While her boys drove off with the virtual paper bomb in their back seat, Beckett stood in Montgomery's office giving him an update that included the details of their morning meeting with Cowlan. Once finished, Montgomery looked at her, then over at Adam sitting on his sofa, then back to Beckett.

'You two pulled that off.'

'Yes sir,' she replied. 'Adam did a hell of a job, considering how formidable his opponent was.'

'Formidable, hell. I've known Frank Cowlan for a long time and he could make a statue wet his pants.'

'Thank you, Captain,' Adam replied, but I still don't understand what you meant this morning, Beckett, when you said that we got good intel on Mike and Raglan's deaths.'

Beckett pursed her lips gently in a pensive move as she sat down in a chair angled so she would be looking at both her captain and her civilian liaison. There were moments on this case, not often, when she was reminded however much potential Adam had, he hadn't been off the streets and in an investigative position when he'd been forced out.

'You've been keeping up with the case file, correct Adam?'

'Of course.'

'How did Cowlan seem to you this morning?' Beckett asked him conversationally. 'What kind of mood did he strike you as being in?'

'Snotty, condescending, thought he was doing us a great favour just by speaking to us like people.'

'That's part of it. When did he start to crack?'

'When you brought up that Mike was dead. He called it an untenable situation for Christine.' Adam looked to Montgomery. 'I read the file, you've known him a long time. If him and Mike were such good friends, why wasn't he the first one to comfort her when she got word that Mike was dead? Why would she call Raglan instead of her husband's old friend?'

'Those are the questions we have to ask now, Adam, you're one-hundred percent right about that. But he started to crack when you talked about professional misconduct and impropriety.'

'No, he didn't.'

'Yes, he did,' Beckett insisted, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. 'You had your face at your notebook, being the good little civilian reporter who gobbled up what he said as he said it, but he was tense when you asked him that. Why would that be?'

'Because IA raked him needlessly over the coals?'

'If I got the IA screws put to me,' Montgomery commented casually, 'and I'd done nothing to deserve it, I would be feeling irritated and annoyed. As Detective Beckett said, he was tense. He didn't become passionately defensive or annoyed, he put up the walls. What does that tell you?'

'Someone with walls has a secret they don't want others to see?'

'Bingo. So what would you-'

They were interrupted by the ringing of Beckett's cellphone and she saw the Caller-ID flash Home. 'Castle, not now, she started, then blinked as Ryan's voice interrupted her.

'Beckett, change of plans, we are working from here the rest of the afternoon.'

'Detective Ryan? Why are you at my house? Why aren't you here with the records you got from the seven-two?'

'Oh, we got them alright,' Ryan said in a tight but all-knowing tone. 'And believe me, you're going to want to see what the hell we found. Bring the captain and Adam too.'

'Sure you don't want me to stop for pizza and beer so my house guests won't go hungry?'

'Funny girl. Just get here, Kate. You need to be here.'

'Very well.'

Beckett hung up, then looked at them both, a coldness creeping into her fingers and toes that had nothing to do with the blasted January chill. 'The boys found something, and it must be big because they've requested we work from my home for the remainder of the afternoon. Your presence was requested as well, sir.'

'My presence was requested, by two second-grade detectives,' Montgomery said slowly, then blinked, remembered what had happened several years prior with Angela Doran's death, how the boys had requested home office meetings for that one as well. 'I can only give you an hour, Detective, as I do have other people working under my watch.'

'That should be sufficient, I think sir.'

'And if we're working from your home office,' he added, rising to get his overcoat, 'I think we'll do better than pizza and beer for cop fuel, Detective.'

When she arrived home, Beckett was hit with two things - the scent of Meredeth's home-cooking and the sound of her children's voices in the living room. She glanced over and saw the Ry-Sposito monster cozily ensconced by the fireplace, Esposito sitting with RJ on his knee and Ryan walking around the coffee table with Jojo clutching his index fingers.

'I'm sorry, I thought we were cops, not babysitter,' she said tersely, so it would stop the bleeding over of this nightmare into her home life, her children's lives. It was not to be when her little girl looked up and grinned, redirected Ryan so she was tugging him along behind her as she motored over to give her mother a welcome home hug.

'Mumum home! Why home? Niffy?'

'No, sweetheart.' Beckett crouched down and felt Jojo's little arms wrap around her neck, squeeze tight. 'I'm not sniffly.'

'No, Jojo, it's because Mumum and Adam and Dete'tive Ryan and Dete'tive Esposito have found something big and importan', and they can't risk letting the bad guys know about it,' RJ replied with such clarity that Beckett wanted to kiss her little boy a million times. 'Right Dete'tive Esposito?'

'That's exactly right, RJ.' Esposito held out his fingertips and he fed the birds with RJ, then put him on his feet. 'Your man's in his office, saving his Smart board for us to use today.'

'And while he's fussing with that, you're going to eat and talk,' Meredeth added from the kitchen. 'You're getting beef and bean enchiladas, or if you're a veggie-saurus, just bean.'

'First, I want to know what is going on,' Beckett demanded, releasing Jojo and standing up straight to pull off her winter gear. 'Why are we doing this from home, why not with the resources of the NYPD?'

'RJ, Jojo, cover your ears,' Esposito instructed them; when they'd complied, he turned to Beckett. 'Because we found a huge fucking landmine, that's why Kate. You were right, about Moore being the link, but this...this goes way deeper than an appeals case for a wrongly imprisoned man.'

'You've looked at the files?'

'Briefly, but even if we hadn't, one surface look at this and you know it's all kinds of wrong,' Ryan assured her.

'Can I uncover my ears, please?' RJ asked, looking at the grown-ups. He knew it was a very serious grown-up thing they were talking about related to his mother's work, and he knew from the look on his mother's face she needed a hug. 'Please?'

'Yeah, buddy, sorry.' Esposito took his little wrists and gently lowered his hands.

RJ slipped off of the man's lap and went over to his mother, gave her a hug around the hips. 'You are the best, you always catch the baddies. I love you.'

'I love you too, RJ.'

Meredeth appeared then out of the kitchen, as did Castle from his office; the former came over and took Jojo into her arms, jerked her head at RJ. 'Come on, big bro, why don't we head upstairs and find Max Power?'

'Mass, Mass, Mass,' Jojo chirped. 'Ah-Shay?'

'I'm coming, Jojo, it's naptime, isn't it?'

With the babies safe and sound and out of the way, Beckett went into the living room and stared at her men; Castle was there too now. 'Okay, what did you find that is so earth-shattering we have to work from home on it?'

Esposito and Ryan merely exchanged a look and pulled up two file boxes and put them on the table. The sight of them had Beckett's eyes engorging to the size of flying saucers.

'Have you gone completely fucking insane,' she started but cut herself off when Castle put his hand on her shoulder.

'Let the boys talk, Kate.'

'I don't-'

'Kate.' Esposito looked at her with his soulful brown eyes. 'He's right, we need to show you this in its entirety.'

'You told us to look for the boxes dated eight-seven-ninety-seven,' Ryan explained, 'but we couldn't decipher if you meant August seventh or July eighth so we grabbed them both and found this.'

He and Esposito lifted the lids on their boxes and pulled out the files. 'All of these are labeled with the same file number, but there is multiple names on it. Not just Roman Moore but Matthew Montrose, and Timo Ross and Angela Doran, and the three people murdered by Dick Coonan before your mother...'

Ryan looked up at Adam. 'And a file on Jarrad Brennan, too.'