After the canvass of the shooter's building - as predicted, they found nothing usable the CSU had overlooked - Esposito had called it a night but Beckett went back to the Twelfth. She'd seen the name Montrose pop up in the conversation between Cowlan and Raglan, and the chorus of 'what if's' had been circling in her brain since.

When she reached Homicide, she nearly bumped into sturdy Julian, the desk officer, walking past with his nose buried in the latest Nikki Heat.

'Good read, isn't it?' she asked, and he grinned.

'Hard to put down. You got a visitor.'

Beckett glanced past Juilian's considerable frame, saw Lanie was sitting in Castle's chair, also reading Nikki Heat. 'Was my hubby here handing out copies?'

'No, sir, Detective.' Julian paused, flashed a mischievous grin. 'He had a box of them sent over this morning when you were locked in with paper work on the Raglan deal. All proceeds go to the survivor's fund.'

Beckett shook her head as she went over to her desk, patted her friend's shoulder. 'You need to come up for air, Lanie?'

'Hey, girl!' Lanie marked her page with a metal bookmark clip and tucked it into her bag. As she was in her flat winter boots, when she rose to hug Beckett, she came up shorter than usual. 'Tough couple of days, huh?'

'They going to get tougher yet.'

'So, did you want to go the boy-suck-over-martinis route or at-home-with-red-meat-and-wine?'

'The second one.'

'Okay.' Ever a patient one - Lanie had to be to mother three children under ten and stay sane - she picked up her bag and looped her arm through Beckett's. 'If your hubby is there, we can talk about the other stuff now.'

'Not now. In the car. I have to Lanie, it's...I have to.'

Lanie gave her the space she needed to get her thoughts together. She remembered the torture she'd gone through when she'd learned she was pregnant with Carey, her decision to keep it from all her friends except for Ryan for as long as she did. It was the reason she never judged Beckett in her decisions regarding her mother's case, because she knew what it was like to not want to discuss things she wasn't ready to discuss.

'You're driving,' she informed her friend, and tossed her the keys.

Lanie caught the keys. 'I'm an employee of the OCME, not the NYPD, am I allowed to do that?'

'Yes, as this officer feels that her current emotional condition means she is not to be trusted behind the wheel.'

Lanie lifted her eyebrows, but said nothing, just got behind the wheel, and adjusted the seat and mirrors for her diminutive stature.

The moment the door to her Crown Vic was closed, Beckett let it spill. 'Lanie, I...I don't know how to tell you what your friendship means to me, how you're always there for me even when I try to shit on it or snap or bitch or whatever, and I feel so horrible that this huge thing is about to explode in my life again and I'm not letting you in.'

'Katie, I understand sweetie. I do. I tried to shove a lot of people out of my life when I was pregnant with Carey.'

'This isn't the same, Lanie,' Beckett said as she turned over the engine.

'No, it's not, but I know that you're feeling scared and alone, like if you tell people it's real and there's nothing you can do to stop it. And you wake up in cold sweaty panic every night wondering if you're doing the right thing. If you've felt even one of those things, then I understand.'

Beckett watched Lanie brake at a red-light on Thirty-Eighth, chewed her thumbnail. 'God, Lanie. I am an awful friend. An excellent cop, but I am a seriously horrible friend.'

'No, you're not.' Lanie reached over, squeezed her friend's shoulder.

'Light's green.'

The doctor gently accelerated, debated on what she should tell Lanie. A quick glance at her friend's profile, so calm and serene as she turned onto West Fourteenth street, and Beckett knew she would hate herself forever if she didn't take the hard road on this one.

'Lanie, Raglan's death is linked to my mother's. The same with Mike Doran, the same with Angela Doran and Timo Ross, and another cop's death. They're all connected.'

'I figured Raglan was, the way he died. No one gets randomly picked off by a sniper.'

'Are you forgetting the oh-three Beltway sniper?'

'Okay, bad example. How are they linked?'

'They...god, I don't know how much I can say without breaking every last rule of being a cop I promised to uphold.'

'Katie.' Lanie turned soulful brown eyes to her friend, eyes that had begun to fill up. 'I won't ask that of you.'

'But I have to ask that of myself, I can't let her death swallow me whole again and the way I do that is by telling my friends about my emotions. I have to keep my people in my life, all of it,' she said, punctuating her words by karate-chopping the dashboard with the blade of her hand. 'Or else, why the hell am I fighting so hard?'

'You fight because you are Kate Beckett, and she is a fighter. Her mother taught her that, and her father.'

'God, my dad!' Beckett looked at Lanie in horror. 'I haven't even called my dad!'

'I'm sure he will understand.'

'But he's one of my people, I should have told him.'

'Kate, you will, when the time is right.'

'I can't suck him back in to, can't risk everything he's built up for himself again. He's sober, fourteen years sober, and he has a relationship with a woman he loves, he's got a son-in-law, a grandson-in-law, grandchildren, maybe great grandchildren soon. He's got his life back and I don't want him to lose it again because I wasn't good enough to catch these bastards in their own trap.'

She was rambling, and a rational part of her knew that too but her heart was in charge for the moment and Lanie, God bless her, was letting her get it all out. 'If I want to catch them, I have to be the best, and if I'm drowning in my own self-pity, all these choking emotions, there's no way I can be the best.'

'Now you're just talking nonsense girl.' Lanie shook her head sternly. 'Look, we're almost here.'

'Good.'

As Beckett had turned the colour of day-old porridge, Lanie was glad it didn't take much to park and get her friend inside. The moment they opened the door to the loft, Castle was there in a flash.

'Hey, I didn't know you were coming by, Lanie,' he said, as he watched his wife walk in like a zombie.

'Kate needed some girl time, so I drove her home and she started telling me about the Raglan case.' Lanie told him what Beckett had told her, and both watched their friend walk a few more steps then stop in her tracks.

'Yeah.' Beckett looked around the loft like she was inside an alien spacecraft before her troubled eyes landed on her husband. 'I told her all this shit about my feelings, and then what's left for you Rick? Where are the kids?'

'Shane Shane came and took the kids tonight to spend with him and Alexis.'

'Right. You told me that and I couldn't even remember it. I'm a bad mother.'

'No, Kate,' Lanie gasped, genuinely shocked she would say such a thing. 'No, you aren't!'

'I'm a horrible friend, a selfish wife and a bad mother. And...and...'

Castle watched as Beckett turned to face him, his expression patient and loving, and she crumbled; her face was first and then her body as she began to sob hot bitter tears of frustration. She sank to her knees and he was there, holding her and pulling her close. He felt her buck against him which only made him hold her even tighter.

'I can't do this again and be wrong, Rick,' she wept against his shoulder.

'You're not. You are going to win.'

'At what cost?'

'Hey look at me.' Castle cupped her face in his hands, stared into her eyes. 'You are a wonderful friend, a great wife and you are an amazing mother. You are all of those things because you are extraordinary, and you are going to win.'

'Here.' Lanie frowned in thought, then dug into her purse, rooting around until she found what she wanted. 'Want a lollipop?'

Beckett looked up, saw Lanie had found two Chuppa-Chupps Minis in her bag and was holding them out to her. 'A lollipop?'

'Finn loves them. Carey gave him one when he bumped his knee once, and Carey told him you can't be sad with a lollipop after his tears had dried. Want to test his theory?'