Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop
Kate drove slower, not because of traffic, but because of the man in the coffee shop. She was a regular at that shop since it was on her way home from the precinct and she often found herself needing a pick-up after work. But she had never seen that man before in her nearly seven years of visiting that place.
However, she had seen him somewhere else. She remembered a long line, one that snaked through shelves of fiction and romance and science fiction. She hadn't picked up any other books though she did browse out of boredom while waiting, her fingers running down the spines of the books as she inched forward every few seconds. The hardcover book in her hand, the edges digging into her biceps, was more important than the scantily-clad romance novels or the leather-bound classics, though the latter tempted her with their pretty gold scrollwork. Kate had shifted the then-infant Al further up on her hip. She had been getting antsy, but Kate didn't want to leave after getting so close, so she had whispered nonsense in her ear and hoped that it would sooth the fidgeting girl. A blonde woman was standing next to him, her hand on his shoulder as he signed the title page of the books placed in front of him.
"Who can I make it out to?" he asked, turning to look up at her.
And Al took that moment to grab hold of Kate's hair and give it a tug with a giggle that pealed out over the bookstore. With a forced smile through the sharp pain radiating through her temple, she replied, "Kate."
She watched as his hand scrawled over the page, how his eyes squinted a little as if he was exhausted but couldn't let himself go to sleep yet. Must have been at this for hours, the same repeated questions, the same repetitive motion of signing title pages.
"You've got a future heartbreaker there, Kate," he said with an easy smile, handing the book back to her. "You'll be scaring the boys off in no time."
"Oh, I think I can handle them." Kate tried to ignore the quick zip of electricity up her arm when their fingers brushed over the cover. She smiled, a little tired herself, her head tilting to the side a bit as Al yanked on her hair again. "Thanks."
The woman behind him squeezed his shoulder, a subtle reminder that there were others behind this woman and her kid. Castle had waved her off, turning back to Kate. "You know, you're the first person to thank me and mean it."
Al squealed, squirming down so Kate had to set her on the ground, holding her up with one hand. "It's nice of you to take time to see us." Blondie was leaning down to whisper into his ear and Kate took her leave with another "thank you" before picking up Al and going to find her father over in the cooking aisle.
But today had been a shock, seeing those brilliant blue eyes and scruff of dark hair in her coffee shop had Kate reeling. And that was bad, especially when she was headed to the park where their top suspect could be hanging out.
"Get your head back in the case, Kate," she muttered, turning the wheel so she pulled up near Tompkins Square Park and stopping. "Just a coincidence that he looked like your favorite author. Focus."
The park was busy with families. Before getting out, Kate checked to make sure her gun was loaded and secured on her hip but hidden by her jacket. No need to scare children unnecessarily. She threw the laminated NYPD plate on her dashboard so that she wasn't towed, found the sketch of the man Renee had given, and walked over to the playground in the park.
The fountain was off in February but the swings and curly slide were definitely being put to use. The benches in the middle of the playground had mothers and a few fathers on them, watching their kids to make sure they weren't getting hurt. Kate found a pair of women, both holding coffee cups as they talked about last night's reality show episode.
Neither of them recognized the sketch of the man, though they did say that they had seen Molly and Nora around the park some days.
"Hey!"
Kate turned when one of the fathers across the playground shouted, her hand drifting toward her hip automatically. The man was running toward a little girl who was listening attentively to a tall man. She didn't need to look at the sketch still in her hand to know that the man fit their description.
She passed the father, stuffing the sketch into her pocket as she drew her gun. "Police, sir. Stay back," she managed once she got ahead of the man.
"That's my daughter," he said, keeping up with her though his breathing was getting heavy.
"I've got it."
As soon as the man noticed Kate running toward him, he abandoned the girl and started in the opposite direction, nearly knocking over a pair of joggers on the path.
"Police! Stop!" Kate shouted as she skirted around the little girl, charging after the man.
He didn't. Instead, he turned while running, pushing an empty stroller into Kate's path. She dodged, nearly losing her footing, but the man was more concerned with watching her stumble than running away and the next time he turned around, Kate was at his heels.
She tackled him, their bodies skidding along the pavement as they rolled together. They ended with Kate on top of him, a knee pressed to his chest and her gun to his temple.
"Gotcha, you son of a bitch," she said, her breathing even despite the chase.
Kate reached back, fumbled for her handcuffs under her jacket, snapping them onto the man's wrists. As she jerked him to his feet, she noticed the people in the park staring at them. She ignored them as she shoved the man back toward the center of the park, past the crowd of onlookers, and to her car.
She called up Ryan as she pulled away from the park.
"Hey, we don't have anything for you yet," the other detective started before Kate could speak.
"That's fine. I've got our guy." She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the man slumped in the back. "I'll meet you two back at the station."
Seconds after she hung up with Ryan, her phone rang in her hand. She answered it without looking at the caller ID, concentrating more on the road than her phone.
"Beckett."
"Hey, Mom!"
Her daughter's voice surprised her. Luckily she was at a stop light so the twist of the wheel in her hand didn't do anything. "Hey, Al. Listen, kid, I'm a little busy." The cab behind her honked when she didn't pull into the intersection the instant the light turned green. "Can I call you later?"
"You got a daughter?"
Kate ignored the man's question. Don't give him any fodder to use against her in the future. Al was babbling about Sadie and Grandpa and what they had for lunch and the movie they were watching. "Al, I'll call you in a few hours before I pick you up. Talk to you later, sweetie."
"Little girl," muttered the man as he twisted his hands so the cuffs jingled a bit. "Does she have your eyes, Detective? You've got gorgeous eyes."
She bit her lip. She did not need this creep fantasizing about Al. So she let him talk in the backseat without giving him any feedback. Her skin was still crawling when she pulled him from the car and strong-armed him into the elevator inside the precinct.
Esposito was returning from the break room when Kate shoved the man out of the elevator. Without a word, he took over holding the man's arms.
"Thanks, Esposito," Kate said. "Bring him into interview."
She needed to calm down before she went at him. Having to listen to him speculate about Al, describe what he might do to her, had Kate's stomach in a sick twist. What she really needed was thirty minutes in the gym with her hand-to-hand trainer to pound the frustration and urge to vomit out of her. What she could take was five minutes to stop in the bathroom to look in the mirror, poking at the scratch across her cheek from the tumble on the concrete in the park.
Kate winced as she touched the scratch with the moistened paper towel, wiping away the little trickle of blood. Then, she cupped her hands and splashed the cold water up on her face. The water stung the cut but the chill was enough to pull her back into the right mindset for this interrogation. She patted her face dry, giving up on the damp strands of hair framing her face, as she walked from the bathroom.
And right into Ryan.
"Hey."
"We've got this one, Beckett," he said, shifting so he could walk next to her as she went into the break room. His eyes watched as her hand shook pouring coffee into her mug and stirring in sugar. "You go spend some time with your dad and Al."
"No." It came out forcefully as she tossed the coffee stirrer into the trash. "I want to do this."
"But you don't have to," Ryan added, moving to stand in front of her, blocking her exit from the break room.
"Ryan." Her voice held a warning as she stood in front of him. "I need to do this."
"Beckett." A glance over Ryan's shoulder revealed Montgomery, standing in his office doorway with a finger crooked at her.
She gave herself a moment to close her eyes and take a deep breath. Ryan muttered "sorry" as she walked past him to the captain's office, shutting the door behind her.
"Sir, I can handle this," Kate started, placing a hand on the back of one of the chairs in front of Montgomery's desk.
The man was standing as well, his fingers resting on the blotter on his desk as he shook his head. "But the thing is that you don't have to. Kate, you've been off-balance this entire case and for good reason. These girls haven't been much different from Al and that's getting to you." He held a finger up when she opened her mouth to protest. "No, Beckett. I'll make it an order if I have to, but you should go home."
Kate turned to look out the window into the bullpen. The boys weren't out there and she could only figure that they were already in the interrogation room with her suspect. Doing her job because she couldn't separate her personal life from work. "Okay." She looked back across the desk at Montgomery with a nod, rubbing her hand across her forehead. "Okay, I'll take the rest of the day."
"It'll still be your case tomorrow," Montgomery said, pulling his chair out but not sitting. "Say hi to your father and Al for me?"
"Of course." Kate paused at the doorway, her hand on the frame as she looked back at the older man. "Thanks, sir."
He nodded once, sitting at the desk and tugging a file toward him. "Don't mention it, Beckett."
She didn't glance toward the interview room, didn't bother ducking into the observation area to see if the guy was breaking under her co-workers' tag-team method. She went straight to her desk, gathered up her purse and keys, and headed down the stairs.
Before starting the car up, Kate let her head fall back against the headrest, staring at the grey fabric of the ceiling. It had been a long time since she had been this emotionally involved in a case and she hated herself a little for not recognizing it sooner. Then she turned the key in the ignition and started toward her father's apartment.
He had a nice two-bedroom on the Upper West Side, the guest room reserved for nights when Kate was unable to get to his place after a case. Jim had moved after Johanna was killed, unable to stay in the same place as where they had made their lives and not remember every moment, picture every memory that wouldn't be made. So he had taken all of his things from the apartment in TriBeCa, the breezy loft that Johanna had loved so much, and moved them to the Upper West. Kate had claimed the loft, using the second bedroom there as an office until Al came around. She sensed that Jim had loved that; that Kate was using her old home to raise his and Johanna's granddaughter.
The building he lived in had a doorman, a friendly middle-aged man named Tim that said hello to Kate as she walked to the elevators. Kate suspected that Tim had a bit of a crush on her from the way he always ran to grab the door before she could reach it or how he insisted of hitting the elevator buttons. She just smiled as she got into the elevator, trying not to encourage the man.
Kate only had to knock once before her dad answered the door with a surprised, "Katie?"
"Hey. Got out of work early. Montgomery says hello." She didn't bother mentioning why she was showing up to pick up Al at a reasonable hour but Jim sighed, nodding. So damn perceptive, Kate thought as she stepped into the hallway. "Did I miss dinner?"
"Just pulled it out of the oven, actually. We're having-"
"Mom!" Al barreled around the corner and slammed into Kate's legs.
"Goodness, if we're having Mom you'd better be prepared for small portions," she joked, ruffling Al's hair. "I'm not very big."
The girl fixed her with a glare that told Kate she had seen right past the joke. "You know what I meant. We're having chicken nuggets that are shaped like dinosaurs."
Kate dropped her purse on the side table along with her keys. "Does shaping them like dinosaurs make them better than normal chicken nuggets?"
"Duh," Al said. She was up on her tiptoes trying to get a cup from the counter. "Makes all the difference in the world." Al threw a look at Jim, her hands on her hips. "She's new here, isn't she?"
Jim shrugged, laughing without trying to hide it. His cloudy blue eyes met Kate's over the kitchen counter as he got down plates and handed Al the cup she had been reaching for. "Must be. Everyone knows dinosaur chicken nuggets taste better."
A wet nose hit Kate's knee as she moved to take the plates from her father. She placed a hand on the dog's head, giving it a quick rub. "Hey, Sadie my lady," she said to the dog as it followed her to the table. The English Springer Spaniel had grown up from the puppy she had been in the photo on Kate's phone, still slender and still a sweetheart. Kate was sure her father kept the dog around for companionship instead of protection since Sadie couldn't bring herself to tear into some of the stuffed toys she got for Christmas; she just carried them around like they were her own puppies.
"Katie, what happened today?"
She bit her lip, looking at her dad as he transferred the chicken onto a serving plate, followed by the French fries shaped like smiley faces. "Nothing."
When she went to take the plate from him, Jim pulled it back out of her reach. "Now why don't I believe you?" he asked, touching the skin below her cut gently.
"Later," she mumbled. Jim arched a brow, placing the food on the table. "Promise. I'll tell you later."
He hadn't gotten much writing done after the brunette cop had left the shop. The short story he had been working on for a proposed anthology with Cannell, Connelly, Patterson, and Kellerman no longer held his attention. Okay, so maybe it had been entertaining until the spitting image of the woman appeared in every scene and Castle found himself deleting entire paragraphs to edit her out.
This wasn't her story. But he so wanted to tell it. Not just the fictional version that he had pouring out of his fingertips but the real one. He wanted to know her, Al, and Sadie. He wanted to be ordering her coffee that she would drink while they talked.
Castle shook his head as he held down the backspace key, watching the words disappear on the screen. Once he got home, he'd look up that license plate and see if he could get a name. Maybe the NYPD gave the same car to their detectives day after day and she'd be on records with it. Wow, that's creepy, he thought, hitting Ctrl and the 's' to save the document, considerably shorter than he would have liked after hours spent in solitary away from his toys at the loft. These trips were supposed to make him more time efficient, not leave him pining over a mystery woman.
And now he was running late to get Meredith from her meeting.
He packed up the laptop and charger, down the rest of the cold coffee in the cup, wrinkling his nose at the bitter grinds that came with the last drop, and called the car service from outside the shop.
Thanks to traffic with rush hour, he was really late to pick her up outside the office building uptown.
"Richard, I've been waiting for almost half an hour," were the first words of her mouth as she slid into the backseat. She did lean over and peck him on the lips, shifting her purse so she could cuddle into his side.
He gave a smile, a shrug before wrapping his arm around her shoulders. "You know me. Sometimes I lose track of time writing."
"We need to get you a timer or something," she teased. "Keep you on track."
Castle didn't mention that sometimes, one didn't decide when inspiration struck. Having a timer to write by would be utterly pointless to him. "Where do you feel like eating?"
"There's a nice French restaurant nearby, I think. That would be lovely."
But he really wasn't listening. He had caught a glimpse of a dark blue sedan that looked eerily like the detective from the coffee shop's car. There was a man behind the wheel, so it wasn't her, but suddenly, she was back at the forefront of his mind.
"Richard?"
He shook his head as Meredith poked his side. "Yes?" he asked, trying to figure out what she was talking about and how he could fit back into the conversation.
Meredith had one perfectly groomed brow raised as she crossed her arms and legs simultaneously. "You weren't listening."
A statement, not a question. He'd been caught. "Sorry," he muttered with what he hoped was a convincingly charming smile.
"I was just saying that this agent isn't working for me," she started babbling again, just happy to have his attention back on her. "I think you need to pull some strings, see if there's a better one in the city because, really? A movie musical? Who do they think I am, Julie Andrews?"
Not the time to argue about the aforementioned woman's wild success in movies that involved singing and dancing. "I'll see what I can do."
She walked her fingers up his chest before they reached his nose, which she tapped with a manicured nail. "Thanks, Richard."
Things didn't get better over dinner. As Meredith picked at a salad, Castle found himself blatantly staring at a head of brown curls across the dining room. Wrong body structure, but goodness the hair was the right shade. Meredith didn't notice his preoccupation with the other woman, moving onto a rant about the temperature in the studio that hosted one of the acting classes she was taking. Something about the chill being bad for her voice. Castle nodded along, adding hums of agreement when he felt they fit, and pulling apart the baked potato like it was undergoing an autopsy.
He so needed to get home and find out who she was so she would stop haunting his mind with the memory of her. Dessert was going to take far too long.