Beckett: Stillness

Wednesday 26 December

07.00

'He's got at least six hours on us,' she whispered to the window. Beckett rapidly tapped the sill of the back passenger window, the pain in the tips of her fingers doing nothing to distract from her impatience. They would be driving for at least two more hours. The teams from the FBI – now brought in because the abduction had crossed three states - and Vermont state police were assembling to search without her. In the last twelve hours she had spent too long sitting in a car while the vibrations of the engine hummed through every muscle, an unbroken drone through the deep green landscape of Connecticut's highways.

Gates had teased from the Walkers that Tommy had stayed in the Green Mountain National Forest with the family of a school friend over four years ago. The Walkers, and Tommy, had lost contact with the family after he had moved schools, again, the friendship between Tommy and the boy having fizzled out after the trip. The family owned a vacation cabin, but Lynn Walker insisted she had no record of the address, nor contact details for the family. Brian Walker shrugged in confusion when questioned, leading Gates to report that he had probably never been aware of his foster son's whereabouts that week.

With nothing to do to occupy her mind, and so, so tired from being awake for over 36 hours, she was no longer able to prevent her mind lurching from one intrusive thought to another.

She has failed to take care of her own child-

A hazy reflection of Erin in her festive burgundy dress appears in the window. The glittery eye shadow Kate had swiped across her eyelids - just yesterday although it seemed a lifetime ago - sparkles in the morning sunlight. Kate presses a palm to the damp pane, and Erin dissolves leaving only her own handprint visible-

This is the last push. If this hunch is wrong – and it is only a hunch, she knows, that they are following – as time passes and Tommy gains more miles, the chance of tracking them down will dwindle, especially the deeper into the Green Mountain range – stretching over 250 miles - he goes-

Unbidden, another image materialises before her: across a hospital room, Niamh McDonnel rocks their crying baby, and judges her with fury. Kate blinks and the phantom is gone-

Dizzy, she can't help thinking about the speed with which her daughter was whisked away, how when they had been laughing with scraped clean bowls of Christmas pudding still on the table, Erin had been grabbed-

A soft shuffling movement to her right disrupted the assault. Knuckles grazed her thigh. Dazed, she looked down at his hand then up to his face, taking a second or two to fully focus.

'Beckett, let's trace it back, work out his movements,' he said. Castle's voice was shaky with weariness; his eyes were red rimmed; his usually clean-cut chin was shadowed and dark. With everybody else she could sense the awkwardness of their sympathy, the way they flicked their gaze away from her to not be burnt by her torment, as one avoids looking directly at the sun. But he sat with his back straight, his face lasered onto hers, full of stubborn determination.

Castle shifted in his seat towards her, fiddling with his seat belt so he could lift one knee up onto the backseat to face her better. She felt like she could barely lift a muscle, but she forced herself to look at this man whose every line on his face reflected her agony. But like her, he wouldn't stop. She knew how to be strong, how to do her job whatever the circumstance, but it was getting harder with every passing minute. His strength could bolster hers. They had to keep each other going.

Her eyes - dry like they had been in air conditioning too long – were hot with the need to let them droop and the fear that kept them wide open. She bristled, angry at her weakness for allowing Niamh to judge her: she didn't deserve to be haunted, she was not the perpetrator.

But she had let Erin slip away. Just as everything was coming together. She felt the ache of emptiness in her arms, her neck, her breast, her abdomen.

Something in his stance, in the intense look in his eyes dragged the words she had been refusing to articulate from her throat. 'I can't lose her, Castle. I just… I can't.'

'And we won't.'

It wasn't a question or a plea. It was statement of absolute certainty, exactly what she needed to hear to regain her concentration.

She took a breath, pulled at the neck of her too-tight turtleneck, and mirrored his posture, an elbow digging into the back seat, and responded to his first statement. 'Write the story, you mean?' Her voice was raspy and cracked.

'It's what we do, isn't it? And how often am I wrong?' There was no playfulness to the typically boastful claim, just unwavering resolve that he would use very resource within his power.

She nodded. It was why he had remained with her so long in the precinct: drawing from her evidence he pieced the stories together. Usually, they worked backwards to identify a killer. Now they would need to work out the story to write the ending they wanted.

'The last sighting of him at a gas station with the second stolen vehicle was at eight thirty yesterday,' she said, clearing her throat. Her vocal cords were frayed and split but with each word she plaited them back together. Tommy had taken a red Toyota Camry, one parked on the edge of the community, furthest away from the houses. He had clearly made his choice based on the starting of the car not being heard. It turned out to belong to a local woman who had parked her car down the street so that her family who were visiting for the holidays could park on her drive.

'He made his first mistake,' Castle added, his own voice missing key notes. 'Tommy couldn't know how much fuel was left until he started the car. This forced him to make an unplanned stop.'

'Which gave us a chance to see him.' She clicked her fingers, a rapid snap-snap-snap. 'Ryan said he was nervous, constantly looking at the car in the forecourt while he paid.' She was falling into her groove, sweeping her emotions and exhaustion aside. 'And he was wearing a deer hunter hat.'

'Which fits in with the Green Mountain range as his likely destination – he's planning to go somewhere cold and remote.'

She clasped the back seat close to Castle's head as she remembered that Erin had left with a jacket and gloves but otherwise was only wearing pumps and a knee-length dress. She shook the image from her mind. 'But he was foolish enough not to try to cover his face. He was lucky that at that point we were still at the Walkers and hadn't got the APB out.' They had missed him by minutes.

'Tommy is an 18-year-old who apart from this one trip has never left New York State. He has a plan but he's also gambling so he's not thinking completely clearly – we've easily caught him on camera despite his attempts at deception - and he can only have a limited geographical knowledge.' Castle's arm joined hers, stretched out along the back seat. 'At the gas station he also bought basic snacks.'

'From there he had a full tank and that would get him to Green Mountain by say 11pm?' she guessed. 'He's had enough time to have driven far enough that if he was going further, he would have to fill up again so we can assume he's got to where he was planning on going.'

'So, what is he planning to do once there?' he asked.

'We need that address.' Their shoulders slumped under the weight of the task of narrowing their search. The Green Mountain range covered much of the length of the state of Vermont, with vacation homes up and down the National Forest, covering 550 square miles. A few peaks were snow tipped at this time of year, but mostly the area was lush with forests and lakes. She didn't need to voice the questions to know he thought them too: was Tommy planning on going directly to the vacation home, or did he know somewhere nearby that he could hide? Was he planning on camping? There was only so far into the forest or mountains one could take a car; was he planning on hiking?

Castle perked up, an epiphany on his lips. 'We've got people trying to trace the Taurus to see if he did a recon trip, leaving New York City before he started to park outside the loft, right?'

'Yes.' Her eyes brightened as she caught his suggestion. 'He would have had to refill the tank to get home.'

'If we can check the CCTV of gas stations across the National Forest, we can narrow down the region.'

Nodding grimly, she texted Ryan instructions to check – it would help to focus the search if they couldn't track down the family. Now that they had the resources of the FBI the task would be quicker.

Their minimal energy drained, they dropped back in their seats looking out of their respective windows.

As the minutes and miles passed in silence, sleep again tried to pull her down into unconsciousness. But she couldn't, she couldn't let herself lose consciousness whilst her daughter needed her. She wound down the window to let in some air to wake her up. The cold rush of wind hit her, and a vision of the future submerged her senses, as if it were happening there and then.

She is on her beloved motorcycle, speeding through the open countryside of prairie land. Erin is plastered to her back, her arms wrapped around her leathered waist. The air whistles over their helmets.

Her face stinging, Kate winds up the window to dislodge the illusion and she is in the loft. It is still Christmas Day, and she is handing Erin a gift from under the tree. She had struggled to know what to buy; Castle had taken it upon himself to make several generic purchases. She can't remember what is in this box. Cross-legged on the floor, Erin shakes the large gift by her ear, laughing and wrinkling her nose.

They crossed into Vermont a while ago. With no identified location yet, they are heading to one of the southern Green Mountain ranger stations where the task force is gathering. Desperate to escape the intolerable images, Beckett turned towards Castle and reached out to him – she needed to feel him to keep her in this awful present which was somehow better than thinking of what she might have lost.

Unaware of her movement, addressing the window, he murmured, 'When writing stories, we have to know the motivation of the characters. We think we know where Tommy is heading but we need to know the why to truly predict his next move.'

The last thing she wanted to do was get inside Tommy Cawood's head, but it would be better than this uncontrollable imagining of a future that might never happen. She swiped a hand down his arm, and he turned back to her, covering her hand with his, the roughness of his skin stopping her from fracturing further.

Beckett had spent hours going through Tommy's school records searching for any hint in the reports of harassment that predicted this turn of events. But there was nothing. Castle was right: they were going to have to lose themselves in their imaginations to understand him. They summoned their courage together.

She began with the basics they already knew. 'He doesn't have a history with violence. He had no close friends. There's no reports of disturbing writings from his teachers. He doesn't stand out other than a repeated pattern of harassment.'

'Was there a common feature of that harassment? How did he treat the girls?' asked Castle.

'They complained of unwanted gift-giving, of repeatedly asking for dates or simpler, to sit in the cafeteria at lunch time and not taking no for answer, sitting too close.' The skin on Beckett's arms prickled. 'The girl at the Walkers said she knew when he had developed a crush because he would talk about the girl all the time. And she told Ryan' – who had further interviewed her before the Taurus was found – 'that with Erin he always talked about how sad she was, how terrible it was that she had lost her parents.'

'Lynn said he always wanted to help the other foster kids.' His voice began to build with excitement as it always did as a plot formed in his mind. 'Sure, Lynn and Brian Walker are deluded about Tommy but what if they're right about his motivation? What if all he really does want to do is protect Erin?'

Beckett nodded swiftly, the knots in her stomach easing, her toes uncurling. She could believe this.

'Maybe it's a fantasy?' Castle continued. 'The Walkers said he spent his week up there doing nothing other than riding his bike around. What if he found somewhere, somewhere quiet and remote that stayed in his mind?'

'Somewhere he could take this girl that he was obsessed with and just hide her away from the world.' It felt true. It had to be true. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, like they did when the pieces of a case fell into place.

'The Walkers insist he's never been violent and that he was caring towards the other foster kids, a protective big brother. What if he thinks by taking her away, he's protecting her somehow?'

Beckett frowned staring at the headrest of the driving seat in front of her, as she immersed herself in the details. 'So, how's he going to look after her? Some chips and soda aren't going to get them very far.'

'And if I were Tommy,' imagined Castle, 'and I thought people were coming after me - which he obviously does because he changed cars – I would want to be armed.'

Her face snapped towards him. For some inexplicable reason, at no point had she imagined that Tommy could be armed. Of course, if their assumptions were correct and he was heading to Green Mountain National Park, the area had wildlife including bears. It would be reasonable to take a gun. She suddenly had an image of him hunting. Her heart thumped against her ribcage.

Beckett's cell pinged, three loud tolls one after another, the texts filling her screen. The different avenues of investigation coalesced:

Captain Gates: Tommy Cawood filled up at a gas station at -Town a week before he began parking outside the loft.

Ryan: We found the family and have the address of the vacation cabin. The friend said there was an abandoned ranger cabin they used to play in.

Esposito: The stolen car has been found dumped not far from the vacation cabin.

xxx

09.27

FBI men and women in dark starched suits, troopers with brimmed hats, and rangers in brown and green milled and swarmed. Maps were spread out on benches. Backpacks were hoisted on backs. Firearms were checked and holstered. Bleary eyed vacationers peered out from their cabins; some stood taking photos of the commotion while troopers pushed them back, their arms spread wide. SUVs clogged the neat, manicured pathways.

Beckett and Castle arrived at the luxurious vacation cabin just half an hour after receiving the text updates. The cabin was on the lower lands of the National Park, in an exclusive site near a lake. Roads led to the encampment but beyond was just hiking trails. The boy who had been Tommy's friend four years ago – now a freshman at Cornell – reported that the two of them would cycle for an hour or so then abandon their bikes and hike further up and into the woods away from the trails. After a couple of days exploring, the boys had found an abandoned ranger cabin in a clearing in an otherwise dense part of the forest – he said there were warning signs in the area discouraging hikers to avoid disturbing the wildlife (as teenage boys this had only spurred them on). One time, the boys had had a terrifyingly thrilling staring contest with a black bear from a 50-foot distance.

The boys had, he said, spent most of their time in the secret empty cabin, role-playing. Tommy had taken it very seriously, in great detail imagining how they could survive out there. Tommy insisted on returning even after the friend had got bored of the place.

Rangers shared with the police that they knew of one cabin about a two-hour hike from there that had been abandoned thirty years ago. They were sceptical that he could get them there, whether he would even remember how to get there. It had no electricity or amenities.

'He's there,' Beckett had hissed on the phone to Esposito.

Beckett spotted Ryan through the throng and hobbled to him, as fast as the crutches would let her. Castle jogged behind her.

'Get me a vest,' she demanded.

Ryan uncharacteristically stopped her, landing a hand on her shoulder. 'Woah, Beckett, how are you gonna get up those hills with your leg in a cast?'

She gritted her teeth. 'I'll manage.'

'No, Kate, you won't,' said Castle softly. 'At the very least, it's going to take you far longer than anyone else.'

'Castle. I have to get there.'

'I know.' He looked around, searching, thinking. A loud whirring from a distance drew their attention. They followed the sound which got louder and louder until the deafening noise was buzzing overhead, whipping Beckett's hair across her face. Castle met her eyes.

'Get me on that chopper.'

xxx

The headphones are tight against her ears. All she can hear is the tactical discussion being yelled by the five members of the FBI SWAT team in the helicopter. Esposito and his team have gone on ahead on foot, so that they can assess the site. The SWAT team are on standby. When the chopper landed over an hour ago, she had prayed that the noise from approximately four miles away hadn't been too loud for Tommy, alerting him to their presence, pushing him to doing something drastic. It had taken Beckett's own stubborn persistence and a forceful telephone conversation from Gates to let her and Castle squeeze into the chopper too.

The SWAT leader told them in no uncertain terms that they were to stay out the way. That as parents neither should be there and this was a unique accommodation because of Kate's cop status and her injury, and if she stepped out of line in any way – interfering or trying to influence their tactics – she would be removed from the siege with zero hesitation.

No one knows Tommy's state of mind and if he is armed. Stealth recon is the first approach: scope out the cabin, ascertain their location and their status (she swallows, understanding the euphemism for determining if Erin is still alive or injured) and if possible, retrieve the abductee. The SWAT team in the helicopter are there for two reasons: to storm the cabin if needed, and to provide medical assistance and a speedy exit. It is too risky to fly in blind. Now it has a third purpose: if a rescue doesn't require SWAT, then the pilot is to get Kate to her daughter as soon as possible.

Crushed between Castle and the window, she listens to the crackling of the radio linked to the helicopter's headphones – cell-phone signals are useless out here. The bulk of the vests they are wearing makes breathing even harder. The team - with their helmets and bullet proof vests and automatic weapons and heavy black boots - is poised, ready for action at the drop of a signal. Getting up in the air and flying to the abandoned ranger cabin will take less than five minutes.

A shout comes through. 'He's armed!' She hears Esposito's breathy voice through the radio followed by a series of urgent rustling sounds. 'No shots fired; he's aiming right at us. Only his head is visible. No sign of the hostage.'

She fights the urge to ask, 'what's happening?' She knows the goal is to rescue Erin as quickly and efficiently as possible. So far, they only know that the girl has been taken, they have no evidence of injury. Police must respond proportionately. They will do everything they can to ensure no loss of life: of the abductee, the kidnapper or the police. As the leader of the SWAT barks instructions, he looks at her and nods, closing the door as the helicopter ascends into the cold blue sky, the ground falling away at an incredible speed, the trees transforming into a green sea below.

In no time at all, a delipidated wooden cabin appears in a clearing, a strange pimple in the dense foliage on the hill. As the helicopter gets lower and lower the surrounding trees bend and resist the punishing circular wind from the blades. She scans the edges of the clearing. Esposito and his team are spread around the cabin in a sparce circle, 100 feet away, hiding behind trees, guns trained on the building.

The helicopter circles the cabin. There is in only one entrance. A blinding glint flashes from a window. He's there. Tommy is just there, perched behind an open window next to a door, sunlight catching the metal on the top of a hunting rifle resting on the sill. The helicopter spins past but in the glimpse she catches she can see that he is sweating, that his hands are shaking, that he is following the pathway of the chopper but not aiming the rifle at it. He has only one shot before he must reload. An experienced calm practitioner could reload it in perhaps five seconds, but she guesses the team will have at least 10 seconds to stop him reloading.

The helicopter lands on the slope behind the cabin, tipping the team out. Castle jumps out after them, his hair flattened to his head and holds out a hand to help her down. At a signal from the team, they stay where they are. Castle stretches an arm across her heavily padded torso as the team fans out either side of the cabin, keeping behind Tommy's line of sight. The cabin is so simple there aren't even any windows at the back.

There is a pause. For a moment everything is still. The blades turn off. She can hear only her breath as like an enraged bull in the ring it heaves through her nose. Who will blink first?

A crack like the snapping of twigs comes from beyond the other side of the cabin. She can't see. She strains her eyes as if to render the invisible visible.

Stillness descends again for an elongated minute.

The silence is blown by an almighty bang that ricochets around the clearing. Several flocks of birds lift squawking and flapping into the sky.

Beckett feels his arm stiffen to hold her back as all at once everything is happening. Shouting, screaming, running. 'Go! Go! Go!' Police hidden by the trees charge towards the cabin; the SWAT team disappear from her view.

Then she is running. Crutches left behind, the ground shaking, everything blurry as she moves faster than her senses can keep up with. She rounds the corner of the cabin, reaching out a hand to the corner wall to propel herself round it. She skids towards the open entrance, the smashed-in door lying inside.

Immediately she sees the SWAT team holding a man face down, his arms behind his back, beside him on the floor a rifle with the barrel snapped open. He is resisting: writhing and crying.

Police clear a pathway, like the parting of the sea for Moses, and she is moving towards her, pulling the vest off over her head. Erin is sitting with her arms behind her against the far wall. Esposito is the closest, crouching down beside her but Erin is crying out, leaning away from his outstretched hand. She can't hear what she's saying. Then Kate hears it.

'Mamma! Mamma!'

She is ripping away the cords that bind Erin's hands. At the same time, she is scanning her face, her blue-tinged lips, the bruise on a temple, looking for blood on her tear-stained face, her eyes moving all over her body.

Erin's hands are free, and Kate is frantically smoothing back her hair, almost pinching back the skin on her face, unable to believe that she is here. That she is okay.

Kate throws her arms around her, tightening her inescapably, crushing Erin's cheek to her breast, tears dampening through her top, pulling every inch of her child flush against her as if to fold her back into the safety of her womb.

The onlookers turn away from the mother and daughter, on the floor, wrapped sobbing in each other's arms.

x

They stayed gripped around each other, Erin's arms clamped around Kate's waist, for what seemed like forever, with the noise of police and Tommy's wailing distant in the background. Although it couldn't be real, as Kate held Erin's head in her hands, and she kissed her hair and her face over and over she caught a whiff of that unmistakeable baby smell.

A hand stroked from the top of Kate's head, making her jump. He brushed her hair down past her neck. She looked up and unable to speak, she just nodded with trembling lips and let Castle heave her up while she kept hold of Erin, pulling her to standing with her. She had never seen him cry before, but Castle's face was streaked with tears. He spread his arms wide and pulled them both into his embrace. Erin released one arm and flung it around Castle so that they stood united in a triangle.

Erin shook, a wracking tremor that seemed to take her bare knees from under her. Kate tightened her hold and Castle, checking that Kate had her weight, took off his NYPD jacket and covered Erin's shoulders, tucking it under Kate's firm grip. Then he stood on Erin's other side and stretched an arm around Kate's shoulders and the other around Erin's torso so that he supported both their weight and slowly they limped out of the cabin. Not one of them looked at Tommy.

A/N Just one more chapter to go.

I think...

This was both hard and very satisfying to write, to finally reach the emotional climax of this story, to have Beckett and Erin finally hug. I hope you found it a rewarding read!

Thank you as ever for your constant reviews and encouragement. Let me know what you think!