"A/N : So sorry that it took more than a week for this update. Was busy on a work trip and didn't have the time to get this out. Anyway, here it is the continuation of 7x23 Hollander's Woods.
Disclaimer : I do not own Castle or, specifically, Hollander's Woods. This story is an expression of my gratitude for the creators of Castle and that episode particularly. This chapter is essentially all Hollander's Woods dialogue and situations.
Interrogation Room, the 12th Precinct
Castle and Beckett walk into the room where they have confronted so many suspects over the years yet, for Castle, no suspect is as significant as the balding man sitting, unnaturally stiff and upright on the opposite side of the table. As the couple take their seats on the other side of the table Noah Lewis speaks up.
"Where is my mother?"
"Being autopsied," replies Beckett with an edge in her voice that implies to Noah that said autopsy is sure to find evidence that he killed his mother.
If the man's actions and demeanour already didn't make him look like exactly the guy that could be at the centre of Castle's childhood horror then his next comment doesn't help him, "I warned her but she wouldn't stop running her mouth at me. Now she doesn't say a word. It's what she deserved."
"What about the others? Did they deserve what they got? We know what you've done, Noah. Who you really are," jumps in Castle. Now that he has HIM. The man of his nightmares in front of him he is going to ask all the questions that have plagued him since he was eleven.
One of the best things for Castle at this moment is that his wife and muse is right beside him to help him get those answers he has sought for so long, as Beckett chimes in with, "Tell us about Emma Malloy."
Noah looks at them as if what they are asking is of no consequence as he responds, "I'm not good with names."
Beckett slaps a photo of Emma on the table in front of Lewis so that there can be no mistakes, no misunderstandings in what they are here for, what they want from Lewis as Castle states, "You know her."
"Where were you the night before last?" quickly follows Beckett, not wanting to give Lewis any time to think.
"Out," Noah responds shiftily, obviously not want to say where he was.
"Out where?" pushes Beckett. "Neighbours say your car was gone."
"I took a drive," replies Noah casually, giving the impression that it is none of their business.
"Did you drive to the woods?" asks Beckett looking directly into Lewis' eyes for and answer. After a long moment with no response from the man she continues, slapping another photo face up onto the table, "What about this girl, Zoe Addison?"
"She was seen getting into your car, Noah, and now she's gone," supplies Castle with a hint of sorrow yet steel in his voice. Castle eyes bore into the man and he can sense he is close. That the unprepossessing man sitting opposite will finally vindicate his memories and theories from when he was a child.
"Hmm, she's pretty," observes Noah, in a way that just reinforces his creepiness in Castle and Beckett's eyes.
"Is she dead?" asks Castle even though he already knows the answer. He just wants, no, needs this man to admit what he has done so that he can try to move past it.
Noah shakes his head and looks almost pleased as he responds, "I can't hep you."
"Where do you take them? The others. How do you make them disappear?" continues Castle. In Castle's mind there is no doubt that, beyond the three women that they know about, Emma, Zoe and Rosalita, there has to be others. After all this time there has to be so many others that they don't know about but that this man does and he is going to tell them about them all.
Again, he is not alone in this as Beckett adds, "We have your car, Noah, your house, we will find evidence."
"Did Emma find evidence? Is that why you went after her? Because she got too close? Is that why you shot at us?" asks Castle. He still hasn't been able to get the man to say it. To confirm everything that the evidence and his mind is telling him. That he is the masked man.
Noah is indignant as he exclaims, "You were in my house!" He pauses for a moment before looking at the couple righteously, "Don't you see? I'm the victim here. I'm the victim!"
The New Grove Psychiatric Hospital, New York
As Castle and Beckett walk up to the front doors of the hospital Castle hopes that this Doctor Holtzman will give them what they need so that he can finally lay to rest the masked man. To give them what they need to break Noah. That missing piece that will make up for the gaps in the evidence that will prove that Noah is the masked man and not just an obviously disturbed man living his own version of Norman Bates' life.
That's despite the slight niggle of doubt, at the back of his mind, that Noah's less than formidable visage represents to him. No, he is certain that they are close to putting away the masked man and that Noah is he. It's just so frustrating to be so close to finding the truth after all these years and yet for it all to slip away because they can't find any solid evidence.
He lets his wife know these thoughts as they push their way through into the foyer of the psychiatric hospital as, with a hint of irony in his voice, he says "If Noah ends up walking you may have to have me committed."
Beckett gives him a smile, but before she responds she turns to the receptionist behind the front counter and says," Excuse me, we need to speak to Dr Holtzman please?"
"Of course, just a moment," responds the young woman as she reaches for her phone to obviously page the doctor.
Beckett turns back to Castle and looks at him reassuringly but also with a hint of teasing, "Listen, if after seven years of your crazy theories you haven't already been committed then I think you are pretty safe."
Castle gives her a smile in response and is, yet again, so glad that she is with him for this. He knows he wouldn't be this close without her or be so surefooted and not consumed by his memories and anxieties of a lifetime. These pleasant thoughts are instantly frozen when he hears and recognises the voice of the grey haired but surprisingly young looking man that approaches them at this point.
"Hi, I'm Doctor Holtzman," says Holtzman, reaching out to shake their hands as he introduces himself. "I understand you've been looking for me?"
Castle barely hears this yet alone the exchange that follows between his wife and the doctor. All he can focus on is that he knows that voice. Really knows that voice. It is the voice from his childhood and that has haunted him ever since. Where he thought he was certain with Noah before there is no doubt in his mind now. The man they have just met and who is now walking away from them is the masked man. The killer from the woods.
He turns to Beckett and with utter certainty in his voice declares to her, "Beckett! I know that voice. From that day in Hollander's Woods. It's him! He's the killer!"
Beckett looks at him surprised and confused, "Castle, that was over thirty years ago you can't possibly..."
Castle interrupts her absolutely convinced he is right, in what he heard and the memories they are dredging up for him, "Kate, when he spoke I could feel the knife at my throat. I won't ever forget that voice for as long as I live.
Beckett can see the utter conviction in Castle's eyes but before they can discuss his sudden one-eighty on who the killer is Holtzman re-joins them, "Sorry about that. Shall we talk in my office?"
As they follow the doctor into his office Castle is trying to control his emotions. He wants to blurt out what he knows. To confront the man that is sitting down behind his desk as Beckett takes a seat opposite him. It's why he doesn't join them and, instead, starts wandering around the office, inspecting the items displayed about the room. Partly to distract himself from his desire to shout out 'I know who you are!' and partly to see if the contents of the room will give him some clue to confirm what he already knows deep in his gut. That Dr Holtzman is the masked man. He is only half listening to the back and forth between Beckett and Holtzman when he spots the degree from Dartmouth on the wall. Dartmouth! So convenient for Hollander's Woods.
"You went to Dartmouth?" he asks but it is not the doctor that he looks at when he turns around and from the look on Beckett's face he can see she has instantly made the same connection he has.
The reply from Holtzman is inconsequential to Castle as he holds Beckett's gaze for a moment and they share their thoughts as they always do. On the same page as him he watches her finally break their connection and turn back to the doctor and ask him, "Ah, when was the last time you saw, Mr Lewis?"
As Holtzman answers Beckett's question Castle moves slowly, almost cautiously towards the man seated behind the desk. He now studies the man in front of him and tries to imagine him, all in black, wearing that black and white porcelain mask of his nightmares.
At a break in his wife's questioning he makes a statement to see if he can get a reaction or, at least, some form of unconscious acknowledgment of what he is saying from the man he is now convinced is the man he has been looking for, "He's done this before, you know. Abducted women. Killed them in the woods, possibly for years."
Holtzman looks at him oh so innocently and with curiosity, "How do you know?"
"Witnesses," answers Castle. Not getting the reaction he is looking for Castle continues with a question that has been on top of his list of questions that he has wanted answered by the masked man, "When he does it he wears a mask. Now why would he do that? Wear a mask when he kills them?"
"I don't know," responds Holtzman looking at Castle with, to Castle's mind, false frankness. Castle studies him again and still can't see anything substantial.
Castle continues, still trying to get a concrete reaction from the doctor, "If you had to guess? What kind of psychoses would drive a man to do that? Something terrible in his childhood?"
"The mind of a psychopath is not that simple," says Holtzman, still acting the professional psychiatrist.
"But he killed them anyway. So why would he need to hide his face behind this?" asks Castle as he walks over to Beckett, retrieves the sketch of the mask from the folder in her lap and goes over to the doctor and holds it in front of his face.
Holtzman studies the sketch of the mask with it's cross in it's centre and the tears running from it's eyes and Castle thinks he can detect a faint glimmer of recognition as the man looks over the picture. With a voice that is far to smooth and yet still takes him back to those woods Holtzman says, "Maybe, he's not hiding it. Maybe, this is his true face. The monster he knows he really is and he wants his victims to see it and fear it before they die. Maybe his real mask is the face of the man he has to pretend to be every day."
At that Castle catches the eyes of his wife and wills her to see the doctor as he does. He has to convince her and by extension everyone else that Holtzman is the masked man. Because of all the statements the man has said since they have met him Castle is certain that he what he has just heard is wholly the truth.
The Loft later that afternoon
Castle leans over the desk in his study and looks at the picture of Rosalita Campo but he's not really seeing it. What he is seeing is the same woman but not the smiling face of the snapshot but the bloody cold dead body that he saw and touched as a child. Will he ever get justice for her? Will he ever get justice for his eleven year old self?
He turns around, sits on the edge of the desk, rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands and thinks back to the discussion he just left at the precinct. Left, hell, he stormed out. All because neither the boys nor Kate believe him. Believe that he is one hundred percent certain that Holtzman is the masked man. As he continues to recall the discussion he is embarrassed at storming out and his last words to Kate. He'd seen the look of shock on her face at his accusation and, in hindsight, he knows he was being unfair, both about her and the boys. All because they are right. They have nothing concrete that proves that Holtzman is the masked man.
They were all just giving voice to the same objections that anyone would have over his assertion that Holtzman is the killer. All of them, especially Kate, were just trying to get him to see that they needed more before they could go after the doctor. He was just so caught up in the realisation of having really discovered the monster from his childhood that he'd let some long held negative feelings and impressions take control.
Feelings of inadequacy as an investigator in the face of Kate and the boys' professionalism while he is just an amateur. Impressions that his ideas can be easily dismissed as yet more wild theories of his. Impressions that they all only tolerate him and have never taken what he's said seriously. He'd be lying to himself if he didn't acknowledge that his efforts to become an Auxiliary Detective wasn't only just to stay at Kate's side but also, in a small, unthought-of of way, a means of addressing these feelings and impressions.
Also, he has to admit that he's his own worse enemy sometimes with some of the 'out there' theories he's come up with during their cases. All these years of putting forward that aliens, the mob, the CIA or sentient machines are behind the murders they've investigated have not helped his credibility. His efforts to lighten the mood during their all too serious pursuit of murderers are now making him look like the boy who cried wolf. Logically he knows that they are all correct and that he needs to find more evidence than his own faint recollections of a voice from so long ago. It is just that same logic is telling him it's not going to be easy or quick. Hell, given how long Holtzman has operated undetected, it could take years.
His last words to Kate were a knee jerk reaction and he is is ashamed of himself for acting that way and saying what he did. This is not like his disappearance where people think he is lying remembering where he was while he was gone. Yes, he had felt betrayed that Kate didn't just believe his assertion regarding he psychiatrist and in some ways still feels slightly justified in that feeling. That, after all they've been through together, she doesn't just accept what he says without the need for 'evidence'.
Yet, deep down, he knows that Kate has been behind him with his search for the masked man just like he knows that she believes him about his amnesia regarding the two months he was missing. As the type of impartial and principled homicide detective she is she needs proof. It is one the many things he loves about her and he can hardly be mad at her for being something that he loves. That's why he's feeling uncomfortable with how he left her at the precinct. He just hopes that she'll be home soon and he can apologize to her.
Again the universe seems to be reading his mind as Kate appears in the doorway of his study, looking apprehensive and holding a folded piece of paper.
"I'm sorry. You said it was him. I believe you," Kate says to him with contrition.
Castle shakes his head at her apology as he responds, "Except you're right. There's nothing we can do. We'd have to sit on him for years hoping he makes a move." He pauses and a look of disappointment and frustration crosses his face, "This is not how the story was supposed to end."
Kate takes a few tentative steps into the study to stand in front of him and says, "I was thinking. How did he make those victims disappear without a trace?"
"Well, he would had to have taken them somewhere," answers Castle partly coming out of his depressed introspection in response to his wife's question. Just what Kate intended. That their usual back and forth over a case would get Castle back to his usual positive and insightful self.
"Somewhere his family didn't know about," states Kate eager for Castle to follow her reasoning.
"He'd have to have a lair….A storage space somewhere," posits Castle.
It's Kate's turn to shake her head at Castle's idea, "Too many things could go wrong. There could be a flood, a nosey manager. He would have to find a place for which he had absolute control. So I did a property search. It came up empty on him but I did find this," and Kate passes him the paper she is holding and goes to sit next to him.
As she perches herself on the desk next to him, Castle unfolds the paper and quickly scans what is written there and exclaims, "Farmland?"
"Yeah," replies Kate eagerly, "owned by Holtzman's parents, both deceased. It's in a trust. Holtzman is listed as the sole trustee. It's possible his wife doesn't know about it."
"It's only a few miles from where Emma was hit by that truck," declares Castle just as eagerly now that he sees what his wife has found. She really does believe him. Again he feels both ashamed and grateful. After he stormed off to pout she kept working to find that elusive thread that could lead him to the evidence he needs.
"Tax records show that there's a barn on the property," she tells him adding to the possibilities of what she has discovered and Castle sees it all clearly.
"He must have held her there. It's private. In the middle of nowhere. The perfect lonely place," he stands and she stands with him as he reasons with conviction, energized again with something solid to go on. It all fits. They don't have to watch Holtzman for years. His studious and loyal wife has found what they need to get the masked man.
Kate looks at him with agreement but also caution in her eyes, "Only, I would never get a warrant and if I searched it without one then any evidence I would find would be inadmissible."
"Because you're a cop," he deflates a little at the reality of the situation.
"But, you're not," Kate continues, looking into his eyes again cautioning him as she puts forward her proposal. "At least not yet. It would be trespassing. You would be breaking the law and you'd most likely be kicked out of the Auxiliary Detective program but if you found something...and I know how much this means to you. So whatever you decide I will back your play," she ends genuinely, repeating the same words he gave her on their swings only the night before to reinforce that she is behind whatever he decides.
Castle contemplates Kate's words and weighs up what he wants to do. What is really important to him? Yes, becoming an Auxiliary Detective to stay working with Kate is important to him. Doing what she suggests would not only put an end to that, wasting all the work he has done so far, but it would also, possibly, lead to him being banished from the twelfth again. Therefore doing this could put them back where they were before Christmas and his grand scheme would all be for nothing.
But this man, this demon, from his childhood has been killing women for god knows how long and if by doing this he has a chance to stop him and put this nightmare behind him then that is even more important. Also, while in many ways this is about him it isn't only about him. It is about this man's victims both past and future. If he can bring justice to the families of those women that Holtzman has killed and stop there from being any more then there really is no choice for him.
After a long contemplation, during which Kate has been watching him anxiously while also trying to project support in her gaze, Castle uses a hint of his usual coping mechanism to stressful times as he responds with a wry grin, "Well, it's a good thing then that you either become a State Senator or a Captain and not lead investigations anymore because looks like I'm going to finally add something to my record besides riding that police horse naked."
Kate looks at him with a hint of worry as she asks, "Are you sure? I don't want you to think that throwing away everything you've worked for is the only option. We could just stake the place out. Wait for him to make a move."
"No, Kate, as I said he could wait years before trying something again and even if he didn't wait, after his contact with us, he might change his MO or change where he does it. He may find another place to take his victims. And even if he doesn't there is no guarantee that we could watch such an isolated area, for a long period of time, without him detecting us. No, I have to do this," declares Castle with determination.
Kate nods in mirror of his determination, "Ok, babe. Then let's do this!"
The Holtzman Family Farm – Upstate New York
Castle brings his silver Buick sedan to a stop within sight of the old wooden barn on the Holtzman Farm and he looks at it and the old tractor in front of it. It has taken both him and Kate hours to get here. The remoteness of the place leaves no doubt in his mind that this is the place. This is where he brings them and, most likely, buries them, his victims.
He's close now. He can feel it. He'll go in there. Find the evidence that proves that Holtzman is the masked man. Then he'll call the State Police and they'll come and find the evidence and arrest Holtzman. Then they'll arrest him for trespassing and he can kiss his potential career as an Auxiliary Detective and quite possibly any chance of working with his wife ever again goodbye. What could possibly go wrong?
It is the threat to his future combined with the possibility of finally putting the masked man behind him all while performing a highly illegal B & E that has him nervous yet determined. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Kate also regarding the barn and he can sense the nerves radiating off her as well.
"Looks deserted," Kate observes.
"This is the property line. You should stay back here on this side," recommends Castle as he takes a look at the area surrounding the barn.
"Ok, but you're not going in alone," acknowledges Kate. She holds up her cell phone, "Keep me on speaker. Let me know what you find."
"Right," responds Castle with resolve as he gets out of the car and Kate looks on encouragingly.
Castle makes a quick stop to the trunk of his car to collect a pair of bulk cutters. As he shuts the trunk again he thinks, inconsequentially, that his detailing service did a good job cleaning up the mess that Amy Barrett left after being locked in there for a couple of hours. He moves quickly to the main doors of the barn and uses the heavy bulk cutters to make sort work of the chain and padlock securing the doors. Removing the chain and dropping the bulk cutters he opens one of the doors with a loud creak.
He steps inside the dimly lit barn, pulls out a torch, turns it on and adds its dust mote filled beam to the beams of sunlight peeking through cracks in the walls of the barn. Around him he can see that the barn is filled with a wide assortment of junk and his heart, which is currently beating at a thousand times a minute, sinks as he thinks of how long it is going to take to search it all.
"So what do you see?" he hears Kate ask through the speaker of his phone, from this jacket pocket.
"Looks like he uses it for storage," Castle tells her as he takes in some of the bizarre items that Holtzman has stored here. Seriously, what is a horse from a carousel doing here? "Creepy, creepy storage," he adds almost under this breath.
He walks further into the barn and comes to a large shape that looks like it is a car covered with a very dirty and dusty car protector. Pulling back the protector he finds the same type of white Toyota Corolla that he'd last seen in front of Connie Lewis' house.
"Beckett, it's the same car that Noah has. Same colour, same licence plate, same sticker, everything. That's how he did it."
"So if someone spotted him it would lead right back to Noah. But you're going to need more than that to call the police. Look around. He may have kept trophies from his victims," the disembodied voice of his wife suggests from his coat pocket.
Castle moves further into the barn and relies on the beam of his torch more and more as it grows darker with every step. He plays the light over the dusty and cobweb encrusted pieces of furniture and other odds and ends that Holtzman has stored here.
His heart leaps into his throat as his light falls upon the all too familiar black and white porcelain mask hanging on a nail on a post near him. For a moment he is transported again back thirty years to the first time he saw that same mask, inches from his face.
The gasp he gives at the sight of the mask he last saw, other than in his nightmares, as a child obviously raises some alarm and concern with Kate as she asks, "You ok?"
Castle studies the mask closely before turning from it, confident now that it is just a piece of costume and not the whole terror from his past, and he answers, "Yeah."
Searching past the mask his torch illuminates an old, dusty credenza with books stacked on it. In the light he notices recent finger marks in the dust around a drawer. He reaches down, opens it and sees a photo album with a red leather cover with a gold border. Castle picks up the album and opens it. Again his heart starts beating rapidly at the images he sees as he turns the pages of the album.
"Oh god!" he breathes as he takes in the photos in the album. There are what must be before and after shots of Holtzman's victims. One picture where the woman looks unharmed and another with them dead and the all too familiar crosses carved into their faces.
"Castle? Castle, what do you see now?" inquires Kate's voice anxiously.
"I see them. Photos of his victims….I see all of them," he tells her, shocked and disturbed by what he is seeing.
At that moment there is a crash and the faint light in the barn gets even dimmer as the door, which he came through and left open, suddenly closes. He swings his torch in the direction of the doors but beside some residual movement from them he can't see anything that might have caused them to shut so abruptly. Sweat gathers on his brow as his instincts tell him that he is not alone. He steps back to where he last saw the mask hanging and when the beam of his torch falls on post where he last saw it his heart stops. The mask is gone!
"Beckett, he's here. He's inside!" Castle announces desperately to Kate as he moves his torch around frantically looking for the man now wearing the missing mask.
"How did you find me?" comes the familiar, terror inducing, voice from the gloom of the barn.
"I've been looking for you since Hollander's Woods," responds Castle in a clear voice that belies the apprehension he is feeling as his eyes search in vain for the source of the voice.
"The boy! That was you! I should have killed you when I had the chance," drips Holtzman's voice with malice.
"You can't win, Holtzman. We know who you are," declares Castle defiantly to the dark as he continues to try and spot the masked doctor amongst the trash littering the barn.
"It doesn't matter. You'll both be dead and they'll never find me," responds Holtzman with a casual and chilling certainty.
"Beckett, he's here. He's inside!"
Kate's eyes go wide at Castles pronouncement. She throws open the door of the car, leaps out and starts sprinting towards the barn as fast as her high heeled boots will carry her. She quickly pulls up the text message she prepared earlier, in case of emergencies, while maintaining the connection to Castle.
The text is addressed to both Esposito and Ryan and reads: SOS – Send back up immediately to ….and the GPS coordinates of their location follow. She quickly presses send and then pockets the phone. She then draws her Glock and increases the pumping of her legs so that she can get to him as fast as she can.
Her lungs burning for oxygen she hears with growing anxiety the exchange between Castle and the faint and sinister voice. The last words she hears from the voice chill her blood.
"It doesn't matter. You'll both be dead and they'll never find me."
Kate grits her teeth in anger at the threat. She should have given him her back-up piece and regulations be dammed, she thinks, as she nears the closed barn doors. Upon reaching them she pulls on them frantically but they refuse to budge.
"CASTLE!" she shouts, banging on the door desperately. "IT"S LOCKED!"
"CASTLE!" he hears his name shouted in desperation by his wife as he vainly searches the darkness for Holtzman.
"IT'S LOCKED," comes from outside the barn which is emphasised by the sound of the shaking of the doors followed by a frantic knocking.
He turns his torch onto the doors and can see a wooden bar has been placed across them, literally barring them shut. Castle rushes in their direction and the salvation that is his wife. Just as he reaches a hand out for the bar a black cloaked figure springs from the darkness and tackles him to the ground at the base of the doors.
A desperate struggle ensues in the dirt with the dreadfully masked Holtzman on top of Castle. With the suddenness of Holtzman's attack all of Castle's recently acquired self-defence training is for nothing as it is all he can do to try and fend off the sharp blade of the killer's knife as it flashes in front of his face and gets closer and closer to his throat. Castle tries to shut out the terror he is feeling at the sight of the masked figure looming over him, straight out of one of his childhood nightmares.
"BECKETT!" he calls wildly to the woman he loves that he knows is so close but yet so far from being able to help him.
"CASTLE! I CAN"T GET IN!" he hears her shout with plain anxiety.
The older man is a lot stronger than he looks and heavier too as Castle can do nothing to throw the man off or push him away. All his strength is focused in trying to keep the knife from his neck and he is failing. Just as the knife makes contact with his skin Holtzman, breathing heavily from the exertion, taunts him.
"The danger of facing your demons… it's that sometimes the demons win!"
The door right by Castle's head shudders under an impact and he hears the Kate's frantic cry, "CASTLE! WHAT'S GOING ON IN THERE?"
Castle feels the knife break his skin and warm blood trickling down his neck. He redoubles his efforts and the knife halts its advance towards his jugular but only momentarily.
"CASTLE!" Kate shouts again and her voice spurs him on to keep going, keep fighting because if he doesn't he'll never see her again.
As they continue to wrestle for control of the knife Castle knows that he won't be able to hold Holtzman off forever. Their hands shake with the strain of Castle's fight for survival. In the light cast from the gap under the door Castle's eye is drawn to the glint of the wedding ring on his finger and an idea comes to him. A desperate, stupid, brilliant, crazy idea that will either save his life or end it.
He risks a glance above him to the gap between the bottom of the barn door and the ground and can see the toes of Kate's boots just inches from his face. The sight of his wife oh so familiar footwear gives him the strength he needs to give one last shove at the knife, forcing it away from his neck so that he can release one hand and shove it through the gap under the door and into the light outside.
He calls out to his wife for he hopes not for the last time, "BECKETT!"
Kate can hear sounds of panting and the movement of bodies just on the other side of the door as she puts her full weight behind her body, slamming it into the door, but it remains obstinately and terrifyingly closed.
"CASTLE!" she yells frantically. No, not like this. Not after all they've been through she can't lose him now. Not when she is so close yet unable to get to him.
Not knowing the situation inside she daren't risk firing blindly through the wooden door. She is almost at her wits end at what to do when a hand appears from underneath the door, the fingers stretched out blindly appealing for something.
"BECKETT!" she hears in the distressed voice of her husband.
The bright sunlight outside the barn catches the white gold band around the ring finger of the hand. The exact copy of the same band that circles her own ring finger. It takes barely a second for her to recognise the ring, the hand and the intention in the outstretched fingers. Without hesitation she slaps her gun into the hand and watches with baited breath as it disappears inside the barn.
Once Castle feels the comforting weight of his wife's Glock being thrust into his hand, with a fain hint of a brush of her gloved fingertips on his wrist as she does so, he grimaces in determination as he brings his hand back inside. Thrusting the gun between himself and the masked monster hovering over him he pulls the trigger again and again and again and again.
The loud reports of the gun echo in the expanse of the barn as each shot tears into the torso of Dr Van Holtzman. As the last echo dies he hangs there for a moment before he topples to the side, his mask falling to the ground and shattering just moments before its owner joins it in the dust. Still and unmoving and quite dead.
Castle lies panting on his back in exhaustion, residual panic and still surging adrenalin at his desperate fight for life. He takes more than a few minutes to calm himself as he looks over at the lifeless eyes of Holtzman, confirming that he is really dead.
A renewed pounding on the door by his head and shouts of, "CASTLE?" stir him into movement.
Like an old man plagued with arthritis he slowly, creakily, gets up from the dirt and reaches for the bar holding the doors closed. He lifts it up, tosses it to one side and pushes open the door. He steps out and is momentarily blinded by the bright sunshine. The next thing he knows he is enveloped in a bone crushing hug and he is overwhelmed with an exceedingly familiar sent of cherries.
"Oh God! Are you Ok? Are you OK?" Kate whispers anxiously into his neck.
Castle takes a shaky breath and answers, "Yeah."
A/N : This is just a retelling of the resolution of Castle's childhood nemesis without much original material. I hope people still found it enjoyable. I can't take credit for it only the writers of the episode, Andrew W Marlowe and Terri Edda Miller can. However, the events in this chapter might just have consequences in the universe of my story so I had to include them. Plus it's pretty exciting stuff.
Thanks again to everyone taking the time reading, following, faving and reviewing my story. Also thanks to philliesfan1000 for being my unofficial beta and pointing out those typos in the last chapter. I've since fixed them and I won't tell you what was on my mind at the time when I typed one of them, but you can probably guess ;) Apologies for any typos or auto correct mistakes that appear. I'll try to keep them to as few as possible.