Chapter 11
Upstairs Alexis was furious. She'd been there for nearly an hour, waiting. Her father was far too injured to be out making rounds visiting.
"Hey pumpkin."
"Dad what do you think you're doing?"
"I'm sorry?"
"You need to be resting not out visiting. Dad, you need to start thinking about yourself and what you're doing. Heck, you need to start thinking about something other than Detective Beckett. A woman who has almost gotten you killed more times than I can even count."
"Whoa, where is this coming from? Do you have any idea what happened yesterday?" He waited but she didn't respond. Working with Lanie he wasn't sure how much she might know about the case.
"Alexis have a seat." He waited for her to sit. "Now listen. Have you been to see Beckett?"
"No what would I?"
"Sweetie I owe her my life. It was my contact we were meeting. She had nothing to do with the explosion. I got set up."
"But Dad they were after her."
"Yes because two years ago I overstepped my bounds and looked into her mother's case behind her back. I got her started and I put her in the crosshairs. Yesterday after the bomb went off and we were stuck there in the parking garage she said that she wouldn't let you lose me. That she knew what losing a parent did to a kid, and she wouldn't let you go through that. So when the EMT's arrived, despite that fact that they could have easily and quickly gotten her out, she made them take me first. She lost fifteen minutes of treatment waiting for them to cut me free. Alexis, Beckett sacrificed herself to protect me. There is a good chance that given the amount of time she delayed treatment for her wounds that she will never walk again. Are you hearing this?"
Alexis was listening but she didn't want to hear. She liked the anger toward Beckett better. It gave her someone to blame for the danger her father had been in. She didn't want to think that he'd put himself in that position. "Alexis, what about her father? A man that has already lost so much. How do you think he feels?"
A knock on the door saved Alexis from having to answer. Esposito and Ryan opened the door. "Castle sorry to interrupt, but do you have a minute."
Alexis huffed and gathered her things to leave. "Alexis wait."
"I'll be back later when you have some time." Esposito and Ryan both looked at each other wondering what they had just witnessed.
"Sorry guys she's mad at me, at Beckett, at the world right now. What do you have?"
"OK the military came through. Take a look at these and see if any of them look familiar." Esposito handed Castle a pile of photos.
"Sorry, no. None of them look familiar."
"OK we didn't think so either. That was Holst's team. So we expanded the search and asked for teams that might have been posted with them. See if any of these look familiar."
Castle studied the second stack. Three photos in his face dropped. "Dick Coonan?"
"Keep going."
"Lockwood."
"Keep going"
"No way. Beckett was right." A name caught his attention and he pulled a photo out of the pile. "Its Halstead's kid isn't it?"
"We're looking into that now. Looks like the investigator of the warehouse fire may have had something to do with this after all."
Ryan chimed in "We are looking into the rest of these guys since the military connections all seem to have come from this group."
"What about Smith any information on him?" Castle was still trying to find out if Smith had been another casualty or had been involved.
"No fingerprints and facial recognition have struck out locally. We've turned to the feds and we're waiting on them to run it all."
"Good work guys. Maybe we can keep Beckett safe by getting to the bottom of this before she even wakes up."
Ryan asks "How was she?"
"She looks bad. The doctor thinks she'll make it, but their worried about the swelling. You know Beckett isn't going to do well with being confined in any way."
"No Bro, but she'll have all of us to help." Castle nodded at Esposito's comment.
