Hope you are all keeping well. Enjoy this chapter. Thanks for your comments and I have tried to fix up the problem with FF closing in the vertical spacing by inserting ** between parts. Agree, frustrating when the story jumps and there's no break to indicate the next scene.

Chapter 99

In the evening at about 7.30 pm, a man walked along the sidewalk in the direction of his apartment his hands deep in the pockets of his coat to help keep him warm. The sky was clear, the air crisp. As he crossed the street, j-walking, a taxi turned into the corner and the driver floored it but failed to see the pedestrian in dark clothing. The tax almost struck him. Luckily, he saw the taxi first and jumped forward to the curb side.

The man continued along the side walk a short way until he stopped at the front door of his apartment building. He tried to open the front door, but it wouldn't budge. Some gravel fell onto his shoulder, enough to have him look upwards into the dark sky. There was nothing to see, so he brushed away the dirt then focused on the door again. No matter what he did, he couldn't open it. More gravel fell around him. As he looked up he saw a massive block falling toward him.

At 8.00 pm Castle closed the door of his apartment and tossed his keys to the bowl. He noticed, Kate's keys weren't there yet, so perhaps she was still at work or perhaps caught up with a friend for dinner. He'd been busy with his editor most of the afternoon and hadn't seen or spoken to either of his girls. The youngest one had set up a work place in the living area, and was dressed in white plastic wear and goggles. He grew excited, keen to see what his daughter was up to. As he closed the space between them he saw Alexis was squishing tomatoes with a hammer. Her big protective glasses got splashed by the splatter of the tomato.

"What are you doing?" He leaned into the experiment zone to inspect the work, well the controlled mess.

Alexis didn't look up but replied. "We're studying the practical application of science at school. I'm focusing on forensics, specifically the physics of spatter patterns."

"Oh." He felt a little left out as usually she dragged him into her experiments.

Alexis sat back and kneeling she looked up at her father. She lifted the goggles from over her eyes. "What's wrong?

Castle sighed, quite put off by the situation. He was concerned Alexis was deliberately excluding him because she had been behaving jealous with Kate living with them. Generally she would involve him in such experiments. "Well Honey, we usually do all your science projects together. You remember the volcano we made? The flatulent robot?"

"Ewwgghh." She looked over the mess. "I'm sorry, dad. I just got excited about it... And you weren't here."

Castle gritted his teeth, shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, that's okay. I was tied up with the editor all day."

"I thought you were with Beckett."

"No. She's at work. I can help you finish."

Alexis smiled. "Yeah-"

Castle's cell started to ring. Alexis immediately appeared to be a little disappointed.

"Beckett?" She murmured holding a frown.

Castle found his phone, glanced at the screen to see a photo of Beckett and her gorgeous smile she kept for him. "Yeah." He lowered the phone, let it ring, thinking he needed to spend some time with Alexis. "Um... I can stay home."

Alexis lowered the goggles over her eyes. "Go ahead. I'll be fine without you." She smashed a tomato. "Ooh. .5... Severe concussion..."

Rick let her go, answered the call as he turned about and headed for the door. "Hey, Beckett."

"Oh, Castle."

He smiled as he closed the front door. He knew by her tone she was busting to tell him something. "Do tell me," he urged.

"You have to come to a call out I'm on my way to."

"I'm on my way out now. What is it?" He was curious because she sounded awfully excited.

"Can't say. You have to see it for yourself. Are you at home?"

"Yes. Pick me up?"

"I'll be there in exactly 90 seconds."

"That's accurate. Then I'd better hurry." He hung up. He hit the button for the elevator, slipped his phone to the back pocket of his jeans. While he waited, he considered Alexis' behaviour when he'd entered the apartment. As soon as she'd known it was Beckett on the phone, he'd been dismissed. He swallowed, reminded momentarily of the conversation with his mother only a day or so ago when she had pointed out that he had his head in the sand about what was going on between his daughter and girlfriend. According to his mother, Beckett was pulling away, rather than taking the problem head on and his daughter was subtly giving Beckett grief. His mother had engaged Alexis in a chat about her behaviour, had pulled her up on it but all it had probably done is alter the teenager's strategy.

The doors opened, disrupting his thoughts.

Across the foyer, he pushed open the main entrance doorway and there she was, the blue Crown pulling up to the curb. He barely had time to close the door and Beckett pressed her foot to the peddle. There was a smile on her face and her eyes glistened as she said.

"You will love this one, Castle."

"Really? How so?"

"Not telling." She pressed her lips together, then grinned, glancing at him. She followed it with a quick nod of her head.

"You're such a tease." He reached over and squeezed her right thigh, glad she was happy.

At the crime scene, Beckett and Castle left the car about a half block up, unable to park any closer because of all the emergency vehicles. They bickered about nonsense all the way, but ceased as they stepped under the police tape. For a couple of minutes Castle had taken pleasure his having his independent and strong willed girlfriend back. He was also happy to have his detective at his side as they stopped in front of an apartment building and took in the scene before them. A man was crushed beneath a very large concrete gargoyle.

Beckett felt the chill of the night quite fast and was glad she had picked the right coat that morning when she'd left the house. The team had been about to clock off when the call had come in. She should have been at the gym with Esposito, but were now doing overtime.

Castle was pumped. "You weren't kidding." He said so only Beckett heard him.

"You like it?"

"Love it. A man has been crushed by a falling gargoyle. It doesn't get any better."

"Lanie's already here," Beckett said. They continued to the group, and stopped by Lanie who gave her a smile of acknowledgment. Beckett who inspected the man crushed beneath the very large, very heavy gargoyle said, "I guess I don't have to ask about cause of death."

"He's not even my first death by fallen object this month," Lanie replied. "Two weeks ago, an investment banker took a frozen sausage to the head from a tenth-floor window ledge."

Castle who inspected the building said, "Well, it's a pretty old building. Maybe it just fell."

Beckett's gaze went upwards to the top floor. "Maybe it got a little help from someone. Let's go up."

"I hope there's an elevator," Castle said as they walked towards the foyer.

There was an elevator to the top floor and then they had to use the fire exist to get to the roof of the building. They soon found the spot where the gargoyle had lived until it had met his demise with its victim. Beckett pointed at a disturbance in the stone near where the gargoyle had been. "There's markings here on the stone, Castle."

Castle studied the markings. "What, a chisel?

"Or a crowbar," she suggested.

Esposito approached them from the stairwell door. "Yo, I found marks up on the parapet as well. I got CSU dusting it for prints."

"That's a long way to go for a murder." Beckett commented, and for a moment stared at the spot the gargoyle had been. "Who'd want to drop a gargoyle on someone?"

"Well, someone who wants to make it look like an accident," Castle replied, "He'd have to make sure our victim stood there long enough. Had someone tampered with the front door lock when you guys arrived?"

Esposito said. "Give that man a prize. Yeah, we had to pop the lock to get in the building."

Ryan said, "Super says our victim's name is Will Medina. He's got an apartment up on four, and guess who's got the keys?"

Ryan held up the keys. Beckett snatched them away from him. "I do."

They entered Will Medina's apartment a few minutes later with the assumption the murderer might be there. When the apartment was cleared, they holstered their guns and commenced to do a search.

Castle looked about and as usual touched things. "This place looks like a museum."

"Well, Castle, that's because Mr Medina was the associate curator at the New York History Museum." Beckett said as she walked into the bedroom of Mr Medina's. The whole apartment was like a museum.

"Well, that would explain this," Esposito said and held up a statue of some sort.

Castle inspected it with much interested, "And I thought a 100-inch flat screen would be the ultimate bachelor accessory." He frowned.

Beckett called back, "Well, he wasn't a total bachelor."

Castle and Esposito looked at each other in quest, then he asked. "What makes you think that?" They followed Beckett to the bathroom.

"The... second toothbrush in the bathroom."

The guys inspected the medium sized bathroom and Esposito pointed at the bath. "The scented candle on the tub."

Beckett walked out of the bathroom, "There's a pair of high heels under his bed guys, all suggesting that he was in a casual but steady relationship."

They all returned to the living area, and Rick made a beeline to the bookshelf. He pulled a book out.

"Hmm. Nicely played. However, I do think you misjudged the relationship only slightly." He held up the novel of Eat Pray Love. "Judging from the condition, I'd say she's read it more than once, meaning that she's a woman on the other side of a search for identity. A romantic, someone who wouldn't be satisfied with just a casual relationship."

Beckett glanced at the book in his hand, "And who's to say that that book isn't his?"

Castle expression was that of 'you-can't-be-serious' look. She smirked at him her eyes lingering on his perhaps a second too long.

Ryan entered the room and immediately saw the book, "Oh, I love that book." His attention went to Beckett as he advised, "A neighbour on level two says the front door worked just fine at seven pm."

"Which means that the killer must have tampered with it after then," Beckett said.

Esposito was at a desk reading through a paper diary and put his finger over the day. "Beckett, calendar. Check out today's date."

Beckett approached with Castle and they both inspected the diary note. "C.T. Five thirty. 1127 Avenue of the Americas," she read.

"Five thirty. That's two hours before the murder," Castle commented.

Ryan said, "It's an office building downtown. Let's check it out after we finish our sweep.

Beckett confirmed, "Okay."

Castle said directly to Beckett, "You know, we might want to swing down by the museum, see if any of his colleagues can shed some light on who might want to drop a gargoyle on Mr Medina's head."

Beckett said, "Either you're being a good cop, or you just want to go to the museum."

Castle said, "They have dinosaurs there."

Beckett chuckled, "Let's go."

They phoned ahead to the New York History Museum and asked that the people who had worked with Will Medina to either return to the museum or to remain there and await their arrival.

Beckett was shown to the museum curator, Dr Raynes, by a security guard who left them to return to the entrance. Dr Raynes took Beckett and Castle to the research room his team worked within.

They learned quite quickly that Dr Raynes had known Mr Medina for two years. The first thing he did when he got the job as museum curator was to hire Medina away from the US Geographic Institute to lead the Kan-Xul expedition.

That expedition had discovered the burial chamber of the legendary Mayan king. It represented the single most important archaeological find in Mayan history. The find found the king's burial chamber, where he was entombed with a dozen of his mummified slaves.

Castle was worn down and ready for bed. The Crown Vic drove through the streets towards Castle's loft where they would crash until about 7.00 am. It gave them a power nap of about four hours.

"I particularly liked your question about it being comparable to King Tut, kind of like a Mayan King Tut," Castle commented.

"It seemed a big find, Castle."

"Exactly. You know, Kate, maybe we could make it a date and go see the exhibit when it opens in a few weeks."

"The king mummy might end up in evidence, Castle."

"No. You wouldn't?" He was shocked.

She smiled. "If I have to, I will."

"I-I can't imagine having a mummy in evidence. Bit morbid, Kate." He smiled at her because he was teasing her. "So if Medina doesn't have family, who do you contact to notify them of his death?"

"I think there is a girlfriend. Two tooth brushes."

"Don't forget the copy of Eat Pray Love. Do you have that book? I don't recall seeing it in your collection. Maybe it caught fire?"

She shook her head in the negative. "I saw the movie, but not a fan. Not burned."

"She looks a bit like you." He furrowed his brow, questioning his own comment. "Well, you're younger, so you look like her."

"Who?"

"Julia Roberts."

"Oh." She shot a look at him. "Seriously?" He nodded in response. "In your dreams, Castle."

"Let your hair grow longer, she has brown eyes, yours are hazel, of course. You're finer than her, but … what?" He stopped talking when she erupted in laughter quite loudly.

"We're both tall…? Is that it? Is that all you've got?"

"Well, you just don't see what I see," Rick replied.

"Well, you don't think you look like Jason Bateman."

"I don't."

"Case closed."

"But not the case of the dummy and death by falling gargoyle."

"Nope, its open. I think he was sharing a bed with Rachel Walkers, Castle."

"Rachel Walters, the mummification expert?"

"Yes."

"The one who shut down my Indiana Jones experience?"

Kate laughed again. "You did look cute with the hat on. Shame you couldn't bring it home, find a whip."

While Beckett had questioned Dr Raynes, Castle had sneaked away to explore the sarcophagus. He'd taken a hat that was hanging from the wall, put it on his head and went on an expedition to the sarcophagus. In his usual style, he had touched it and found a cable hanging over the sarcophagus. He'd tracked it with his hand and found a remote control, which he played with until the lid had risen off the sarcophagus.

"Oh my, Ms Beckett. Maybe you should find your naughty box and bring it out."

"Maybe. Still need the hat."

"I'll find one for your Indiana Jones sexual fantasy." He promised. "A lot of dust came out of that sarcophagus. I can still feel the grit in my throat, bit in my mouth." He coughed.

"Ewwwgh, Castle. I won't be kissing you while you've got two-thousand year old human dust in your mouth."

In disgust, he glared at her. "Really? You've thought that far?"

"Well, yes," she replied. "Rupert Bentley, the financier, believes it was the curse that killed Medina, and now according to him, you have been cursed."

"I don't believe in that sort of stuff, Beckett. You know that."

He broke the brief silence when he said, "I really love the museum, Kate. Any museum."

"I saw that," she softly replied. "My mom used to take me to museums when we travelled. She believed it was her responsibility to raise me with culture in mind."

"When Alexis was little, we used to go there often, especially in the winter. We would run around there for hours pretending all sorts of things."

"Mm." She glanced to him, "Well, maybe one day we can take our daughter-"

"Or son."

"- to museums around the world."

Castle turned in his seat to look at Beckett suddenly not so weary.

"What?" She inquired, glancing between him and the road ahead.

"You know, Kate, you're really cute in the wee hours of the morning."

"Well, I can dream about a future beyond police work. It might not be for now but I hope it's with you."

"You have such a capacity for pure innocence in your life after we go to a murder."

"It's just one part of me."

"Mm." Castle fell silent, finding it odd that Kate ran from commitment but also saw herself with children. Above all else, his children. It warmed him.

After some silence, Castle was back on the curse wondering about it and asked, "Do you really think I'm cursed?"

"I don't know Castle. You tell me. Stanford said what was written at the entrance to the burial chamber."

"Yes, yes. I know. All who gaze on the face of the Mayan king shall be struck down by his wrath." He rolled off.

She laughed. "You remember it."

"Of course, I do." Castle said "Mayan king? Had you heard of him?"

She shook her head. But Rupert Bentley did say that the group, they all looked inside, and they're all dead."

"I heard about the incidents." Rick said, reflecting on the conversation he'd listened in on. "Nicole Graham, was mauled to death by a jaguar outside the dig site and Professor Fisher died of dengue fever."

"Which is common in that region, as are curses written above grave sites." She confirmed.

"Yes, it's how they kept people from robbing them for thousands of years." He explained.

"Yet nowadays it comes in the form of a letter written in ancient Mayan."

"Did you get that letter to the lab? I missed that bit." He asked.

"Yes, while you were busy washing down grit." She smiled.

"Death awaits the robbers of graves," he said, "Hopefully the lab will find fingerprints on the notes by the time we get to the precinct tomorrow." He checked the time. "You hungry, Hon? I really need a drink to get rid of the grittiness."

"No kissing."

"Haha. I will shout you a burger if you pull into that place up there on the left."

"Burger at 2.00 am."

"When did you last eat?" He calmly asked.

She shrugged her shoulder. "Perhaps, lunch with you yesterday, like-"

"Yes, I get you. So, you didn't have anything for dinner."

"Coffee, but I was coming home, got the call for the gargoyle fall and came to get you."

"Fair enough. Let's grab something to eat."

She swung the car left into the drive-thru suddenly very keen to eat.

They ate at the kitchen counter at home almost in silence. While eating, Kate undressed bit by bit, much to Rick's pleasure. It began with her boots and her mumbling about how sort her fee were from hiking around since eight the morning before in the same footwear. Then the socks were peeled from her feet while she picked at the chips. The jeans were unzipped to give her tummy room to breathe. When she lifted off her top and dropped that on the stool beside her, Rick's focus didn't leave her. The jeans followed the top.

By the time she was through the burger she was sitting at the counter in her underwear and singlet, her right foot perched on the edge of the stool. "I hope Alexis doesn't come down." She shyly said.

"She won't care. She tolerates me in my boxers. Comfy?" He casually inquired, his gaze on her chest.

She nodded. "Am now. Long day." She had a sip of her water. "I'm having a shower before I go to bed. I'm wasted, but I need to freshen up."

"You smell fine to me." He said and followed it up with a cheeky look. "But I'm covered in mummy dust so I will definitely…"

"That is just nasty, Castle." She got up, cleaned the food packaging up.

"I agree. Can I shower with you?"

She gave him a look of disapproval as she collected his rubbish. "I don't know, Babe, you might be cursed and I don't wanna risk it."

"What do you mean cursed? C'mon Beckett." He followed her to the sink with their glasses.

The rubbish in the bin, she closed the cupboard door and turned about to face him. She got in real close and looked up to his eyes. He badly wanted to cup her buttocks with his hands, but he knew that in his kitchen, in his house with his mother and daughter asleep upstairs she would not allow such behavior. At her home alone, she'd be quite encouraging. She cutely said, "Babe, I love you but if you happened to say slip and take me down with you. I could get hurt. The curse doesn't evoke me to, umm, want to be too close to you." She gave him a wicked smile then set off.

"No. C'mon." He was at her heels as she padded bare footed to his bedroom, her clothing bundled up in her arms.

"Castle, you can't."

He closed the bedroom door with a hollow clunk and took off after Kate who rushed to the bathroom. She was completely naked when he stopped in the door way and had the faucet open.

"Oh my," he declared.

Instantly she searched her body for something he'd seen, then looked at him in question. "What?"

"You. How gorgeous you are."

She smiled, watched him undress, "Wow, Castle, look at all the dust." She waved her arms about, laughed when he shot a look of frustration in her direction.

"I'll give you dust." He grabbed her, swept her feet off the floor and carried her into the shower.