A/N: Nya Nya...

unbelievable response to the last chapter. some of you are way too invested in fan fic.

OM

Chapter 36

July 1

The after-party had been a bust without Castle. The doorman had told them that 'Mr. Castle is out on the Island at the beach house for the remainder of the summer'. That had definitely put the kibosh to the party.

Natalie Rhodes had been really upset and Montgomery wondered if Castle and the movie star had a relationship in the making. He hoped so. Castle had to move on.

July 2

Roy Montgomery was awakened at 4am on July 2 by a call from the State Police that a vehicle 'assigned' to the 12th Precinct had been involved in a single-vehicle accident with fatalities. The vehicle, a Ferrari, had a DMV notation that it was in use by the 12 Precinct, NYPD.

The caller told Roy everything that was known about the incident believing that the vehicle may have been used in a narcotics sting.

"No, nothing so colorful. In fact, it's been returned to its owner. I'll handle the notifications of Next of Kin. The driver was a part-time consultant for the department."

He called the first person on his 'mental' list, listened to it ring, go to voice mail and hung up. He drank the cup of coffee his wife had made him and tried again. Beckett answered. She'd obviously been asleep.

"Detective Beckett, Richard Castle was killed last night in a single vehicle accident on Long Island. Please accept my condolences."

He hung up. He had nothing more to say to his detective. Not true. He had a lot to say but it would be considered unprofessional and inappropriate if he'd said what he thought.

She was a cold bitch since returning to duty. She didn't even sound disturbed by his 6am phone call. She simply thanked him for his courtesy and hung up.

Lanie had been at Esposito's when the Captain's call came. She burst into tears when Javier told what the Captain had said. She vowed never to speak with Kate Beckett again.

Kevin Ryan got up, dressed and went to mass to light a candle for his friend.

No one could find a telephone number for Meredith Rodgers. Neither Paula nor Gina had one. Alexis Rodgers enjoyed her July 4th weekend and looked forward to her dad's visit mid-summer.

The police were unable to identify his female companion. DNA would be sent to the State Lab in Albany. For now, she was simply listed as Jane Doe although the wags in the morgue referred to her as 'Crispy Jane'. It was a holiday weekend and no one much cared about a dead rich drunk or his dead girlfriend.

Jim Beckett's Home

He got up early as was his habit. He turned on the local news channel and listened to the talking heads drone on about the economy, the election, the news from Afghanistan, while he busied himself making coffee and breakfast.

Jim heard the words 'noted author Richard Castle' and stopped what he was doing and turned up the volume and sat down and listened as the commentator almost gleefully described the accident scene and the on-site interviews.

He turned off the TV and called his daughter. There was no answer and that sent up warning flags. She always answered her cell phone.

Jim threw on clothes and grabbed his keys and left. His daughter needed him even if she'd never admit it. She was her mother's daughter and like Johanna, she focused on her goal to the exclusion of almost everything and everyone around her.

Beckett's apartment

It took her by surprise. She was going through her closet to see if she had something appropriate to wear to the funeral when she found his blue shirt on the hanger. She reached for it and brought the shirt up to her face and inhaled his scent, their scent, and she started to cry and couldn't stop.

She heard her phone ring but couldn't possibly answer it. She was lying on her bed, face buried in his shirt and sobbing her heart out. Her therapist had been right all along. She was following in her mother's footsteps, pushing away those who loved her for her Goddamned quest. It ran deeper than simple transference. Far deeper and they'd been making such progress that she finally felt able to talk to him but now…

She cried herself into a dream-wracked sleep and she relived the hospital scene over and over and over…

Phil's Quick Stop
8 miles south of Easthampton

The day manager opened up the store and processed the records for the 'unattended' night shift. The pumps were left on and set to 'credit card only' at 10pm. The amount of business at night didn't justify a clerk.

He noted that there were only two customers all night. The first one had not purchased any fuel. The credit card had been declined. The second, a few minutes later, racked up a substantial purchase. Few people bought the best grade of gasoline, not at these prices, but this guy had purchased 15 gallons of the good stuff.

Curious, he accessed the CCTV video file for the time of purchase and watched as a big man climbed out of a frikken' Ferrari, swiped his card, pumped gas and replaced the hose. Figures. Only the damned 'Rich & Shameless' could afford…

He stopped and keyed in a rewind command and watched again as the man replaced the hose and opened the vehicle door. A young woman approached him and got his attention while a man appeared from nowhere and whacked him in the head from behind with a tire iron and then the two of them kicked the crap out of the guy and then dragged his body off-camera somewhere. A full two minutes later, the pair returned and drove off in the Ferrari.

He called the local cops and told them what he saw on the video. Ten minutes later, the parking lot was full of police vehicles and news vans. He was pissed because the cops were drinking all his coffee and not paying for it.

He wasn't dumb though. He copied the video file to disc and sold copies to the TV crews for as much as $400 each.

The police began searching the woods and scrub brush that formed a barrier between the roadway and the beach for a body. Several of them felt that the carjackers had probably taken the body far enough out onto the beahthat the tide would have carried it out to sea.

The Coast Guard was alerted and posted notices to all vessels.

Kate Beckett's apartment

Jim Beckett knocked, then pounded, and finally used his key to open his daughter's apartment door. He found her half-dressed, asleep with her face crushed into a man's blue dress shirt. He could figure the rest out himself.

"Katie, Katie? Wake up, sweetheart. I'll make coffee. We need to talk, okay? No more walls, Katiebug. We have to talk about your mom and how you're destroying everything good in your life for someone who…look, get up, shower and come out when you're ready. I'll make coffee."

"Oh, Daddy, he's dead…Rick's dead and I never got to tell him…I've learned so much…I was ready, Daddy, I really was…" She hugged her father like never before. She hadn't felt this torn and ravaged since her mother died, but this, this was different. She caused this.

Phil's Quick Stop

The Chief of Police of the Village of Easthampton held a press conference. He was in his glory. A high speed chase and a celebrity murder all in the same night! He adopted a solemn mien and addressed the crowd of reporters and cameras.

"Last night at approximately 11:40pm, Mr. Richard Castle, the crime novelist, stopped for gas. After filling his tank he was accosted and beaten with a tire iron and then kicked several times. Closed circuit video shows a man and a woman dragging Mr. Castle's body away. Our police force has combed the area without discovering the victim's body and we must conclude that the murderers dragged the body down to the surf line where it was swept out to sea on the tide."

"It is poetic justice that the two murderers were forced into a high speed chase in excess of 110mph that ended when the driver lost control of Mr. Castle's Ferrari while fleeing my officers, struck a stone retaining wall, careened into an electrical substation and burst into flames."

"The Coast Guard is conducting a search for Mr. Castle's remains. That is all I have."

Lanie called Beckett to make sure she saw the news. She didn't intend to say much, just make sure that she saw the surveillance video, heard the press conference and was going to attend the funeral. What she did intend to do was go over there and kick the shit out of Kate Beckett if she said she wasn't going to bother with the funeral.

When a man answered, she almost hung up. 'Damn her! She's got some man in her apartment!'

"Who the hell is this!" Lanie was about two steps past pissed off and was putting on her shoes in preparation for a trip to give Beckett a well-deserved ass-whoopin'.

"This is Jim Beckett, Kate's father. She's…she's not feeling well and can't come to the phone. Who's this?"

"Mr. Beckett, this is Lanie Parish. I'm the ME over at…"

"I know who you are, Dr. Parish. Kate's spoken highly of you. Look, she's really torn up about Rick's death and I don't want to leave her alone. She's in the shower but when I got here…I really can't leave her alone right now."

"Mr. Beckett, Rick wasn't driving the car. He was carjacked but it looks like they killed him and dragged his body off into the trees beside the beach. The police up there think that the tide washed his body out to sea. I don't know what to think. Those folks up there know their own turf so it's probably what happened. Turn on the news. They're broadcasting it every few minutes it seems."

Jim hung up and turned on Kate's TV and half listened to the broadcast while listening to his daughter cry in the shower.

Kate came out towel drying her hair and sat beside her dad. She'd pulled on jeans and a tank top and was wearing Rick's buttonless shirt over it.

"Who was on the phone, Daddy?" She leaned against him and sipped at her coffee, not really caring.

"Lanie Parish. Katie, Rick wasn't driving the Ferrari. He was carjacked and there's a surveillance video from the gas station but Lanie said it's pretty graphic. The cops up there think they dumped him on the beach and the tide swept the body out to sea. I'm sorry but I don't think you should watch it, honey."

"No! I want – I need to see it. I need to see him. Turn on the TV, Dad. I need to see it."

She held on to her father as she watched the video. Right as Rick's body was pulled by his feet out of camera range she saw something…

"There! Did you see it? Did you? His arm…he wasn't dead. He was alive!" She called Lanie and told her what she'd seen. Lanie told her that it was 'just wishful thinking' and that it didn't mean a damned thing and hung up on her.

She watched as the camera panned across the crowd and zoomed in on the police briefer. "Dad, I know that place! It's a mile down the road from Rick's beach house. It's called…I don't remember but Rick said it was a convenience store 'Hamptons style'."

Her mind was going a mile a minute, weighing the evidence against the hope she felt in her heart. He couldn't be dead. The universe didn't feel empty like it would if he were. She made up her mind and grabbed her keys.

"C'mon, Dad. He's alive and I'm going to find him." Her eyes held a glint of madness but her father knew she had to do this if only to get some sense of closure.

Beach house
July 2

Everything hurt. His head, his ribs, his stomach, his back…almost everything.

He had no idea how he'd managed to get to the beach house, find the spare key hidden in Alexis' artificial 'rock', and make it into bed, but he had.

He was thirsty but just thinking about moving was too much. He woke up several times to vomit up blood and bile, rinse his mouth out, and then crawl back onto the unmade bed. Each trip seemed to take longer than the previous one. The first time was the worst. The blood from his forehead had clotted onto the comforter and when he got up, he tore it open again.

That hurt.

This time he was literally crawling from the bathroom to the bed. Standing was out. As dizzy as he was, standing was a no-no. He'd just fall and hurt himself again. Pulling himself up onto the bed was suddenly an insurmountable task so he just lay there on the floor wishing things had been different.

He was so damned tired. He wanted his mother. He wanted to see Alexis one last time, hear her laugh and see her smile. An image of Beckett sitting at his breakfast nook, her hair all askew, wearing only a smile and his blue buttonless shirt came to mind.

Curling into a ball, he fell asleep again, unaware of the shit storm he'd caused. Even if he'd known, he felt too miserable to care. He wasn't stupid. He knew the signs. He'd been trained. He was bleeding internally. He was dying.