Chapter 18

Work had been exactly what Beckett needed to make her feel more like herself. Castle had given her the first week to get back into the swing of things before he'd shown up for a case. Now he'd let the guys to go to the crime scene and gather all the information. Then Kate would call if it looked like an interesting one and he'd drop by.

He loved watching Kate work. Even confined to a wheelchair her mind worked in the same miraculous ways. He often sat back and watched her tap the dry erase marker on her chin as she thought. Somehow staring at the board she managed to make connections that the others didn't see. The current case however had even her grasping for straws and throwing out wild theories involving ninjas.

This case was a rough one it involved the grizzly deaths of four men. Each of the men were found in an alley near where they lived or worked with their spinal cords cut near the base of their skulls. According to Lanie the killer had incapacitated the men instantly.

The victims' lives themselves were no help. Other than the fact that they were all of Middle Eastern descent there was no apparent connection.

Beckett had taken the lead with the families. While she'd always been good at breaking through their grief and shock, her new situation allowed her to disarm and relate people even quicker.

After the first victim the team had taken the usual path of looking into his life. Within 24 hours they had the second murder and they switched to looking for connections. Another 24 hours and another victim. After four days and four victims they had discovered nothing other than they victims were related by nothing but ethnicity.

The final coroner's report on the victims found that the perpetrator likely had some form of training. The knife was precisely placed in each victim. This correlated with what the detectives had found. Each man was killed in an alley with no cameras and there were never any witnesses. The killer had done his or her homework. With victims coming so quick it seemed as though all of the victims had been scouted beforehand.

After the first two victims September 11th and revenge was mentioned more than once. But with nearly 3,000 killed the pool of potential suspects was far too big. They needed some direction, some kind of break.

With so little to go on the team had started going over surveillance feeds for all the cameras closest the scenes. Some of the videos were from more than a block away but they were just hoping to catch a break. Maybe they'd get lucky and catch the victim with someone following them. After six hours of watching videos they'd yet to see anything helpful.

Kate sent Castle home to get some sleep and spend some time with Alexis, since she was starting college in a couple weeks. The calls for each of the murders had come in the early morning hours so she knew that he hadn't slept much. She said she'd just take the subway home when she was finished. Castle looked at her and wanted to object but he knew that she needed to do some things on her own.

Several weeks ago when she had suggested getting to work on her own Castle had made her practice taking the subway for an entire weekend before he turned her loose. Since then she'd gotten to work on her own every day, unless they were working an active case that Castle was assisting on. So tonight really wasn't a big deal.

Ryan and Esposito left about 9:00 and Beckett was still hard at work. She assured them she would be fine taking the subway.

At 11:00 Castle had called and asked how much longer she'd be. She still had two cameras to check for the third murder and then she'd been on her way. Hanging up Castle worried. He knew that she hadn't eaten dinner and they'd just grabbed a coffee for lunch. He also knew that she'd blown off her physical therapy appointments for the last two days and hadn't slept more than three or four hours any of the last three nights.

Lately he was caught in a strange place. He wanted to make sure that she took care of herself by always pushing and reminding her of things, like eating and sleeping. But he knew that she'd been doing better accepting everything when he backed off and let Beckett be Beckett. She was a strong woman, the strongest he'd ever known, and he needed to just sit back a trust her. With this settled in his mind he turned off the lights and went to bed.


Terror of unimaginable proportions filled his body when he turned over and looked at the clock. It was after four o'clock in the morning and Kate's side of the bed was still empty. He walked out into his office and the family room to make sure she hadn't fallen asleep on the couch. The lights were all still off and Kate wasn't there.

Back in his room he picked up the phone and dialed her number. After six rings her voicemail picked up. Laying the phone down he pulled on some jeans and grabbed his keys. Trying not to panic Castle thought of all the things she could be doing that didn't involve her laying in an alley somewhere.

The drive to the precinct took only a little over fifteen minutes at that time of morning. He said hi to the officer manning the desk and asked if he'd seen Beckett. The officer hadn't, and he'd been there since 10:00 that evening and had seen Esposito and Ryan leave. Climbing into the elevator there was hope that she was still sitting at her desk working.

As the doors opened he looked across the dark bullpen and saw the light on at her desk breathing a sign of relief he walked over to her desk. There he found her slumped over fast asleep.

As quietly as he could Castle left. Knowing that she was safe was all that really mattered. Even before the explosion this was part of who she was. The dark circles under her eyes and the weight loss were no longer a result of her injury. They were now back to being the result of her job. A job that meant the world to her and Castle hoped would some day drive her to stand again.


Unaware of anything after she laid her head down at 1:30. Beckett jumped up when a phone rang somewhere across the room. Looking at her watch she cringed realizing that it was after 6:00. Reaching in the pocket of the jacket, hanging on the back of her chair, she quickly grabbed her phone. Dialing Castle's number she hated that she was going to wake him but knew that he'd called and had to be worried.

"Hello."

"Castle, I'm so sorry. I fell asleep at my desk and I missed your call. I'm sorry."

"Kate. It's OK. I figured that was what had happened." He knew no one had seen him during his over night visit but the one officer and he'd already talked to him about not mentioning it. Kate needed to feel self-sufficient again and in some ways he knew he was the one holding her back.

"Is there another body?"

Kate thought a moment realizing that they'd gotten each of the calls before 6:00 in the morning. "No, no call yet. But that doesn't mean there isn't one. The others were all discovered by early morning deliveries or someone taking out the trash. It may just be that no one has discovered it yet. But we can hope." Castle smiled on his end of the phone. He didn't think he'd heard Kate talk about hope ever and certainly not since the explosion. Maybe he was making progress.

"Well its almost time to be back in anyway so I'll just stay and work on some more of these videos. Have fun with Alexis and I'll see you later, hopefully."

"You'll be home when you're home. I've got a date to do some shopping for her dorm so I'll be out most of the afternoon, but I'll have my phone if you need me. See you tonight."

He started to add make sure you eat something but he really was ready to back off and let her find her way. So he just settled for "Love you."

She returned the "Love you." And they hung up. She turned back to video on her computer screen and Castle went back to sleep.

Thirty minutes later Ryan and Esposito showed up. They noted to each other that Beckett was wearing the same clothes she'd had on yesterday. They all knew that she was living with Castle so a secret overnight visit wasn't the reason. Knowing her, they both suspected she'd been there all night.

"Yo Beckett, you go home at all." Esposito asked as he hung his jacket on his chair.

"No I fell asleep here." She didn't even look up from the computer screen as she answered.

"Bet Castle freaked over that." Ryan knew that Castle had been very protective lately. Not that he blamed him.

"Actually he only called once and said he figured I'd fallen asleep here. I guess he's seen us do it enough to be used to it."

"Well did all that overtime pay off?" Ryan was already looking at the board where Beckett had made only a few changes over night.

"Unfortunately, no." Beckett headed into the break room to get her second cup of coffee.