Author's Note: I'd like to thank TORONTOSUN, phnxgrl, and southerngirl1 for their reviews. TORONTOSUN: no message, just a contract to fill. This chapter starts a few minutes after the last one left off. Enjoy!

Chapter 33

Beckett and Castle went downstairs to find Esposito screening the security footage on the monitor downstairs. Apparently, the cameras were equipped with sound too because they could hear the same conversation with 911 that Ryan had played earlier, though the overall sound quality was better now and you couldn't hear the operator at all. Esposito had just reached the part where the two guards burst into Robinson's office.

Beckett paused the video as Esposito changed which camera's footage was playing. "You don't want to see this, Javi."

Esposito was fuming. "She put a knife in his eye socket. I want to know how and why."

"How and why she did what she did are fairly obvious and not the reason why you're watching that video. Take it from me, Javi; don't. You watch this and I'll kick you off the case."

Esposito looked at her. "You wouldn't."

"I should kick you off as it is. He was like a brother to you. You're emotionally compromised."

He turned away from her. "You're one to talk."

"That's why I haven't." Beckett was going to stand her ground. "Javi, trust me, I get it. Better than anyone else here, I get it. That's how I know what I'm saying. Don't watch that video."

Esposito took a few deep breaths and then sighed, his shoulders falling in defeat. "You're right. Where do you want me?"

"Start with a canvass of the neighbors out the back. Someone might have seen something."

He nodded. "You got it."

Beckett turned to the video monitor. She hit rewind to see when Alex came into the office. When Alex hurried out of the room backward, Beckett hit play. The door opened and Alex walked in, closing it behind her. Robinson looked up and froze in fear. Alex's hand lifted to her hip, slowly drawing a knife from the sheath on her belt. This was deliberate, sinister; Alex was trying to strike fear into her victim's heart. It worked. Robinson's body tensed and her breathing sped up. Alex started walking forward.

Robinson leapt to her feet, almost tipping over her chair in the process. "Shaun!"

"Is that the guy who left a minute ago? 'Cause he's a little unavailable at the moment."

Robinson was backing away. "You killed him?"

Alex held up her knife to examine it. "And everyone else on your detail." She used the knife to point at Robinson. "You should have hired better men."

"Who sent you? The cartel? The human traffickers? Phillip Gratin?"

"No... the man who hired me is known as The Gentleman." Beckett and Castle glanced at each other at Alex's words.

Robinson hit the bookcase behind her desk. "I've heard of him. Why does he want me dead?"

Alex shrugged as she advanced. "Don't know, don't care. I'm not paid to ask questions."

Robinson grabbed a book off the shelf behind her and threw it at the assassin. Alex ducked under the book while Robinson tried to rush past her. Alex planted her left fist in Robinson's gut. The AUSA doubled over as the wind was knocked out of her. The doors burst open and Alex grabbed Robinson's hair, pulling her upright and using her as a human shield while stabbing her in the same motion.

Robinson's face spoke of pain and surprise as Alex brought her lips to her victim's ear. "Okay, so I lied about everyone being dead."

Beckett rewound the video and paused it where there was a good shot of Alex. She was dressed in an all-black tactical outfit, including a bulletproof vest that appeared to have sheaths on the front by her shoulders. There were also sheaths on the inside of her forearms. This explained how she'd carried all those knives to this attack. She'd made sure she would be armed to the teeth so she could kill any guards she encountered. Beckett knew that an outfit like that would be noticed in this part of town, so she must have worn a jacket to cover that up. The outfit helped to highlight the fact that Alex was an experienced and dangerous assassin.

Beckett shook her head. "This doesn't make sense. Why is she working for the man who had her boyfriend killed?"

Castle stared at the screen a moment longer. "I'm going to play devil's advocate, but how sure are you that The Gentleman is the one behind Ewan Brebnor's death?"

Beckett was about to speak and then paused. How could she be sure? So far, there was almost no evidence to support The Gentleman being behind Brebnor's death. Alex inhabited a shadowy world full of ruthless men and women. Beckett's gut said The Gentleman was behind Brebnor's death, but the physical evidence was lacking.

"We don't have much evidence to say he was behind it." Castle continued to be the devil's advocate. "We don't know all the facts here."

"You're right. My gut says he did it, but the evidence doesn't support or reject that." Beckett sighed. "Okay, so we know The Gentleman hired Alex to kill Robinson. Alex says she doesn't know why. Who is he and why did he want Robinson dead?"

Beckett and Castle set up the board back at the precinct with the information they had already. Pictures of the victims from the crime scene and DMV were on the back of the board to free up the front for information. On the front, Beckett had posted Alex's picture underneath the space with a question mark reserved for the identity of The Gentleman.

The assassin's identity wasn't a question. Cause of death for each person was fairly obvious. Their main goal would be to identify and apprehend The Gentleman. They also needed to capture Alex as well. Beckett wasn't holding out hope for that. They'd been trying to arrest her for three and a half years. It was unlikely they would suddenly get lucky now.

But they couldn't tell 1PP that. The Brass were already unhappy that The Shadow Fox case had been open for as long as it had. Beckett knew they'd been pressuring Gates to close it. Gates hadn't been applying the same pressure to Beckett's team because she understood why it wasn't. Like Rathborne, Lockwood, and Maddox, Alex Stevens was smart and elusive.

Beckett was starting to kick herself for letting Alex go when Ryan had been shot. She had been right there applying pressure to Ryan's wound. Castle could have taken over so that Beckett could arrest Alex, but the detective had decided to let her go as a thank you for saving Ryan's life.

Castle could see something was eating at Beckett. "What's up?"

She bit her bottom lip. "We had her. Almost a year ago, we had her. And I let her go."

"You're talking about when Ryan was abducted and then shot."

She nodded. "I could have arrested her then."

"She was a different person then. Ewan was still alive. She was protecting you. Things were different. You couldn't have known she would do this."

"But she had the potential." Beckett turned away from the board. "She's an assassin. Her job is to kill people. She was always capable of doing something like this. I just didn't want to see it."

Esposito came in. "No one saw anything out of the ordinary near Robinson's. I showed Alex's picture around; several people recognized her. Apparently, she would walk the neighborhood in the evenings a couple times a week. No one knew her name or where she lived."

"Anyone notice how long this had been going on or if she did anything suspicious?"

Esposito shook his head. "Nothing strange. One guy I talked to thought she showed up around a month ago, but he couldn't be more specific than that."

Ryan came in. "I identified the word Alex said before she ended the 911 call."

Beckett remembered. "Leichtsinn?"

"Yeah. It's German and means recklessness."

"Recklessness. Why would she say that?"

Castle had a thoughtful expression. "Maybe she was referring to her own recklessness. She'd killed three guards to get to Robinson, but that left two more. Either of them could notice something and call 911. How long had Baxter been on the phone with them before Alex noticed?"

Ryan looked it up. "A little over three minutes."

"Her recklessness, not taking out the other two guards or jamming their phones, meant that the police were nearby." Castle pointed to the note about the two cops in the subway tunnel. "She could have been caught or killed."

"Which would explain why she said 'Leichtsinn'." Beckett wrote recklessness by the word on the board. "She may have been hoping that the guards would investigate before they called for help."

Ryan nodded. "They were smarter than that, even if it didn't do them any good."

"Too bad she's so good at slipping away."

Beckett capped the pen and turned back to the group. "We have cops on all the platforms near Robinson's stop. Has anyone seen anything yet?"

Esposito shook his head. "No. MTA has the trains back up and running, so staying down there is very dangerous now. None of the transit cops or NYPD on the platforms has seen anyone emerge from the tunnels. Problem is, with all the service tunnels and other access points, she could be long gone by now."

"That's what I'm afraid of. Ryan, there are far too many cameras in this city to screen by yourself, so employ help. If we can find where she came out, we might be able to find where she's going."

"I'm on it."

"Esposito, I want you to focus on Robinson's cases lately; trials pending, in court, or already ruled on. Find out who wanted her dead the most and had the resources to finance this. That might get us an ID on The Gentleman."

Esposito looked up. "The Gentleman is involved?"

Beckett nodded. "When Alex was in Robinson's office, before the guards came in, Robinson asked who sent her. Alex said The Gentleman. I want to know who he is."

"Understood."

Castle looked at the board. "What will we do?"

"We're going to put together Robinson's timeline as much as possible. Maybe she interacted with The Gentleman at some point and pissed him off somehow."

"Kate… this guy is clearly dangerous."

"You're worried I'm going to turn this into something like Bracken." Beckett tenderly touched Castle's cheek. "I won't, I promise."

"Okay." Castle turned his head and kissed her hand. "We'll need to look more than a month back for the reason."

"Because Alex started circling that neighborhood around a month ago." Beckett remembered another case. "Or this could be because of something from years ago."

"What are you thinking?"

"Marcus Auditore. At the Library Gala. Alex was hired by The Gentleman to kill him because of a falling out from five years prior."

Castle remembered the case Beckett was talking about. "He holds onto grudges until he thinks of a time and way to kill them that would benefit him. Who knows when Robinson ran into him and got on his radar."

Beckett's face fell. "What could my father have possibly done to get on his radar?"

"Maybe The Gentleman wasn't behind that. For all we know, Locken killed your father for someone else and was hired to kill Brebnor because of the technique he used."

Beckett had a hard time believing that. "Maybe."

"Yo, Beckett." Esposito was looking toward the elevator as several men in NYPD dress blues walked in. "What are the Brass doing here?"

"The Robinson case."

The Police Chief stopped in front of her. "Detective Beckett?"

"Yes, sir."

"You're the lead on The Shadow Fox case?"

Beckett nodded. "Yes, sir."

He gestured to Gates's office. "Shall we?"

She wasn't looking forward to this meeting. Castle watched his fiancée get herded into the captain's office with trepidation. The Shadow Fox case had been open for three and a half years with an ID for over two. In that time, seventeen bodies had dropped. The pressure from the media and others was stressing the Brass at headquarters, which in turn meant the Brass was pressuring the precinct.

Beckett walked into the office with a little irritation. The Brass were mostly concerned with numbers and politics. Whenever they got involved with a case, they usually displayed how much they'd forgotten what it was like in the trenches. She had no doubts this meeting would be the same.

A/N: What do the Brass want? Leave a note below with your theories! Thanks! ;)