Shared Obsession Chapter 12

A sleepy-looking Ian Harrison answers Kate's insistent mid-morning knock, his gaze immediately sweeping up and down her tight figure. "Mr. Harrison?" Kate inquires.

He rubs eyes aimed lower than her face. "Yes."

"I'm Detective Kate Beckett, and this is Mr. Castle. We're investigating the murder of Sara Manning."

"I don't know anything about that," Ian insists. "Sara came up here sometimes to talk to Chloe, our nanny, and she brought Justin Peterson to play with my daughter Becca. But I'm a musician. I work nights. So, most of the time Sara would have been around, I would have been asleep."

"Mr. Harrison, we believe that Sara was up here right before she was killed. Did you see her?" Kate queries.

"I'm a pretty sound sleeper. If she was here, I didn't know about it," Ian claims. "But you could ask Chloe, she might have been here straightening up or something before getting Becca at school."

"Sara and Chloe, did they seem close?" Castle inquires.

Ian shrugs. "Like I said, I was asleep most of the time they would have seen each other. I really don't know."

"How about the kids? Does Becca talk about Justin a lot?" Castle queries.

"Becca's a pretty quiet girl. She doesn't talk that much."

"Which must be handy for a father who's trying to sleep while she's around." Castle comments drily.

Ian starts to push the door closed. "Look, I've got a gig tonight, and I really do have to get back to sleep. So if there's nothing else…."

"Go back to sleep, Mr. Harrison," Kate responds. "If I need anything else, I'll be in touch."

"He's either one of the world's most inattentive fathers or lying his head off," Castle declares as the elevator doors close on him and Kate.

"Or both," Kate suggests. "We need to talk to Chloe again."

"She wasn't at the Harrison's. She's probably at home," Castle figures.

"Let's find out."


A twenties-something, attractive black woman opens the door at Chloe's apartment. "Chloe's not here. She left a few minutes ago. I'm her roommate, Bethany."

"Do you know where she was going?" Kate asks.

"She said she had a doctor's appointment. She was throwing up this morning."

Kate nods. "Chloe was friends with a murder victim. Some people react that way."

"Uh-huh," Bethany acknowledges, "Sara Manning. I heard."

"Sometimes friends of a victim have clues to a murder that they're unaware they have. Do you mind if we come in and have a look around?" Kate asks.

Bethany steps back. "I guess that would be all right."

Kate and Castle walk slowly around the small apartment, searching for anything to trigger a theory. Castle points at a framed picture. "Beckett, look! It's a picture of Chloe, a little girl who must be Becca, and Ian Harrison. But it looks like it's been cropped. The right side of the picture is gone."

Kate slides the picture out of the frame. "It's been folded back, Castle. There's a woman in the picture. Mrs. Harrison? But her face is scratched out." Kate hurries Castle out of the apartment. "Chloe must have been having a thing with Ian."

"I knew he was a worm," Castle declares as they enter the elevator. "Chloe saw herself with Ian and Becca, a nice little family. But if Chloe had a thing for Ian Harrison, what was Sara doing up there? Hell of a way to treat a friend."

"But a hell of a good motive," Kate realizes. "Chloe finds out that Sara is sleeping with Ian and decides to take out the competition, a friend who betrayed her."

"But Beckett, Sara wasn't Chloe's only competition. What about Mrs. Harrison? What if Chloe wants to scratch her out in real life? And how about Ian?" Castle wonders. "She would see him as a betrayer as well."

As soon as the elevator opens, Kate makes a dash for her unit with Castle at her hip. A call comes as they're approaching their destination. A woman named Diana Harrison is locked in the bathroom after a female attacks her husband with a knife and comes after her.

Kate rushes into the Harrison's apartment to find two uniformed officers trying to talk Diana Harrison out of the bathroom and paramedics loading Ian Harrison onto a gurney. "It's all right, Ms. Harrison," Kate calls through the door. "Chloe's gone. She can't hurt you."

The bathroom door opens slowly. "What about Ian?" Diana asks.

"We stopped the bleeding. We're going to get him to the hospital," one of the paramedics answers.

"The radios of the uniformed cops go off. "There's a woman with a knife down in the laundry room," one reports.

"That's got to be Chloe, back to where this began," Castle asserts.

Chloe perches on the edge of the clothes-folding table. Lines of red bloom as she draws the blade of the knife over her thigh. Kate approaches slowly. "Chloe, it's all finished now. You need help. Let me help you."

"Everyone lies!" Chloe sobs. "Ian lied. He said I was the only one he loved. And I was trying to make everything nice for him, cleaning up. But I found it, under his bed."

"Found what, Chloe?" Kate asks.

"A phone, Sara's phone. She knew! I told her that Ian was the one I wanted, the only one I'd ever wanted. She could have had anyone, Brent, anyone. But she took Ian. I tried to talk to her, make her understand. But she told me I was wasting my time, that Ian wasn't serious about me, or her, or even his wife. He just liked to have a good time. And they had a very good time. I couldn't hear that. I had to stop what she was saying. The bleach bottle was right there. I didn't even think about it. It was just in my hand. I swung it at her mouth, to make her stop talking. But she fell and hit her head on the leg of the table. She was dead. I didn't mean to kill her, but she was dead. I didn't know what to do, so I put her in the dryer. That's what she was there for, to use the dryer."

"Then it was an accident," Kate responds gently. "I can understand that. People will understand that. You didn't mean to hurt her. And you shouldn't be hurting yourself anymore. Please, let me help you."

Chloe presses her palm to her belly. "I'm pregnant."

"All the more reason to let me help you. Just put down the knife."

With a shaky hand, Chloe lays the blade on the table.

Castle inclines his head toward the laundry room as paramedics load Chloe into an ambulance. "That was quite a thing you did in there, Beckett, talking to her like that. You really got into her head."

"I know loss when I see it, Castle. I know how it feels. Chloe built a whole future for herself with Ian and Becca. It was imaginary but real to her. And in the moment she found Sara's phone, that future was gone. She was trying to make the pain go away any way she could."

Castle pushes a strand of hair back from Kate's face. "And no one understands that better than you do."