Shared Obsession Chapter 70
As Sorenson, Kate, and Castle join Alfred Candela in the apartment's kitchen, he points to an open window. "When I couldn't find her, I looked everywhere for her, and then I saw this."
Sorenson examines the lock. "This was jimmied from the outside."
"CSU might be able to get some prints off it," Kate suggests.
"Which they could have done a couple of hours ago," Castle mutters, "if Angela wasn't out there while the NYPD waited for the FBI to make its entrance."
Kate nudges him in the ribs. "Not helping," she whispers.
"I- I ran outside to look for her," Alfred continues.
"Mr. Candela, you live on a ground-floor apartment with windows facing the alleyway. Most people with apartments like this have bars on them," Kate points out.
Theresa Candela joins the group. "We were going to but…."
"I never got around to it," Alfred finishes.
As Beckett looks at dirt below the window, she can't help thinking that a forensics team should have been in to sample that along with checking for prints.
Sorenson follows Kate's gaze. "We think that's from outside."
Alfred covers his face with his hands. "How could this happen in our own home?"
"Our suspect climbed through the window, grabbed Angela, and probably walked out the back door," Beckett concludes.
"Just like that?" Castle asks. "You'd think Angela would scream or at least give the obligatory and very loud two-year-old, 'No!"
Alfred swipes his forearm across his eyes. "Maybe she did, and I didn't hear her. I should have heard her."
Theresa gazes at him in fury. "Damn right you should have, Alfred. I worked sixteen hours yesterday. Couldn't you have acted like a responsible father for one morning, one f***ing morning?"
"Mrs. Candela," Sorenson inserts gently, "We have Angela's photo out to all of law enforcement, and we're issuing an Amber alert to Port Authority and the Tri-State Area."
"And the NYPD will be looking into suspects for burglaries or, um, other offenses in the area," Kate adds, silently thinking that prints would have helped narrow the field and hoping they still can. "Can either of you think of anyone who might have a reason to want to come after your daughter?"
Alfred shakes his head. "I can't even think straight now."
"When can you ever?" Theresa asks. "But I'll try."
"If we can't find Angela, neither one of them will ever think straight again," Castle whispers to Kate.
She puts a hand on his arm. "We're going to do our best, Castle."
An FBI tech sticks her head into the kitchen. "Agent Sorenson?"
He points to a landline on the wall. "There's a phone over there and two more in the master bedroom and the living room. Tie them all into a tap."
"Castle and I are going back to the precinct to start sifting through possible suspects," Beckett announces.
Sorenson catches her gaze. "This one'll end better. I promise."
Kate turns to leave. "The clock's ticking, Will. The first 24 hours…."
"Yeah," he acknowledges, "I know."
"I didn't see you drive up," Kate recalls as she and Castle leave the building.
"I took the subway. I figured it would be faster and there's a Java Hut right at the exit. I knew I'd be able to get your two pumps of sugar-free vanilla skimmed milk latte."
"Castle, I never actually told you how I like my coffee. How did you know?"
Novelists have to be professional people watchers, otherwise, our characters wouldn't be convincing. Besides, I like your smile when you make one in the break room, or some barista actually gets your order right. Too bad there's nothing to smile about now." Castle climbs in beside Kate in her unit. "And you could cut the tension between you and Sorenson with your handy cop gravity knife. It's going to take at least 10 minutes to get to the 12th, Kate. You've got time to fill me in on what's obviously not-so-ancient history. So, what happened?"
"Six months."
"Six months what?"
"Sorenson and I dated for six months."
"So how'd you meet?"
"A kidnapping, a six-year-old boy."
"How did it end?"
"We got the guy."
"You're a homicide cop. How did that involve you?"
"I think you can guess."
"The boy was dead?"
"Yeah."
"But what brought you and Sorenson together? If he screwed up on that case the way he seems to be screwing up on this one, I would think you would have been mad as hell over that poor boy's death."
"Shared trauma, maybe. He wasn't the agent in charge on that one. He was just following orders, and his boss was very territorial. The FBI likes to do things their own way. That includes forensics. They probably couldn't get a team in as fast as the NYPD can, and he wanted to get on the case."
"It sounds like you're making excuses for him, Kate. Do you still have a thing for him?"
"Maybe I can just see both sides of the story. I met his boss and saw how the organization functions."
"Or doesn't. Did you know that the FBI had 100 agents on the Unabomber and they were all looking in the wrong state? They probably would have never caught him if his own brother hadn't recognized the writing style of his manifesto and sent them in the right direction. And look how good they were at tracking down Cynthia Dern. Twenty years and nothing. They're screw-ups, Kate."
"Not all of them. But anyway, Castle, if we can find some suspects, maybe we'll get lucky if we do get some prints, or maybe even DNA."
"But if we haven't found Angela by the time you get back the DNA results, it could be too late, couldn't it?"
"Let's hope not."
Kate and Castle both look up expectantly as Ryan strides toward her desk. "What have we got on the Candelas?' she asks.
Ryan hands Kate a file. "Alfred and Theresa adopted Angela two years ago."
"That would have been an adoption at birth, or pretty close to it," Castle realizes. "Adoptions like that can be expensive and seriously drain a family's resources."
"Uh-huh," Ryan agrees. "Apparently, Theresa is a bit of a workaholic. She's a fund manager at Keller Stanton. Alfred's a small-time artist. He shows at the Grayson Gallery in Chelsea every once in a while. The neighbors say he stays home with the kid."
"Adoptions often require one parent to be home with a child for the first year, anyway. I used to compare notes with other parents in our little group at the park, when Alexis was little," Castle shares. "Some of them were adoptive."
"So Alfred stayed home after that first year," Kate assumes as she pulls a document from the file Ryan gave her. "But apparently not all the time. This is the list of people who had access to the apartment: babysitters, cleaning lady, the super. Let's cross-reference it with known sex offenders in the area. See if anyone had a thing for little girls."
Castle scrubs his hand over the stubble already beginning to form on his face. "Oh, God!"
Beckett's landline rings. "Yeah. We'll be right there." She drops the receiver back in its cradle. "Looks like it's about money, not sex. The Candelas just got a ransom call."
"Beckett," Rick asks as she drives them back to the Candela's home, "that other kidnapping, the boy, was there a ransom demand?"
"Yes, there was."
"And did the parents pay it?"
"They did. That's how we caught the kidnapper. The bills had a chemical tracer."
"But the boy was killed anyway."
"The autopsy showed he was killed right around the time the ransom was paid. The kidnapper never intended to let him go. Sixty percent of victims kidnapped for ransom aren't released."
"That's not very encouraging."
"But forty percent are, Castle. We have to hold onto that."