans against the side cushion for support.
"Could you take us through what happened since you met?" Detective Ryan asks him and Rick thinks he can hear a little compassion in his tone.
"Yeah, of course. I was at the bar because I needed a drink after a pretty rough fight with my publisher and ex-wife. She was there, three stools away from me. She was staring at her drink, guys kept coming up to her to ask if they could buy her a drink, but she obviously didn't want to be bothered. I decided to sit next to her. She looked up at me with raised eyebrows and said, 'You've been sitting there long enough to know that I'm not in the mood.'"
"That sound like Beckett, all right," Detective Esposito says. "So why did you stay with her?"
"I told her that I wasn't interested in buying her a drink, that I just moved up to help her get rid of all the other guys. She seemed grateful. So we just sat there, moping, until she asked me why I was there on my own. I explained to her that I'd had a fight with my ex-wife and she seemed to understand, but she never told me why she was there, alone."
"Okay, that's all very moving, Mr. Castle, but that doesn't really help us," Detective Esposito says.
"Right, sorry," Rick apologized. "So we drank quite a lot and she shared some more with me, told me that she had just left work. That she'd had a pretty bad case, that's why I assumed she was a lawyer, you see. She didn't seem the type to be a cop. Anyway, we talked about mundane things, we drank, I took her home with me because she was in no state to drive. We woke up this morning, she was in a hurry to leave, didn't even want my coffee."
"But you just said that you did give her coffee?" Detective Ryan says, confused.
"Yes, I did. I stopped her and pushed a travel mug in her hand."
"What did the mug look like?"
"I have another one here," Rick says and he walks towards the kitchen. He pulled the mug out of his cupboard. "It looked just like this."
"Do you mind if we take its picture?" Detective Ryan asks.
"No, not at all," Rick says and the detective takes out an iPhone and snaps a photo.
"Can you describe what she was wearing when she left your apartment?" Detective Esposito asks.
"Yeah, sure," Rick says. "She was wearing grey jeans with a blue button down shirt and she also had a black leather jacket with her."
"Thank you," the detective says as he writes the information down. "Is there anything else she told you that might be relevant?"
"She didn't tell me much, but let me think," Rick says, wracking his brain. "No, sorry, nothing comes to mind."
"Okay, thank you for your help, Mr. Castle," Detective Esposito says and they start to turn around and make their way to the door.
"Wait!" Rick says and the two detectives turn around with hopeful looks on their faces. "Is there anything I can do to help? I have money, I can…" He tries to come up with something he could do to help but comes up empty.
"We appreciate your concern, sir, but you should leave it to the professionals," Detective Esposito tells him. Rick hangs his head in disappointment but realizes that they're already doing everything they can. As he lets them out Detective Ryan hands him a business card.
"If you remember anything else, please give us a call," he says. Rick nods and wishes them luck with their investigation. He closes the door and heads into the kitchen. He picks up the travel mug and stares at it. What if they can't find her? Kate Beckett. At least he knows her name now. Truthfully, he'd rather not know her name and still be oblivious to the possible danger she's in.
He shakes himself out of it and places the travel mug back in the cupboard. He then makes his way back into his office and reboots his laptop. He opens an empty document and starts to write down what he knows about her. He writes down every word he can remember falling from her lips, writes down every move he remembers her making, every sound. He wonders where she went after she left his loft that morning, writes every idea down. Did she take the subway or a cab? Or did she walk? Did she go straight to the twelfth precinct, or did she stop by her apartment first? Or did she go by the bar to pick up her car first?
The possibilities are too great to investigate on his own. He goes over his notes from the night before again and again, but they don't change. They don't contain any information the fifth time that they didn't contain the first time he read them. He wracks his brain, tries to remember anything else she told him. Anything at all.
The alarm on his phone reminds him that he should pick up Alexis. Not for the first time he's grateful for that alarm. He would've forgotten to pick up his daughter many times if it wasn't for the alarm on his phone. He would simply get lost in his own world and lose track of time. He double-saves his work to think about it later and goes to pick up his daughter and spend the rest of the day with her.
Alexis running towards him helps him put away any lingering pondering going on in his mind about where Kate Beckett might be.
"Hi, Pumpkin! How was school?" he asks as he envelops her in a hug.
"Good! I asked Ms. Ashley and she thinks it's a great idea to make a model of the solar system!" the girl squeaks.
"Awesome!" he grins and he holds up his hand for a high-five. He leads her to his car and helps her get in. He makes sure her seatbelt is on before starting the car.
