Four

Speechless. Castle was speechless. Beckett's mother had been murdered. Worse, Beckett's mother had been murdered by a professional killer. The same professional killer who took the life of the victim before them. His mind began to spin.

During their first holiday season together a few months prior Castle learned that Beckett's mother was no longer living. He had been casually asking about any holiday plans she had with her family when she confessed to him that her mother had passed. She spoke no more about it, so he did not know in what context she had died, but he assumed it had been because of an illness or an accident. Despite his profession, he did not naturally assume anyone's dead relatives were murdered as that was an unlikely scenario.

Suddenly, his partner's entire existence became clear to him. It felt like putting in his contacts after waking up first thing in the morning; everything blurry suddenly became clear.

From the day they met, he wondered what her story was. She was a beautiful, intelligent woman who had attended Stanford (she'd let that slip once), so why the hell has she ended up an NYPD cop? She was wounded, that much was clear. She had walls up around her; she played everything close to the vest. He had long suspected something may have happened to her to trigger he need to fight for truth, justice and the American way, but he could never figure out what it was.

Now, it all made sense. Beckett's mother had been murdered. A decade prior, meaning it occurred during her early college years. The murder had been unsolved and thus changed the course of her life. Instead of doing whatever she planned to do, she had chosen to become a cop, to seek justice for others.

After a full minute, the silence in the morgue became deafening. Gently, Castle stepped around beside his partner and gazed at her cautiously. "Beckett?"

She blinked as though his voice had shaken her from her trance. Looking up at the ME she asked, "Are there any other cases that match this M.O.?"

"A-a few," Lanie told her. She retrieved the other files and passed them over. "Kate, listen are you-"

"We have to go; thanks Lanie," Kate said abruptly before stalking out of the morgue so quickly that her partner needed to jog to catch up to her.

"Beckett! Hold on. Wait. Kate!" He stopped her by grabbing onto her arm as he forcefully said her first name. She whipped towards him with such fury burning in her eyes he actually took a step back. Stammering under her death-stare, he said, "I-I just…I thought…maybe you want to talk about this?"

"I don't want to talk about this," she said simply before continuing to walk. "There is no need to talk about this; we have a murder to solve."

"But if this case is related to your mother's then…well, first, we need to tell Montgomery."

"No we don't," she responded stubbornly.

"Yes we do. We need to investigate both cases. Maybe we can-"

Kate froze and whipped towards her partner. She approached him both a borderline animalistic expression until she was so close that their toes were almost bumping. With her high heeled boots, they were almost equal height, so she stared directly into his eyes as she spat, "Don't you think I've done that? Don't you think I've looked at every detail, every lead in my mother's case. There's nothing there, Castle; nothing. We need to follow the leads in Coonan's case; that's how we'll find the killer."

Castle swallowed hard. This was clearly a rough subject for her and he couldn't blame her. He couldn't even fathom investigating the murder of one of his relatives let alone rationally following the leads on it. He wasn't sure she—or anyone for that matter—could be objective and that concerned him with regards to the case. Still, given her propensity towards great anger when it came to him, he needed to tread lightly. "Do you think…do you think maybe you just want to let me run with the leads on this-"

Cut him off with a scoff before stalking back out onto the Manhattan streets. "This is my case, Castle."

"It's our case," he countered her. "And as your partner-"

"As your partner," she said, turning back to him. For the first time since the news broke, her expression had softened slightly. "I'm asking you for one day. Give me twenty-four hours to run down the leads on Coonan's case…then we can tell Montgomery how it relates to the others."

Castle stared her down for several moments before conceding with a nod. He didn't like the idea, but knew that she wouldn't back down, so he had to agree; the code of partners mandated it. "Okay, Kate; twenty-four hours."

She nodded in lieu of thanking him aloud and led the way back to their cruiser. "Let's go find out what Anderson and McCreary have uncovered. Maybe…maybe there were witnesses, or some other connection."

"Yeah…it's a shame the brother couldn't have been more of a—what?" Castle asked when he saw his partner freeze abruptly. She could not have stopped faster if she had run into a brick wall. "What is it?"

She turned to him, her face wrought with horror. "The brother…oh god, I didn't…I didn't hear it but…oh, oh my god."

"What? What?!" Castle asked frantically, unable to translate what she said.

She shook her head and ran her hands across her neck. "Dick Coonan…when I was interviewing him, he said how hard it was to lose a family member and I said I understood because I'd lost one too. He asked, 'How did you get over losing her?' but I never told him who died." Meeting her partner's eyes with horror, she sighed out, "Castle…"

"Dick Coonan could be our killer," Castle concluded, his gut beginning to ache. He saw fury and determination flash across his partner's face as she rushed towards their vehicle. Breaking into a dead sprint he was able to head her off and wrestle the keys from her grasp. "No, you're not driving like this."

"Castle!"

"No!" he commanded, feeling as though he was scolding a misbehaving child. "Get on the other side; now." She shot him a scathing look but did as he requested. "Now let's go see what we can learn about Dick Coonan."

The next hour passed like a blur. Castle and Beckett researched as much as they could about Dick Coonan, but their search didn't reveal much. He was former military and had a history of working with foreign contractors. Other than that, he appeared squeaky clean. Just when she was considering ambushing him at his residence and taking a run at him to see if he'd crack, Kate was shocked to see Coonan returning to the homicide floor. Putting her game-face on, she approached.

"Can I help you with something Mr. Coonan?"

The man nodded. "Yeah, I, ah, thought of something that might help you. I remember my brother having an argument with a guy in the Westies. I saw them a few weeks ago; looked pretty heated. I don't know his name but I thought…maybe I could tell a sketch artist or something?"

Kate slid her hands into her pockets. "Sure, we could do that…or you could just confess."

Coonan blinked at her. "Excuse me?"

Kate lowered her voice and stepped towards him. "You knew. You knew it was my mother who had died. I didn't tell you, but you knew. You were involved in her death just like you're involved in your brother's."

Coonan shook his head and took half a step back from her. He was doing a pretty good job of portraying his confusion, but Kate believed none of it. "Listen, I don't think-"

"No, you didn't think," she countered. "You have no idea who you're dealing with Mr. Coonan. You have no idea what I'm capable of."

"Hey Beckett I-" Castle rounded the corner from speaking with Anderson and McCreary and froze immediately when he saw Kate speaking with their suspect. Her expression made it clear she was about to pounce, and the blackness in Coonan's eyes made it evident he was as well. Everything happened so quickly, Castle didn't have enough time to react.

Coonan smashed his elbow into a passing female uniformed cop, knocking her off balance. With her stumbling, he easily pulled her service piece from its holster. Coonan then turned to Castle, the next closest body, and shoved the weapon deep into his side. "Nobody move!"

Now alerted through the screams of the downed officer and other onlookers, every cop on their floor had their weapons drawn and trained on Coonan. Kate, the closest, had the killer in her sights, but his head was too close to Castle's to take the shot.

"Nobody move," Coonan repeated. "Or I'll shoot him in the kidney and he'll die a slow, painful death. Is that what you want, Kate." He said her name like it was a forbidden pleasure. Castle watched the face of his partner twitch.

"Let him go, Coonan."

"Not a chance; not until I can walk out of here. You don't want me to shoot him, do you Kate? You didn't get to watch your mother die in that alley, but I did. I had her blood on my hands, but if you don't let me walk out of here, your partner's blood will be on yours."

Castle took in a deep calming breath and locked eyes with his partner. "Shoot him, Beckett; take him down."

She shook him off unable to take the shot without risking his life. "Look around you. Think about how this is going to end for you."

"I don't care about me," Coonan said with a laugh. "I just want-"

Coonan's words were torn from him by a primitive cry from Castle. He whipped his head back, cracking it against Coonan's face. This loosened his grip enough for him to twist away. He turned back just in time to see a bloody faced Coonan raising his weapon to shoot, but before his arm reached the right angle, two bullet holes appeared in his chest and he fell to the ground.

Castle turned to see his partner lowering her gun, horror evident on her face. A strangled, "No," escaped her lips as she hurried forward, but Castle caught her around the waist and pulled her away. She struggled against him, but he held her strong.

"No," he told her. "There's nothing you can do."

Later, after the chaos inside the Twelfth had almost returned to normal, Castle was finally able to search for his partner. Just after the incident, she was pulled into Montgomery's office and they spoke for a long time. In the fray, he'd lost track of her when she was finished. After several moments of searching, he found her outside behind the building sitting on the fire escape. Traditionally, this spot was used for cops sneaking a cigarette, but that moment it was claimed by Kate.

She sat on the third step from the bottom, her elbows on her knees, her hands clasped together with her chin resting on top. Castle sat down beside her and remained quiet for a few moments before speaking softly. "I'm sorry, Kate."

"Why?" Her voice was hoarse with emotion, so she cleared her throat. "I should be the one apologizing to you."

"No, it's not your fault; you had no idea that would happen." They sat for another minute before he posed gently, "You want to talk about it." He wanted more than anything to know the story, but only if she was willing to tell it.

She straightened out her elbows and drew her arms in a bit closer to her body. Picking at her thumbnail, she said, "It was January, 1999. Barely a few weeks after Christmas. My mom was a lawyer and she was working late on a case. She was supposed to meet my father and I at a restaurant for dinner…she never showed. We went home, found a detective waiting for us to tell us she'd been murdered. Stabbed in an alley. A random act of gang violence. That's what it was called. But I…I never could believe it."

"That's why you became a cop," he concluded. She confirmed with a nod and he pursed his lips together. Normally, he would find pride in being right, but in this case his victory was too sullied by the sadness of his partner.

"The second I could I started investigating her case. Montgomery caught me in the archives when I was still a beat cop. He never wrote me up…I didn't know why, but he told me later it was because he knew from that moment that I would be a great detective. Great detective." She scoffed and shook her head.

"For the record, you are," her partner informed her. When, after a minute she hadn't continued, he prompted her. "What did you find on your mother's case?"

"Nothing. Endless dead ends. So I had to stop. I had to put it behind me because that case…it took over my life. And then…other things happened. Right around that time my dad…my dad was just coming out of rehab. I had to turn my focus to him. For me. For us. I had to put my mother's case behind me but now…"

He twisted his body so he could look at her more easily. "You could always reopen it. Now that-"

"No, Castle. I can't. It nearly destroyed me. Not knowing who hired Coonan will tear me up, but I know I can't go near that case again—and neither can you." She looked at him, desperation flooding from her gaze. She grabbed his arm and pleaded with him. "You have to promise me, Castle. You'll let it go. Look at me and promise me."

He nodded quickly. "I promise, Kate; I promise."

She turned her body back so she faced forward and pulled her hands down into her lap. "Thanks."

Castle sucked in a long, deep breath and held it a moment before pushing it out between his lips. This case certainly hadn't gone in any direction he could have predicted. "Do you want to be alone?"

He spotted a shrug from her from the corner of his eye and decided it would be best to let her be. He pushed himself off the stairs and walked around behind them to the door he'd left propped open. Just before going inside, he glanced back. From the open backs of the stairs he could see her hunched over, her knees pulled into her chest, her shoulder's shaking; she was crying.

He had never seen her cry before, not that there were many occasions for her to do so on the job. Seeing her that way broke his heart; he just couldn't leave her.

Walking back to the front side of the stairs, he climbed back up into his prior position. Sitting so close to her that their legs were touching, he put an arm around her back and held it for a moment. She didn't react or brush him away, so he used the arm to pull her a bit closer; she came willingly. Though her hands were still covering her face, she leaned her head against his shoulder. Castle used his other arm to circle around and hug her firmly, deciding instantly that he would hold her that way for as long as she needed.

A/N: The next chapter will be posted Saturday April 25th as Castle returns this Monday! Enjoy!