'Hey, how's Tessi like her birthday gift?'

'She loves it, she wants to have a bath all the time now so she can use her 'bubbas' and 'dots'.' Esposito shook his head as he walked with Castle down the alley to their latest crime scene. 'Some days I think that girl is part fish.'

'Alexis was the same way. Where's your other half?'

Esposito gave him a wan look as they crossed the crime-scene tape. 'I don't make it a habit of bringing Meredeth to crime scenes.'

'Not that half, the other other-half.'

'Oh, check-up morning for Mallory.' Esposito saw they'd tagged both Lanie and Shane on this one, and with good reason - the three bodies in the alley were riddled with bullet holes even the untrained eye could see, and they were going to need all the help they could get on this one. 'Morning, Doctor Parrish-Robbins, Doctor Weaver, what's the four-one-one?'

'Watch your step, this place is carpeted with shell casings. CSU might as well use a sterile vacuum to pick them all up just to save time,' Lanie commented dryly as she made notes on the body she was examining. 'I can tell you my tattooed mister here has at least three different type of bullets in him, judging from the holes, I'd say we're talking a three-fifty-seven, a nine-mil and a forty-five.'

'Same here,' Shane agreed, looking over the female victim who was just as beefy and street-hard as her male counterparts. 'three-five-seven, nine-mil, forty-five. I haven't looked at the third one yet but I'm going to take a wild

'Any IDs?' Castle asked; he could feel his literary wheels already clicking and spinning to formulate a theory.

'No, but something tells me we aren't going to be getting a lot of forthcoming witnesses.' Shane squinted against the glare from behind his sunglasses, picked up the hand of the female victim and pointed to the Hebrew letters above the knuckles. 'See this? It's a Hebrew proverb, it says 'if a word be worth one shekel, silence is worth two'. Only one group I know of that uses that and it's Ithai Boaz, a small pocket of bodyguards in the Russian mafia trained in the style of Mossad agents.'

'How do you know that?' Castle asked, intrigued.

'My mother worked for the Mossad counter-terrorism unit,' Shane said simply. 'She made sleeper-agents cry like little girls and knew how to kill a man six times before he hit the ground.'

'I take it you didn't do a lot of sneaking out as a teenager.'

'Not in Tel Aviv. After we moved to the States, different story. Anyways, the point being, if it turns up on all three victims, you might need to think about passing this to a higher power with more resources than you guys.'

'We'll let you know as much as we can soon,' Lanie added, relieved Shane had taken point on it. It wasn't often Shane's background cropped up - he'd chosen to keep it quiet after the events of nine-eleven and the subsequent war in the Middle East so as not to draw misplaced suspicion upon himself - but in a situation like this, it reminded her that the man came to the job with a very different history than hers. 'In the meantime, let's get our guests loaded and checked in, see what we can learn.'

Esposito and Castle watched them go, and it wasn't long before Esposito spoke up. 'Just think, your daughter might get an ex-spy as a mother-in-law, Rick.'

'Funny. You seem to forget I picked you up this morning since your ride is in the shop and Meredeth has her car to go grocery shopping.'

The detective paused a moment. 'I'm gonna go check with the uniforms who found the bodies.'

Castle shook his head and pulled out his cellphone, called his wife on hers. 'Hey sweetie,' he said when she answered, 'how's your morning going so far?'

'Just delightful. Tessi loves helping me with RJ, she is determined to be a good 'big sisser' as she so cutely says, and she showed me she knows how to fold towels and socks.'

'How's Mere feeling?'

'Good, she's resting right now, and then we're having lunch and going grocery shopping. Anything you want me to pick up for you?'

'Just whatever you want to have for dinner tonight.'

'Sounds good. Love you,' Beckett told him, then hung up as she picked up the stacks of folded towels, looked at the folding job Tessi had done on the face-cloths while RJ supervised them from the playpen. 'Good job, Tessi, Mami will be happy with those.'

'I help. I fol' dots.'

'And they look fantastic.' She stacked the last of the clean towels into the basket to take them upstairs to the linen closet. 'What do you think Mami and the babies want for lunch today?'

'Pizza!'

Beckett giggled out of reflex; Tessi had not only gotten her father's dark hair and cinnamon complexion but his love of pizza as well. 'I don't know if I can make that. What else you got?'

'Dillas!'

'You mean quesadillas?' At the little girl's eager nod, Beckett nodded back. 'I think we can handle that. You want to help me make them?'

'I gon' be big sisser. I al-ways help.'

Fifteen minutes later, Beckett could not stop grinning at Tessi's charm. She'd diced the veggies and put them into bowls, and the little girl showed her 'how it done, Datie', she said with her atrociously adorable speech impediment. Tessi had dipped in her hand to the bowls and added the cheese and appropriate veggies and had surprised Beckett when she'd added a few little tomatoes and onions.

'Yum-yum-yum,' she sang. 'Babies like 'matoes.'

'Do they?'

'Mami say so.'

'Hard to argue with Mami, isn't it?'

Tessi nodded, then furrowed her brow when she tried to fold over the tortilla and it wouldn't stay folded. 'Datie, no 'tick.'

'That's okay, watch.'

Beckett turned on the heat on the frying pan, slipped the folded quesadillas into the pan and held them down with her spatula. When she smelled the delicious crispy-bread smell, she flipped them over in the pan and lifted her spatula. 'See? We just needed to melt the cheese a little.'

'Sheese yummy.'

'I agree completely.'

'Oh, that smells delicious!'

The detective and her little assistant glanced up to see Meredeth on her feet looking refreshed and comfortable in her at home leggings and spring-weight tunic. 'Mami, Datie magic!'

'Is she now?'

'I showed her how to get the quesadillas to stick together,' Beckett explained as Meredeth came over, sniffing like Arturo, and helped Tessi off the chair she'd been standing on. 'How are you feeling?'

'Sleepy still but ready to get up and move around.'

'Well, we're going grocery shopping this afternoon so that will definitely get you moving around.'

'Go-sees!' Tessi clapped her together. 'Sheese an' bed an' foots!'

'Yes, my princess, we'll get cheese and bread, and you're already a little fruit,' Meredeth laughed. 'What should we make Daddy for dinner?'

'Pizza!'

'Besides that.'

'Shek soup!'

Meredeth could feel the saliva pool in her mouth. 'Shrek soup is a great idea.'

'Shrek soup?' Beckett asked, putting their lunch onto their plates.

'Broccoli and cheese.'

'Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense.' Beckett thought of her phone call with her husband. 'I need to get something for Rick and myself for dinner tonight. Tessi what do you think he'd want?'

The little girl thought about it, then smiled. 'Misser Dassell like pizza?'

R&R&Enjoy