Chapter Twenty Two: Is hell still beneath me? Or am I already there?
Back in the bullpen Kate begins to put together the murder board for Detective Ethan Slaughter, and as she carefully draws a timeline and begins to fill in the sparse details they have at present her brain is whirling with images of Castle during that case.
It was a tough period for their partnership – the toughest period if she's being completely honest with herself. Even when they started out, when Castle was this insanely annoying smart-ass playboy she truly didn't want on her heels – even then they were more in sync than the awful weeks both preceding and post his jaunt with Slaughter.
Kate closes her eyes and remembers just how excruciatingly confused she was that entire time. How she didn't dare to look very closely at what might have caused the disconnect between them because she already knew, knew way down deep in her soul that somehow it was her fault and that she was breaking him.
It had been so much easier to focus on his willful, down right 'jackass' behavior than it had been to focus on what she'd done, and what she hadn't done as being the root causes of it all.
After they'd resolved things she hadn't wanted to look back, but there have been times when she's done it anyway and been forced to conclude that she came within hours of losing him forever as he worked one last case with her before he'd determined to walk away.
Breaking that zombie case had thankfully, finally turned things around. Castle had called her indirectly on her lies and she'd indirectly explained herself and they'd mutually agreed to keep trying. Things had gotten better from there.
But now there's this.
Now it comes back, now it all comes back.
Now somehow she's paying for her mistakes - being haunted by them.
Why didn't she tell him 'No', why didn't she tell him 'Hell yes this bothers me'. Why didn't she stop it immediately? Why didn't she stop it when he came back to the precinct with a bloody nose? Why didn't she just stop him, and love him and never permit him anywhere near a cop as dangerous and as reckless as Ethan Slaughter?
"You have to stop doing this you know." Esposito's voice is soft and directly in her right ear, and Beckett's eyes fly open. She turns towards him startled, a guilty expression all over her lovely face.
She steps back and chews on her lip out of habit, avoids Espo's eyes and tries to put him off by pretending she doesn't understand his meaning.
"Stop what? Putting the murder board together?" she says defensively.
The Latino detective shoots her a glare.
"And don't play dumb with me," he says sharply.
Kate sighs and her shoulders sag slightly.
"I'm sorry," she mumbles, "I'm trying not too, but I can't seem to help it."
Esposito steps closer and then apparently thinks better of it, choosing to take a step back and seat himself on the edge of Beckett's desk instead. He crosses his arms and looks at her pointedly, clearly debating with himself how best to approach this.
"We need you on your 'A' game," he says firmly in the end. "Castle needs you focused and not hamstrung, you both screwed up your partnership there for a while Beckett – there is no point in assigning responsibility here."
Kate smiles sadly.
"You don't know the whole story Javi. You don't know the things I put him through," she says.
"I know enough to know that Castle isn't blameless and that if he were here he'd tell you the same thing," he retorts.
He would too. She knows that, she does, she's just overwhelmed by the realization that she's finally unraveling the mystery behind Castle's disappearance and making the unwelcome discovery that she's a highly likely candidate for the blame.
"Seriously," Javi hisses at her, "stop it. We need your direction on this, whatever it takes Kate you have to resist getting mired in regrets right now. Stop thinking about the damage done and focus on this-"
He hands her the framed photo of Castle that she keeps on her desk and her fingers take it – trembling - as she studies her missing lover's handsome, smiling face.
"I want my friend back," he says. "Ryan and I . . . well we need him too."
Kate looks up.
"He's our brother," Javi explains.
Yeah she knows this, Castle would say that as well.
She sighs. "You're right," she says firmly. "I hear you, I hear what you're saying and I'll do better – I will. Just kick me in the shins if you see me getting lost again, okay?"
She expects Esposito to smile and nod, help her move on past the wall of emotions that's swapping her progress but he just looks at her quietly for a long moment and then shakes his head.
"I don't think you are hearing me," he replies.
"Javi . . . "
"No, Beckett. Really stop and think hard about this. Think about what you have in your hands and what you're doing right now."
Frowning, Kate stares at him confused and then she looks down at the black sharpie in her right hand before she transfers her gaze to the photo of Castle in her left – and she gets it, she understands.
The book.
"Heat Lost," she whispers, and then her gaze shoots to Esposito's.
Her partner nods.
"Look Ryan is like mini-Castle, I'll give you that," he says gently. "And God knows he will find it in the end, he'll locate whatever information is in the ending of that book if there's more in it to find, and knowing Castle there must be. But you are Richard Castle's partner Kate. He wrote that book so that you would be able to solve this."
Kate opens her mouth to interrupt but Javier stalls her protest with his hand.
"Look I get that you think you're too close to it. And I know you're second guessing yourself over everything and you think that maybe stepping back a little bit might be better here – but I'm telling you Beckett, you can do this. And in the interests of time and making the best possible use of our resources, you should be letting Ryan and I put together the murder board. Let Ryan and I run Niska's financials and pull the case file from that 'Westie' kid's murder. Finish 'Heat Lost' Beckett – finish it yourself and tell me who to go and slap the cuffs on for Detective Slaughter's murder."
Kate is silent for long moment and Esposito watches her expectantly, his dark eyes never wavering from his study of her face.
"You believe the name of the murderer is revealed in the book?" she asks at length.
Javier nods. "I do," he says, "and I honestly think all we actually need to do to solve this case is figure out the 'whom' from the clues. The rest of this stuff – the ballistics and the autopsy etc - that's just the evidence Kate, it's the tangible back-up we need to make an actual arrest stick. But the answer itself – I just believe that in the book Castle has already told you who you're looking for."
Beckett smiles.
She let's Esposito's clear conviction wash through her and settle slowly into her marrow, lets his belief become a part of her. It silences the nagging doubts and the self-recriminations and she realizes with a start that though the words themselves are coming from Javier, it feels more like Rick is speaking to her.
Because in the end, it's his faith and his belief in her and her abilities that's enabled him to use a cryptic book as a means of communicating with them all in the first place – without the book they'd be nowhere and have nothing.
But they do still need evidence.
"Okay," she says.
Esposito smiles back. "Okay?"
"Yes," she replies, "Okay I get it. Okay you're right. Okay I'm listening. Call Ryan and find out where he is with Niska's financials and then pull him off of the manuscript to pull that 'Glitch' kids murder file instead. Oh, and while you're at it get him to check that the kid's father is still in jail. I can't imagine he beat that murder rap but the Westies have both money and connections so maybe he managed to weasel out of it somehow."
"On it. Anything else?"
Kate nods. "Finish setting up the timeline of Slaughter's murder and check back - see if Lanie has heard anything more from Ballistics yet."
"Will do," Esposito replies. Before he turns to go and hunt down Ryan he pushes Kate down into the seat behind her desk and tugs her copy of the 'Heat Lost' manuscript in front of her.
"Read," he says softly and with affection. "Just read Kate."
Her fingers dance over the papers and Beckett flips to her last bookmarked place, and settling back into her chair she does as she's bid.
This time around though she permits herself the luxury of getting lost inside Castle's narrative until her desk fades away, and the sounds of the bullpen around her fade away, and the totality of her existence becomes his words on the page before her and his latest adventure for Nikki is all that fills her mind.
The original four homicides that began the book have gone stone cold for Nikki and her team. Dead end after dead end as every person with known ties to each victim proves to be innocent when they successfully alibi out.
'Roach' manage to find a single phone connection however, as a burner phone purchased by Melanie Cavanaugh two days before her murder has calls logged to another burner phone purchased the same day by the fourth victim - Tracey McGrath.
Beyond that single piece of proof that one victim from each of the two double homicides did know each other (even though they would appear not too), beyond that, Nikki's got nothing to go on and half the department out with the stomach flu.
It's under these less than ideal circumstances that Nikki and 'Roach' then also get stuck investigating Detective Nathan Butcher's unfortunate demise because no-one else wants to touch it, coerced by Captain Irons himself into putting their other active investigation 'on hold'.
Beckett finds herself silently commiserating with her alter-ego as if it were one of her own cases, but knowing the key to Slaughter's murder must lie within the investigation into Butcher's killing, she also finds herself wishing Nikki and 'Roach' would forgo the pointless bitching and just get on with it.
The gallows humor of it all does however serve to make Kate smile through the paragraphs, and it's comforting in this weird way for her to know that at least within the pages of Castle's novel the death of a highly disliked police officer still demands the kind of thorough investigating that should be automatic. The kind poor Ethan Slaughter's death has never received until this time – written off as it was in a way that truly turns Kate's stomach now.
Everything she's doing might be in the service of bringing Castle home, but Kate suddenly knows he's also asking her to right another wrong that's been committed here against one of their own.
Castle wants justice for Slaughter too – and though she already loves him more than life itself Kate falls even further for him as this realization makes itself known.