Florida Heat

Chapter 5

Seven Days Earlier

"Hey Lanie, what we got?" Kate questioned her friend as she crouched down next to the body. It was six AM, there was a dead girl in an alley, the temperature was already 90 degrees and it was freakishly humid outside. It was not gearing up to be a good day.

"She's young, my guess would be somewhere between eighteen and twenty. Blonde is definitely not her natural hair color. She has bruises all over her body, along with assorted cuts, scars and burn marks. There is evidence that she has been choked but it would be the bullet to the head, execution style that actually killed her." Lanie rattled off the details without looking up at her friend. She wasn't sure if she could take the mournful look she knew was present on Kate's face.

Kate blanched at the information and stared at the girl for a few more minutes. Her clothes were nothing more than rags hanging off of her emaciated body. What happened to her? She was startled out of her thoughts by the smell of coffee and she turned her head until the paper take away cup was in her eye line.

"Large skim latte two pumps sugar-free vanilla."

Kate looked up at him and gave a soft grin. "Hey, Castle."

"Hey."

Kate took the coffee with one hand, wincing as the heat radiated through the cup and burned her fingers. She blew on the top softly while her other hand wiped across her forehead and around the back of her neck smoothing away the sweat that was gathering there. It was too hot outside but she drank the coffee anyway.

It was never too hot for coffee.

Kate looked around the alley. There was a dumpster in the corner and assorted garbage littering the street. No more blood, no tire tracks. Nothing. The techs hadn't found anything yet either. The girl had been abused, strangled, shot and dumped like a piece of garbage. Kate sighed and brought the scalding fluid to her lips once more, wincing as it burned her mouth and down her throat. Her hands were sticky inside the plastic gloves. This was the second girl in two days and they had a couple of special education teachers that had been found the night before that.

Four dead bodies and no leads at all.

Present

Richard Castle slouched down in a hard blue plastic chair in the hospital hallway. He leaned back against the wall and brought his fingers up to pinch his nose. He had just hung up with Esposito. Kate had been missing for four days and no one had called him. Gates had ordered them not to, citing that he would just get in the way of the investigation. Ironically, he had been the one to find her. Well, she found him, but still. He was with her now and Esposito and Ryan were on the way.

Rick stared at his phone for a minute, pressing random buttons, opening and closing apps, checking his email and twitter- not actually reading any of the words on the page. Kate had fallen back asleep half an hour ago. Castle had managed to hold himself together while he was in the room, while she had been asking him questions, while she had been sitting there silently, holding his hand, as she had stared into space trying to fill in the blanks. He could see the frustration etched on her face even if no one else could. He knew her even if she didn't know herself at the moment.

Now, sitting in the hall, he allowed himself to break as he felt the tears sting at his eyes. The doctors had said there was no lasting physical trauma that her memory loss was not permanent- she just had to allow herself to remember. Rick snorted out a laugh- why would she want to remember? The last few months had held more trauma for her than most people saw in a lifetime. Feeling a presence above him, Castle looked up to see the young nursing assistant, Angela, standing awkwardly in front of him clutching a clipboard to her chest.

"I'm sorry to bother you Mr. Castle, but we need some of this information filled out for Ms. Beckett and since she can't remember…" Angela's voice trailed off and she shifted from foot to foot.

"It's detective. Detective Beckett," he snapped.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Castle closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped. This is just hard."

Angela nodded an acceptance of the apology as Castle reached out and took the board and packet of papers. The pen dangling from the metal chain clanked against this side of the pressboard. He juggled his phone as he tried to situate himself and let out a snort of amusement as he caught sight of a video that started to play muted on the screen.

"Here," he said, patting the seat next to him. "Sit down. I want to show you something."

He punched up the volume on his phone and set the video to replay, angling it so that they both could see the screen flash as Kate Beckett's face came into view. It had been taken months before at the precinct and she was bent over her desk, pen in hand as she filled out lines of paperwork, and scribbling on post-it notes between sips of coffee.

"Castle? What are you doing? Turn that thing off."

"No, this is a monumental occasion. I want you to repeat what you just said for the camera. It needs to be documented for future occasions. "

"Castle," Beckett warned as she tried to grab the phone from his hand, her brown hair falling in her face as she leaned forward in her chair, causing the screen to jump as he jerked the phone back.

"Just say it Beckett. Say it and I will turn the camera off. I promise."

"No, I'm not going to say it."

"Come on, I know you want to."

"No!"

"Yes."

"No! I am not going to say it. Now, turn off the camera so I can get my work done." She turned and leaned back over her paperwork, attempting to ignore him.

Her face got closer as he maneuvered the phone down between her head and the desk.

"Say it. Please? For me?"

She let out an exasperated huff and rolled her eyes as she leaned back in her chair to face him. "Fine, but if I say it will you please leave me alone?"

"Yes. I promise. Now say it."

She rolled her eyes again at his antics and tried to suppress that small, Kate smile that crossed her face. "Okay, I admit it. Watermelon Jollyranchers are better than green apple. Are you happy now?"

"Extremely. Now hurry up with that paperwork. Esposito owes me a beer. He bet that you wouldn't say it."

The camera jumped again as Castle ducked to avoid the pen flying at his head.

Castle smiled as he tapped the screen to exit out of the video. He looked over at Angela who was still staring at the phone.

"That's the woman I need to get back. That snarky, bull-headed, eye-rolling detective is still in there somewhere and I need to figure out a way to help her find her way back. So, I was wondering if you could do me a favor."

Angela nodded, glancing back through the doorway at the woman sleeping curled up in the bed, looking nothing like the detective in the video, as she listened to list of items Castle was asking her to pick up from the store. Castle rose from his chair and turned back towards the room, clipboard in hand as Angela made her way down the hall the list and cash that he had given her clutched in her hand.

"Mr. Castle?"

Castle turned back towards the girl. "Nikki Heat is Detective Beckett, right?"

Castle grinned a little at the question that Beckett would have balked at. "Nikki is based on Beckett, yes."

"So that makes you Jameson Rook?"

Castle nodded and watched as a smile spread across Angela's face.

"Then I know that she is going to be all right. You two will figure it out together."

Castle smiled at the ground and shook his head as the girl turned to walk down the hall again a little bounce in her step as her ponytail swung from side to side. She was right, though, they would figure it out. They had too.

Castle was working his way through the packet of paperwork as he sat in the chair beside Kate's bed. He was amazed at how much he actually knew about her. He filled out the allergy information quickly checking "no" to every box. That was easy. He pulled her social security number from somewhere in his memory. He jotted down her father's phone number, which he had stored in his phone. He momentarily got stuck when it came to family history of illness, but made his way through slowly as he pulled up the conversations they had had over the course of the past four years.

She was still sleeping and every couple of minutes he would stop writing just to look at her. Even lying there covered in bumps and bruises she was still beautiful. He looked up after filling out the last page and found her staring back at him.

"Hi."

"Hey," she whispered back as she brought a hand up to wipe the sleep from her eyes. "What are you doing?"

Castle shrugged as he looked back at her, enthralled, momentarily letting himself wonder if she always had that sleepy relaxed look when she woke up in the morning. "Just giving the hospital your life story."

Kate lifted her head slightly from the pillow and glanced down at the clipboard. "Let me see that."

Castle smiled at the very Beckett like demand and placed the requested item in her outstretched hand. He watched as she pushed herself up to sit in the bed and looked over the information.

"You know all of this about me?"

Castle nodded as she looked over at him.

She shoved a lock of hair behind her ear and bit her lip. Two ingrained Beckett ticks.

"Are we, you know, together?"

Castle chuckled ironically. That was the question of the decade, wasn't it?

"No. No, we're not. You're my partner and best friend." For now.

Kate nodded as she bent back over the pages and Castle turned as Angela entered the room, a plastic bag and a pair of scrub pants in hand.

"I asked Angela to pick up some stuff. Hopefully it will help you get your memory back," Rick explained as he took the bag and placed it in Kate's lap.

He watched as she took the items out one by one, inspecting them in true form. She tore open the bag of Skittles the moment she saw them and popped a few in her mouth, chewing happily as she brought out the next item: a box of light brown hair dye. She lifted an eyebrow at him and he shrugged. She turned back and laughed as she pulled out the last item, holding up the shirt for inspection.

"Okay, Castle," she said as she grabbed the candy and dye in one hand and swung her legs off the bed. "Come on and help me get my hair back to its normal color."

Rick smiled and grabbed the Batman t-shirt and scrubs off of the bed as he followed her to the small bathroom. A lip bite, eye roll and raised brow all in one conversation. Maybe his plan would work after all.