A/N: So, here we go. Once a week. Fingers crossed this time. Don't worry though, I know Castle's not a murderer. I'll get him out of this... somehow... ;)

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Otherwise, this could be canon and you would all hate me.

Castle sat in the interrogation room anxiously awaiting the detectives to return and question him. He'd asked for pen and paper for the meantime, to keep himself distracted from it all, but every time he picked up the pen he couldn't think of anything to write. He was still shaking- getting worse, in fact- and his leg refused to stop jogging up and down. He was in so much trouble, and he didn't know how the hell to get out of it all.

"Espo," Kate spoke up.

"Yeah?"

"He's lying to us."

Javier snorted. "You think? The problem's going to be getting him to trip up about it."

"No, but I know what he's lying about."

Esposito stopped mid step on the way out of the observation room and turned to face her more fully. Surprise read easily on his features. "How?"

Kate shifted slightly on her feet before steeling herself and making her confession. "His name's not Richard Rodgers. He's a famous author."

Thankfully, Esposito showed no judgement, and in actuality appeared rather impressed. He stared at the fidgety man through the two-way mirror. "You think you know enough about him to throw him off his game?"

Kate inclined her head slightly. "Between that and all the information from his 911 call, I think I can handle him."

He nodded. "All right. you can take point on this one."

The door opened with a click that seemed to echo across the room to Castle, and again as it gently clicked shut behind her and another man who was not at the crime scene this morning. He swallowed at the woman's slight smile. She was certainly beautiful, no doubt. If he were in any other situation, he might have tried to hit on her, asked her out, been his usual suave and charming self. But in his current circumstance, it was probably best if he didn't. If he could barely keep his brain functioning, there was no way he should be putting the moves on the cop who was about to interrogate him.

"Sorry to keep you waiting. Busy day." He smiled tightly at her. "Detective Esposito got called in to see the Captain, so I'll be the one handling your interview. My name is Detective Beckett, this is Detective Ryan."

Castle nodded. "Hi," he squeaked, before clearing his throat.

They each took their seats across from him. "So, Mr. Rodgers. You married?"

His eyebrows jumped up at the question from left field. "Um, I'm sorry. What?"

"Married. On the phone conversation you had with the 911 operator, you mentioned that you had a daughter."

"Uh, no. Divorced, actually." She nodded and briefly scribbled something down on the paper before her, hidden from his view at the current angle she was holding it. Castle squirmed uncomfortably, before feeling it necessary to elaborate a tiny bit. "Twice."

Kate stopped writing and brought her eyes back up to meet his. "You've been divorced twice?"

He squirmed uncomfortably. "Yeah, what about it?"

"It's just, you're young. Average looking. Maybe, I don't know, ruggedly handsome even. What gives? Married life not exciting enough?"

Castle held her stare, a cold look entering his eyes. "My second wife and I never really fit. It was pretty much just a business deal. First wife I caught cheating on me with her stupid director. When I threw her out, she decided she was done with her daughter too."

Now it was Kate's turn to feel uncomfortable, and she shifted slightly in her seat before turning the conversation back to where she wanted it. "That's right. Meredith. You mentioned her on the call, too. What is she, an actress?"

Rick suddenly got defensive. "Why?"

"Just clues to the puzzle," Kate shrugged her shoulders.

Castle found himself glancing between the two detectives before sitting back in his chair and leaning away. "And what exactly is puzzling you, Detective?"

Kate went in for the kill as she folded her arms on the table and leaned in close. "Here's what's puzzling me, Mr. Rodgers," she emphasized his name and had the pleasure of watching him flinch a little. "I want to know, if you love your daughter so much, why you weren't at home with her on a Thursday night. I want to know why you spent the night with a woman you've never seen before and in the morning she ended up dead with no other suspects. And finally, I want to know why you lied to us about your real name."

Castle felt all of the color drain out of his face and tried to hide it by putting his face in his hands. "Ugh. I knew you knew it. I saw it in your eyes the second you recognized me at the crime scene." His voice was resigned.

Ryan finally jumped in. "Wait, it's not? So what is your real name then?"

He opened his mouth to reply, but was beaten to the punch by the female detective he was learning to like less and less. "Richard Castle, famous murder mystery novelist, millionaire playboy. And you have quite the rap sheet as such, Mr. Castle."

Rick bristled at her casual dismissal of his works and focus on the negative. "Well, you haven't lived if you can't cut loose sometimes."

"Yes, I can see that, what with the stolen police horse and public nudity charge." He flushed, heat rushing to his face in a mixture of embarrassment and anger. "My question is whether your definition of having fun extends to committing actual murders?"

Castle gave an exasperated sigh. "Look, I told you already, I didn't kill her!"

"Then why lie to us?" she challenged, her green gaze sparkling with some sort of untold knowledge.

"Technically, I didn't lie."

Beckett scoffed.

"It's true! Richard Alexander Rodgers is my given name. I changed it when I started writing to-"

"-Richard Edgar Castle, yes, I know your name."

Despite the grim reality of his situation, Rick still managed to crack a small smile. "I see I have a fan."

Kate gave an exasperated sigh. "Mr. Castle, this is not a very appropriate time to be joking around. A woman is dead and you are the only apparent suspect in her murder. You are the only witness. You were the last person to see her alive. This is a serious matter."

Castle swore, completely sobered once again. He ran a hand over his face, and noticed he was still shaking. Worse than before, even. "Look, I don't know what happened!"

"That's your story and you're sticking to it, huh?"

"It's the truth!" His voice jumped up an octave as he insisted, before trying to collect himself and take a different approach. "Look. I'm a writer. I make up stories for a living- not half bad ones at that, if my bank account is to be believed. You don't think if I had actually done it, I would have come up with a better story? An alibi, something? Better yet, a different way to kill her? I mean, I can literally spit out ten better ways to have killed her off the top of my head. And I would have gotten away with it."

Kate's eyes bore into his bright blue ones. He stared back at her, entirely unabashed and unfazed. He didn't flinch or blink, except for his hands. They kept shaking and the way the table shook ever so slightly proved he was jogging his leg up and down nervously. She almost believed him. Almost. "Okay then. Top ten ways to kill her. Go."

She had expected him to balk at her, at least draw a blank. But Richard Castle didn't blink, and started ticking off fingers as he went. "Number one: hire a hitman. I'm rich enough, the money wouldn't trace. I could have framed it as a suicide. I could have framed it as an accident, gang violence or a random mugging gone wrong maybe." He watched the female detective before him flinch slightly at those words, but decided not to touch that until later. He had a point to prove. "Could have used the old dissolving bullets trick, or an icicle or something. A bomb- could have completely obliterated her apartment and pinned it on a gas rupture. I could leak carbon monoxide into the apartment and slowly poison her. I could have figured out what she was allergic to, poisoned her with that."

"Wait a minute, how do you know she had any allergies? I thought you'd only just met her last night and you didn't remember anything?" Kate looked smug.

He quickly quelled that train of thought. "There was a medical bracelet of some kind on her nightstand besides her bed. That either means a severe allergy, or some other pre-existing medical condition that I might have exploited. Also, I could have tampered with her car- and before you ask, yes, I know she had a car. She was the one driving last night. Thank god, I don't know what would have happened to my Ferrari if I ended up in this predicament."

Kate sighed in irritation, pressing two fingers firmly on the bridge of her nose. "Mr. Castle-"

"Or I could have, I don't know, killed her any way I'd damn well please and simply dispose of the body and, gee, maybe not call the police on myself? How many is that?"

Kate's eyes were wide. How could he be so cavalier about this? This was murder he was joking about. Kevin spoke up in her place. "Nine, Mr. Castle. That's nine. And I don't think we need to hear any more-"

"No, no! I said ten, I'll give you ten." Castle was trembling violently now as he suddenly scrambled to find one last plot for the poor girl's undoing. He was quickly losing control of his body. "Okay, then for the last one, I could have played it as a long-term frame-up. Painted her to look suspicious, plant some evidence- probably something along the lines of home-grown terrorist, because the government doesn't take that lightly. Then maybe I'd work with one of my guys in the FBI or CIA and convict her and get her out of the picture. Regardless of whether she died or not, she'd be gone. So, ten."

There was a long silence in the room as their surprise overcame the detectives at Castle's little demonstration. Suddenly, the author seemed to realize where he was and what he'd said, and Rick started squirming again. Maybe he'd over-stated his case... "But regardless of how she was killed, I still couldn't have done it, because I had no motive!" He added, the words rushing out in practically one breath as he tried to cement his case. They continued to stare him down and he continued to shake and squirm nervously.

Kate and Ryan shared a quick glance. This was by far one of the craziest people they'd ever had to interrogate. Kate cleared her throat. "Mr. Castle, I want to be able to believe you, I do, really. But there's still a dead body on our hands, and there's still a lot of information that doesn't add up."

Castle felt his shoulders slump in defeat. He'd hoped he had convinced them even slightly of his innocence. Instead he shrugged and replied, "Ask away, detectives."

Ryan was the first to jump in. "Why lie to us about your name?"

He took a deep breath before answering, casually stalling a moment as he collected his thoughts. "I didn't want this to get back to my publisher- or to the press. I mean, I know they say no publicity is bad publicity, but somehow I think the line gets drawn when you're being investigated for homicide, don't you think? Besides, I didn't want it to get back to my daughter before I could explain myself."

"Fair enough," Kate spoke slowly, trying to process his hesitation and explanation, all the while testing the man's own patience. There was still something bothering her, aside from the whole dead bedfellow thing. "So, if you're so innocent, then why are you shaking?"

Somehow, the way she phrased her words made it sound more like a statement than a question. Castle's eyes widened as he looked down casually at his trembling hands. He clenched them tightly, trying to regain control. "I'm not shaking," he denied.

Kate arched an eyebrow at him. "Um, yes you are."

"Or are you trying to lie to a police officer again?" Ryan backed her up, his gaze matching Kate's own.

Rick glanced back and forth between the two of them. "I... I'm being accused of murder. Cut a guy a break."

There was that look again, and Rick swallowed thickly as they turned back to face him. "Okay then. So, Rick," Ryan began, "Why don't you remember what happened last night? What do you remember up to?"

Castle breathed a silent sigh of relief and began to recount his story. "I-I don't know. I just remember... there was a party last night, for my latest book- you know, Storm Fall?" Images of the party flashed through his mind- his entrance, the cameras and lights. A woman on each arm as he made his way through, greeting guests, making nice. Making his way over to the bar, where the party really got started. There hadn't been any drugs though. Not yet, anyways. That thought made him frown in confusion. "We, uh, my publisher and I, were just sort of walking around, doing the meet and greet, you know? Kissing up to some of the big wigs, flirting a bit with the fans, signing... things and such. Anyway, I met a couple of girls at the bar, major fans, and we got to drinking."

"Let me guess, one of those girls was our victim."

Castle frowned and rubbed his eyes. "Uh, no. No she wasn't actually. Um," he squinted at the plain wall across the room. "She didn't show up until later, I think, at the other bar."

"And when was that?"

"Well, I think I bailed the party when Paula started yelling at me. That was around 11:30 and-"

"Who's Paula?"

"My publicist."

"And why was she yelling at you?"

Rick clammed up. Damn, she sure knew how to fire those questions back at him. She didn't miss anything, either. He looked around the room, as he tried to formulate his thoughts into harmless words. "It was, um, a personal matter of sorts."

The detective's eyebrow rose into an arch, but she obviously was holding back her comment on the matter, for which Richard was grateful. He'd take any mercy he could get. "It doesn't matter. The point is, I bailed, and headed over to one of my favorite bars- the Old Haunt- with a couple of women I'd met at the party. I'm fairly certain that Miss... Miss..." Castle felt his eyes widen as he realized he couldn't even recall the poor woman's name and he swore before looking sheepishly up at the detectives. "What was her name again?"

"Parker," Kate bit out sharply.

"You don't even know her name?" Ryan appeared aghast.

"Anyway," Castle continued, shooting a quick glare to the man who'd interjected. "I'm pretty sure that's where I met Miss Parker. She must have been at the bar before I got there. After that, everything starts to blur. Then there's a big blank spot, until I woke up this morning. And now you're as up to speed as I am."

Kate let him think he'd gotten away with it for a few quiet moments as she shuffled through her paperwork before finally setting everything aside and folding her hands on the table in between them. She smiled sweetly and kept eye contact with their suspect as she spoke. "Why don't you remember anything else, Mr. Castle?"

He groaned loudly. For a moment there, she'd let him think he'd gotten away with it. "I don't know!" Suddenly anxious, he jumped out of his chair and started pacing the room, running his hands through his hair. "I-I don't know. She approached me. She hit on me! And yeah, sure. I liked her. I did. She wasn't at all unattractive- very pretty girl, one of the prettiest at the bar. And I was drunk, and I had a few more drinks, and... and... it just sort of happened."

"Mr. Castle," Kate's tone was authoritative and demanded his attention. Immediately, Rick stopped pacing to look her in the eye. "I'm going to be straight with you. I think you do know what happened. I believe you don't remember it, but I believe you know exactly why there is that blank spot in your memory."

Castle froze in place, shakes even gone for a moment, and he held Detective Beckett's firm gaze with an element of fear in his eyes.

"Don't you?" she almost taunted.

Castle's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed past the lump of fear in his throat and he tried one last time to cover up his story. "I-I got drunk. Blackout drunk. It wouldn't be the first time it's happened."

Kate was done screwing around with the subject. "Mr. Castle, would you be willing to submit yourself to a drug test?"

This was it, Rick realized as sweat began beading and dripping down his forehead. He his eyes roamed restlessly all around the room, quickly examining every corner of it. There was no escaping the inevitable, no way he could get out of here without getting in trouble for something. He pursed his dry lips together tightly in thought, and as he did so, a determined look came into his eyes.

Kate knew the words he was about to say before they even had a chance to leave the millionaire's mouth.

"I think I want to call my lawyer now."

Review! Another unbetaed chapter, but I burned myself and missed school so now I'm playing catch up on everything, this included. So sorry, wolfergirl! Thanks for putting up with me anyways! Next week, I swear...