Chapter 6

Beckett sat at her desk, waiting for Esposito and Ryan to arrive with Molly. Castle had gone out to get something to eat, sushi was on the menu tonight.

Kate was gazing at her screen, staring at Molly's dossier. She had a slight smile on her face, the only thing that was running through her mind right now was that kiss. She was living it, going through the soft, gentle, silk-like kiss. He was an even better kisser than she had remembered from previous time although, the other kiss was more like a quick smooch.

"What are you smiling about?" Castle asked as he deposited the food on her desk.

"Uh-I was...Hey did you get extra wasabi?" Beckett was trying to change the subject. Her screen was on a dossier therefore nothing funny about it.

"Oh yes, I remember last time you let me know for two days that those sushi would have been better with more wasabi. Trust me that's not going to happen again" as he looked at her with his serious eyes.

"Oh come on Castle, it wasn't that bad. I was just teasing. They were still good I mean they are the best in the city." Kate smiled back at Castle.

"Yeah well, still...not going to forget again. You don't know how bad you can be when you're hungry." Castle said seriously

Beckett just looked at him and chuckled a laugh, she knew that she could be a lot to handle when hungry and she has no patience whatsoever.

Castle started taking out the chopsticks and the food. He took out several plastic containers which had about 10 pieces in them.

"Umm- Castle? How hungry are you?"

As he looked at the 5 containers on her desk he realised that maybe he had exaggerated with his order.

"Uhhh pretty hungry from the looks of it. Well we could give the rest to Esposito, he's always eating the scraps from my lunch anyways" He looked at Beckett and she nodded in agreement.

After about 10 minutes later Beckett surrendered she had eaten about 20 pieces and she was full, putting the sticks in an empty plastic container.

"What? You're done?" Castle asked

"Yeah, I was really hungry and now I think I ate too much. I hate how sushi can do that to you but... I still love them."

As Castle finished eating the last of the sushi, he started getting all the empty containers together to through them out.

"Yo Beckett." Esposito said while escorting Molly to interrogation room one.

Beckett nodded back in notification that she had seen him.

She got up, got her leather folder and headed to the interrogation room.

Castle gathered all the garbage in a neat pile and threw them out as he passed the garbage bin.

Beckett entered the room as Castle followed.

The woman was wearing jeans and a plain tee.

"Do you know why you are here Molly?"

"No, why?" Molly was trying to play it cool,

"Right...well we now have evidence that you might be in some kind of trouble?" Beckett asked waiting for Molly's response.

Molly flicked her hair, and looked over at Castle and then back at Beckett.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Molly didn't seem to want to give out any information about anything.

"Are you sure? Because I have a certain Sheldon Fergie that tells me that he lent you his gun for protection. The gun that killed Sharon." Beckett's stare was intense. She sat back into her chair crossing her arms, waiting for Molly's reply.

It took a few minutes of staring back and forth with Castle and Beckett before Molly started talking.

"Fine! I went to see Sheldon about a month ago. I knew that he was out of jail and that he might be able to help me. I talked to him about my situation telling him that I had some frisky clients. He offered me his gun, so I took it."

"Who were you afraid of? Drunk men? I'm sure that to doormen at your work could have taken care of them." Beckett sat there with here intimidating stare waiting for her to tell the truth.

But Molly just sat there and said nothing.

"Oh come on Molly we both know that the gun you had wasn't purely for drunk clients at the bar was it?" Castle had decided to say something.

Molly was clearly hiding something...she knew that Sheldon must have told them everything.

Molly sat there for a while, she was getting more and more nervous as silence remained in the room. Neither Castle nor Beckett had asked further questions, just sitting there and looking back at her was doing the job. She wasn't sustaining eye contact anymore which meant that she was getting intimidated.

15 minutes might have passed but it seemed like hours for Molly.

"Ok," she said faintly as though she was telling herself that it was no use to keep it to herself anymore.

"Ok, so...I started selling drugs about two months ago."

"Who were you selling them for?"

Molly looked back at Beckett giving her a Seriously look.

"Fine! His name is Fernado Aparo."

Beckett wrote his name down but then gave Molly a questioned look.

"Fernado Aparo? He's your drug dealer?" Beckett gave her a look basically saying ok now you're fucking with me!

Castle was getting confused the name didn't sound familiar therefore he didn't see how relevant it was. He looked at Beckett he knew her and her posture meant that she knew something and knew that Molly was lying...again!

"Yeah why?"

"Because from what I recall Mr. Aparo is not a drug dealer but a Pimp." Beckett's look was stern and she was getting pissed. She hated when people lied to face.

"I..." Molly was speechless, she was busted. She knew that the detective had meat on her and that if she didn't stop lying, things would get bad, real bad.

"Ok...he's my pimp. But I did it because I need the money. I need to pay rent and bills and school. I wasn't able to pay for anything anymore, I needed a way to get easy money. I saw Fernando a few months back, he was at the bar, ordering glasses of scotch when he approached me with the deal. At first he only wanted me to sell some drugs for him. He said he'd cut me a deal and give me half the profits. So I said yes right away. But, his 50% profit turned out to be less than 10%." Molly was frustrated by all of it she had gotten screwed over but once you're in the game, good luck getting out.

"I wanted out! I told him that I wanted to stop selling the drugs. He told me that I couldn't because ever since I had started selling, his sales had increased 20%. He told me 'Hell no you're not going to stop selling. But I have something that might interest you and it pays more than this.' So he talked about to me about...you know...screwing with guys." She was obviously ashamed by all of it. Ashamed that she used her body for money.

Beckett wasn't the kind to feel sorry for people, especially suspects, but she saw that this woman was going through a lot and it must be tough to live through.

"Anyways so about a month ago he became my pimp. The first guys were ok, I mean they weren't violent or anything but after a while it was getting too intense. I talked to Fernado about it but he didn't seem to care, hence why I wanted a gun. If the clients were to get to violent or insistent well I'd have something to scare them off with."

"Ok but how did Sheldon's gun end up killing Sharon?"

"uh-right...I'm getting there." Molly was trying to explain everything as it happened, she didn't want to lie anymore she wanted to get her story straight.

Beckett nodded and continued listening.

"Ok, so one night like two weeks Fernado gave me stuff to sell and told me to hang on to the profits until he came back. So I sold all the stuff that same night, but when he came back a few nights later, I pretended like I had only sold a quarter of what he gave me. I told him that it had been quiet, and he believed me. After a while I got used to having the money, I kept lying about selling it but he still gave me more the sell. It didn't take long for him to figure out that I was keeping the money to myself so last night he came to the bar." The look in her eyes were that of fright obviously scared of something, or someone.

"Last night he came to the bar and was pissed. He told me that he knew that I had the money and that I better give it back. When we were talking he saw my purse behind the counter, he raised the bar and went for it. He started going through it even though I tried to prevent him from doing so. But he found it, he found the gun. He looked up at me and said, 'Well...well...well...what do we have here? Ok well, you better give me my money or else, you'll know what's going to happen to you' and he took the gun. After his threat he looked at me then back at the purse, he took it, taking my wallet out. But the money was gone. I spent it on rent, which I was 3 months late for, my tuition and the rest of last semesters' fees."

"Oh, Molly...what were you thinking?" the words escaped Castle's lips

All Molly could do at this point was look down at the table.

"When he found out that I had spent his money, and that he wasn't going to see it I think he figured he wanted to scare me. He must have thought that Sharon was me and now she's dead because of me." Tears were starting to descend down her cheeks. It was the first time that either Beckett or Castle had seen empathy from her.

"How much did you owe him?" Castle asked

"About 10 000$, I know it was stupid but I needed to pay for all these things and I want to stay in school. I want to get a good job but if I get a loan I'll never get to pay it off." Molly was ranting, the stress was now talking and that was her defense mechanism.

"I feel so bad for Sharon, I mean she was so close..." Molly was still talking at the table.

"Close to what?" Castle asked with intrigue

"She told me she was going to meet her dad, she said she found him." Molly was starting to look back up at Beckett, it was faint but Molly had a little smile.

"She told me that she was ready to meet him, she had done her research and she was ready to go for it. I mean it's all she'd been talking about for the past few weeks. It's just too bad that it'll never happen."

Castle face changed completely, life was draining out of him. The color in his face was no longer pink but white.

Molly noticed the change in him...

"Uh-sir? Are you alright?"

Beckett's heart was hurting he was fighting back the rage and the sadness all at once.

"Castle, you can leave if you'd like." Beckett said while putting her hand on his shoulder

Castle got up and went for the door, this was getting too hard for him.

"Castle? Wow, that's weird Sharon told me that he dad's name was Richard Castle. You aren't him are you?" Molly's face was distraught, knowing something was wrong.

Beckett got up and went to the door with Castle.

"Castle if you're not up to it, go home. I'll come over later and we can talk. I don't want you to get more hurt than you already are. I know it's going to drive you crazy being home but being here isn't going to get any easier." Beckett whispered to him as he stood in the doorway.

Rick's facial expression hurt Kate, all she wanted to do was hold him and make it go away but it would take a lot more than a hug to make it stop.

"Yeah you're right staying here isn't the best right now, but if you could come over later I'd like to have an update on the situation. Thank you for all of this." He smiled knowing that he'd see her later, being with her made it that much easier. She was his sunshine, even in the dark.

"Always," as she smiled back at him. Doing this for him was the least she could do, especially in these circumstances.

Beckett closed the door behind her and continued the interrogation.

"Molly, when was the last time that someone saw you at work?" Beckett continued her investigation she needed things cleared out.

"The last time people saw me at work was...well the night Sharon was killed."

"Ok, so no one knows that you're technically alive right?"

"Yeah I guess so why?"

"Well, Fernado thinks that he killed you, so we need him to think that you're dead. When's your next shift at the bar?"

"Um...in two nights why?"

"Ok, none of you concern for now. Can you promise me that you'll stay home until then and not leave?"

"I could but why would I?"

"Because it's for your own safety, you have promise to stay put for the next 48hrs."

"Yeah, sure I have loads of papers to do for my law classes, it should keep me busy."

"Ok if I need you I'll give you a call, I'm trying to keep you safe."

"Thank you detective, I appreciate it."

"Don't thank me, just tell yourself that if you get out of this one you have to find a new way to getting money because this Molly, this isn't working, you're worth more than selling yourself and selling the drugs. You said you were in law try and find an intern job somewhere it'll be a lot safer."

"Yes, Mam" was all Molly could bring herself to say, she knew that the detective was right. She needed to change her work habits and respect herself more.

Beckett got up and looked back at Molly,

"Keep your cell on at all times, just in case."

Molly acknowledged her request with a nod.

"You can go now," as she exited the room.

Beckett had started doing some paperwork relevant to the case, writing down everything she had up to now.

After a while she took her phone out of her pocket, saw that it was 10:43pm and that she had recieved a text message. Oddly enough she hadn't heard it beep for she had recieved it at 10:38pm:

'Hey Kate, I'm still waiting. You better show cause I tried sleeping and it's not working. I need to know where you're at. I'll wait for your call'

As she read the message a smile appeared on her lips, she was glad that he was up and waiting for her. She knew that he was going through a rough patch and knowing that Alexis was out of town for a week, for a school trip, wasn't helping.

Kate picked up her phone and decided to text him instead she thought it'd be faster.

'Hey I got your message I'm leaving now, I should be there in about 10."

When she finished writing she put on her coat and grabbed her purse, then her phone beeped. She looked down and read:

'The wine is ready and I'm under the covers :P Just kidding, but I'll be waiting' the message made her laugh she knew that if he was joking like this he was feeling better.

She put the phone in her coat pocket and headed for the elevator door.