Sorry for the wait for this chapter. I'd been having a hint of writer's block for the past few days, but I'd like to thank you all for liking this story and reviewing and etc. It really puts a smile on my face.

So, here is the fourth chapter. This will reveal one person who's working with her mother's killer and, since I haven't mentioned it before I guess I will now so you guys get a free spoiler if some of you aren't caught up with the season 5 premier. This story will keep with the person behind her mother's murder, but it will spread the network of who was in on it and who wasn't.

Disclaimer: Once again, Castle and anything affiliated with the show does not belong to me, nor to I pretend it does.

XOXO

Seeing how great the grief was on Henry Sage's face made her flinch from her place in the observation room. It hit too close to the look on Castle's face when she had been shot; how close to tears he was, how desperate he was to keep her with him, how his voice had cracked when he said he loved her. It hurt her, so she was a little glad that Gates had taken her at least from the interrogation, claiming she was too close to the murder even though she hadn't seen Miranda in 12 years.

"You alright?" Castle asked quietly, coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist.

Kate leaned back into his chest and nodded, pulling his arms closer around her, "I think," she muttered, biting her lip and seeing the hint of their reflection in the two way mirror.

"What's wrong?" he asked, settling his chin on her shoulder.

Kate turned to look at him smiling slightly and nuzzling her nose against his, "I keep thinking…about that day. He...he reminds me…reminds me of you. How you looked when I was…when I was…well, you know," she muttered, feeling her face heat up. She didn't want to remind him of that day, they had actually made an agreement to never mention that day again, but here was the reminder. The second reminder really. The PTSD hadn't been so bad, or at least she'd tried to make him think it wasn't, but she knew he could see past it. See the pain and the fear in her eyes when she would wake up in the middle of the night at times, her body slick with sweat and her clothes sticking to her skin as her heart beat wildly in her chest and her breath came in short gasps. For a few moments after she would wake up, she was still in the dream until she felt Castle wrap his arms around her and hold her to him, whispering over and over that she was safe, that he was there, and that it was alright. It wasn't really the promises that calmed her down but his voice. It was the greatest means of calming her than the psychiatrist that Gates had ordered her to see the day after she was released from the hospital.

Castle nodded and nuzzled against her neck, "Yeah, that wasn't my finest hour. I'm just glad you made it out alright. I can't tell you how relieved I was when the doctor came out and told us that you would be alright."

"Yeah, I'm a bit relieved about that too," she said, hoping to make him laugh and smiling when it did.

When Esposito and Ryan walked into the room, they both went silent and listened to the interrogation. It was the normal things, asking where he was, why he was seen fleeing from the crime scene, and if there had been any fights between the two lately.

Henry Sage was adamant to say that he had loved Miranda completely and that he hadn't even gone to the apartment before hearing something and running, but that was when it got interesting. "The thing was, though, the guy caught up with me. I don't know how, but he did," he told them.

Esposito and Ryan exchanged a look before going with the thread, "Did you know him?" Ryan asked, opening to a blank page in his notebook to write down the name.

He would be disappointed, though. "I didn't know him, but I can describe him."

The partners quickly picked up on that and asked him to describe the guy as best he could: five foot seven, Caucasian, looking about early to mid thirties. The guy had black hair that at the time was sticking to his face due to sweat, and was wearing medical scrubs.

Kate straightened and felt Castle stiffening behind her. They both knew exactly who it was. And, from the look on Ryan and Esposito's faces, they did too. Kate turned to Castle and silently begged with her eyes before he nodded and she stepped away from him, grabbing her phone and looking through the photos that she still had, but hadn't looked at since the breakup.

She quickly stepped from one room to the other and pulled up a chair next to Henry Sage, "Mr. Sage," she said as she got the picture she was looking for, "is this the man you met?" she asked.

Henry looked at the picture and nodded after only a few seconds, "Yeah, that's him. That's the guy."

Kate nodded and quickly left the room, hugging Castle tightly when she saw him and felt him wrap his arms around her waist, "I…do you think…?" she couldn't find it in herself to finish the sentence. It hurt too much that someone she had put the effort into for a relationship would do this. Would possibly be connected to this case. It was just…it was crazy.

"I don't know, Kate. I don't know," he muttered, holding her closer.

Kate nuzzled her head into his chest, closing her eyes as she tried not to think of everything that could not only connect him to this murder but also her mothers. She knew there was only a slight connection between the two, the only thing really being that Miranda had worked with her mother, but she couldn't help but wonder if there was something bigger than just a slight connection.

After taking a deep breath, she stepped away from him and looked around the break room before spotting the cappuccino maker. She really needed coffee right now.

LINE BREAK

Esposito and Ryan were treating her as if she were going to burst at any moment. Like they expected her to go off and scream at the top of her lungs and punch something.

Finally, somewhere near lunch time, she turned to them after having felt their gazes on the back of her neck, "What the hell, guys?" she snapped, turning on her heel to glare at them with a raised eyebrow, one hand on her hip. The two knew that look well. It was her 'no bullshit' look and they had been at the end of it multiple times, but this one was more meaningful it seemed. They knew she had no affection for Josh other than as an ex-boyfriend, but she would still feel hurt. This was someone she had put her trust and time into. Someone that she had, as all three knew, trusted as a safer option than a certain mystery writer and had tried to make their relationship work even when her heart wasn't fully into it.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Beckett. Do you, Espo?" Ryan asked, giving his partner a look that clearly said to tell her a flat out lie. That they weren't worried about her with this new betrayal.

Kate sighed and closed her eyes for a second, "Guys," she said, pulling her chair up to them and leaning forward so their conversation wasn't overheard, "I understand you're worried, thanks by the way, but…I can't focus on it much. I have to be able to pin this on Josh, we have to arrest him, and then have to get a confession from him. I can't think about the fact that my ex is behind this and that it feels like…like an old friend betrayed me." She waited for them to show their acknowledgment of her words and when they nodded, she went on, "I don't feel anything for him anymore in the way I thought I had, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt a little. If anything, like I said before, this only feels like a friend's betrayal. So stop treating me like a coddled little child. I'll be fine," she promised.

Ryan and Esposito both looked a little sorry for it, but nodded, "Sorry," they said simultaneously.

Kate nodded and stood up again, "So, we have a statement from Henry Sage telling us that Josh was there, I have Lanie looking over Miranda's body to see if there was any DNA evidence he was there, but did any of you call to ask him in?" she asked, turning to them. She silently begged every entity she knew of that one of them had reached out to him. She didn't want to make this call herself.

Esposito nodded, "Yeah, I tried to call, but he wasn't there. I tried his cell phone, but he didn't pick that one up either," he explained.

She could feel her previously tense body relax and smiled, "Now we wait, I guess," she told them, looking over the murder board to see if she could find anything else to link Josh to the murder until Lanie came back with the results.

Castle came in twenty minutes later, having been on a lunch run for them, and the minute he sat down, her phone rang. "Hello?" she asked immediately, feeling her heart pound in her chest.

"Hey, it's me." Lanie said, "I went over Ms. Smith's body again and tried to get any indication of what the murder weapon could be as well as to see if Doctor Motorcycle Boy," Lanie and Kate both laughed a little at Castle's much used nickname for Josh, "and…well, Kate…"

"Lanie, just give me the news," she begged.

Ryan and Esposito both rolled over to the desk, exchanging a worried look with Castle as they waited with baited breath for the news they knew was coming.

Kate didn't say anything as Lanie delivered her update, but they saw the color flush out of her face, turning her as white as a sheet. She nodded, thanking Lanie with a barely contained quiver in her voice, and hung up the phone. Kate leaned back in her chair and bit her lip, crossing her arms. Her eyes were glazed over, but they could see the threat of tears and see her lip quivering. It was the final nail in the coffin.

"He did it," she told them, her voice barely above a whisper, "he…he killed Miranda and…and he used…he used…"

"It was the same knife, wasn't it?" Castle asked gently.

Kate turned to him and nodded, breathing in deeply, "Not the same one, but one like it," she explained. When Ryan and Esposito asked her for an explanation, she then turned to them and took a deep breath, "Josh used the same knife, or a knife that was similar, to the one that killed my mother."

She was given shocked looks, slack jaws, and utter silence as her reply

A/N: This is not my shipping even the tiniest bit of Josh/Beckett's relationship. This is just my way of trying to write how she would feel if someone she had put the time and effort into being with betrayed her. I repeat, this is by no means showing Kate having any leftover feelings for Josh.

Just thought I'd clear that up XOXO