Author's Note: I'd like to thank phnxgrl and TORONTOSUN for their reviews. This is the last chapter in the Robinson case and starts a few minutes after the last chapter ended. Enjoy!

Chapter 38

Beckett, Esposito, and Ryan arrived at the parking structure in the same car. Uniforms had shut it down and were blocking the exits to make sure it stayed that way. When Beckett pulled up, she was waved through without any fuss. Some uniforms had been spared to help them with the search and they followed the detective's car till it parked. The trio got out of the car and Ryan handed out packets of stills which included the shots Tory had grabbed of the car and the mugshots or DMV pictures of their three deceased suspects.

Beckett held up the stills she'd been handed. "We are looking for this vehicle or an exit these three men could have used to escape. If you see anyone, ask them if they saw any of these men. They might be able to direct us to the car."

They split up and worked their way through the parking structure floor by floor. On the bottom floor, Ryan found the car by a large vent. He called his partners over and then tried the cover for the vent. It swung open easily.

"They must have gone through here."

Beckett nodded. "Okay, have CSU come down and process the car. Esposito, want to go exploring?"

Esposito nodded. "You bet."

They clicked on their flashlights and stepped into the vent system. It was warm in there. Beckett shined her light on the floor and noticed footsteps had disturbed the dust on the bottom of the vent. She brought Esposito's attention to the disturbances and he nodded. The three suspects had come this way. She aimed her light farther into the vent and followed the footsteps with Esposito on her heels.

As they continued, they noticed some noises ahead. They got closer to the noises and realized that the noises were really voices. The voices were coming through another vent opening. Beckett clicked off her flashlight and peered through the grate just as a train arrived at a platform. The vent system was somehow connected to the subway.

She pushed at the grate lightly and it gave way. She pushed a little harder and it swung open, startling the travelers heading down the concourse. The MTA cop on the platform started yelling for people to back away. Beckett grabbed her badge off her hip and held it in front of her as she stepped out of the vent.

"Detective Beckett, NYPD."

The MTA cop lowered his gun. "What's going on?"

Esposito stepped out too. "We were following the trail of a couple suspects. They would have come through that vent around this time yesterday. Did you see anything?" He held up the shots of their suspects.

The MTA cop holstered up. "All clear everyone! Carry on!" He took a look at the photos. "I don't remember the vent opening or closing, but I did see those two." He pointed to the Russian pair. "They looked like they were in a hurry, but that's not new down here. I do remember they had a box with them."

The box had to be the one the men stole from the cruiser. "We'll need the camera footage from yesterday."

"If it's between two and three like you're saying, then you're out of luck. The whole system was down for a software update. I'm sorry. I'll have my Captain send anything we have over to you, but between those hours is blank."

Beckett sighed. "Okay. Have your Captain send what you do have. Thank you for your time." They headed outside and called their partner. "Ryan, we're at the Union St. subway station. Can you pick us up?"

"Yeah. How'd you get there?"

"That's where the vents led."

"Okay, I'll be right there."

"Thanks." Beckett ended the call. "So they ditched the car in the parking structure, used a vent system to get to the subway, and escaped via train."

"And the camera system for both the parking structure and the subway were down while they did."

"Question is: where they lucky or was it deliberate?" She let the question go for now. "What have you found about the river currents?"

Esposito shook his head. "Nothing yet. I'm in contact with an expert though. He'll call if he has anything."

Ryan pulled up next to a parked car, window rolled down. "Your ride is here."

Beckett and Esposito got in. "Has CSU arrived yet?"

Ryan nodded. "Yeah, they started processing the car just before your call."

"We have to assume The Gentleman is tech savvy. And I don't think his men were lucky that the subway's surveillance was down."

Esposito nodded. "I'll see about looking into that. Find out if the maintenance was planned or emergency."

"Good." Beckett's phone chimed with a text.

It was from Castle. "Just finished packing for my book tour. Call you when I get to the airport."

She smiled and texted back. "Okay, talk to you then."

Ryan took them all back to the precinct. The boys got to work on their self-appointed assignments. Before he could get into his assignment, Esposito saw a "while you were out" memo that said his expert had called back, so he was on the phone with him now. Ryan had taken over looking into what had happened with the MTA surveillance system maintenance. Beckett reviewed what the boys had dug up on The Gentleman's men and decided to try finding something they might have missed.

Beckett hit the fifth dead end when Castle called. "Hey, you're at the airport?"

"Yeah, just arrived." She could hear the sounds of JFK airport in the background. "My flight doesn't leave for a couple hours, unfortunately. It got delayed for some reason."

"You know how flying is." She got up and headed for the roof. "Do you have the final itinerary?"

"Yeah, I emailed you a copy. The days we have planned for you to join me are in Boston, Toronto, Dallas, and San Francisco. Gina will send you your ticket for Boston tomorrow."

Beckett propped open the door with the brick. "You've got the others?"

"Yeah, don't worry about that. I've got that all taken care of. How's the case coming?"

"We're at a standstill. The three men dumped their getaway car in a parking structure and escaped in a nearby train while the MTA's surveillance system was down."

Castle's end of the line was muffled for a moment. "That's too bad. Any leads?"

"Ryan's looking into why the system was down and Espo is looking into the river currents. I don't know, maybe we'll get lucky."

"What about you?"

Beckett sighed. "I'm looking into the lives of our three new victims. Unfortunately, they didn't leave much of a trail."

"I'm sure you'll find something. I've gotta go through security. Call you when I'm on the other side?"

"As much as I would love to talk to you until your flight is ready to board, I have work to do. The Gentleman is unlikely to turn himself in."

Castle chuckled. "I understand. Talk to you when I touch down in L.A."

"Okay, talk to you then. I love you."

"I love you too."

Beckett hung up and went back inside. She was missing Castle already and he wasn't even on a plane yet. She headed down the stairs, ready to get back to work. The Gentleman needed to be stopped, hopefully by the end of the day.

Ryan flagged her over. "So, it turns out that the Maintenance was not scheduled. A couple guys wearing the right uniforms and with the right paperwork came in to do the update."

"And, let me guys, no one can ID them."

"Correct. I.A. is already trying to figure out what happened. And Danville called. The car was wiped down when our crash suspects dumped it."

Beckett went to the board. "Okay, so no leads there. Where's Espo?"

"He went down to Lanie. They're working with the expert to narrow down where the three bodies went in. Depending on how long they were in the river, they went in anywhere between the lower section of the Hudson River Greenway and State Line Lookout in New Jersey."

"That's quite the area." She scanned the board and noticed a bullet point that hadn't been addressed. "Did you find some cameras along the Hudson?"

Ryan nodded. "Yeah. I'm screening the footage now."

"Need some help?"

"Pull up a chair. I was about to make popcorn."

They watched the video footage for the next couple hours. Beckett had commandeered Esposito's computer and Tory had been recruited to make their efforts more efficient. Together, they'd been able to push the location of the body dump site to above 178th St., but that's all. It was beginning to look like the dump site was not on camera at all.

Esposito walked in. "We have a dump site."

Beckett looked up. "Where?"

"In New Jersey at Excelsior Dock. I'm heading up there with a few uniforms."

"Don't bother. I was up there with Jenny and the girls a couple of months ago. There are no cameras, few witnesses and it's almost all woodlands." Ryan closed the video files he'd been watching. "He knew what he was doing."

"Dumping the bodies where no one would see them do it." Beckett stood so Esposito could have his chair back. "I wonder why they dumped them upriver across the state line."

"If you were dumping a body, how'd you do it?"

"I'd take them out to sea. Take a couple days to go out, toss the body overboard, head back in." Beckett went back to her desk. "Why, how about you?"

Ryan leaned back in his chair. "Go up to the Catskills and leave it out for the scavengers to take care of it."

Esposito shrugged. "I'd break into a crematorium. Incinerate it and flush the ashes down a toilet. Leave almost no trace." They all looked at Esposito. "What?"

Beckett smiled. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that. You are former Special Forces."

"That's right. Of course, I'd have to murder someone to need to use that." He paused and became brooding. "Alex comes to mind. The Gentleman does too."

Beckett caught Ryan's eye and used her eyes to tell him to take a walk. He nodded and grabbed his mug. "All this talk of body disposal is creeping me out. I'm gonna get some more coffee."

Beckett stood and took Ryan's seat. "Talk to me."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"You and I both know that's not true."

Esposito sighed. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Fine, then listen." She rolled her borrowed chair closer to her partner. "I know what you're feeling. When I found out Senator Bracken was behind my mother's murder, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to make him feel the kind of pain I had been in because of what he'd done."

"So why didn't you?"

"Because that wouldn't change anything. My mother would still be dead. And if he was dead, he wouldn't be able to truly pay for his crimes. It's the same thing with Alex and The Gentleman. They should pay for their crimes. Killing them won't do that."

Esposito took a deep breath. "I know. I'm not going to become a vigilante. I just don't think they should be allowed to live."

Beckett stood and put a hand on his shoulder. "I know. But it gets easier to bear the pain." She headed back to her desk.

"Hey, Beckett?"

"Yeah?" She turned around.

Esposito was sitting up facing her. "How'd you get to this place of peace? How can you be so serine about what happened to your mom?"

Beckett smiled gently at him. "I had support from Castle. And I went to therapy. I didn't think it would help as much as it did, and I knew I couldn't really discuss the case with my therapist, but I found that being able to verbalize what I was feeling with someone who could help me work out exactly what my feelings were and what to do about them really helped. I think it'll help you too."

Esposito nodded. "That's similar to what I did when I came home from Iraq. Thanks, Beckett."

"Of course. And lean on Lanie. You have no idea how much having support at home helps to get you through this until you let someone in."

Ryan came back. "Can I say something I think we're all thinking?"

"We're not catching Alex and The Gentleman with this case?"

Ryan nodded. "They've covered their tracks pretty well. Anyone who made a mistake was killed and disposed of where we couldn't find a trail no matter how hard we tried. I know we'll still keep looking, but I'm thinking we should photograph and box up what we have here so we can more easily set up for a new case if one comes in."

Beckett nodded. "I was thinking that too. We're hitting dead ends on everything we look into."

Esposito stood. "I'm going to go out to Excelsior Dock. We may not find anything to log into evidence, but it might give me a better idea of the people we're dealing with."

"Good idea." Beckett took her digital camera out of her desk drawer. "Ryan and I can pack this up."

While Esposito checked out Excelsior Dock with the uniforms, Beckett and Ryan took photos of the notes on the board and packed up the sticky notes and photographs on the board. They also printed out the photos they'd taken of the board, added them to the box, and logged it in at evidence storage. When Esposito came back, he informed them that The Gentleman or members of his crew left no evidence behind and had to be familiar with the area to dump a body without leaving evidence behind. In other words, he'd hit another dead end.

A/N: Most of the next "episode" is already typed up, so it should just be a couple weeks between this post and the start of the next chapter. I'll finish typing that up and editing everything in the interim. Stay tuned!