Chapter 18
Seven Months Later
It was late by the time Betty returned to her new office. After the long, frustrating day she had, all she wanted to do was go home, have some of her dad's empanadas, take a nice hot bath and relax.
Waiting on her desk was a box. She viewed the package suspiciously. Ever since she got the promotion and Marc didn't, he had been treating her as badly as he had when she first arrived at Mode. Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean someone isn't out to get you, she thought as she gently shook the box. It didn't sound like it contained a dead rat so she carefully opened it. Her eyes lit up when she saw the hardcover copy of the recently released Storm Fall. She took it out and opened the book. He had autographed it for her.
To Betty,
Thank you for being the butterfly in the theory.
Rick Castle
With a smile, she put the book in her bag and headed home. On the subway ride back to Queens, Betty thought about all the changes in her life since she had given Rick the tour.
A week after going to the play, her dad had a heart attack. It wasn't long before she moved back to Jackson Heights to help take care of him. After she successfully planned the most talked about show at Fashion Week complete with Christina giving birth on stage, Connor embezzled all of the money from Meade Publications and disappeared. A failed attempt at getting federal funding forced Daniel and Wilhelmina to use their personal funds to keep the company running, but it wasn't enough so they sought outside assistance. In the midst of the corporate intrigue, Christina discovered that the baby she had carried wasn't Bradford and Wilhelmina's but in fact was hers and Stuart's. The new family moved back to Scotland. Not to be outdone, Daniel got married to Connor's ex-fiancée and was widowed shortly thereafter when Molly died of cancer. Mrs. Meade found a second chance at love with Cal Hartley who saved the company while his son, Matt, Betty's ex-boyfriend now boss tortured her in her new position as Mode's associate features editor.
My life really is a soap opera, she sighed as she got off at her stop.
ooOoo
It was very early Saturday morning by the time Betty finished the book. Armed with a box of tissue, she sniffed her way through the last chapter. As she read the acknowledgements she could hear Rick's voice in her head:
\\Have you ever had an epiphany? A crystal clear moment of clarity where everything just clicked into place. The catalyst for such things can be as significant as the birth of your first child or as mundane as a casual conversation over coffee.
For me, it was a simple question innocently asked by a new friend. At first, I tried to brush it off, but it wormed its way into my psyche until I could think of nothing else. After confessing to a close confidante, everything suddenly came into focus.
I was left with a choice. I could go down the familiar path I had taken many times before, or I could take a chance and explore a new one. The road had many twists and turns and would not end well for our hero, but ultimately I believe it was the right decision.
There are several people that I must thank. On the top of the list are my daughter, Alexis, for being the eye in the storm, and my mother, Martha Rodgers for reminding me that sometimes you've got to go all in.
Thanks to Gina Cowell and the people at Black Pawn Publishing for accepting the manuscript and not taking a contract out on my life.
A special thanks to B.S. for asking the question in the first place.
To you, dear reader, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude for joining me on the twenty book journey. I only hope that you had as much fun reading them as I had writing them.
Finally, eternally thanks to Derrick Storm. Rest in peace, my friend.
RC/
The End
Author notes: The Ugly Betty episodes reference in this chapter are 4.1 "The Butterfly Effect, Part 1", 3.11 "Dress for Success", 3.12 "Sisters on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown", 3.15 "There's No Place Like Mode", 3.16 "Things Fall Apart", 3.17 "Sugar Daddy", 3.21 "The Born Identity", 3.22 "In the Stars" and "3.24 "The Fall Issue". In determining the number of books in the Derrick Storm series, I used the pilot episode of Castle where he mentions he wrote six novels prior to the Derrick Storm series and 1.9 "Little Girl Lost" where he mentions he had written 26 books.