Chapter 5

Ok, ok I know there's no excuse for taking sooooo long to post the next chapter but I tried to make it extra good for you guys to make up for it. Enjoy

Lanie was watching her captor carefully, waiting for something she could use against him. Some sign of weakness, anything. She knew that every second she was with him was a chance to turn the tables and get the better of him. Maybe she would find her moment, maybe he would slip. She had to hope for some hint of where she was.

She was surprised when he brought her back a turkey sandwich on one of his excursions out of the room. She ate it gratefully before going back to observing her captor. He seemed to be conflicted but she couldn't tell why. He had kidnapped her but he had also meant it when he told Kate that he hadn't hurt her. He was treating her as if she wasn't there but had brought her food and kept a pitcher of water on the table for her.

The medical examiner had thought about yelling as loud as she could and hoping someone outside would hear her. She had also thought about trying to fight back and overpower him, she was stronger than she looked. Then she thought about just sitting there, and playing along until Kate and the team found her. Lanie had been around her detective friends long enough to know that the first two options were more likely to get her into more trouble rather than out of it. Finally she settled on a different approach. "Why me?" she asked while the man was checking up on her.

He seemed taken aback and turned her way. "Excuse me?"

She repeated her question. "Why me? There are half a dozen other people you could have taken to get your point across."

He leaned back against the table. "Because you were the easiest."

Lanies' New York attitude flared to life. "Now I know you didn't just call me easy."

The man laughed. "You misunderstand my meaning doctor. You were the easiest to take. Not that it was easy, but any of the others would have been much more difficult. People pay attention to the writer everywhere he goes. Same with the captain. I couldn't take Kate for obvious reasons, and the other two detectives know how to fight back too well. I suppose I could have taken Kate's father, but the poor girl already lost her mother, I don't want to stress her out too much. I'm not here to be mean."

"You've obviously been observing our team for a while, so you should know that my man doesn't like it when people take his things. And I'm all his so you had better hope he doesn't get his hands on you because he is going to rip you to shreds."

"So feisty. You know doctor, had we met under different circumstances…" he let his voice trail off as he brought a hand up to her face. She smacked it away and backed up as far as she could. He chuckled and stood up. "I'll be back Ms. Parish."

He left her to sit with her thoughts for a while, and when he came back a couple of hours later he uncuffed her from the chair. She looked at him with shock. "Don't get your hopes up," he said. "It's just bedtime. Don't try anything funny."

He closed the door behind him and she stood there rubbing her wrist. Lanie knew it was pointless to try and get out but she couldn't stop herself from walking over to the door and turning the knob cautiously. It was locked, just as she had suspected. All of a sudden she realized that she was cold and decided she might as well get under the blankets on the bed.

She curled up and wrapped the blankets around her, but it took her a long time to fall asleep. She lay there trying not to wonder what the team was doing or what would happen if they didn't find her within the time limit.

Katherine Beckett's eyes fluttered open and she sat up, glancing over at the man lying next to her. She picked up her phone and checked the time. It was a little after 5am. At least I got a few hours of sleep she thought to herself. After carefully getting out of bed so as not to wake Rick, she grabbed some clothes and got dressed in the bathroom. Kate tip-toed past Alexis' room and down the stairs to the kitchen. As quietly as possible she put on a pot of coffee and found something to eat.

She was halfway through a bowl of cereal when she felt a pair of strong arms wrap themselves around her waist. "It's early, come back to bed, just for an hour." Rick said, leaning down to leave a trail of kisses along her neck.

She smiled. "Not today Castle." He groaned in protest and she turned to face him, using her legs to pull him closer. He wrapped his arms around her again and she leaned her head against is chest, allowing herself a moment to be comforted. Taking a deep breath she said, "I need to get to the precinct and get through more of those videos. Lanie is counting on me, on us." She looked up to meet Castles' eyes. They still took her breath away every time.

He looked down at her for a moment then nodded and grabbed her coffee.

"Hey!" she exclaimed. "That was mine."

He took a big sip and headed for the stairs as he talked. "You can pour yourself another one. I'm going to need this if we're going to work this early."

Her mouth opened and closed a few times and by the time she thought of something to say he had already disappeared into his room. She had figured he would be at the precinct sometime during the day, but hadn't expected him to come with her this early. She shook her head and smiled as she poured more coffee into a travel mug.

A few minutes later Castle reappeared at the top of the stairs, dressed and ready to go. He walked up to her and put his hands on her shoulders. "Listen to me, today is going to be hard, but we are all behind you 100% ok?"

She wrapped her arms around him in a quick embrace than pulled back to look at him. "I know, thank you." She stretched up and kissed him before leading the way to the door.

By the time Beckett was sitting at her desk it was a little after 6am. She was opening up the next video as Castle sat next to her yawning and drinking coffee. She noticed him texting and wondered who the heck he was talking to so early. She focused on the videos again but saw him get up out of the corner of her eye. He still had almost a full cup of coffee so she didn't know why he was heading for the break room. She shrugged it off but a couple of minutes later the elevator beeped and her other two partners stepped out. Castle met them halfway to their desks with a cup of coffee in each hand. Ryan and Esposito thanked him and Beckett watched the exchange with a smile on her face. She was glad that she wasn't the only one that had accepted Castle as a part of the team.

"Did you find anything?" Esposito asked as he sat down.

"No, not yet, but we still have like half of these videos to go through." All three of them grabbed another one of the DVDs and started sifting through the video.

Castle sat in his normal chair beside Beckett and watched the three of them work. Suddenly he felt left out and more than a little bit helpless. He knew right now the best he could do was keep their coffee mugs filled and maybe bring them food once in a while, and it kind of hurt him. He knew that the three detectives, even the captain, had long since accepted him as part of the team, but right now he didn't feel like it. He also knew that he had honestly helped on many of the cases, but since the night before all he had done was sit there and watch. He looked at his watch. It was almost 10am, which left them with only 26 hours to find Lanie.

He looked around once more and decided he couldn't just sit there and watch anymore. He looked at each of the three detectives in turn. "You guys need something to eat, so I'm going to go get food. Any requests?"

After taking orders Castle rode the elevator downstairs and got into a taxi. He gave the driver the address of the little café and sat in silence, contemplating the case. Rick knew that Beckett was taking it personally, thinking that it was her fault Lanie had gotten kidnapped. He tried thinking of a way to prove her wrong but knew that it would take more than a little convincing.

Beckett watched Castle get into the elevator and seemed to release a breath once he was out of sight. She was glad he was around but he had been hovering. She had a hard time concentrating with him just sitting there watching her. As much as she didn't want him to leave for very long, she needed her space for a little while. His crowding was starting to make it hard to breathe. She looked up at her partners, who were engrossed in the videos they were watching. She took a steadying breath and turned back to hers.

A minute later her eyes widened. "Guys, I might have something."

The two men were at her side in an instant watching as she rewound the video for a second.

She pointed to a car on the far side of the screen. "That's Lanie right there. She pulls up to the stoplight and takes a left. But that's not the quickest way to get to my house."

Ryan looked at the timestamp and rushed back to his computer. "The video I'm looking at is from the next street over, maybe I can catch something." He fast-forwarded for a minute and then stopped the tape, motioning for Beckett and Esposito to come over. "Look at this, this is the street she turns onto."

They all watched as the familiar car came into the frame and drove towards the camera. Before leaving the frame though, they saw the car turn into a parking lot. Ryan picked out the next video and went right to where they could see Lanie pulling into the lot of a small bakery. Kates' breath caught in her throat as she saw her friend get out of the car and go into the shop. They stood there watching for almost ten minutes but never saw her emerge.

"She doesn't come out of the store, he must have taken her while she was in there." Ryan said, pausing the video.

Beckett thought for a minute before speaking up. "Good job Ryan, keep watching the video and see if anything happens to her car. Esposito, go through the other videos and see if you can find a shot or the back of this building, maybe they went out that way. Castle and I are going to go down there and see if they have anything inside."

She was dialing Ricks number as the elevator opened to reveal him answering his phone. They looked at each other and both hung up at the same time. "What's going on?" he asked, seeing everyone doing something. He handed out the breakfast as Beckett filled him in. He handed her a coffee and a large cinnamon bun he had gotten for her, even though she had said she didn't want anything.

Becketts stomach grumbled and she was glad he had picked something up for her. She let her fingers brush his for a little longer than usual as she took it from him. He smiled at her and asked where they were off to. "It's a little corner bakery a few minutes from Lanie's house. They have the best homemade donuts there. It must have been what she was stopping for."

Kate knew where the bakery was and had them there in ten minutes. She had let him hold her hand on the drive over, thankful for the small gestures of affection. They pulled in and the first thing Beckett did was search the small parking lot for Lanie's car. It was nowhere to be seen. She rubbed her temples for a second to collect herself before getting out of the car with Rick in tow.

They walked into the bakery and looked around. "Do they have cameras in the building?" Castle asked.

Beckett shook her head. "No, it's a family business, it's always been small so they never put any in."

All of a sudden Castle dashed over to one of the refrigerator cases. "Oh my god Beckett! They have my favorite coffee cake here! You can hardly get this anywhere!"

She rolled her eyes. "Castle, focus. We need to find out who was here yesterday." Castle stepped away from the case but threw a longing glance back at the coffee cake. "If you behave I'll let you get one on our way out." She said raising one eyebrow and staring at him with a smirk. He smiled and followed her over to the counter.

"Welcome to Clarke's Bakery, what can I get for you?" said a perky girl behind the counter.

Beckett pulled out her badge and showed it to the girl. "You can start with getting me the names of everyone who worked the morning shift yesterday."

The girl stiffened up. "There were just two of us. It was me and this other kid, Derek."

"Does Derek have a last name?" Castle asked.

"Yeah, it's Derek Howse."

"And your name is?"

"Amy Keller."

Beckett wrote the names down in her pocket notebook then pulled out her phone. She brought up the picture of Lanie and showed it to Amy. "Did you see this woman at all yesterday? She would have been in here a little before 11."

Amy looked at the picture for a second. "Yeah I think she came in, but I was just going on my break. Derek would know more."

Beckett nodded and gave the girl her card. "Thanks Amy, if you think of anything else please call me as soon as possible."

The girl nodded with a slightly dazed expression on her face as Castle and Beckett walked back to the car. "Let's get back to the precinct. Hopefully one of the boys will have something and we can bring this kid in."

The second the elevator doors opened to let them back into the precinct Ryan was calling Beckett over. "I assume you guys noticed that her car wasn't there, well I got the guy jacking it on video."

Beckett and Castle exchanged looks and rushed over to the computer. Ryan hit play and a guy came walking into the parking lot. He stopped and looked at Lanies' car before looking around to see if anyone was watching. When he didn't see anyone he opened the front door and got in. A second later the car pulled out of the lot and out of sight. Ryan stopped the video and looked up at Beckett. "Think that's the guy that took her?"

Kate looked down at the timestamp on the video and shook her head. "No, I was on the phone with the guy at this time. It couldn't have been him. I have the name of a kid that worked at the bakery though. I want you guys to pick him up and see if he knows anything."

Ryan and Esposito nodded and then all four of them looked over as Alexis and one of her friends got off the elevator and walked over to them. "Hey honey what are you doing here?" Castle asked.

"Casey and I were going to a shop up the road and we figured you guys could use some refreshments. I know this is a hard case for everyone." Alexis said, as she held out a paper bag and her friend held out a trey with four cups of steaming coffee.

Castle looked inside and smiled. "Oh sandwiches. Awesome!"

He handed the bag to Ryan and Esposito. The two men each took one out and thanked Alexis and Casey. Alexis noticed the video on the computer and took a step closer. "Is that where Lanie was…taken?"

Beckett walked over and out a hand on the girls shoulder. "We think so. We have a video of the guy that took her car, and a kid that worked there may have seen something but that's all we know right now."

Alexis thought for a second then looked up at Beckett, confused. "Well why don't you bring in the guy that took the car?"

Beckett shifted on her feet. "We will, but the kid that worked there may have seen her get taken. I figure he's a better chance than some random carjacker."

"I'm not trying to step on any toes here detective but it doesn't seem like someone would randomly take a car outside of a place like that. There were only a couple other cars in the lot so it wasn't busy. How did he know she wouldn't be out right away?"

Beckett's jaw dropped and she stuttered for a second. Esposito spoke up. "She has a point. And he didn't even test to see if the doors were locked, he just opened it and started it up."

Castle's eyes got huge. "How did he start the car?"

Beckett found her voice. "He had to have had the keys, so even if he didn't take her he had to have contact with the man that did."

"This is why I love my daughter" Castle said, pulling her into a hug.

Beckett turned to the redhead and her friend. "Alexis you are a genius. And thank you so much for the coffee and sandwiches." She looked down at her watch and swore then turned back to Ryan and Esposito. "Ok boys, we only have 24 hours left. I want the kid from the store and this guy in my interrogation room in an hour."

Fan Shout Out: I'm Widget thanks for reading since chapter 1, and it looks like you got the break in the case you asked for :p

Also in order to help me with this story I have a separate document that is a sort of timeline to help me keep track. If you would like I can post it with the next chapter and keep it updated as the story goes on. Let me know what you think