Chapter 11

"So," Castle offered, breaking the silence as they exited the morgue. "What are the odds that her purse, containing her Epipen, was stolen immediately prior to her having an allergic reaction?"

"Obviously our thief knew it was there," Kate agreed.

"Exactly."

"Which means they had to have known about her allergies."

"Right."

"So someone who knew her. Well."

"The roommate?" Castle suggested.

"Her alibi was solid," she reminded him.

"For the other murder. But she was right there with Jenna at the bar. How hard would it have been for her to slip some peanut oil into Jenna's drink when she wasn't looking?"

"So now you're saying the murders aren't connected?" Kate asked, face adorably screwed up in confusion.

"No, I still think they are."

"So Sara has a partner?"

"It's possible."

"But who?"

"The ex-boyfriend?" Castle postulated.

She recalled Sara's reaction to his picture. "I didn't get the feeling that they were particularly on speaking terms."

"Or maybe that's what she wanted us to think."

"Okay, assuming they're in it together, what's the motive?"

"I..." Castle began, trailing off when he came up empty. "No clue."

"Mmmm."

They exited out onto the street then, Kate in front of Castle as they stepped through the door. Manhattan was teeming with life this early in the morning, people jostling to and fro, horns honking, everyone in a hurry to arrive at their destination. A middle-aged man hustled past, bumping into a young woman, and she stumbled to the side, nearly dropped her briefcase. Castle paused, allowing her space to regroup before reaching for Kate. She twined her hand with his, allowed him to tug her out onto the bustling sidewalk. They expertly wove their way through the fast-moving throngs of people, separating only once they'd reached her cruiser.

The morning sun shone brightly down on the windshield as they opened the doors, slid into the car next to each other. The doors shut in unison as they settled in, reached for their seatbelts, and Kate couldn't help but smile at the synchronicity of their movements.

"Maybe it all comes back to the accident," Castle posited as they pulled out into traffic, joining the flood of slow-moving cars.

She forced herself to refocus on the case. "The car wreck?"

"We know Sara and Ernesto were both involved in it," he pointed out.

"But Jenna and Annalise weren't."

"Mmmm, true," Castle conceded. He shook his head, face scrunching up in frustration. "What is it with this case and nothing making sense?"

Kate hummed in agreement as they proceeded through the next intersection before promptly coming to a stand-still once again. Stuck in endless traffic at nine o'clock in the morning. It was lining up to be another long day.

"Huh."

Kate swiveled around in her chair, pen in one hand, the implement twirling around between her nimble fingers. "What?"

"Just looking at the accident report from three years ago," he explained.

"And?"

"The girl who was in the back seat – the one who died. It looks like she was a friend of Sara's from school." Castle passed Kate the report. "Carly Mathers. Twenty one at the time. Died at the scene from blunt force trauma when the other car slammed into the rear passenger side of Sara's car."

"What else do we know about her?" she asked, skimming the lines of text.

"Well, statements from Sara and Ernesto say that they were friends from Pace and that they'd been out at a bar. Ernesto and Carly were both fairly intoxicated, but Sara's BAC was below the legal limit."

"But none of this explains Jenna and Annalise's murders," Kate pointed out.

"Maybe they were involved somehow?" he suggested.

"How? There wasn't anyone else in the car, and the driver of the other car died as well."

"Were they there that night?"

Kate shook her head. "Sara said Jenna didn't know Ernesto."

"Maybe she was lying."

She shrugged. "Ryan is with CSU having them check Sara and Jenna's apartment and the bar for any indication of peanut oil. And Espo is verifying her alibi for Jenna's murder. But I really just don't think she was involved."

Castle fell silent then, turned his attention back to the murder board while Kate took her time reading through the accident report, coalescing the information there with everything else they'd learned about their victims and potential suspects. It didn't seem related, but they didn't have a lot else to go on. She pressed her lips together in frustration, shook her head. None of this made any sense.

She reached for her coffee mug, huffed in frustration upon finding it empty. Kate rose, collecting Castle's empty mug as well, but she paused before making her way to the break room, arrested by the look in Castle's eyes. She knew that look.

"You onto something?"

He turned, head tilting back to look up at her from his chair. "Just wondering why our killer didn't use the same poison on both of them."

"Well, Annalise wasn't allergic to anything," Kate pointed out.

"But why go to the trouble to get the – whatever its fancy name is..."

"Aconite."

"Right. Why not use that on them both?"

"Allergy attack looks more accidental," she offered with a shrug. "But that wouldn't have worked on Annalise so our killer had to pick something different."

He half-nodded in acquiescence. "I guess." It was true. Someone had put a lot of thought into making these deaths look accidental, simple tragedies to cover up the murders.

"Well," Kate stated purposefully. "If we ever find our killer, we can ask him." She gestured towards him with his mug. "Coffee?"

He offered her a tender smile, confusion in his eyes fading away the moment they met hers. "Thanks."

When Kate returned to her desk, Ryan and Esposito had joined Castle at the murder board, and the three men were standing in a semi-circle, tossing ideas back and forth.

"Anything?" she asked, passing Castle a steaming mug of coffee.

"No one at the bar remembers seeing anything out of the ordinary," Espo offered. "But it was crowded. It would've been easy for our killer to dose her drink and sneak away unnoticed."

"So it could've been Sara," Castle chimed in.

He shrugged. "It could've been anyone in the bar, bro. There aren't any security cams. Hell, we don't even have a way to track down patrons unless they paid by credit card. I don't think we're gonna be able to narrow this one down."

"No signs of peanut oil?"

"Bar doesn't stock it and there's not any lying around."

"And nothing at Sara and Jenna's place," Ryan offered. "In fact, there was a complete lack of any type of nut-containing product."

"What about Jenna's ex-boyfriend?" Castle piped up.

"I was able to track him down from her phone records," Esposito explained, sticking a picture up on the murder board as he spoke. "James Knowlton. Twenty eight. Former salesman at an outdoors store in Brooklyn."

"Former?"

"Turns out he packed up and moved to Saratoga about a month ago. Guess he wanted a fresh start."

"Any chance he was back in the city recently?"

Espo shook his head. "Nope, his alibi is solid."

"Okay, well what about her neighbor?" Castle theorized, grasping for anything they might've overlooked.

"The one who found the body, you mean?"

"He said he didn't even recognize her," Ryan recalled.

"Don't you find that odd, though?"

"Bro, this is New York," Esposito defended. "How many people could pull their neighbors out of a lineup?"

"Pretty young girl like her living right up the stairs? Trust me," Castle announced. "He'd recognize her."

Ryan raised an eyebrow. "You seem pretty sure of yourself."

Esposito crossed his arms in intrigue, and even Kate turned to face him. Castle held up his hands in surrender. "I'm just saying from past experience, she was the kind of girl a guy would remember."

"Past experience, huh?" Esposito teased.

"Please," Castle scoffed, looping his arm around Kate's shoulders in spite of their location.

"Castle," she hissed, ducking out from under his arm. She didn't get far, though, frozen in place by his next words and the sincere look in his piercing blue eyes.

"We all know the prettiest girl in the building lives with me."

Kate just stood there, feet rooted to the floor. Heat flushed her cheeks as his words washed over her, and she quickly became aware of the stares of her coworkers, the knowing smirks curling up the corners of their mouths.

"Right, uh, okay," she stammered, pausing for a long sip of coffee, buying time to regain her bearings. He couldn't keep saying things like that in public places. It made her want to do things to him. Things that were most certainly not appropriate for said public places.

She still had the fading remains of a love bite on the inside of her left thigh from the last night of their honeymoon, another beneath her right breast. A jolt of arousal rippled through her at the thought of his teeth on her skin and Kate bit down hard on her lower lip, forced the memory away. How was she ever supposed to solve this case when she couldn't stop picturing herself naked and writhing beneath an equally naked Castle?

"Beckett?" Ryan asked tentatively.

Right. Murder case.

"Let's, uh, start concentrating on Annalise's murder more closely," she managed. "If we can find her killer, maybe we can tie him or her back to Jenna. You guys dig into her life, Castle and I are gonna head back to the restaurant, see if we can churn anything up."

"You got it, boss," Ryan promised cheerfully, eyes still twinkling merrily.

"And let's, uh, interrogate the neighbor. Just to be sure," she called after Ryan and Esposito's retreating forms.

"Okay, here's what I don't get," Castle began as he set aside his coffee mug to help Kate into her jacket. She shivered as his fingertips trailed over her biceps, bit her lip to suppress it. While she did up her buttons, Castle paused to grab his own coat, arms easily sliding through the sleeves before following his wife to the elevator. "Slipping something into Jenna's drink at a crowded bar – easy to get away with. Poisoning someone's food at a restaurant – little more difficult."

"It's a sports bar, not a sit-down place," she reminded him. "And there was a game on. People would've been otherwise occupied."

"But still, it would've been a lot more difficult to go unnoticed. Unless..."

She pressed the button for the elevator, turned to face her husband. "Unless what?"

"Our killer works there."

The doors slid open in front of them and they stepped in side by side. "Guess it's time to go find out."

Thoughts?