'Mortimer Wilkes, age seventeen, of this address,' Esposito said in a sombre voice to his two partners as they walked through the apartment. 'This is a bad one, guys.'

Ryan and Castle glanced at each other; if Esposito was with solemn and serious, it was potential headline news in the neighbourhood paper. They followed him into the bedroom and saw the walls had been painted with arterial spray and castoff. Shane was there, feet covered in sterile medical slippers and the CSUs offered them along with gloves to the detectives and the shadow-cop. His face was shut down, eyes flat in such a way that they knew he was just barely holding on to do his job. Murders involving children were always the worst scenes to work, but on this one, they all took a moment of silent prayer.

'What do we know so far, Shane?' Ryan asked in a quiet, steady tone.

'Kid was asleep or drugged when it happened, as there's no defensive wounds, and they are all concentrated on his back and left side.'And here's the creepy part. CSU had to move a bunch of quarters soaked in blood off of his body '

'How many?'

'I'll recount to make sure but at first check we're talking thirty.'

'Thirty,' Castle repeated, his wheels starting to turn. 'Someone thinks he's a traitor.'

'A modern Judas, and the Israeli shekel is worth twenty-five to thirty US cents.' Off their questioning look, Shane shrugged. 'My mother always bitches in her email to me how expensive it is to come to the States from Tel Aviv, trust me I know. But it's not the point right now. The point is a teenage boy was stabbed to death in his own bed.'

'What about a time of death?' Esposito asked.

'Given his liver temp and rigor, I'd say about six to eight hours ago.'

'So between midnight and two last night. How was the body found?'

'He can answer that better than I.' Shane pointed to the uniform waiting by the bedroom door, a friendly looking Asian fellow. 'This is Officer Toh, he was the first on-scene and called for OCME and Homicide.'

Toh stepped up, began to read from his notes. 'Building super said he was outside and saw Mortimer's friend hanging around the building entrance on his cell, asked if there was trouble. He said his friend was prompt as a German train for school, and he'd usually be waiting for him in the lobby but today, he wasn't and the friend couldn't raise him on his cell and asked if the super could let him into the apartment so he could kick his ass out of bed.'

'Ryan,' Esposito murmured, and he went to find the boy in the living room. 'What about parents?'

'Super said they'd gone on some kind of week-long retreat and were trusting Tim here to hold the fort.'

'Thanks, tell the super to hang, we'll need to speak with him. Good job, Toh.' Esposito sent the cop on his way, saw him take a lingering look at the body in the bed and shake his head in sorrow. 'He's a good one,' he murmured.

'How can you tell?'

'You see the way he looked at the kid? There's two reasons a cop does that, to say a prayer and to make a promise. Those are the good ones, like Gil and Kate and Kevin, and the captain.'

'And you,' Castle added. 'How can I help?'

'It might seem like I'm giving you crayons and a colouring book to keep you out of the way but go help CSU. Write, label, hold their equipment, whatever they need. You've got good penmanship and a clear head under pressure for taking dictation, and they're pretty shaken up too.'

'You got it.'

Once back at the precinct, they set up the murder board quietly without their usual joviality. Castle had no problem being the scut monkey for them this time around, and while they were updating the captain after a trip to the morgue with the parents, he'd slipped out to the Blue Moon across the street from the precinct and picked up a dozen or so sandwiches and assorted sides, and made a whole pot of double-espresso vanilla latte so they could just refill their cups instead of losing time making coffee over and over.

'How are the parents doing?' he asked quietly, sitting in his chair which he'd moved from Beckett's desk to beside Ryan's.

'Not good, but not that kind of not good.'

'Not good like you think they might be public enemy number one?'

Ryan sighed heavily, passed him the file that was at least an inch thick. 'That is Mortimer Wilkes' medical records. All acquired from the lovely CSU techs who found him registered at different hospitals,

'He was abused,' Castle murmured, beginning to scan the pages.

'That's far too clean a way to describe this. There are reports here that go back as far as him being one year old. Little things like bumps and bruises, which the pediatrician attributed to the fact that Mortimer was a late walker. Then around three, he gets even more clumsy, and it starts with a trip to the ER where he comes in with bruising on his forehead. The dad tried to explain it that Mortimer was having temper tantrums and would bang his head on every available surface until he got his way.'

'Something tells me the mother wasn't about to jump in and protect her cub.'

'This is where it gets really sad.' Ryan sighed again, and pulled a heavier dossier from the stack on his desk. 'Tasha Wilkes was a mail-order bride from Albania and the first time she tried to get away, Isaac Wilkes gave her a hairline fracture in her left forearm. The next time Tasha ran from her loving husband, he found her in a motel in Jersey where he broke her jaw and cracked four ribs when he beat her with his belt. She was four months pregnant with Mortimer at the time.'

'Jesus.'

'You guessed it right.' Esposito came up to Ryan's desk. 'No ER records on Mortimer or Tasha Wilkes once he turned seven, because Social Services paid a visit after the names popped up once too often for one nurse's preference. After that, from all reports they were the original model of a wholesome cleaning-living, church-going family. Tasha joined the choir at their church and the ladies' auxiliary, Mortimer was enrolled at a Catholic high school, became an altar boy and mentor in their church's Sunday school, was even practicing to become a junior minister.'

'There's the change of abuse tactics,' Castle deducted. 'Isaac couldn't knock them around anymore without raising suspicion so he abused them with religion, threatened all kinds of things and kept them just loose enough that it wouldn't look suspicious.'

'On the surface, it looks like he's a success story, but dig a little deeper and you find out those crunchy things under your feet aren't fortune cookies, Short Round,' Ryan commented softly.

'I think it's time to call it a night, gentlemen. Let's go home, get some rest, start fresh with interviews at school and work tomorrow,' Esposito told them.

They parted ways and when Castle reached the loft, he heard the sound of RJ's squeaky little laugh along with Beckett's dulcet and motherly tone. He went over, saw them playing on RJ's jungle-mat on the living room floor and just watched them.

'Hey sweetie how was..' Beckett looked up, saw the devastation in her husband's face. Immediately she picked RJ up, put him in his swing and sat beside Castle on the couch. 'Richard, what's wrong?'

The smell of RJ on her skin, and of her own signature scent, had Castle shuddering out a breath before he snapped and broke down, weeping like a child while his wife held him close.

R&R&Enjoy.