Three

"Daddy?"

"Yes Swe—AH!" Castle groaned when his head turned a bit too quickly in the direction of his daughter. It had been a week since his car accident, but sharp movements still bothered him. Fortunately, Beckett seemed to have recovered from her injuries. The day before when he griped about the crick in his neck she was all too quick to point out that she most likely healed more rapidly than him because of her youth whereas he, almost a decade older, fell into the old man category. Needless to say, Castle did not appreciate this comment or the smirk she wore as she said it.

Grunting slightly and massaging the back of his neck he smiled down at the blue-eyed, red-headed girl before him. "Yes, sweetheart?"

She tilted her head to the side and looked at him in a serious, concerned way that made her appear twice her age. "Are you okay, Daddy?"

"I'm fine, pumpkin. My neck feels much better than it did a few days ago, so there's no need to worry. Did you need something?"

Alexis scraped her sock-covered toes across the kitchen floor and clasped her hands in front of her. After drawing a few circles across the tile she said to her father, eyes downcast, "I had a question."

"Oh yeah?" Castle took a knee in front of her and smiled. "What's up?"

"Well…Mommy told me that she and her boyfriend are going to get married soon and then…and so I was wondering if you were ever going to get married again."

Castle exhaled heavily while looking at his little girl. He reached out his hands and placed one of them gently around each of her elbows. "Alexis, I don't have plans to not get married again. I would absolutely get married again, but I'd have to find the right lady who loved both of us very much."

"And you haven't found her yet," Alexis concluded wisely. Her father nodded. "Okay, Daddy!" Then, with that, she scampered off.

Castle sighed as he stood and leaned back against the kitchen counter. Damn, how pathetic was his dating life if his daughter was asking if he'd ever get married again? Granted, the suspicious ex-husband side of him wondered if Meredith hadn't put a bug in her ear about it; that wouldn't have surprised him in the least.

Okay, so it had been a while since he had been on a date—so what? His daughter was his number one priority. After that, came work because he needed to support and provide for her. Between the stress of switching precincts and the already high demand of a homicide detective's work, he hadn't even thought about going on a date in months.

This wasn't to say he didn't want to go on dates and meet someone special; of course he did. He had spent far too many nights alone in his bed, but it wasn't that simple. Dating was, quite frankly, exhausting. Not only did he have to meet someone he could stand, but he had to vet the woman quite extensively to find out if she would even entertain the idea of having Alexis in her life—especially considering how bad he'd been burned the last time. The fact of the matter was the majority of women his age who didn't have children didn't have them because they didn't want them, which automatically narrowed his dating pool.

Still, considering Alexis's comment he decided he needed to make a bit more of an effort when it came to his love life. He had spent too many years putting the needs of others before his own. He didn't want to spend the rest of his days alone nor did he want his daughter to grow up without a female role model in her day-to-day life.

"…all I'm saying is the Yankees better step up their game—and quickly," McCreary said as he tossed a foam stress ball shaped like a world globe across the twelfth precinct bull pen.

Castle caught the ball and gave it a hearty squeeze. "Yeah, well, the season just started so, you know, don't count them out yet." He raised his hand, poised to throw the ball back, but the clicking of heels interrupted him. He spun around to see his partner approaching her desk, hair rolled up in a tight knot at the base of her neck. He liked her better this way, he decided a few weeks earlier when she first wore the bun. It allowed him to see all her facial features without a curtain of hair obstructing the view.

"Think fast, Beckett!" he said cheekily before tossing her the ball. It hit her in the chest, squarely between her breasts before dropping to the floor. Her eyes flicked up at him, annoyed, before she sat down without a word.

Deflated, Castle let out a sigh. "Can you at least give the ball back?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because you shouldn't be throwing it."

"Ooo," came McCreary's sing-song retort from across the room. "Somebody's in trouble. Is she going to send you to your room, Castle?"

Castle ignored him. He got out of his chair and walked around to Beckett's desk where he scooped the ball off the floor. "C'mon, Beckett—don't you ever have any fun?"

"Of course I have fun," she said in a dull tone, not taking her eyes off the email she was reading.

Her partner rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you're a hoot. C'mon! Where's the harm in letting off a little tension now and then."

With an audible exhale, she turned her eyes toward him and held out her hand expectantly. With glee, he tossed her the ball and she snatched it out of the air. Looking down at it, she rolled it around in her palm for several seconds before pulling her arm back and snapping it forward with enough force to launch the ball towards a trash can across the room. The object met its target; landing in the bin with a "thunk."

Kate turned back to her partner whose jaw hung slack. She smiled. "You're right—that was fun."

"Mean," he muttered at her walking over to retrieve the ball.

"Castle! Beckett!" The loud voice of their captain carried across the bullpen. "Body uptown—stabbing victim."

"On our way!" Kate called out before grabbing her jacket and the keys.

By the time they arrived on scene, medical examiner Lanie Parish was already crouched over the body. The victim was a Caucasian man appearing to be in his mid-to-late thirties. His body was left in an uptown alley propped against a dumpster. The blue-and-gray jacket he wore was completely soaked through with red, leading Kate to deduce from first glance that he had been shot or stabbed in the chest.

"What've we got Lanie?" Kate asked her friend as she knelt down by the victim.

"According to his ID, his name is Jack Coonan. Thirty-seven; lives in midtown."

"COD is these wounds on his chest, I'm assuming?"

Lanie nodded. "Yes, three stab wounds. COD would have been exsanguination. But, I should point out, he wasn't killed in this position; his body was moved here."

"Ah yes," Castle spoke as he knelt down in between the two women. "The blood pooling is wrong. The pools go out, not down."

The ME nodded. "Exactly. He was probably dead at least an hour before they moved him."

"So where's the original crime scene? And why move the body?" Castle asked.

Lanie shrugged. "That's for you guys to figure out."

Kate stood and walked with her partner out of the alley. "Okay, so it wasn't a robbery, which means the killer probably knew the victim."

"No cuts or abrasions on his hands or face, so he probably wasn't killed during a fight," Castle continued.

His partner agreed with a nod. "Sounds like we need to know more about Jack Coonan."

"Okay, so turns out this guy wasn't exactly innocent," Anderson informed Castle and Beckett when they arrived back at the twelfth. Kate had called him on their way back to ask him to run the vic's name through their database so the information would be available upon their return. "He was an enforcer for the Westies, a known Irish gang. He's got a rap sheet a mile long."

"Really?" Castle said with utmost curiosity. "Well, that could definitely be the reason he was killed."

"But with no defensive wounds?" Kate countered. "I can hardly imagine an enforcer going down quietly."

Castle nodded, conceding to this point. "Maybe he knew his attacker? The guy surprised him; jumped him."

Kate dropped her chin, acknowledging this as a possibility, before turning back to Anderson. "What else can you tell us about him? Any family?"

"Not married, no kids. Parents died when he was younger. Looks like his only relation is a younger brother, Richard Coonan—he goes by Dick."

"Hey Castle," McCreary chimed in, "How come you don't go by Dick?"

"Yeah," Kate added as she sat down at her desk. "Seems like that would be more fitting."

Castle shot her an unappreciative look while the male partners laughed. "Ha-ha. But I prefer Rick…for obvious reasons." Deciding it was best to change the subject, Castle turned back to Anderson. "Is the brother in the life as well?"

"Doesn't look like it," Anderson told him. "He had a few busts in his teens, mostly misdemeanors, but he's been on the straight and narrow ever since."

"Then I guess we need to talk to him," Kate concluded.

It took them the rest of the morning to track down Dick Coonan at his place of employment; apparently he'd been in meetings. He was, of course, distraught to learn of his brother's untimely passing, but agreed to meet them at the twelfth for an interview after his post-lunch appointment. Meanwhile, Anderson and McCreary looked into Coonan's history with the gang and any potential related subjects.

When the younger Coonan arrived at the precinct, Kate found herself falling into the well perfected pattern of offering the family member sympathy and a warm beverage before leading the way to one of the private conference areas in the precinct in lieu of an interrogation room. Dick Coonan wasn't a suspect; they simply wanted to talk to him.

The first half of their conversation was a simple and routine question and answer. Coonan could not provide any concrete suggestions for who may have wanted to harm his brother, but he admitted that his brother's line of work was not the safest. Thus, he couldn't say he was stunned that his sibling had been murdered. He gave them all the information he could about known associates and their current whereabouts, though he confessed he and his brother were not on the best of terms and therefore did not speak frequently.

"I just…I just can't believe he's gone," Dick sighed, running his fingers over his forehead. "My big brother… He was…he was just so important to me, especially after our parents died."

"I understand, Mr. Coonan believe me," Kate said, gently placing her hand on his forearm as she leaned across the table. "I lost a family member, too; I understand how difficult it is."

Coonan covered his face with his hands then skimmed his fingertips down his cheeks and onto his lips. Looking at Kate he asked, "How did you do it? How did you get over losing her?"

Kate gave him a fractured smile. "It was hard, very hard, and I don't know that you ever get over it; you just learn to live with it. But finding whoever did this to your brother will certainly help, so if you can think of anything else-"

"Of course; absolutely," Coonan nodded. "I will call you guys right away."

"Anything usable?" Castle asked his partner once the victim's brother had left the homicide floor.

Kate shook her head. "Not really. He and his brother weren't all that close so-"

"We got something!" McCreary announced as he rushed into the bullpen, his partner in tow. "Turns out, Jack Coonan had been ruffling more than a few feathers in regards to the drug smuggling ring he was a part of. It was implied to us that there was a hit put out on him."

"A hit?" Castle repeated curiously. "What kind of professional killer would leave a body like that?"

"The kind who wants their marks to look like they were victims of random street crime," Kate said pointedly. "Let's hope that Lanie can—ah" she cut off her speech when she felt her cell phone vibrate in her pocket. She pulled the device out and looked at it. "Oh, she's got something for us."

"You know, its creepy how she can do that—know we're talking about her," Castle pointed out as they walked towards the elevator. Kate rolled her eyes.

"Lanie, darling, tell us you have-" Castle stopped speaking abruptly when he caught sight of the ME's face. Typically, she met him with a mixture of amusement and annoyance as he knew she had a love-hate relationship with his teasing. It was, quite frankly, why he kept teasing her. But today was different. She looked more serious than he'd ever seen her and, considering she spent every working hour with corpses, that was saying something. "What's…going on?"

"Is she with you?" Lanie asked solemnly.

"Beckett? Yeah she'll be here in a sec. Why? What's going on?" Castle's brow furrowed as he asked the question, the ME's concern beginning to worry him. Lanie shook him off and they stood silently for a minute before Kate walked through the door.

"Did you confirm cause of death, Lanie? Was it the stabbing?"

The ME nodded. "Yes. COD was a single stab to the kidney, but that's not why I called you guys down here."

Kate, catching wind of her friend's somber demeanor, furrowed her brow. "Okay…so why did you bring us down here?"

Lanie led the way to the body of Jack Coonan, displayed on one of the slabs near the back of the room as she spoke. "You know that new comprehensive database the NYPD just launched? Details about unsolved and closed cases that we can search through to see patterns?"

"Ohh! Did this one match another case?" Castle asked with an air of enthusiasm. "Because Anderson and McCreary did say he may have been killed by a professional; that could make sense."

Lanie glanced at him. "There was a hit put out on Jack Coonan?"

"Possibly," Castle responded. "Unconfirmed."

Lanie nodded and pulled back the sheet on the victim. Pointing to the stab wound over the kidney, she said, "Do you see this bruising? It's from the hilt of the knife. The killer stabbed him so hard that the knife bruised the exterior of the skin as it went in. This pattern—first stabbing the kidney, then making other random stabs on the torso—plus the hilt of the knife matched an unsolved from a decade ago. In that case, remnants of the knife blade were left inside the victim. I found a few metal shards inside Jack Coonan as well and I've sent them off to the lab to be analyzed, but I'm pretty sure they'll match."

"So…what was the unsolved?" Castle asked.

Ignoring him, Lanie pulled a folder out from the desk beside her. Looking directly at Kate, her face wrought with heartbreaking emotion, she handed over the file. "Honey, I'm so sorry; so sorry."

Her face and neck hot, Kate took the folder. She could hardly believe her hands weren't trembling; she could hardly believe her body wasn't shaking. Ten years. Stab wounds to the kidney. Left in an alley. It was so obvious; how had she not drawn the conclusion herself?

Her stomach in her throat, she opened the file and saw it. The match. The linked cases.

So consumed with her own horror, she failed to notice her partner stepping up behind her so he could read the case over her shoulder. He searched the page for the victim's name and read it without thinking. "Johanna Beckett." It only took him half a second to make the connection. "Beckett! Oh my god that's-"

"My mother," she concluded for him.