Chapter 4

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Saturday April 2 2016

Jo Martinez awoke at 9.00am on Saturday morning with a much clearer head than she had expected having been at Rick Castle's birthday party the previous evening, until about 2.15am, along with her fiancé Henry Morgan who was still fast asleep beside her, she looked over at him and thought to herself what an adorable man he was and that she was so lucky to have had found two men who she had been able to love, the first being her late husband Sean who had died in Washington four years ago whilst there on business. In May of the following year she had met the man who had helped her come to terms with Sean's death and had become her partner at work and then pretty quickly became her number one male best friend and finally the one she had fallen totally and irrevocable in love with, along the way she had helped Henry to come to terms with the loss of his second wife Abigail who had disappeared after the apparent age difference between them had become very evident this being due to Henry's Immortality, he had stayed looking 35. whilst Abigail had continued to naturally age. Jo hoped that she herself would not have this problem as she started aging.

After lying in bed for another 10 minutes trying to get back to sleep, without success, she decided that she was in need of her early morning kick start a cup of strong coffee, so she carefully got out of bed and went to the bathroom to get a hot shower etc. As she exited the bathroom now fully dressed she made her way to the kitchen to get the coffee brewing and to start on breakfast, she decided on pancakes, looking in the fridge she found an assortment of fresh strawberries, raspberries blue berries and even a ripe peach also a half bottle of Maple syrup that she had forgot that she had, she quickly made the batter ensuring that there was sufficient for herself and sleepyhead Henry when he came down as pancakes were one of his favourite morning treats.

Whilst she was eating her pancakes she thought to herself 'I wonder whether Kate would be up for a day's retail therapy, and she also might like to bring along Alexis as well.' Jo did not really know Alexis but on the couple of occasions that they had met she had been very impressed with her and thought she would like to get to know her better. She knew that Kate would be one of the few people from the party who would not have a hangover due to her pregnancy. Before she could change her mind she picked up her cell phone and located Kate's number on her speed dial and pressed the number.

After five rings the phone was answered by Kate who said "Hi Jo I didn't expect you to be calling this early after last night."

Jo said "I got up about nine 0 clockwith a much clearer head than I would have expected after last night, which by the way thanks for inviting us we both really enjoyed the party." She said "Has Rick surfaced yet?"

Kate said "I am pleased that you did and no he is still snoring away in bed, but anyway to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?"

Jo told "I was just having breakfast and wondered whether you might be up for a day's retail therapy, its quite sometime since we were able to meet up and enjoy a girl's day out."

Kate said "That sounds like a nice idea. Do you mind if I bring Alexis along as it is also sometime since we were able go out as just mother and daughter?"

Jo said "Of course bring her along as a matter of fact I was going to suggest that you might like to as I have been most impressed by Alexis on the couple of occasions I have met her and was thinking I would like to get to know her better."

They eventually agreed that Jo would come to the Loft about 11.15am and they would go downtown and probably have lunch before the serious shopping began.

When they finished the call Kate made her way up to Alexis's room and told her that she and Jo were going shopping and asked if she would like to join them,

Alexis said "I would love to, I don't know Jo that well but I have been thinking I would like to get to know her better".

Jo as usual arrived at the loft on time and the three of them set off by taxi and headed to Saks as their first port of call where Rick's Black credit card receives a bit of a bashing, Kate knew that Rick won't complain as he likes both of his girls to have a good time when out shopping.

Around 2.00pm they all agreed they were getting hungry and decide that they will go to one of the local Bistro's for lunch. When then emerge after a satisfying meal they strolled through the street mostly doing window shopping until they were passing a jewellers shop when Kate glances in the window and saw a very stylish Seiko watch on display that she instantly knew would suit Rick as a late birthday present come I Love You gift especially as one of Rick's self indulgences was collecting wrist watches. They entered the shop and were being shown the watch that had caught Kate's eye when the shop door opens with a bang as it swung back on its hinges and four men, with clown masks obscuring their faces, enter all brandishing hand guns, they shouted for everyone in the shop to throw their cell phones on the floor along with all wallets and purses, at this point Kate's heart rate increased along with her blood pressure Alexis put her arms around her in an effort to try and calm her down, Jo also kept close as she knew that Kate had to avoid as much stress as possible due to her pregnancy.

One of the men walked over to the till and handed a cloth bag to the cashier and told her to empty the contents of the till into it. What they didn't realise was that she had already managed to press the silent alarm button under her till as the gang had called for the cell phones and wallets to be thrown on the floor.

As one of the robbers was going round the shop picking up the wallets and purses he happened to glance up, as he picked up Kate's wallet, he recognised her having been interrogated by her at the 12th precinct when he had been picked up on suspicion of killing one of the members of a gang that he had been running with at the time as it turned out he had not been involved. He called out "This one is a detective in the 12th." Kate indicated to Jo not to let the robbers find out that she also was a detective. When he heard, the leader of the gang came over to Kate and said "Is that true?" she was just about to reply when the sound of rapidly approaching sirens could be heard.

A couple of minutes later a Police officer on a bullhorn told the robbers to let the people in the shop go and to give themselves up.

The leader of the gang, who already had two previous convictions for armed robbery and was facing life imprisonment as a three times loser, got hold of one of the cell phones and phoned 911 and told them to put him through to the Officer in Charge outside.

When the call went through he told them "We are not giving ourselves up. We want armoured transport out of the city within 30 minutes. If we don't get it then we are going to start shooting the hostages starting with the cop's daughter."

The Police had by this time managed tap into the security cameras in the shop and had identified both of the captured police personnel as Captain Kate Castle and Detective Jo Martinez, The Captain in charge had worked with Kate before on the Bank hostage situation about four years ago and remembered she wasn't normally the type of person to panic in these situations. While he was watching the pictures from the cameras he was able to see that beside Kate, Jo and Alexis there appeared to be another 10 people in the shop. In order to try and ensure that there were no lives lost in the siege he had ordered an armoured truck to be brought to the scene, this arrived about five minutes before the robbers deadline had was due to expire.

In the meantime word had got back to the 12th precinct about the siege and Sully who was working that weekend found that Rick had not yet been notified of the siege in which his wife, daughter along with his team leader where being held hostage, He immediately phone Rick and gave him details of what had happened and arranged to meet him there. Rick asked if Jo's fiancé had been told yet, Sully said that as far as he was aware he hadn't.

Before setting off Castle phoned Henry and told him the situation and said he should meet him at the police cordon.

They all met up at the barriers as arranged and then sought out the Captain in charge they explained who they were and asked what the position of the hostages was. As the Captain finished telling them Rick asked what the plan was to bring the crisis to a peaceful conclusion as his pregnant wife and their daughter along with their good friend Jo Martinez were three of the hostages.

The Captain said that although it went against NYPD policy he was waiting for the Police Commissioner to give permission to let the robbers have the use of the armoured vehicle to get them out of the city then to take them down. The problem was that although they hadn't mentioned it they were likely to take as many of the hostages with them as possible. He went on to say that the armoured car was of a recent design and included hidden canisters of fast acting sleeping gas which would be used once the armoured car was in a less busy area of the city.

He said there would be both marked and unmarked police cars following, no doubt when the robbers saw the marked police cars they would order them to be pulled off the chase. The unmarked ones would be positioned at both the front and rear and would hopefully go undetected.

Henry at this point was of the opinion that they should try and get the hostages free themselves, Rick however said it was best left to the police to try to do the release as he was afraid that a pre-emptive rescue attempt might well lead to the deaths of some of the hostages.

At that moment the phone rang and the leader of the gang said "Where's the armoured car is it here yet?" the Captain said "It is" At that moment they received permission from the Commissioner to go ahead and let the Gang go.

The Captain relayed this to the robbers who said that the van should be brought up to the door of the shop whilst they got in and he confirmed that they would be taking some of the hostages with them including Kate, Alexis and Jo.

When the van was parked in front of the shop doorway the side door was opened and the three of the robbers and their hostages boarded the van whilst the fourth got into the cab along side the driver who was ordered to drive off, as the police cars started to follow, the robbers ordered them to stop following, and they pulled away.

Rick, Henry and Sully watched this apprehensible but knew there was nothing they could do to affect a rescue.

When the van had been driving for about half an hour and had reached a quieter part of Manhattan the driver pressed a concealed button in the cab and the rear of the van was filled with the gas. Luckily the hostages had all been made to sit on the floor whilst the robbers stood up, this meant that they received the gas fractionally earlier than the hostages and passed out before they could start shooting. When the driver saw the passengers were asleep pressed a button that gave a high powered jolt of electricity to the passenger seat in his cab knocking out the robber sat there he then turned on a sign at the rear which notified the following unmarked police cars that the gas had been released and that they should pull the truck over to the side of the road, the police officers first stormed the cab then entered the van and quickly hand cuffed the criminals and released the hostages.

They put all of the robbers in the armoured truck and took them back to the 12th precinct to be questioned and charged.

When Castle along with Henry and Sully reached the position of the armoured car Kate was just being loaded into an ambulance to be taken to hospital to be checked over. Castle in the meantime phoned Emma, Kate's OBGYN and explained that Kate had been in a hostage situation and asked if she and Josh could meet them at the hospital to check her over to make sure that she hadn't suffered any harmful ill effects to her pregnancy.

They all met in the outpatients department where Kate was checked over by Emma and Josh and was found that she didn't appear to have suffered any ill effects from the trauma however she was advised that it would be a good idea to stay in the hospital overnight just to be on the safe side. Rick knew that Kate was a very poor hospital patient so was quite amazed when she agreed without any arguments.

Kate said "It was my fault that we were in the shop as there was something in the window that I wanted to get for you." This of course immediately got Rick's attention and he tried to find out what she was going to get him but she said that he would have to wait as she still intended to get it for him the following week.

Kate was released on the Sunday morning with a clean bill of health and returned to the Loft for a day of being pampered by Castle..

On the Monday she took the day off and in the afternoon went back to the jewellers shop and purchased the Seiko Astron Solar Powered watch which also had GPS she had seen at a cost of $2500.00 from the money that Rick had insisted that she should receive from the royalties of the Nikki Heat series of books which she had never touched previously.

When she gave the presentt to him that evening after dinner he was overwhelmed, especially when he saw that she had had engraved on the back

'I Will Love You Always K.'

Thursday 7 April 2016

The Castle family woke up on the Thursday morning of that week knowing that the day would be something of a milestone for them as it was the day of Alexis's adoption hearing, which had had to be adjourned on two previous occasions because Alexis's mother, Meredith, had failed to respond to the notice of the adoption application that she had been sent, the hearing was now scheduled to be heard in chambers at 11.00am. The Judge had warned that the hearing would go ahead even if there had been no response from Meredith this time.

Rick had ordered a Town Car, for 10.15am to take them to the Court House for the hearing, in order to save any hassle over finding a parking spot.

When they reached the Court they met up with Rick's attorney He quickly took them through what would happen, and he told them that he had at last had a copy of Meredith's response which confirmed that that she would not be contesting the application

At 11.00am they were summoned into the chambers of Judge Elizabeth Francis. Rick's Attorney outlined the case and said that Kate and Rick were applying to adopt Alexis Castle, Rick's daughter, as their own. He explained "They are wanting the adoption as at the present time Rick and Meredith had joint custody but that Rick was the prime custodian," He went on to say "Now that Rick and Kate were married Kate was Alexis's step-mother but should anything ever happen to Rick before Alexis came of age she would have no legal rights and Meredith would be able to uproot Alexis's and take her to live with her in California if she so wished. As a legally adopted parent however Kate would be able to make any decisions until Alexis came of age." He also said that he it had been confirmed by Meredith that she did not wish to contest the application.

The Judge turned to Alexis and asked "How do you feel about this application Alexis?"

Alexis replied "Your Honour I have known Kate for the best part of nine years and have grown to love her as much, if not more than my natural mother, Yes we have had a few ups and downs during that time but she is always there for me when I have needed advice about things that I would be reluctant to talk to my father about. She has also never taken me out of school and whisked me off to Paris for lunch, nor has she taken me out of school in the middle of the day to go shopping which Meredith had done in the past. I will still see her and stay in touch and will love her as my mother but the two of three times a year that I have had to get used over the years will be enough."

After hearing what Alexis had to say the Judge turned to Rick and Kate and said "Congratulations I am very pleased to be able to grant your application. You have a very mature and loving daughter there. I would also like to congratulate you on the coming birth of your new baby, when is it due?"

Kate replied "Thank you your Honour the baby in due around August 13 hopefully."

The Judge said "Do you know the sex?"

Kate said with chuckle "No, we have opted to keeping it as a surprise, which is a little strange for me as I usually hate surprises!"

Thanks once again to everyone who has read this story and taken the time to review and favourite. I am bot amazed and grateful for your support.