Author's Note: I'd like to thank phnxgrl, FDWojo, southerngirl1, TORONTOSUN and KrisN for their reviews. Lots of speculation that The Gentleman or the Shadow Fox is behind Castle's abduction. You may be right... or not. We'll see! TORONTOSUN: No, the universe doesn't seem to be very nice to them. This chapter starts a few hours after the last one ended. Enjoy!

Side note: As I said at the end of the last chapter, this entire "episode" was written well before the season 6 finale, so I didn't get my inspiration from that. Enjoy!

Chapter 40

Beckett stared at the board in frustration. It had been eight hours since Castle had been abducted on his way back into town from the Heat's Fury book tour. His last stop had been in Philadelphia and he had decided to take the overnight train back into town instead of flying back the next day because he wanted to come home to her sooner rather than later. Beckett had joined him on a few of his stops in the middle of his tour; they had flown from Boston, to Toronto, to Dallas, and then to San Francisco in just five days, so she'd understood why Castle didn't want to get on one more plane.

His train from Philadelphia left behind schedule due to a problem on a different track. He had called from the train last night to let her know that it would be arriving late. She had wanted to see him again before she went to work, but when the phone call about a dead homeless man had come in at 5am, she knew that wouldn't happen. Before they hung up, he had promised that he would call her again once his train arrived at Penn Station. Beckett had naturally been disappointed, but she wasn't upset, and was glad that he would be home soon. She had been planning what they would do that night after she got off work…

And then the call came in. A security guard from Penn Station reporting that a man matching Richard Castle's description had been abducted just outside the station. Beckett had prayed that the guard had been mistaken, but the security footage of the 8th Avenue entrance showed it all. Castle had walked outside with his carry-on sized suitcase and was dialing a number on his phone when a black panel van pulled up next to him. Three men jumped out, knocked his phone out of his hands, pulled a pillowcase over his head, and dragged him into the van. Uniforms had finally found the van abandoned about an hour ago; unfortunately, it had been reported stolen an hour before Castle's abduction. Forensics swept the car and found that it had been wiped down, and there were no surveillance cameras in the area where it had been abandoned. Castle's luggage and phone had been retrieved from Penn Station security by CSU soon after the abduction report, and Crime Scene Technician Jo Danville had processed it personally, but she had come up empty.

Uniforms were currently trying to track down everyone on the surveillance footage to get statements, but it was slow going. Beckett wasn't holding out much hope that they would get anything new from the witnesses; the men in the video were clearly wearing masks and it was evident that this was not the first abduction they had done. They may have been the same men who had abducted Nicholas Everet, which meant they were professionals, possibly connected to The Gentleman. Castle had been unable to do much more than jump in surprise before he was forced into the van. All in all, it was a very long eight hours.

Lanie had come up from the morgue a couple hours ago and was making some more coffee for everyone. Between fielding phone calls and making a few of their own, Ryan and Esposito were glancing over at Beckett every few minutes. The boys were worried about Castle, but they were also worried about the emotional toll this would have on their partner and friend if they didn't find him alive. She had already lost so much during her life. Even Captain Gates was worried, and considering how much she had been against having Castle in the precinct when she first took over, that was saying something. Every precinct in New York and the surrounding boroughs had uniforms combing the city looking for him, but nothing had happened so far. Beckett was starting to panic internally when the elevator doors opened and a new group of people came in.

"Detective Beckett." Beckett glanced over at the sound. Striding toward her was Special Agent Jordan Shaw. Behind her was a small contingency of agents, including Shaw's partner, Agent Avery.

Beckett barely contained her surprise. "Agent Shaw? What are you doing here?"

Shaw stopped in front of Beckett. "I had to trade a lot of favors for this assignment, so don't you dare try and kick me out. We're here to help you find Castle."

Beckett smiled for the first time in hours. "Thank you. We're going to need all the help we can get."

Shaw smiled. "Of course." She turned to a few agents that were dollying equipment in and pointed to the Conference Room. "Set it up in there." She turned back to Beckett. "What have you got so far?"

Beckett gestured to the board. "Not much. He was abducted outside Penn Station. A black van pulled up and three men got out. They were all wearing masks and the van had been stolen. Uniforms found it an hour ago; it had been wiped down. We have the surveillance footage of the abduction and are trying to track down witnesses to get their statements, but I doubt they're going to know something that we didn't see."

"At least it looks like you've got a good start." Shaw looked away from the board. "How are you doing with all this?"

Beckett let out a shaky laugh. "I'm a wreck. But I can't go home. He's my fiancé; we're getting married in four months. I just…I can't give up on him."

Shaw smiled. "So you two finally did get together. Don't worry, we'll find him."

Beckett nodded but didn't believe it. "So how did you get this case? I thought you dealt with serials."

Shaw glanced toward the FBI agents who were setting things up. "Like I said, I had to trade a lot of favors. A different team was going to be sent, but when I heard that Castle was the victim, I pulled a few strings and got on a plane."

Beckett nodded. "Thank you."

Shaw headed for the assembling war room. "Let's see what else we can find."

Another two hours went by. No ransom demands had been made at either the loft or the station. Alexis was flying home from college to be with the family, and Martha was currently in the loft with a few uniforms and FBI agents, waiting to hear anything. The agents and police had coordinated their efforts and found a few more witnesses, but there was no new information.

Shaw picked up one of the Shadow Fox case folders on Beckett's death. "The Shadow Fox. That's strange, I never heard about this one. Tell me about him."

"Her." Shaw looked up. "The Shadow Fox is a woman named Alexandra Stevens. We'd actually worked with her on a few Shadow Fox cases; at the time, we didn't know she was the Fox. She was orphaned at eleven when her father, Scott Murray, was murdered by Richard Coonan, a.k.a. Rathborne."

"The same man who killed your mother." Shaw turned back to the file. "What happened then?"

Beckett shrugged. "She was shuffled into the system and adopted by Michael Stevens. It turns out that Stevens was one of Rathborne's aliases. Once adopted, she grew up learning how to kill people the same way he did. She moved to New York about eight years ago. Rathborne was killed seven years ago. At first, we were trying to figure out which cold cases during that time period had their M.O. and then separate them into Rathborne or Shadow Fox cases, but it's been hard. Not very many cases have been properly filed or documented. Lately, we've been trying to figure out who The Gentleman is."

Shaw turned a page. "How did you catch them? Rathborne and the Shadow Fox."

"With Rathborne, he made a word slip that I almost didn't catch. Then he tried to use Castle as a hostage to get out of the precinct; Castle hit him in the face with the back of his head, and I shot him when he tried to kill Castle." Thinking about Castle was tough and Beckett took a breath to regain her composure. "With Alex, she was caught on camera. She thought she'd turned off all the cameras in the parking structure, but she missed about half of them and was caught on one."

Shaw looked at Beckett. "You say Alex, like she's a friend. Why is that?"

Beckett shrugged again. "She was a friend. She was a very kind person around us. She was smart, fun, happy. She made it very easy to like her. For a while it looked like the Shadow Fox was trying to kill her, and when it appeared that being hunted was taking a toll on her, I kind of became protective of her." Beckett shook her head. "I thought I knew her really well. It was a shock to find out that it was all an act."

"I can imagine." Shaw sat down next to Beckett. "Do you think she might have something to do with Castle's abduction?"

Beckett shook her head. "No, it's not her style."

Shaw closed the folder. "What is her style?"

Beckett stood up. "She works alone. She uses a Wingwalk survival knife. She sneaks up on people from behind or uses misdirection to get them to turn around. She knows how to throw a knife and is pretty good at defending herself. But underneath all that, she has a good heart."

Shaw looked up. "What makes you say that?"

"Even after we found out who she really was, she was protecting me for a while." Beckett looked down at the floor. "A little over a year ago, she broke into the loft to warn me that an assassin known as Demon had been hired to kill me. She used me as a hostage in order to prevent Castle from calling in backup, but as we got downstairs, there was another guy there. She pushed me down, caught the knife that he threw at me and then fought him. She managed to kill him, protecting me." Shaw was looking skeptical. "I think she has a good heart, but she was trained from a young age to be a killer. It's hard to hate her and still like her."

Shaw stood up. "Kate, she is a killer. I know you want to believe something different, but that doesn't change who she is. And she might have something to do with this."

"Until a few months ago, the last few victims of hers have all been professional killers or their handlers." Beckett shook her head. "And she promised that she would never hurt a victim of Rathborne. She counts my mother's death as the way I became a victim, and Castle's hostage situation as his."

Shaw opened the file and pointed to the first after-incident report. "She kicked Castle in the face and the stomach, and you said that she held you hostage to escape the apartment. What part of that is not hurting you?"

Beckett turned to Shaw. "She meant that she wouldn't kill us. I don't think she has anything to do with this."

The elevator doors opened and guns cleared their holsters across the bullpen. Beckett and Shaw followed suit, aiming at the figure that had just cleared the elevator's threshold.

Beckett spoke first. "Alex? What are you doing here?"

Alex held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. "I know who took Castle."

After being patted down for weapons, Alex had been forced into an Interrogation Room before Agent Shaw entered to question her, but she refused to talk without Beckett in the room. Beckett joined them and Alex sat up to show she was ready to cooperate.

Shaw spoke first. "Okay, let's start over. Where is Castle being held?"

"I don't know." Shaw turned her head away and Alex held up a hand. "I've seen him, and for now, he's okay, but I don't know where the warehouse is. Every time these guys pick me up, I'm in a different part of the city and they blindfold me so that I can't figure out where they're taking me. I don't even know if it's in Manhattan. But I know what they want."

Shaw sat down. "So they sent you with the ransom demand."

Alex shook her head. "No. They don't know I'm here. I had to lose the tail they put on me so that I could come here without them knowing."

Shaw leaned forward. "So what do they want?"

Alex turned to Beckett. "Just so you know, 'they' is a 'he', and he wants Kate dead. He spent most of the morning figuring out the best way to do it because I haven't killed her yet." Shaw glanced at Kate with an "I told you so" expression. "It's not what you think. I was hired by this guy a few months ago, and he's been getting more frustrated with me as time goes on. The only reason I'm not dead yet is that I told him that I've hidden information all over the city that proves his involvement. That if I'm dead, the information gets leaked, and he goes down, along with the rest of his organization."

Beckett sat down. "Who is it?"

Alex leaned forward. "Ever heard of Vincent Volkert? He used to be involved with the Spolano crime family. While he was with them, he became known as 'The Gentleman' and his position was kind of like a contracted fixer and enforcer. He didn't work within the family, but he did work with them. After the Spolano's were arrested, Volkert took his name and rep and started building his own empire. But that didn't mean he'd forgotten what happened to his previous employers. Apparently, there was a lot of anger over your involvement in taking the Spolano's down." Alex paused and looked at Kate, sympathy in her eyes. "That's why he hired The Chameleon to kill your father."

Beckett felt like she'd been punched in the gut; it was déjà vu to the moment she'd found out Rathborne was the man who killed her mother. "The Gentleman was behind that?"

"Yes, and he wasn't done there. Candice Robinson's murder? That was just the tip of the iceberg. He's been trying to find the names of everyone who was involved in the takedown of the Spolano family. Two days ago, Volkert managed to kill an FBI agent named William Sorenson." Beckett recoiled; she hadn't heard anything about Will's death. Alex was watching her. "You knew him personally."

Beckett nodded. "We dated a long time ago."

Shaw opened a notebook. "Who all are they targeting?"

Alex shrugged. "I don't know much, but I know who Volkert hired to kill Sorenson. His name is Gregorio de Piento, goes by the name Mezzanotte Nodo. His specialty is strangulation."

Shaw wrote down the name and alias. "What do you know about de Piento?"

Alex sat back. "His method of strangulation is to incapacitate the victim and then tie them up in such a way that they basically strangle themselves. The harder they struggle, the faster they die. It's a cruel practice, but very effective. Apparently, he gets a lot of business, mostly in Europe. I've never met him personally, but in my world, reputation is everything, and his reputation is big."

Shaw wrote down a few notes as Beckett closed her eyes. "And why are you here to help us?"

Alex looked at Beckett. "I know what its like to lose my fiancé. Kate has lost so much already; she doesn't need to be added to that list too." Beckett remembered the case from two months ago when Ewan Brebnor's body had been found.

Shaw hadn't known that detail. "Who was your fiancé?"

Alex dropped her eyes. "His name was Sloan Linklater. Kate knew him as Ewan Brebnor. The man who took Castle killed Sloan two months ago to punish me for not completing my contract. The man who killed him was the same one who killed Kate's father."

Ryan opened the door. "Beckett, phone's for you."

Alex grabbed Beckett's arm as she stood to leave. "That's them. They can't know I'm here. Castle's life may depend on it."

Beckett nodded and left the room. Shaw followed, as did Alex. Everyone was focused on the phone and didn't seem to notice Alex leaving the Interrogation Room. Beckett walked to her desk and sat down, visibly shaken.

She picked up the phone gingerly and cleared her throat. "This is Beckett."

The voice on the other end was obscured by a voice changer. "Katherine, it's a pleasure to finally speak to you. I think you know why I'm calling. We have your fiancé. Don't worry, he's alive. But that will change if you don't listen to me."

Beckett's voice shook with anger. "What do you want, you son-of-a-bitch?"

The voice chuckled. "Such a temper. Well, what I want is very simple. I want you to be dead by midnight tonight. But I don't want you to die any old way. No, I want it to be more public than that. Go to the first support structure on the Southern side of the George Washington Bridge. You'll find a rope nestled in the supports. I want you to tie a noose around your neck and hang yourself from the middle of the bridge. It is 7 o'clock right now. You have five hours. If you're not dead by then, Mr. Castle will be. Oh, and Katherine? If the FBI do anything to move the rope or prevent you from reaching it, I will kill Mr. Castle the minute I find out."

The line went dead. Beckett dropped the phone and stared at her desk without really seeing it. For the first time since her father's death, she was lost. Castle would die if she didn't kill herself. How could she do that? How could she not? If she didn't kill herself, she would lose Castle. If she hung herself, Castle would lose her. There was no way to fix the situation. One of them would have to die.

Alex broke the silence. "Kate…" Guns cleared holsters with record timing. "Whoa, easy! I'm here to help, remember?"

"Stand down." Shaw turned to Alex. "What do you want? We have a situation here." Shaw turned her back to Alex.

Alex kept her hands raised. "I know, I heard. Volkert wants Kate to kill herself publicly."

Shaw turned to face her. "How do you know it was Volkert?"

Alex lowered her hands carefully. "His syntax. The choice of words, the way his phrases came together. It was Volkert." Alex realized no one was taking her seriously. "Look, I can help buy Castle more time."

Beckett looked up for the first time since the phone call. "How?"

Alex stepped up to her desk. "How willing are you to be Tasered?"

A/N: I wrote this scene a long time ago because it had been running around in my head since close to this story's inception. In fact, the next few chapters were written around the time chapters 19-21 of "The Shadow Fox" were posted. I've tweaked them a little since then due to changes in the storyline but, for the most part, it was ready ages ago. For those who are interested, Mezzanotte Nodo is Google translate Italian for Midnight Knot.