It helped, the lovemaking with her husband, for it reminded Beckett no matter how much of a fuck-up she felt like on the job, even on her worst day there would always be someone there in her corner, ready to help her dust herself off and get up for the next round.

She lay on top of him, still joined with him in their bed, and listened to his heart race like a thoroughbred at Belmont.

'Now,' she told Castle. 'Now it's okay.'

He nodded and spread his wide hands over her back, felt her shudder as the confused jumble of emotions worked through her heart and mind and came out her eyes. 'Normally, it's rather off putting to a man when a woman weeps in his arms after sex.'

'Rick, now is not the time for your stupid jokes,' she said on a water laugh.

'I said 'normally'. When you are married and your wife needs a good cry, you don't think twice about it. Feel better?'

'Body, yes. Good sex always tunes the system up.'

'And what about here and here?' Castle nudged her up so he could tap between her breasts, tap a finger against her temple.

'Here, is scared to death.' Beckett pointed to her heart. 'This doesn't want to let my mother or Jarrad Brennan down. And this-' she patted the top of her head '-is trying to calculate the next move for Ryan and Espo and Adam.'

She blew out a breath. 'What if we're right, that his father was murdered because of what he knew?'

'Then catching them will bring Adam closure as much as it will you. You lost your mom in ninety-nine when you were, what twenty-one?'

'Almost twenty-two.'

'He was only twenty-four, not that big a difference.'

'Still to young to lose a parent,' Beckett sighed. 'I need to get up, run a few numbers'

'You're not going anywhere, unless you're getting one of those leftover paninis from Meredeth.'

'Castle I need-'

'To get some rest so you can live to fight another day,' he finished for her, rolled them so they were lying side-by-side. 'Ever notice when you are irritated with me, you still call me Castle?'

Beckett gave a little laugh, then felt her stomach gurgle. 'Sex does tend to work up the appetite.'

'How about you guys get a shower and I'll take care of a snack?'

'You guys?'

'Yeah, you and the voices in your head trying to muddle through the problem.' Castle grinned when she gave him a shove that put his on his back. 'That a yes or a no?'

Beckett simply kissed him and got out of bed to find a towel. 'When I get out of there, I better smell crispy bread and olive oil.'

JANUARY 4TH

'How's Meredeth doing? Has it triggered any night terrors?'

'No, she's rock solid.'

Esposito ran his palm over his smooth scalp as he stepped off the elevator with Ryan into the Homicide bullpen, saw Beckett through the wire-mesh wall. 'How do you think she slept last night?' he asked his partner.

'Too soon to tell. Ask in a week.'

They dropped their file bags on their desk chairs, saw Beckett staring at her murder board; neither was surprised to see her already there though it was six in the morning.

'Boys, hope you're ready to burn your corneas.'

'Why?'

'Adam will have phone transcripts for these calls by nine this morning.' Beckett pointed to the list of calls from Christine to Mike and Christine to Raglan. 'We are going through them with a fine-tooth comb. Meanwhile, we are also going to get into Raglan's financial information and look for overlap.'

Ryan fidgeted on the spot a little. 'So why are we here two hours before start of shift?'

'Because Detective Ryan, we are going to look through the Jarrad case notes to see if there was any previous overlap in Raglan and Doran's paths. We are going to alternate it in rotating pairs so as not to arouse suspicion until eight am when we go off skeleton crew.' Beckett pulled the copies from her own file bag. 'Who wants to go first?'

Fifteen minutes later, Beckett was sitting with Ryan in the conference room where they shared a pot of strong coffee and a plate of breakfast pastries from The Salamander. It made the task of paperwork only marginally less painful, but then this was the subtext to the Doran/Raglan homicide. Every little thing counted.

'You got anything yet, Ryan?'

'Maybe.'

His positive answer had Beckett sitting up a little straighter. 'What did you find?'

'This, it's dated about six weeks after your mother was found in that alley, he makes a note how he noticed Raglan making frequent trips to the Narc bureau, and the records room at the Seventy-Second.'

'The records room?'

'Yeah, Jarrad went to the records room himself and lifted the log book when the officer on duty wasn't looking, made photocopies.' Ryan shuffled through his copies of the Jarrad Brennan file until he came across the paper.

Beckett looked at the paper he handed her, saw the too-frequent recurrence of their names at the same time. She felt the tingle at the bottom of her neck. 'Now why would narco and homicide need to go that often to the records room unless they were looking for something specific they couldn't find.'

'That makes the most sense, unless...'

'Unless what?'

'Unless they were doctoring records,' Ryan ventured cautiously. 'Why else would they need to keep a lid on things. Didn't a couple of files go missing around the time of your mother's murder?'

'Uh-huh.' Beckett pulled out the book where she'd condensed every last note, thought or idea about her mother's case into a thick, cohesive file. 'Regarding a drug-dealer named Roman Moore, according to my own notes about her...her death.'

Ryan felt the pinch in her voice as easily as if she'd reached over and grabbed the flesh of his biceps between her fingers. Some days it was just way to hard to use certain words when talking about a deceased loved one. His own mother had never used the word 'funeral' when talking about her father's death, she'd always called it 'services', and Beckett was on the same track now. Of course, Ryan wasn't about to begrudge her whatever she needed in that regard; whatever it took to keep her on track with this case.

'Is it possible it was his case she was looking into with her colleagues that were also killed by Rathbone? The documents clerk, the NFP lawyer and her former law student?'

'Maybe.' Beckett dug into her file bag, came up with the second spiral notebook she'd started ever since they'd taken custody of the contents of the Brennan safety deposit box. She knew it was more time consuming to do it this way but there would be no risks taken of files being electronically altered or digitally erased.

She flipped to a fresh page and turned the book sideways to begin making a map of connections. Under one heading she wrote the names of her mother's colleagues - Diane Cavannaugh, Jennifer Stewart and Scott Murray. She bracketed their names together, then wrote 'Roman Moore, drug dealer' and arrows going back and forth between them with the words how/why linked?

There was a knock on the door and after lifting her head to see it was Esposito, she waved him in as she wrote on a post-it note. 'Adam here yet?'

'No, not yet. How goes it in here?'

'We're looking into the possibility of some records being altered by Doran and Raglan in the records room of the Seventy-Second just after my mother's death.'

'And no-one thought to invite me?' Esposito pulled up a chair, turned back the cuffs of his natty dress shirt. 'What's the deal?'

Ryan got him up to speed, adding on something else he'd found. 'There's also this. Jarrad Brennan noted how he went back over some old files he'd been involved with, drug busts mostly since the Seventy-Second was and is principally a narc-house, and that Mike Doran always seemed to have the hot tips about where the major busts were going down, and we're talking multiple kinds of product, weapons, the whole giddy-up.'

'Curiouser and curiouser,' Beckett murmured as she made more notes, then set down her pen to look at her Detectives. 'And we know Mike had a hand in the death of his star drug-cop Timo Ross, which makes me think all kinds of things.'

'What's the move?' the Ry-Sposito monster chorused, watching Beckett's wheels turn; they could almost hear the tick-tick clockwork of her mind as it deliberated.

'We keep going here until Adam gets in, and as soon as he has the phone and financial records, we go to Fuqua to start looking at any old cases where Raglan and Doran worked together.'