Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or any of its contents.

Chapter 2

True to her word, Beckett got to the crime scene in just under twenty minutes. It was an abandoned warehouse; 'of course it is' she thought to herself. She saw a few officers and CSU staff flitting in and out of the door of the structure and a few curious onlookers who stopped by due to the ever intriguing yellow tape.

Kate crossed over to the crime scene by ducking under one of these said tapes just as Esposito made his way to her. Ryan followed close behind ready with a small note-pad in one hand and pen in the other. "What have we got today boys?" she asked, before they had a chance to talk.

"Hello to you too boss. The victim is a Mr. James Wilkins, 55 year old Caucasian male, running an incredibly successful company. He has two kids, one is doctor currently working abroad and the younger one, Ms. Maurice Wilkins, just graduated from Stanford-law. He had his wallet on him, that's how we got our identity. Face matches the driver's license … except for one minor detail." Esposito finished, as they made their way to the victim.

She took in all the information and was about to ask him more questions until she finally set her eyes on the victim. He was tied at his arms, waist and legs to the chair. His head hung close to his chest. Most gruesome of all, he was surrounded by a pool of blood – most likely the blood that dripped from the sites where both his hands were chopped off at the wrists.

This fact was confirmed by Lanie who was squatting by the body to examine it.

"Hey Kate. I suppose Javi has filled you in with the details about the victim before I had the chance to." She said as she cast a glance to Esposito who was standing next to Kate.

Kate's eyes darted between her friends and she did not miss the small smile each had on, or the fact that Lanie was referring to Esposito as Javi again. "Yeah, he filled me in about the vic. But he said something about his face." Kate said as she directed her question towards Esposito. "What minor detail Espo?"

Ryan did the honors as he had just finished putting on gloves. He moved closer to the body and lifted his head for all to see. There it was, right in the center of his forehead. It was some sort of symbol that was etched into the man's skin. It looked like it had been brandished there by a hot metal, quite like livestock branding. The symbol looked like a plus sign enclosed by a perfect circle. Ryan let the head down once he thought Beckett had good look at it. He caught the slightly shocked expression of his boss and was about to ask her what he thought when-

-"That is so cool!" Castle said from his place behind Beckett.

She jumped ever so slightly, having been so preoccupied with her thoughts on the symbol. Castle handed her her daily dose of caffeine and held on to the paper bag which probably had some breakfast for them.

He continued on "Back when I was writing Storm, I'd done research on several symbols and their uses in different cultures and sects. I think I remember seeing something similar to this one. It has something to do with Pagan beliefs or was it the Druids? I can't remember, oh maybe it–"

Before he could say more Beckett cut him off, saying "Okay Castle. It might be useful to read about it. Could you bring in your research later today so we can look into it? Until then though, we should concentrate more on the evidence to try and get something on this sick perp. Do we have any leads guys?"

Castle looked stunned and she wondered why that was for a moment. But he quickly looked away as he started typing diligently into his phone.

Ryan replied, "CSU still has to finish up over here, but so far no finger prints at least."

Beckett saw that Lanie had taken both the wrists into transparent plastic bags and sealed them off for further examination. She asked "Anything I should know about those, Lanie?"

"Yes actually" Lanie said, "Some of the fingers were broken. You can see bruising and swelling around the knuckles and some closer to the finger tips. He was definitely tortured before he was killed but I'll know more when I get him back to the morgue."

"Okay, keep me posted" she told Lanie and then directed back to Ryan and Esposito "Okay guys, canvass the place. If he was tortured someone might've heard something. There's a small chance someone could have been passing the place and overheard or seen anything suspicious. Castle and I will head back to the precinct to look over his research on this symbol. Let me know if you find anything."

With that Castle and Beckett headed towards Kate's car and she took the bag containing her bear claw from him and started at it greedily. "What?" she asked him indignantly on seeing the look he gave her "I'm hungry."

"Clearly", he said, "but that's not it. You're actually taking me seriously? You think this murder has something to do with Pagan beliefs?" He asked her incredulously.

That explained his stunned look from earlier. "I don't know Castle but it might give us an idea about the way our murder is thinking. I just have a feeling about this and he *could* be a psychopath." She replied as she revved the engine and started off towards the precinct.

Little did she know just how right she was.