"Do you know why you're here?" Esposito started, and the woman sitting opposite him nodded, her eyes downcast.

"Jemima called me this morning. She said Johnson died last night?"

"He didn't just die, though, Emma," Ryan said, opening the binder in front of him and selecting one of the crime scene photos. "He was killed. Shot, in fact."

"Holy-" Emma's mouth dropped open. "He was murdered?"

"Jemima didn't mention that?" Esposito asked.

"No. Well, maybe." She reached into her pocket and placed her cell phone onto the table, dialing into her voicemail and putting it on speaker.

"You have one saved message," a voice announced, followed by a beep and a garbled message, broken up by sobs and sighs, the strained tones recognizable as Jemima's. She, in a fashion, attempted to share the bad news with her colleague.

Emma ended the call, looking up at Ryan and Esposito with wide eyes. "Kind of hard to get the details of the message, right?"

"Right," Ryan agreed.

"She must be so upset," Emma whispered. "They hadn't been dating long, and it was a secret, not many people knew. Me, and maybe one or two other people? I think they really liked each other. I mean, from the moment he started at the library it was pretty obvious that there was something between them. God." She buried her face in her hands, her next words muffled. "Poor Jemima."

"I told you it wasn't Emma!" From the viewing room, Castle fist-pumped the air in victory.

"Hold your horses, bud," Beckett reminded him, nudging him with her hip. "Just because she's the first person to inform us of Jemima's relationship with the victim doesn't mean she's innocent." She slid her phone from her pocket, sending a quick directive to LT asking him to bring Jemima in again. "And it might give Jemima motive. Maybe she did it."

"I don't think so," Castle said. "She was really upset when we spoke to her earlier today, but honestly, she just seemed shocked."

"Shocked enough to neglect to tell us she was dating our vic?"

Castle shrugged, his face falling as he turned his attention back to the interrogation room.

"But you argued with Mr. James yesterday," Esposito said, and Emma's face wrinkled in consternation.

"Kind of, yeah. But, you know, it was an intellectual discussion that just got a little heated. It wasn't like, oh, hey, I'm going to kill you because you're weirdly into the Library of Congress classification system."

"Tell me," Ryan said, a smile playing on his lips. "How does an argument like that become heated?"

Emma let out a soft laugh. "He was always bragging about how he was moving to DC and how he was going to work in the Library of Congress. It was all just talk, I guess, but I was tired of him complaining about public libraries. I mean, I know it's not always fun in publics, especially a branch as busy as the Mid-Manhattan, but it's pretty amazing, doing what we do."

"And that is?"

"We're there for the community!" Emma's smile was genuine now. "We don't turn people away. We run storytime for kids, we have safe spaces for teens to hang out after school. Do you know how many people, in winter, come and just sit in the library because we have decent heating?"

"And Johnson didn't get that?"

Emma shook her head. "No. He was always talking about how he had a Master's of Library Science and he wanted to use it for something more than charity cases. Like we didn't all have the same degree."

"Do you think they were dating? And if so, why keep it a secret?" Castle asked.

"Why keep it a secret?" Beckett looked up at Castle from the murder board. "We kept our relationship a secret."

Castle found himself smiling for the first time all day. "Yeah, we did. That was pretty good."

"Except for the part where you made me hide in your closet, " Beckett teased.

"Except for that," Castle conceded. "But I seem to recall the part before that was pretty amazing." He took a step toward his wife, his hand coming to rest on her waist before sliding around to her belly. "And after that..."

Kate nodded in agreement. "After that-"

She took an abrupt step back from Castle as Esposito and Ryan spilled into the bullpen, arguing.

"I'm just saying, I don't think we can rule her out yet," Espo was saying, while Ryan shook his head.

"Emma?" Beckett asked.

"Naww, Jemima," Ryan said. "But I think she's heartbroken."

"Just because she's heartbroken, doesn't mean she didn't do it," Espo pointed out, which Ryan conceded with a shrug.

"Maybe."

Beckett sighed, stretching her arms up into the air as she shifted in an attempt to get comfortable. The boys bickering, Castle sulking... when had this stopped being fun?

Not that murder should ever be fun, she reminded herself, but when had the banter that worked them through to finding the killer become so tedious? She rolled her shoulders again, the impact of standing in front of the whiteboard for so long making itself known through every muscle in her body.

Maybe this was why? She was growing a brand new person, and the fact that she was constantly sore and aching…

That didn't explain everything, though. A case should have been a welcome distraction; in the past she'd powered on through, spending sleepless nights in the precinct where she'd existed on nothing but coffee and takeout.

She grimaced. That explained some of it at least; the caffeine shortage in her veins meant she was existing on coffee fumes, rather than actual lattes.

"Let's bring Jemima in again." Castle's voice broke through her haze, and she nodded, raising a hand and running it through her hair.

"Sure. Good idea." She turned abruptly, heading toward her office and calling over her shoulder. "Let me know how it goes."

We've got Jemima back in the box now.

Beckett nodded as she read Ryan's text, leaning back into her chair and closing her eyes, momentarily pressing her fingertips against her closed eyelids before sitting up again and snapping her eyes open, the sound of her office door opening bringing her back to the present.

"More crime scene photos," Castle announced, rage radiating off him as he waved a wad of paper at her at her before fanning them out on her desk. "Look at this."

"Uh-huh." Beckett nodded, squinting to try and figure out just what had Castle so riled up. Everything looked as it had last night; Johnson James lay on the floor, blood spilling from the gunshot wound in his head, the bookshelf askew, and Castle's books flung across his body.

"Do you think it's a message?" her husband asked, and she groaned in understanding.

Not this again.

"No, no I don't," she assured him. "Babe. He happened to be standing in the crime fiction section. That's it. What does CSU say?"

He pushed another sheet of paper at her, and she scanned it.

"Right. So they're saying as he fell, his arm knocked the bookshelf. The books at the end of the shelf tumbled down. They happened to be mostly your books, but Castle, I honestly think this is a coincidence." She raised an eyebrow at him. "You weren't this upset when the fanfic writer was found with-" she grinned, using a name that she hoped would cheer him up, "-Nooki fic a couple weeks ago."

"True." Castle sighed, his expression darkening. "But a lot has happened since then. And all of Patterson's books stayed on the shelf."

"Patterson's books were on a different shelf. They use the alphabet to shelve fiction," she reminded him. "It's just chance."

"Well M is meant to be for murder, not C," he scowled, and she inhaled, deciding to face this head on.

"You're thinking of Megan Bailey," she surmised.

"It's hard not to," he admitted.

"Not everything is about us," Beckett reminded him.

"No," he agreed, "but Kate?" He frowned as he met her eyes. "You've been quiet since last night too. Are you okay?"

"Me?" She attempted a laugh, but it came out a little more strangled than she'd intended. "I'm fine, Castle."

"Fine?" he prodded, and she drew her eyebrows together as she considered how to answer.

We've got something.

The text flashing across her screen was punctuated by the chime of the new message, and she stood up, pushing her chair back and indicating toward the bullpen. "Let's see what the boys have."

"But Kate, this conversation isn't over," Castle promised her as she hurried - insofar as hurrying while waddling was possible - to meet the boys at the murder board.

"Jemima confess?" she asked them, knowing from the expressions on their faces that it wasn't that simple.

"No," Espo said. "She admitted to being in a relationship with the vic. But get this- she was in a relationship with someone else as well. His name is Carl Aston."

"Cheating, huh? Definitely a motive," Beckett agreed. "Do you know anything else about this mystery man?"

"Only that he's the library manager of the Grand Central branch of the NYPL-"

"Motive and access?" Castle crowed. "Bring him in!"