Here's the next instalment. I'm still trying to get over watching Target – just how good was that & can I possibly wait a whole week for part 2? Anyway, this one's about last year's 2-parter.

Disclaimer: Never has been, isn't & never will be mine, sadly.

Chapter 17

Pandora & Linchpin

It was nearly one o'clock in the morning and Kate Beckett had made no attempt to go to bed. She knew sleep would not be happening anytime soon; she'd been far too close to death these last couple of days, within seconds, even, to have any hope of anything that may resemble restful repose. Her mind was working overtime and that had very little to do with her recent case and everything to do with her partner. Maybe the diary would help her make some sense of her conflicted thoughts; it was worth a try, at the very least.

What the hell am I supposed to write about the last couple of days? Actually, that is a very real question. What can I write? I know this diary isn't for anyone else's eyes but, I suppose there is always a possibility it could get stolen or lost and end up in the wrong hands and, much to Castle's delight, this case did really, genuinely involve international plots and the CIA. In fact, we ended up working a case with the CIA and, as such, we were, are and forever will be unable to talk about it. The details will always remain classified but some of it, well, some of it I just need to get off my chest.

It all began normally enough. We were called to a homicide and apart from the fact that the victim had been shot, stabbed, beaten up and then tossed out of a window, a case of overkill in anyone's book, all appeared relatively normal. We even got a lead on the killer very quickly, picked him up, questioned him and put him in holding.

Then things began to unravel. First the body of the victim disappeared from the morgue. Then our suspect disappeared, too. Somehow he managed to get out of the holding cell, steal a police uniform, take the time to access the NYPD database via a computer and then calmly walk straight out the front door! To say Gates was pissed would be a major understatement.

We traced his search and Castle and I went to the address where we found another body but before we could do much else we were suddenly confronted by, well, to be honest, I had no idea who we were confronted by at the time because all I saw was Castle standing there with a black hood pulled over his head before the same thing happened to me. We were bundled into a car and taken – somewhere.

When the hoods were eventually removed, we were in an elevator heading down, way down. The doors opened and we stepped out into a room that would not have been out of place in a futuristic sci-fi movie. We tried to figure out what the hell this place was but even Castle seemed at a loss for words. Then she appeared.

Sophia Turner. Maybe I shouldn't mention her name here but, frankly, I can't really see that it matters anymore. I confess that I disliked the woman on sight. I could claim that it was a cop's gut instinct telling me something was amiss with her but I'd be lying. It had nothing to do with the magical properties of my intestines and everything to do with the fact that it became immediately clear that she and Castle knew each other, had a history of some kind. Even worse than that, she turned out to be Clara Strike, Derrick Storm's CIA buddy and it appeared that Castle had spent a considerable amount of time following her around doing research for the character. Now doesn't that sound familiar. Frankly, yes, I admit it, I was jealous. There I've said it. I was jealous because Castle had had a muse before me and it hurt that he'd never mentioned that fact.

Now that I think about it, though, that sounds damned arrogant. I know perfectly well that Castle does a hell of a lot of detailed research for his books and it stands to reason that, having written more than twenty, he must have followed many people over the years. Why the hell do I think I'm unique? It's just, coming face to face with Clara Strike, well that just sucked. Never mind the fact that she was an arrogant jerk!

After that first meeting, we returned to the precinct to continue our murder investigation but under instructions not to mention anything we'd learnt whilst with the CIA or even the fact that we'd been with them. It was fun being able to tell Gates that we couldn't give her any information about where we'd been but I hated not being able to keep the boys in the loop.

I was concerned that I was going to lose Castle as a partner during this case, that he'd be lured back to Sophia but, just as I thought he'd gone, there he was quietly proclaiming that I was his partner, not Sophia. Maybe he was just more prepared to appear stupid in front of me, with his outlandish theories rather than Sophia but I'll take that any day and, as the case went on, he was there when I most needed him.

I guess Castle and I had four brushes with death during this case. The first occurred when we traced a car to a long-term parking garage near Newark airport in New Jersey. The car was a 1967 Pontiac GTO, a genuine American muscle car. It was gorgeous and I had to take a moment to imagine myself behind the wheel, racing round a track. Yes, I'm a speed freak! I admit it. I have always loved fast cars and fast bikes. I'll never forget the evening I got the chance behind the wheel of Castle's Ferrari. What an awesome car!

Anyway, enough of that, back to the story.

It was blatantly obvious that the car hadn't moved in a very long time but we had a set of keys and found some useful evidence in the trunk but before we were able to call it in, we were accosted by none other than our escaped suspect. The guy was incredible. Not only had he managed to walk out of a police station but he also managed to take my gun off me in a move so quick I'm still not exactly sure what happened. Before we knew it, Castle and I were locked in the trunk of the car. Sadly a 1967 Pontiac GTO does not have modern safety features including a latch to open the trunk from the inside, so we were stuck.

Now don't get me wrong, being shut in a very confined space with Castle is not all bad but we did have a time limit because the air was not going to last indefinitely. I was surprised by how well Castle was taking the situation until I realised he'd managed to press the panic button that Sophia had installed on his phone. That was too much for me. There was no way I was just going to wait around to be rescued by her. After a fair amount of groping around, and yes, I do mean that type of groping, I wasn't going to turn that opportunity down, I managed to get my hands on the tyre iron which had been somewhere under Castle's ass. I suspect his protests were rather half-hearted. With that as a tool, I managed to prise the trunk lid open. Sadly, as soon as we had escaped our confines, we were confronted by the guy with the black hoods again and returned to dear Sophia.

Our next brush with death was by far the most terrifying in my book.

Castle and I had picked up a guy who could give us all the information we needed to figure out what the hell was going on and he'd asked us to drive him to the waterfront, before he would tell us what we wanted to know. Once there, he began to tell his story but before he finished, he was spooked by a flock of pigeons, of all things, dashed out of the car only to be gunned down right in front of us. Before we were even able to really process what had just happened, my car was shunted towards the edge of the dock. I tried everything I could but there was no way to avoid the inevitable and in just a few seconds we were trapped in the car which was now plunging into the depths of the Hudson River.

We tried the doors and windows but all to no avail. My knife was in the trunk, my gun appeared to have been dislodged by the impact and I couldn't undo my seatbelt. I was stuck. Castle had managed to at least free his seatbelt and he went in search of my gun which had to be somewhere under the seats. Unfortunately, the car was filling with water very quickly. He went under a couple of times and seemed to have located it but couldn't get at it. He had another go. He disappeared. He was too long. There was no way he could hold his breath that long, was there? Castle was gone. I was out of air. In that moment, I gave up. There was nothing left to fight for. It was all over. I passed out.

The next thing I knew, I was choking, coughing, spluttering, trying to breathe and someone was soothing me, calming me, stroking my hair, telling me I was going to be okay. As everything began to come back to me, there he was. Somehow Castle had managed to get my gun, shoot my seatbelt off me, put a bullet through the window and haul me to the surface. I have no idea how he did it but the evidence speaks for itself; I'm here and I'm alive, case closed.

We weren't given too long to be able to dwell on what had happened though because before we knew it we were hauled off by Sophia back to the CIA, given a lecture and chucked off the case. That was fine by me. I still had three murders to solve and I could manage just as well, if not better, without dear Sophia's interference. But if I thought I'd heard the last from Sophia Turner, I was very sadly mistaken.

Evidently, she paid a visit to Castle's loft claiming that her throwing us off the case had just been a smokescreen and that she really did want our help after all. Damn, I hate spooks!

Anyway, no thanks to Sophia, our solid police work led us to an apartment where Castle and I managed to have our next near-lethal encounter. This time, though, our hides were saved by none other than our escaped suspect. Just before the building was raked by weapons fire and blown apart by grenades, he appeared and led us to the safety of his van.

It certainly hadn't escaped my notice that, although he'd had plenty of opportunities to kill us, he hadn't so much as raised a finger to threaten us in any way, so I was inclined to listen when he insisted that he was not the bad guy in all of this but that the threat appeared to be coming from someone within the CIA. However, before he could enlighten us any further, the van doors burst open and, you've guessed it, we were all dragged off to the CIA yet again.

Sadly, whilst in CIA custody, someone managed to put a bullet through our previous suspect's brain. He'd been right, the problem was within the organisation. It was a long night, then, while the spooks did their thing and we waited. Unfortunately, waiting meant opportunities to talk and Sophia wasted no time in putting the boot in. Maybe she was just trying to give me the benefit of her experience but, with hindsight, I guess she was just trying to mess with my head. She came out with the story of how wonderfully close she and Castle had been; how they'd tried to resist the temptation of anything more than friendship for as long as they could but then they just gave in to their feelings; how, once they'd slept together, all they had left were the things that drove each other crazy; and how, sometimes, she wished they'd never slept together and just kept the longing. At the time, I was worried; she was describing Castle and I's relationship down to the letter; but now I'm sure she was just playing her games like she always did.

Because our final brush with death was at the hands of none other than Sophia Turner, herself. She was the person behind all of it. She was a spy, only not one of ours. She was a Russian agent who was left behind when the Soviet Union collapsed and simply waited for her opportunities to make a hell of a lot of money, offering her services to the highest bidder.

She and her associate cornered us in the basement of a hotel. She had us on our knees but in the end, her arrogance probably saved our lives because she just had to taunt Castle a little bit more. The poor guy was already in shock over the fact that Clara Strike was a foreign agent and mercenary but she had to put the boot in again when she dropped the hint that Castle's dad may have had some connection to the CIA. Now, I know that Castle has never really shown any great interest in knowing who his dad is but Sophia knew Rick, knew his fascination with the CIA and knew just how to torment him that little bit more before putting a bullet in his head.

Her taunting had bought us time; time for the good guys to dash to the rescue. I honestly thought for a brief second that the gunshot signalled Castle's death but then Sophia crumpled to the ground; death was 0 for 4.

There was one thing to be said for this case, I didn't have much paperwork to do! The CIA rescued my car from the Hudson and returned it to me as good, if not better than, new. Then there was Castle. The poor guy's trust and judgement had been dealt a severe blow. He did ask Mr CIA if he knew anything about his father being in the agency but I found it hard to tell if he really wanted to know or if he just felt that he was under some obligation to at least pose the question. The response was in the negative so I guess that's the end of it for now at least but I have to wonder if the seed has taken root in there somewhere. Sophia Turner was a traitor and told a lot of lies but if she gave Castle some sort of false hope about his father, well it's a good job she's already dead because I might just have been tempted to put a bullet in her skull myself. Richard Castle is a good man and he deserves far better than people like Sophia Turner messing with his life.

As she reflected on her words, Kate realised that she'd been right; the diary had helped her to sort out her feelings and one thing she knew for sure was that she would go to the ends of the earth to defend her partner, her friend and the love of her life from the Sophia Turner's of this world.