Author's Note: I'd like to thank phnxgrl, TORONTOSUN, southerngirl1, and Chkgun93 for their reviews. This chapter starts out right where the last one left off and is from Beckett's POV. Enjoy!

Chapter 25

Beckett and Castle arrived to see a flurry of activity. CSU techs were being told to wear two pairs of booties and to double glove, which told Beckett that there was a lot of blood upstairs. This sentiment was confirmed by several uniforms looking a bit pale. Beckett felt her heart sink a little; a crime scene involving lots of blood so soon after Ewan Brebnor's murder could only mean one thing. Alex had found her mark.

Ryan met them as they crossed the building's threshold. "Victim is a white male, no I.D. Lanie says to glove up. It's a mess in there."

"Esposito upstairs?"

"Yeah. The uni's who haven't puked their guts out are starting a canvass."

Beckett pulled a pair of gloves out of her coat pocket. "Who called it in?"

"We don't know yet. The first responders I spoke to say the phone was off the hook when they got here. I'll get the tape of the call. From what I've seen of the scene, the victim didn't make the call."

"You're sure?"

They had reached the doorway of the apartment. "Positive."

Castle stuck his head in cautiously. "It looks like a horror film in here."

"Then this guy would have to be a periphery character." Lanie looked up. "He hasn't been dead long. He's still warm to the touch."

Beckett slowly ducked under the tape. "What happened?"

"I can't say for sure till I get him back to the lab, but I've already counted thirty holes. From the shape I'd say sharp force trauma, not GSW's."

Beckett was carefully moving into the room. "The blood all over plus that many holes says rage. Would you say Alex is behind it?"

"I'd like to, but I can't say for sure until after the autopsy. That's why I had them call Karpowski in too. If this ends up being the copycat, she needs to see the scene as well."

"Yeah, I hear you. I found a knife;" Beckett walked over to the kitchen table and her breath hitched as she recognized the blade, "an SOG Military Combat Knife. Favorite of Rathborne and the same kind of knife the copycat used to kill my dad."

Lanie looked at her friend. "That's the same knife type used to kill Ewan Brebnor too."

Castle had managed to work his way in too. "The blood looks almost dry. That's inconsistent with the scene. I don't think that's the murder weapon for this scene."

"No, it's not. There's a print on it," she pointed to a partial fingerprint in blood on the handle, "maybe we'll be able to figure out who wielded the knife."

Castle straightened up. "I'm betting on the dead guy on the floor. Alex killed him for killing her boyfriend and then left the knife he used out in plain sight so we could prove it."

"Let's wait for the evidence to speak before we go jumping to conclusions." Karpowski had arrived. "But from the looks of it, I'm inclined to agree."

Beckett flagged a CSU tech to take care of the knife. "What can you tell us, Lanie?"

"White male, mid to late 40's, fairly fit. He has defensive wounds on his hands and arms as well as superficial wounds on his face and neck. As I already told Beckett, I've counted at least thirty stab wounds on his torso. Anything else will have to wait for the autopsy."

Karpowski pursed her lips in thought. "Any way to guess the height of his attacker?"

"Not at the moment. I'll have to use the trajectory rods to figure that out."

Ryan was waving from the doorframe, so Beckett joined him. "The landlord says the apartment is being rented to a Francis Locken. I pulled up his DMV photo and it matches."

"Great." She turned back toward the apartment interior. "Lanie, the vic's name might be Francis Locken."

She wrote that down with a pencil. "Thank you. I'm gonna transport him back to the lab now, if that's okay."

"Yeah, go ahead." Beckett turned back to Ryan. "What else did you find?"

"Well, not many of his neighbors knew him. Apparently he kept to himself."

"Anyone see Alex in the building?"

"Not yet. Canvass is still going door to door and talking to the residents outside. I noticed some traffic cameras nearby; I was going to start making calls, get the footage."

"Good. Hey, Ryan?"

"Yeah?"

"Just be ready to hand everything over to Karpowski's team. If this is the copycat, we won't be on the case for long."

He saluted as he turned to go. "You got it."

Meanwhile...

Alex had been sitting in her contact's apartment for a couple hours now. The lights were off and as the world outside transitioned from day to night, the world inside got darker and darker. It reflects my soul now. That thought brought a wry smile to her face. If Rathborne could see me now, he would say I told you so.

Keys jingled outside the apartment door and the locks clicked open smoothly. Light from the hallway spilled inside as the door opened. A moment later the lights to the apartment flicked on and Alex closed her eyes briefly to let them adjust to the sudden brightness. The door closed with a soft click and the deadbolt was thrown into place.

A Scottish voice filled the silence. "There had better be a fox in here or I'm calling the police."

Alex didn't move. "What gave me away?"

Footsteps came down the entry hall toward the main room. "The alarm was off. Only you and Sloan had the code and after the day I had down at the police station today, I know Sloan couldn't be here. What do you want?"

"You were talking to Karpowski?"

A bag hit the floor and keys were deposited on a plate. "Well, Alastair Brebnor, computer repair specialist was talking with the Detective. Quinn Linklater, aka 'Q', was wondering how his brother's fiancée could let him get killed."

A tear slipped down her cheek. "I didn't let him die. I tried to get him out of the city; I wanted him to be safe. I just underestimated my opponent."

Q sat on the couch. "How? You're always two steps ahead of everyone."

She shook her head. "I should have insisted on going with him. I'd hurt him by telling him to leave and we got separated where he could be easily tracked."

"So what happens now?"

"I need a dead man's switch connected to a heart monitor and an encrypted cloud data pack to go with it."

His brow creased. "Why?"

Alex pulled up the photo on her phone. "I killed The Chameleon. He's the one who killed Sloan."

Q glanced at the photo and then looked away. "So?"

Alex put her phone away. "So he was just the weapon, not the boss. The boss is going to want to kill me for what I did, but I'm not done yet. He has to pay for what he did."

Q looked confused. "What does this have to do with a data pack and dead man's switch?"

"If I'm going to make him pay, I have to stay alive long enough to do so." Alex looked at her hands. "Sloan put together a massive file about The Gentleman. I didn't know about it until I used his computer to find The Chameleon. He had it hidden pretty well. I copied everything onto a flash drive before I came here." She handed him the drive.

"How big is the file?"

"Three gigabytes. Sloan did a lot of digging into him and his organization. I.D.'s and information on many of his men working for him, crimes he's committed and organized; everything he could find."

Q nodded. "I can set it up. Who should the files be sent to if you don't make it?"

"NYPD, FBI, Interpol, CIA, MI5 and 6; everyone. If he manages to kill me, I want to make sure he has nowhere to go, nowhere to run."

"I have what you need. Just give me a minute."

Q stood up and went into the next room. Alex settled into the armchair and closed her eyes. She was exhausted. The only sleep she'd had in the last forty-eight hours was drug induced or involved a blow to the back of her head. Eventually she dozed. An hour later, Q was shaking her arm to wake her up.

"What?"

Q held out a box. "The dead man's switch kit is ready. I've got one set up and enough parts to keep it on for six months. Everything is set up."

Alex opened the box. Inside was an adhesive sensor pad attached to a signal transmitter. A small box of sensor pads was next to it so she could change out the pad when the previous one got old. A small remote was also in the box so she could take the transmitter off to change the pad or take a shower. Perfect.

"Thank you."

Q had taken his seat on the couch again. "When the signal stops sending, the encrypted file will immediately decrypt itself and get sent to every law enforcement agency on the planet. The encryption program I've used for the cloud exceeds military standards and I have three backup copies on other servers and formats as well. It won't get hacked."

"You should probably leave town. I can't guarantee he won't go after you now."

He tapped his chest. "I've got a sensor on too. It should keep me alive till I get set up somewhere else."

Alex stood. "Thank you."

Q nodded. "I'm gonna stick around for a bit; make sure Sloan gets a proper burial. What are you going to do?"

A hard look she hadn't worn for many years covered her face. "Whatever it takes. Any promises I've made or rules I've set for myself are gone. It was playing by those rules that got Sloan killed. I'm not making that mistake again."

Alex went to her safe house near Battery Park, the one where Viper had attacked her after Jaguar/Cobra had been killed. She was glad she hadn't sold it yet as it was one of the last homes she had where none of her neighbors were suspicious of her. It also had a small stockpile of handguns. By now The Gentleman must know about The Chameleon's death and figured out she was the one who had killed him. He would be looking for her and if she was going to live long enough to tell him about the dead man's switch, she needed to be armed and dangerous.

Alex selected a 9mm with an attached silencer and loaded it before placing a camera aimed at the front door so she could see when company arrived. There was no way she was going to wait in the front room. That would leave her vulnerable to being killed as soon as the door opened. She placed another one where it would have a wide angle with most of the front room in view as a backup. Preparations made, she moved into the bedroom with the iPad to keep an eye on the footage. She opened the box Q gave her and put the dead man's switch in place over her heart. A push of the button on the remote and it was armed. No going back now.

Meanwhile...

Beckett and Karpowski had put together the murder board for Francis Locken, which gave the two a chance to discuss the cases for Jim Beckett, the mysterious reporter who'd eventually been identified as Stephan Sobral, Ewan Brebnor, and now Francis Locken. Both women could agree that all the cases were linked. Beckett was sure Locken had killed Ewan Brebnor, which was why Alex had killed him. If Locken had killed Brebnor, he was most likely the copycat, which meant he had killed Jim Beckett too. Assuming all that was true, it meant Locken was a contract killer, so it followed that someone was giving him orders. Sobral, the man who'd pretended to be a reporter, had most likely been following orders from that same man.

"The Gentleman." Beckett had frozen with the realization.

Karpowski looked confused. "What?"

"The Gentleman. He's like a ringleader for a crime syndicate. About a year ago we arrested a man who broke into a house belonging to my victim in order to obtain records. He was hired by a man who was very well dressed. Eventually we got an alias for him: 'The Gentleman'. All the FBI files have on him is that he's very well dressed, that he's extremely ruthless, and a long list of crimes alleged to be carried out by him. They can't find him because they don't even have a name."

"So?"

"The thief, Andrew Wilde, was killed in the holding cell."

Karpowski's brow furrowed. "I thought he was strangled by a woman pretending to be a cop."

"Right, Helena Strasse. Strasse was found dead in Central Park a few hours later, we're guessing because she was caught on camera arriving and leaving. She was branded around the time of death with the monogramed letters 'T.G.'"

"Branded?"

"Yeah, it's one of The Gentleman's signatures. Within a few days a concierge clerk at The Plaza was found dead the same day Alex went to visit Jacqualine d'Estrees. A card was found near his body with the same monogrammed 'T.G.' letters on it."

Karpowski held up her hand. "Wait, Alex works for The Gentleman?"

Beckett shook her head. "No, I think she was just hired for a job or two. d'Estrees was killed not too long after we almost arrested Alex in the Bronx."

"I don't see the connection."

"I don't have proof to back up what I'm about to say, so I can't be sure." Beckett paused. "Alex went to visit d'Estrees; then we get an anonymous call from a woman telling us where Alex was living at the time. Alex manages to escape and then d'Estrees is found dead at the Muse in what looked like a murder-suicide."

Karpowski leaned against a nearby desk. "You think d'Estrees called in the tip."

Beckett nodded. "It's the only thing that makes sense to me. I'm guessing the visit was for The Gentleman because the clerk Alex spoke to was killed by him, eliminating a witness. The Gentleman was probably done with Alex's services and wanted to eliminate her, so he had d'Estrees call in the tip so we could arrest her. Alex escapes and the staged murder-suicide was because d'Estrees called in the tip."

Karpowski nodded. "So you think Alex must have found some proof d'Estrees called in the tip, which was why she killed her and made it look like the bodyguard did it. Wouldn't you get a folder of proof if Alex had a reason to kill her?"

Beckett shook her head. "Not if she was trying to stay off The Gentleman's radar. I'm guessing she spent a great deal of time setting up that staging specifically to avoid his wrath. Of course, I can't prove any of this." Beckett and Karpowski's phones went off simultaneously. "That must be Lanie."

Karpowski held up her phone. "She wants to see us."

Beckett's phone had the same message. "Let's go."

A/N: We finally got to meet Sloan's brother "Q". When this story was first conceptualized, I didn't expect to meet him, but when I finally got to start writing this particular case, it just felt wrong not to meet him. We probably won't see him again going forward, but I'll leave the option open for now. As always, leave a comment below. Thanks!