A/N - Here we are again. Glad you made it back.

My heartfelt thanks to all of you who have favorited and followed and especially those of you who have taken the time to comment. You really make my day.

Now, what was I saying about this being an innocuous story? ;-)

The Commitment

Chapter 6

A Beautiful Day in This Neighborhood

At one-forty-five that afternoon, Castle waited for Susannah in the lobby of the Bowman Building where his attorney's office was located. He sat on a bench by the elevator playing a round of mini-golf on his phone.

"Mr. Rodgers?" He raised his eyes and shook his head. Susannah was pleasing to the eyes. She was fresh out of school by only a couple of years, tall, confident. She had sparkling eyes that changed color depending on what she was wearing or how the light reflected off them. Her hair was a light brown with auburn highlights. She was easy to like with a ready smile and a quick wit. Her students loved her and she them. When he had first met her, he entertained the possibility that if he were a few years younger or she a few years older, he may have been tempted to move their relationship to that of a more personal nature. He shook off any notions in that direction when he did the math. Not the math between Susannah and Rick's ages, but between Susannah and Alexis. His teenaged daughter was less than ten years younger than Susannah was.

"Really? When will you just call me Rick?"

Susannah Hamilton had taken her class back to school, clocked out for the day, gone home to change her clothes, and met him downtown all in less than two hours.

"It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood, Mr. Rodgers." She beamed at him. He grimaced.

"That's one of the reasons I changed my name. If I had a dollar for every time some kid said that in school, wait, I probably do." He smirked.

"I'm just feeling so great, so optimistic. Oh Rick, the kids could not stop talking about the trip. All the way back on the bus and into the classroom. I think we're going to have twelve new cops in a few years."

He pouted. "What? No writers?"

She tilted her head. "I think you may have recruited Andy Finnegan, you know," she arched an eyebrow, "after he gets out of the big house."

He winced. "The big house? Wow, really cliché."

"I guess it's a good thing that I'm not the writer."

"I guess so," he smiled again. "Okay, you ready?"

"Yeah, I think so. I brought my planners and the correspondence from the district and the school board. I'll probably get fired, one way or the other, but I just have to fight for the program."

"I'll do everything I can, you know that."

"I know," she said quietly.

"You need to remember it." He narrowed his eyes in mock suspicion. "Are you sure you don't have a learning disorder of some sort?"

She playfully slapped him on the arm, smiled, and peeked from under her lashes. "Maybe you just need to pay better attention."

"Really? Isn't that some form of harassment? A medical diagnosis used against me."

She smirked. "You have a psychiatric diagnosis," she said as she considered him, "maybe more than one. Maybe some that hasn't been diagnosed yet."

"Miss Hamilton, you wound me." He clasped his hands in front of him and looked down at them. "My attorney, Mike, is a great guy," he shrugged, "he's a fan and a hell of a poker player. He also knows his stuff. I trust him with all of my legalese."

She nodded as he explained.

"Do you have any questions," he looked at his watch, "before we go up?

She shook her head and said, "None right now. I'm sure I'll have plenty later. Just," she averted her eyes again, "thanks."

"Anytime." He smiled, offered her his arm and led her to the elevators.

Castle's cryptic answer weighed heavily on Beckett's mind for the rest of the day. He excused himself once more, citing the meeting between his attorney, Susannah, and himself. The kids had been amazing. They asked questions and not inane meaningless questions either. They were insightful and in some instances, thought provoking. There were no behavioral problems. Kate could see why Castle held Susannah in such high regard. Castle and Susannah. She sighed to herself.

"Okay, Beckett?" Espo asked from his desk. Apparently, she didn't keep the sigh as much to herself as she thought.

"Yeah, I'm good," she answered. "Hey Espo, what did you think about those kids?"

"They were great!" Ryan interrupted by rolling his chair in between them.

Esposito stood, walked behind Ryan giving him a shove back towards his desk, and said, "Yeah," shaking his head, "they were. I normally don't like field trips coming in here, the kids get in the way, and they're always touching stuff."

"Kind of like Castle." Ryan rolled his chair back into the conversation.

"Yeah," Kate agreed, "kind of like Castle." It was true; the man could not not touch things. When he first started shadowing her, CSU found his fingerprints at many crime scenes. It became a tech joke: who could find Castle's prints first got a prize. Kate hadn't been amused and had threatened to remove his fingers unless he could start keeping them to himself. Crime scene contamination was not a joke. He complied by producing his own box of latex gloves about the same time he had his Kevlar vest custom made.

"You have to admit, he really has a connection with those kids," Esposito continued.

"Yeah, he really is just a big kid." Ryan had abandoned his chair and walked over to Beckett's desk. He stood above her, his gaze across the room at the top of the wall, not really seeing. "What do you think he meant when he said he was one of them?"

"Oh, well, you know," she stammered. Actually, she didn't know and Ryan's question brought her back to her musings.

Esposito weighed in. "It's pretty obvious."

His partners both turned to him, waiting for the obvious answer that had escaped them both.

Espo rolled his eyes then arched his eyebrows as he walked over to the whiteboard. He picked up a marker. In black, he drew a smiley face, except he made the eyes blue.

"Espo," Beckett began. Esposito held his hand up to her face. Ryan jumped in and wrote 'Richard Edgar Castle' under the smiley. Beckett scowled.

"Now, what do we know about our suspect?" Espo asked, "Class?"

"Best-selling author"

Ryan began the list under his name. "Check."

"Father, millionaire who takes care of his friends," Espo grinned and high-fived Ryan for that one.

"Philanthropist, alleged volunteer." Esposito looked at Beckett "Come on, Beckett, you must have something for the list."

She pursed her lips and then added, "Oh, okay, why don't we list what he does, like touch things?"

"Yeah, and he fidgets," Ryan added.

"How about he can't sit still?"

"He has an aversion to paperwork."

"He has a real connection with those kids." Esposito nodded his agreement.

"He jiggles." Beckett said.

"What?" The boys asked the question in harmony.

"His leg, he jiggles it. It's almost imperceptible, but when he's sitting, it's always moving. Esposito and Ryan exchanged glances.

Beckett drew in a deep breath. "Espo, what's the point of all of this?"

Espo smiled, "Don't you see? He's is one."

"Oh, yeah." Ryan said as realization dawned on him.

She looked back and forth between them. "What?"

"Beckett, the dude has one of those things,"

Ryan held up his finger, "Diagnosis, or actually diagnoses."

"Yeah," he continued, "the diagnoses he listed or he did at some time."

"Or something really close."

"That's why it's so important to him. That's why he said 'I am one of them.'"

"So you think Castle gives back to those kids because he's hyper or something?"

"Yeah, something."

Becket thought for a moment. It made sense. The boys had made a plausible argument. Was he annoying and immature simply to be annoying and immature or were there aspects of his personality that came along with a diagnosis? Maybe there was more to the relationship with the teacher than she first thought. Maybe she wasn't a conquest. Maybe he connected with her on a more personal level. Maybe he had shared this part of himself with her. Her phone rang and brought her out of her thoughts.

"Beckett. Okay, got it." She hung up her phone and looked back at Ryan and Esposito. "We've got a body."

Beckett gave her partners the location of the body and went down to her car. She called Castle. It was a habit now. They got a call, and then she called him. She didn't even have to think about it anymore. It was just one of the things she did, like pausing to remember that the victim was a person, first and foremost, who deserved dignity and justice. Castle did not pick up. She connected with his voicemail. She heard his smooth baritone voice egotistically congratulating the caller's luck at having reached his phone. She rolled her eyes and waited for the smug, arrogant message to end. "Hey Castle, we caught a case. Call me when you get this." She pulled out into traffic headed to the scene.

She parked in front of a deli on Bleeker Street near Lafayette. There were several patrol cars already blocking traffic. The crime scene tape had been hung around the area of the investigation. Kate saw the coroner's van and a number of evidence markers placed by the bits and pieces that may bring the victim justice. Her phone buzzed with a text. She swiped the screen and saw it was from Castle. 'Sorry, just getting out of meeting w/attorney. Will call from car.'

She thought for a moment. She was unlikely to pick up her phone when she actually got to the crime scene, even if it was a call from Castle. She sent him a short text back giving the address. She stepped out of her car and started walking when she heard, "Detective Beckett," in his familiar baritone.

"I thought you were in a meeting," she said while turning to face him.

"I was, literally right over there." He pointed to a building two doors down Bleeker on the corner.

"Well, that was convenient." She continued toward the alley.

He followed. "I know, right?"

"Everything okay?"

He looked at her confused, and then it dawned, "Oh, the lawyer, yeah. Susannah and I met with him about the school matter and then I had to go over some book contracts with him. Thanks," he added to the officer holding the tape up for the two of them.

They approached the scene. Dr. Lanie Parrish was knelt over the body of a woman lying face down on the concrete. The body was in a small alley, not large enough for a car to pass through, but was probably used for foot traffic all the time. In fact, according to Officer Metzler, a passerby was the one who found her and called it in.

"Hey Lanie, what do we have?" Lanie Parrish was a doctor with the Office of the City Medical Examiner and Kate's best friend.

"Broad daylight, that's what we've got," she said as she shook her head. "No ID, no purse, or phone. Caucasian, mid-twenties. No watch or any other jewelry."

'So maybe a mugging gone wrong. Time of death, pretty recently?"

"Yeah, within the last hour. She was strangled, looks like some sort of rope or cord."

Castle narrowed his eyes. "Unusual M.O. for a mugger; strangulation with or without a rope. That's more often than not, premeditated. If I'm going to mug someone, I am holding a knife or a gun for the threat. After all, I just want to threaten, get the loot, and get the hell away as fast as I can. Strangulation takes a while and there's usually a lot of fighting back." He shook his head. "No way was this a mugging."

Lanie lifted the woman's straight chestnut hair off of her neck, "see the ligature marks?" They both looked at the victim's neck. Castle tilted his head to align his head with the victim's.

He gasped. "Oh my God. Lanie, can you turn her over?" All of the blood had run out of his face.

"What is it Castle?" Kate asked as Lanie complied.

"Oh God," he swore when she had been rolled over.

"Castle?" She asked again as he backed away from the body and turned around at the wall. Kate had barely glimpsed at the woman at first, but given Castle's reaction, she looked again. "Oh," and let out a sigh.

"What is it, Kate?" Lanie looked between Beckett and Castle, who was currently leaning up against the wall clearly upset.

"We know her. Well, I've met her, but Castle knows her. Her name is Susannah Hamilton."