Chapter 20 Case Closed

Beckett decided to proceed through the workdays as if they were any other one, which they would be for the most part. The only difference was that Castle wouldn't be around her all the time, watching her as she examined the murder board, interrogated her suspects, and followed leads. She wouldn't have someone to bounce ideas off of or to build theory with. No worries, she was more than able to handle the cases on her own.

Kate thought of it as if they were just taking a break from each other. A vacation, if you will. They had been spending a lot of time together and maybe this was the type of break they needed.

None of these thoughts stopped her from feeling slightly lonely though. It was stupid of her to be missing him already, but she felt like the balance of her routine had been messed up.

He wouldn't be there to kiss her goodbye when she left for work each morning. He wouldn't be there to make her a steaming cup of coffee, just the way she liked it, as he did every day. He wouldn't be the first one she called when they picked up a new case.

Now as Beckett fumbled with the espresso machine, she realized that she was so used to him to the point that it irritated her that he wasn't there to make her coffee perfectly, the way only he knew how. No one else had ever bothered to learn how to make her coffee. Come to think of it, she never actually explicitly told him how to make it; he had figured out the perfect recipe by trial and error, perhaps.

"Need a hand with that?" a deep voice called from behind.

"No thanks, I can figure it out," Beckett replied without looking up. As a hot cloud of steam gushed out of the darned contraption, she became more and more frustrated and irritated with it. She was also irked that though Castle wasn't even present today, he was still the reason she was grouchy.

"You sure about that?" The stranger cocked his head sideways as he watched her try in vain to get the espresso machine to work. "Here let me."

Seeing as she couldn't operate the coffee maker properly, the man stepped in to help. He twisted a few knobs and adjusted a lever and suddenly, the machine decided to work like a charm.

"Here you go." He grinned as he handed her a steaming cup of joe.

When Beckett finally looked up at the man, she was surprised to find that she didn't recognize him. Beckett knew just about everybody in the homicide department, yet he was an unfamiliar face. He was quite good looking too, with dark brown hair, trustworthy eyes, and a warm smile. If she had met him before, she definitely would have remembered his name.

"Thanks," she mumbled a quick word of gratitude, slightly embarrassed that she couldn't make the coffee for herself.

As Beckett exited the break room, she noticed a man in a business suit entering the floor and quickly surmised that he was the corporate representative that she had been waiting for. It always took so long to get in contact with someone with an adequate rank from such large corporations. And bringing one in to talk to was another whole endeavor in itself.

Esposito swooped in to update her on the case. "Finally got someone from Apple to talk to us about their engineer."

"Great, thanks."

"We've also brought someone in from robbery to join in on the case," Esposito added.

"Why's that?" Beckett questioned.

"Apparently, Grayson had a sensitive Apple prototype in his possession. That's probably why his place was ransacked—someone really wanted to get their hands on the latest Apple gadget."

Beckett raised her eyebrows inquisitively. "Hmm, okay. Where's he now?"

"He'll be in the interrogation room with you."

"Gotcha."

Beckett grabbed some files off her desk and headed to the interrogation rooms. She confidently strode into the familiar room, her preying grounds.

"Thank you for joining us today, Mr. Stevens." She quickly sized him up: grey, finely pressed suit, clean shaven, stoic demeanor.

"I'm Detective Beckett, the lead homicide detective on this case. And this is..." She looked over to the man sitting next to her, the detective from the robbery division. This time, she recognized the face. It was the guy that just helped her with the espresso machine.

"Detective Demming from robbery," he introduced himself. "I understand Grayson had a prototype that was stolen from his apartment? That may be why he was killed."

"Yes, Grayson had the latest generation iPhone prototype in his possession. The one that hasn't been released yet. Do you know how much our competitors would pay to get their hands on our technology?"

"Well, we're very sorry for your loss," Beckett consoled in a sarcastic tone.

"We're deeply grieved for the loss of one of our employees, but the prototype is of utmost importance at this moment," he replied with well-rehearsed, HR-approved words.

"We'll see what we can do to find your device," Demming stated.

"In the meantime, do you know anyone who would want to hurt Grayson? Did he have any problems or enemies at work?" Beckett continued down her familiar line of questioning.

Mr. Stevens took a moment to think. "No, we never had any complaints about him. He was meeting deadlines and doing a fine job."

"What about personal problems?"

"Grayson kept to himself mostly, never sharing much personal details. I don't think he was close to any of his relatives either."

"So the only reason someone would want him dead is for the prototype?"

"Detective Beckett, the technology industry is highly competitive. It's all about having the latest technology first."

"But is it enough to kill for?" she challenged.

"You tell me."

Beckett looked down at her notes one last time and quickly shuffled through her mental checklist. They covered all the basics and it looked like they wouldn't get much more useful information from him.

"Okay well thank you for coming down, Mr. Stevens. We appreciate your cooperation," she concluded politely.

"And if you find our iPhone?"

"We'll let you know if anything comes up," Demming assured him.

The two detectives left the interrogation room. Beckett walked over to the murder board to make a few notes. She scribbled some words and phrases next to the motives list.

"Murdered over a phone? That seems a little extreme to me," she thought out loud.

Demming who had followed behind watching her nodded in agreement. "Seems unlikely, but that's all we have to go on right now. I'll put some feelers out to find that prototype. And I'll check out Apple's competitors to see if any of them have suddenly made incredible advancements in their technology in the past few days."

"Good idea."

Esposito came up from behind and skimmed the murder board as Demming left to make some phone calls.

"The dude was killed for the newest iPhone? I knew they were to die for, but not literally."

"Actually..." Ryan interjected with his nose buried in a file as he joined Beckett and Esposito in front of the murder board.

"I was looking through Apple's employee history and found something quite interesting. Just last year, a Chinese engineer who worked in a factory that produces parts for Apple products committed suicide after he lost an iPhone prototype." His eyebrows furrowed with concern.

"So I guess it is to die for. And maybe to kill for too..." Esposito commented.

"There were rumors that he was hassled by some people for losing the iPhone, but Apple didn't release anything formally about it. Guess they wanted to keep it hush-hush."

"We need some details on the missing device before we can get any other leads. That's the best we've got right now..." Beckett sighed. "Did you get anything on Riordan?"

"Guy's been MIA. Neighbors haven't seen him since that party at the Haus."

"Seems like he's hiding something." A sudden change in MO was often an indicator of guilt. "Keep trying to find him. If he's the killer, he's probably making a run for it."

"We're on it."

A few hours later, Demming approached Beckett at her desk.

"Got anything?" she looked up and asked.

"I believe I may have cracked your case," Demming smiled widely.

"So you found the missing device?"

"More than that. I was checking out some tech blogs to see if any iPhone news had leaked up recently. One prominent website actually got a hold of a prototype, presumably the one that was stolen from Grayson, and had done a tear-down of it to check out the new specs. So I looked up a list of the people that run the site and a name popped up that looked familiar. Chris Riordan. He's one of the web developers. I remembered the name from your murder board."

"So Riordan was the last person to see our vic alive," Beckett connected the dots. "And he's a developer for the site that got a hold of the stolen iPhone prototype?"

"Yeah. I have a strong feeling that he's our guy."

"Definitely. Ryan and Esposito are tracking him down now. Great work Demming," she commended him. "Thanks for your help."

"No problem. Let me know if you guys find him?"

"Will do."

As he turned to leave, Beckett's phone rang and she picked it up and answered instinctively.

"Beckett."

"Yeah, hey it's Ryan. We found your guy."

"Really? Where?"

"We got a hit on his credit card and found him camping out at a motel downtown."

"Good job guys. Bring him in. We have evidence against him and I think we can squeeze out a confession."

"Sure thing."

She hung up and called out to Demming's retreating figure.

"Hey Demming. Looks like my boys found our guy. If you stick around a bit, you can sit in on the interrogation."

"Sounds great."

Half an hour later, Chris Riordan was sitting on a cold metal chair contained in the interrogation room as Beckett and her team watched from behind the glass. He fidgeted nervously, knowing that this wouldn't end well for him.

Beckett eyed her suspect and assessed his character. He was a software engineer so he probably spent most of his time behind a computer. She could guess his type. Nerdy and socially awkward. She couldn't see someone like him being a cold blooded killer though. If he actually was the murderer, she could probably pry a confession from him pretty quickly. He would be easy to crack.

"Shall we?" Beckett asked Demming.

"After you," he said as he motioned to the door.

Beckett entered, sat down, and began her usual introduction.

"Now Chris, I think you know why you're here. Where were you two nights ago, from 10 till midnight?"

"I was uh... out with some friends. At a bar."

"Which one?"

"I don't remember. That night was pretty hazy. I guess it got out of hand."

"Really? Well I have witnesses that confirm you were at Gourmet Haus Staudt with Grayson Pierce."

"I guess I could have been..." he answered sheepishly.

"Witnesses also confirm that you left at the same time as him. And he was murdered shortly after at his apartment."

"An important prototype was stolen from him which then appeared on a tech website that you work for," Demming added in.

"Tell me what happened," Beckett prodded. "Did you murder him for the device?"

"I... I... It was an accident," Chris trembled. "I took his keys at the bar and went to his apartment to find it. When he got back he saw that I was trashing his place so we got into a fight. I pushed him too hard and he lost his balance and hit his head on the corner of the table. I didn't mean to kill him..."

"So where's the prototype now?"

"I found it in his pocket so I took it and left. Then I sold it to the tech blog I work for and flipped. God, I didn't mean to kill him. "

Beckett looked at Demming with a knowing case-closed look.

She pushed a confession sheet towards Chris and gathered her files to leave.

Outside, Demming complimented her.

"Nice job in there. You got him to confess really quickly."

"Yeah, he was an easy case. Definitely not the cold blooded killer type. Who would purposely kill another person over a stupid phone?"

"Well the technology industry is practically cutthroat nowadays. People would pay a few grand just to have the latest product leaked."

"Yeah well some people take things like this to the extreme."

They walked over to the murder board and Beckett started clearing it off.

"So I guess I'll follow up on the prototype to see that Apple gets it back. There will probably be a lawsuit over the theft. Other than that, I guess the case is closed," Demming summarized.

"Mhmm. It was nice working with you," Beckett said. "And thanks for your help with the espresso machine," she added, recalling his chivalrous act.

"If you'd like, I could treat you to some coffee sometime so that you don't have to deal with that machine," Demming offered with a warm smile.

"Umm... sure," Beckett agreed out of politeness. "That'd be nice."

He scribbled down his number and handed her the slip of paper.

"I guess I'll see you around?" Demming asked.

"Yeah," she smiled softly. "See you."

Demming headed towards the elevator to return to his floor.

After she finished packing up the files for the Grayson Pierce case, Beckett sat down to think about what she just did. She just accepted another guy's number even though she had a thing with Castle, whom she sorely missed.

They were never officially a couple, Beckett rationalized, and Demming would help her to take her mind off of missing him. Besides, it was just an invitation for coffee between coworkers, nothing serious. Beckett brushed these thoughts aside and tried not to think of Castle, who was thousands of miles away from her right now.

So far away from where you are

'Cause miles have torn us worlds apart

And I miss you

A/N: So... I'm just going to leave this here and pretend that it hasn't been nearly an entire year since I've updated.