Lanie was waiting for them personally at the morgue as the coroner's men delivered Keith's body.

"Is this it?" the ME asked. "He's not going to get up and walk out of here again?"

"He didn't walk out last time," Kate pointed out.

"Could've fooled me." Lanie unzipped the body bag, looking at Keith's peaceful face. "Welcome home," she said softly, then glanced back up at Kate. "You still want me to do those tests?"

"No," Kate said. "I don't think so. Save the city some cash."

"You know who killed him?"

"In a way." Kate explained briefly, not mentioning Alexis' part in the proceedings, for which she could see Rick was grateful.

"So what happens to them now?" Lanie asked. "It's not like you can arrest them."

"Not the Bazylis, no. But we can take Peter Trask and Rhiannon Docherty into custody when we find them. They're eighteen, both of them, and that makes them culpable."

"Of what? Being young and stupid?"

"Manslaughter at the very least. Maybe assisted suicide."

"But you can't prove that."

"I know." Kate glanced down at Keith. "But at least you should be able to release the body now."

"What about the funeral? His father isn't exactly in a position to make arrangements. Is there any other family?"

Kate shook her head. "None that we can find."

"I'll do it," Rick said unexpectedly.

Both women turned to look at him, but it was Kate who spoke. "You will?"

"Sure. It's the least I can do. But not through Docherty's."

"Not even because they're open when we need them?" Kate asked, deadpan.

"Not even then."

"Just so long as you don't put him out with the trash."

Rick looked at her, shaking his head and tutting under his breath. "That's only for me, Katie."

"Don't call me Katie."

He smiled slightly. "But I'll make arrangements if there's nobody else."

---

As it happened he didn't have to.

"Thanks, but I'll sort it out," Captain Roy Montgomery said as soon as they arrived back at the precinct. "He was my godson." He managed a smile. "But thanks for offering." He rolled his shoulders under his jacket as if they were tight, pinched. "I'd better go tell Mike we found Keith, ask what he wants me to do. Not that it's the only thing I have to talk to him about."

"Sir?" Kate raised her eyebrows.

"Ask Ryan," Montgomery advised, walking out.

Kevin Ryan was waiting by her desk. "Boss, the team searching the Neidermann house came up with something."

"You showed it to the Captain?"

"There didn't seem to be any point not to." He held out an evidence bag, a single sheet of paper inside.

It was handwritten, just a page torn carefully from a yellow legal pad, and the writing looked awfully familiar.

"Keith?" Rick asked.

Kate nodded, taking the bag. She could see the contents clearly through the thin plastic. "It's a letter, to his father." She glanced at Ryan. "Where was it?"

"Inside the Bible."

"Figures."

Rick perched on the desk. "Read it."

She sat down slowly, trying to decipher the spidery handwriting, her eyebrows drawn together. "It's dated a week ago."

"After he'd stopped taking the antidepressants," Rick said softly.

Kate nodded and began to read. "'Dear Dad, I know when you find this it's going to be a shock. I wish I could do something to ...'" She paused, tried to spell the word out, then went on, "'... to alleviate the pain you're going to be feeling, but I don't think I can. Just think of it that I'm in a better place. You know I would never do this otherwise, but without Liz, I have nothing. She was my life, Dad. My ...'" She stopped, swallowed.

Rick put his hand on her shoulder, knowing she was thinking about her own parents, about how her father couldn't cope with her mother's death, how he ... No. Not his place to be thinking about that. Not right now. "Do you need a drink? Some water?" he asked.

She coughed, as if clearing her throat. "No. I'm fine. It's just this damn handwriting."

"Sure."

She didn't care if he didn't believe her, but was oddly comforted at his pretence. She blinked hard and continued with the letter. "'My life. My friends are going to help, but they don't know it won't end the way I said. I had to do it this way, otherwise ... well, it's a sin, isn't it? Even if it's a release too. And I'm not inclined to hang around in Purgatory for a few hundred years. Try and understand, and know that I love you. But I love Liz more. Differently. And like this, we can be together forever. She's waiting for me, I can feel it, and we'll never grow old, never have to leave each other.'"

She glanced up at Rick, who nodded briefly. Dropping her head again, there were only a couple more lines. "'I'm sorry I wasn't the son you wanted, that you needed me to be, but that was my fault, not yours. None of this is your fault.'" Kate licked her lips. "'Forgive me, Dad. But it's for the best. Love, Keith.'" She stopped speaking, just staring at the letter.

"There's not one spelling mistake or correction," Rick pointed out quietly.

"What do you mean?" Ryan asked.

"He would have written this maybe half a dozen times, perhaps more. Getting it just right." Rick could see it all too clearly in his mind's eye, playing out in front of him like on a movie screen, the screwed up balls of yellow paper littering that black room, probably burned after he was finally satisfied.

"There's no other prints on it apart from Keith's and his father," Ryan added.

"There wouldn't be."

"You were right," Kate said, putting the letter onto the desk. "It was suicide."

Rick nodded slowly. "We both were. I wish we weren't, but ..." He exhaled slowly through pursed lips.

Kate's fingers caressed the edge of the evidence bag. "What he planned was wrong, but this, to persuade those kids to kill him ... it's worse."

"They thought he was going to rise again."

She looked up at him sharply. "He didn't have to get them involved. He had all those ... what was the name?"

"Fluvoxamine."

She gave a curt nod, acknowledging but not forgiving the way she could never remember what they were called. "He didn't need to incite those children to murder."

"Like I said, he might have been brought back from the tablets, if someone found him in time. Besides, he was right. Suicide is still a sin, Kate. In the eyes of the church, at least. And probably his father's, too."

She remembered the Bible, its well-thumbed pages, the very place Michael Neidermann had kept the letter. "So he let everyone else believe he'd been murdered."

"He was thinking of his immortal soul."

"That's insane."

"Stranger things have happened. And Keith wasn't in the strongest frame of mind anyway."

She glared at him. "You sound like you approve."

"No. Not approve. Understand, maybe. But never approve."

"What he did was wrong."

"I'm not going to argue with you on that point." He shrugged. "Maybe he thought it would be easier for everyone like this. Stop them blaming themselves."

"It doesn't."

He wondered what she was thinking about, whether it was just her family history, or something more. Not that he was willing to wager life and limb on inquiring further. Not yet, anyway.

"When do you suppose his father found the letter?" Ryan asked.

Kate shrugged. "It could have been any time after it was written."

"No," Rick said firmly. "If it had come to light sooner, there's no way Neidermann would have let Keith out of his sight, let alone ... Any father would have seen his son locked up before that happened."

Kate nodded. "So you're thinking ... when?"

"Just before Montgomery got there. The journal was just under the mattress, right?"

"You saw me find it."

"I bet it was inside. That Keith knew his father read his diary on a regular basis, probably ever since he started to see Trask. That's why there was nothing about the suicide attempt. Keith left it there for his Dad to find, probably on his way out of the door for the last time, when it was already too late." Again his imagination supplied the pictures, the young man sliding the letter home before tucking the black journal under the mattress, perhaps even smiling as he did so. "Neidermann might have been wondering why Keith hadn't come home the night before, had gone to his room to check ..."

"But he was already dead." She glanced at him. "It pretty much confirms our view of things, doesn't it?"

"Kate, I could write you a whole novel on who might have wanted to persuade him he should die, coming up with motives, means, opportunities. But I'm not going to. I think an unhappy, inclined to be morbid young man lost the girl he loved more than anything, and decided this was the only way out. Dress it up how you like, but he killed himself."

"I agree." Kate handed the letter back to Ryan. "But one way or the other, Neidermann knew it wasn't murder, and he didn't tell us."

Rick shook his head. "He was grief-stricken."

"He withheld evidence. He was a cop and he didn't have the guts to hand over the one piece of evidence that might have helped." She stood up and would have walked away, but his hand on her arm stopped her.

"How, Kate? How would it have helped? We already figured out what happened without it."

She tugged her arm free from his heat. "He still beat up Derek Jackson because he said he thought the man was responsible."

"Grief. And he probably did blame Jackson, at least in his fragile mental state." He glanced away from her, towards the murder wall, the photos still looking at him accusingly. "I don't want to consider what I'd do if Alexis ... if anything happened to her, but I have been. I can't help it. And I don't know. I'd want to hold someone accountable for it. Anyone but me." His eyes came back to Kate. "And Neidermann found the scapegoat at Polidori's." He went to touch her again, but dropped his hand before he could. "Grief, Katie."

"Don't call me Katie." But it was automatic, words said because her mind was elsewhere. She still glared at him, her mouth set in a stubborn line, but after less than a minute he saw that tightness ease as she processed what he'd said, looked at it from her own point of view, and found he was, if not right, then not totally wrong either. "Fine," she said, more than a little grudgingly. "Maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt."

He smiled at her. "Good." He got to his feet. "Come on."

"Where?"

"Home."

She shook her head. "No. I've got paperwork, reports to write ..."

"Not tonight. All of that can be done tomorrow. Or better yet, delegate and get somebody else to do it." He gazed at her. "Kate, I know for a fact you got hardly any sleep last night – and I don't mean like that," he added to Ryan, whose eyebrows were in danger of disappearing into his hairline. "I mean, after we got finished with the morgue, and you were here early ..." He grinned. "Besides, I need a lift."

"Castle ..."

"Please?"

Kate could see Ryan nodding enthusiastically, and wondered why her team had this need to try and take care of her, when she could obviously ... oh, hell. Grabbing her car keys with a huge sigh – showing she wasn't giving in at all, that it was her idea – she walked towards the door. At the elevator she paused. "Well? Are you coming or not?"

He was at her side before she could take another breath.

---

They didn't talk much, at least at first, but Kate had obviously been thinking, because she eventually said, "I'm sorry."

He did a classic double take. "What?"

"I said I'm sorry."

"You're ... you're apologising?" His hand hit his chest. "To me?"

"Yes."

"Thank you." He spoke reverently. Then he added, "To what do I owe this singular and somewhat dubious honour?"

Her lips twitched. "I ... you were right about Neidermann. I overreacted."

"No, you didn't."

"I didn't?"

"No."

"So I apologised in error? Do I get to take it back?"

"No." She was in a much better mood, he realised, so he knew he could push things a little further. "And you didn't overreact. Neidermann did know, and he should have said something. I just understood how he felt."

"Because you're a father."

"Sometimes I'm not sure if it isn't some odd fantastical College weed dream – not that I inhaled, of course," he added quickly. "But yes, I am. And I guess that's why."

She glanced at him. "Is that why you offered to arrange that lawyer?"

Rick nodded. "Snyder is a good man. He'll do what he can. Just because I don't listen to him doesn't mean he isn't the best at his job."

"Thanks."

He smiled, just a little. "Shucks, ma'am, t'weren't nothing," he said, in a faux-Western voice.

"I'm trying to be serious here."

"I know." He looked away from her. "And you're right. I just kept thinking, there but for the grace of God …"

"We all think that. Pretty much all of the time," Kate admitted. "You should make a note of that, for … her."

"For Nikki?"

"God, I hate that name."

"What's wrong with it?"

"What's right with it?"

"It fits."

"You said she was slutty."

"So?"

"And she's based on me."

"I didn't say you were slutty, Kate. Unless you wanted to be …" He cringed. "Ow!"

"Baby."

"That hurt!"

"If you hadn't chosen such a … a ridiculous name for your character, maybe I wouldn't feel inclined to cause you physical harm."

"I'll tell Alexis."

"Go ahead."

He rubbed his arm where she'd hit him. "You know, you sound like Maggie. She hates the name too."

"Then she has good taste. In characters if not in friends."

"Are you … did you just insult Maggie?"

"I was aiming for you."

"I'd say you probably got a double header there." He glanced out of the window. "Hey, stop!"

"What? Why?" But she already had her foot on the brake.

Almost before the car had come to a halt he was out, and leaned back in through the window. "Wait there."

She looked past him, at the familiar plate glass window. "Antonelli's?"

He grinned widely. "We didn't really get to enjoy the food last night. Let's try again."

"No. I have to get home."

"Kate. Humour me. It's easier. Besides, you need feeding up – you're way too skinny." Before she could formulate an answer or hit him again he'd jogged off towards the door.

---

His mother had been right – not that he was ever going to admit it, of course. Not under pain of ... well. pain. But flashing his smile and credit card had Antonelli's falling over themselves to provide him with another take-out. It didn't hurt that the maitre'D was a fan of his – and his mother, of course – nor did promising that the next time he had a celebrity party he'd use them for the catering.

He was surprised, though, to find Kate still waiting when he came back out, his arms full of brown paper bags.

"Just get in," she said, her fingers tapping a glissando on the steering wheel.

"I knew you couldn't resist my charms," he said with a roguish smile.

"Your food, Castle. All I'm after is your food."

"That's what they all say."

---

"Hi, Dad, Kate." Alexis looked up from where she was doing her chemistry homework on the kitchen counter as her father pushed the front door open with his foot, and if she was surprised to see his partner behind him, she didn't show it.

"Hi, pumpkin."

Kate waved and smiled.

Alexis raised an eyebrow at the bags. "What's going on?"

"Food," Rick said succinctly, dumping them next to her books. "Where's your grandmother?"

She quickly moved them out of the line of fire. "Out. With someone called Craig. Or possibly Greg. I'm not sure."

He put on a shocked face. "And she left you all alone?"

"Dad, I'm fifteen."

"Really?"

"Really."

He shook his head. "I could have sworn you were younger."

"No, Dad. That's you."

"True. Wounding, but true. How time flies." He busied himself getting out three plates and accompanying cutlery.

"I hope this is okay," Kate said slowly, easing herself onto one of the stools, smiling at the banter.

Alexis grinned. "Of course it is. You know you're welcome here any time."

"Hey, isn't this my house?" Rick asked. "Don't I get a say in who's welcome or not?"

"Of course," Alexis said, patting his arm. "You're the boss."

"See how she lies to me?" Rick said to Kate. "Is this the way a good and dutiful daughter should behave?"

"Should a good and dutiful father be out all hours of the night chasing bad guys?" Alexis countered.

Rick sighed. "Also true." He smiled. "Still, sometimes we get a result."

Alexis leaned her red head forward. "Keith? You found him?"

"We found him." He glanced at Kate, who shrugged slightly, letting him decide how much he wanted to tell. "He hadn't been ... messed with. In fact, he'd been treated with respect." Purple satin cushions, steadfast lilies, and thick candles dripping wax to the floor, even if it was in an unused storeroom.

"And Kazia?"

"We can't charge her," Kate put in. "Nor her brother. But we're on the lookout for Peter Trask and Rhiannon Docherty."

"But why did they take Keith in the first place?" Alexis wanted to know. "And who killed him?"

Taking a deep breath, Rick said, "He killed himself. In a manner of speaking." He went over the barest details, his daughter's eyes growing wider every second.

"How could he do that?" she asked on a breath when he'd finished.

"He was unbalanced," Kate said, putting her hand over the girl's. "What he'd gone through, with his ... with Liz ... well, it stopped him seeing straight."

"Why didn't he talk to his dad, then? Tell him how he felt?"

"Because he wasn't like you, kitten." Rick leaned forward, his elbows on the counter so he could look into her eyes. "You know that, don't you? You can come and tell me anything. Anything at all."

"I know, Dad." Alexis dropped her head. "It's just ...I don't know if I could ever love someone that much," she said quietly. "To do something like that ..."

"Alexis." He put his hand under her chin, made her look at him. "You're going to love someone. And it's going to be a grand passion, with a happy ever after attached. Okay?"

"I don't know. Maybe there isn't someone out there for me."

Rick was determined to break the aura of sadness that seemed to flow from her very pores. "What, not even Owen?" he asked, referring to the young man his daughter seemed much taken with.

Her mouth dropped open. "Dad, I'm fifteen!"

"So you keep telling me. But I want proof you're not actually twenty-six and just lying about your age."

Her lips finally curved. "Do you want me to get my birth certificate out?"

He looked at her from under his eyebrows. "They can be forged, you know. Derrick Storm had an encounter with someone who did just that."

"I know." She smiled fully. "And I told you that seemed improbable."

Rick glanced at Kate. "My greatest critic," he said, gesturing with his head towards his daughter.

Kate laughed. "Well, if we're going to eat any time soon, I'd better go wash up," she said.

"I'll show you where the bathroom is," Alexis replied, turning back up the stairs.

"Thanks." Kate followed the girl up to floor above, and along the corridor. "Alexis, can you ... can I talk to you for a minute?"

Alexis paused outside a door. "What is it?"

"I just ... I wanted to apologise. For putting you in that position."

For a long moment Alexis didn't answer, then she shook her head. "It's all right. I understand. You did what you had to do."

"But you're still angry at your dad."

"How do you know that?"

"I'm a cop. We're trained to read people."

Alexis smiled. "Am I that easy?"

"No. You're a bit like your father in that respect. I'm never quite sure what's going on under the surface with him either."

"But you'd like to find out?"

"It might make it easier to know what he's likely to do next."

Alexis laughed. "I doubt it."

"But you are still angry, aren't you?"

Alexis' good humour evaporated. "Yes. And I'm mad at myself for feeling that way." She sighed, the sound seeming to come from her bunny slippers. "It's just ... I preferred it when he was only writing about crime, not involved in it."

"I'm sorry about that."

"Not your fault. Unless you'd like to make yourself less attractive."

"Alexis, whatever you might think, I'm not after him."

"Maybe you should be." She fixed the older woman with a surprisingly adult eye. "He really likes you."

For a moment Kate wasn't sure how to respond. "Well, I like him too. I suppose."

"I know. Gran and I both know. So does Maggie."

The mention of Rick's oldest, closest friend sent an unexpected wave of jealousy through her, and Kate wondered yet again as to the cause, before stamping down on the little voice shouting at the back of her mind, Because you like him. "Alexis, we're colleagues. That's all."

"And if you weren't? If Dad was just a writer and you were ... well, what you are? Could there be something more?"

Kate brushed her hand up and down the young girl's arm. "We don't run in the same circles, so I doubt I'd ever have met him."

"Even being a big fan of his books?"

Kate gazed calmly at her, but the thoughts going through her mind were less than kind. Of course she knows. Of course Castle told her. He tells her everything, it seems. And it's nothing to be ashamed of. At least, that's what she was telling herself. "Even then." She smiled. "But we have met, and as much as sometimes I want to wring his neck, I haven't so far."

"So far."

They laughed together.

"I still feel guilty though," Alexis admitted. "About not wanting him to go out with you like he does. I mean, he's my Dad, I love him so much, but ..."

"Yes. Dads have a lot to live up to, don't they?"

"I suppose."

"I know my Dad did things, when I was young, that make me cringe just to think about."

"Oh?" Alexis opened the door to the bathroom, going inside and waiting for Kate to follow so they couldn't be overheard by other fathers listening in. "What sort of things?"

---

When they finally got back downstairs, Rick had filled the plates with a selection of Antonelli's goodies. "I was beginning to think I should send out a search party. What were you two talking about?" he asked, placing napkins and water glasses at each place.

"All your secrets," Kate said, sitting down where Alexis indicated.

"All of them?" He smiled. "Kate, you weren't up there nearly long enough." The smile turned to a wide grin. "Now, eat. I know you haven't not since breakfast."

---

"Gran is going to be so mad she missed this," Alexis said, helping herself to more vegetables.

"Serves her right for going out on the town." Rick wiped his mouth with his napkin. "Did she say what time she was likely to be back?"

"Late. Or early, depending on your definition."

"I gather she'll be arriving with the sun."

Alexis grinned, more than comfortable with most of the peccadilloes of her family. "Pretty much."

"I don't know," Rick mused, picking up his water glass. "I'm surprised I've got any reputation left, the way she carries on."

"What reputation?" Kate asked. "No, please. I'm curious. You keep asking about me, I want to know about you. What's this reputation I keep hearing about? I thought you'd lost that about the time you gatecrashed the Mayor's garden party that year with a dozen dogs which you then proceeded to let loose."

"I'd rescued them from the pound," Rick said, waving his glass at her. "I was making a statement." His gaze softened. "Ah, my rebellious youth." He chuckled, then looked at Alexis. "And I hope you have some rebellious youth stories eventually to tell your children."

"I'll try," Alexis said, adding, "And it wasn't that long ago. I remember asking you if we could get to keep one of the puppies."

"I kept your grandmother. What more do you want?"

"Dad, that's not nice."

"I'm Richard Castle. Author supreme. Haven't you heard? I'm not nice."

"Of course you are." She smiled at him.

Rick stood up suddenly and looked down at Kate. "Talking of which, I've got something for you."

Kate's eyes narrowed. "Talking of what?"

He tossed his napkin onto the table. "Wait there."

"If it's something crude ..."

"As if I would."

"As if you wouldn't."

Alexis' laughter followed him into the study.

In front of him, on his desk, lay the file on Johanna Beckett. He paused, wondering whether he should give it back now, or go with his first instincts. Clark Murray was a good man, top in his field, but once he handed the photos over to him, there would be no going back.

Actually, that wasn't true. He could go back. He could return the file where he found it, ignore Murray's findings, pretend he knew absolutely nothing. Except ... except ... Another damn word like 'but'. Half the world's troubles were caused by people saying 'but' at the wrong time.

And in this case, it was 'but' Kate deserved to know the truth.

For one brief moment he'd let himself wonder how he'd feel if it was his mother, or Alexis who'd … but his mind once more skittered away before he could even finish the thought. Thinking the unthinkable, he told himself, while his stock in trade, didn't extend to his own family. It couldn't. That way madness lay, and he'd toyed with it too often in the last couple of days.

No. Quickly picking up a sheaf of galley proofs, he covered the file over and turned to his bookcase instead. Half-smiling, he reached for the one and only copy still in existence of his very first book, one that Maggie paid for to be printed, bound, and presented to him on his birthday. When he'd said to Kate that his first book was crap, he really meant it, but this one had never even been to a publishing house. In fact, if Maggie hadn't stroked his failing ego that time, he probably would never have written another word, so it was all her fault.

His smile widened. "Definitely her fault," he murmured to himself, although the fact that his protagonist was a female cop was something he was pretty sure Kate would find amusing.

He looked down at the lurid cover in the moonlight flooding through the windows, finding the gap between the buildings and clouds to leave a glow on everything. Rick smiled, wondering idly if he could have Nikki Heat bathing naked under the full moon. The smile faltered as something kicked him in the hindbrain. Words. Written down. Something about the moon.

He hurried back into the other room. "Katie, have you still got those journal pages?"

"Don't –"

He waved away her objection. "Call you Katie, yes I know. But do you still have them?"

"They're in the car. Why?"

"Get them."

"Castle –"

"Humour me." He began to clear the detritus of their meal off the table.

She stared at him but said, "Fine." Grabbing her keys she hurried outside.

"Dad, what is it?" Alexis asked, picking up a plate and holding it like a shield in front of her.

"Sweetheart, can you do me a favour?"

"What?"

"Can you call Kazia?"

Immediately Alexis was on the defensive. "No. Dad, look, I really don't think –"

"I just want you to make sure she's okay."

"Why?"

"Alexis, please. I have a bad feeling, and I don't want it coming true."

---

"Is this it?"

He checked the hand-held GPS. "Yes."

"Have we got everything?"

"All here."

"Who's going first?"

"Me."

"No, look, I really think I should –"

"No. Me. Only right. He should have been mine."

"Moja siostra..."

"Robi nie!" There was a pause, where things could go either way.

"Dobrze."

"Then get it ready."

"Okay, Kazia."