Shared Obsession Chapter 146
Kate pulls Castle's coat around her as she sits in borrowed clothes in the open back of an ambulance. "How are you doing, Beckett?" Shaw asks.
"Just a little banged up. Fine."
Shaw points up at the blown-out windows and smoke-stained frontage of the building. "That doesn't look like anyone would have come out of there fine."
"I have – had – one of those old-fashioned cast-iron tubs."
"Oh, I love those," Shaw comments with uncharacteristic enthusiasm.
"Yeah, me too. It was one of the attractions of the apartment. But I was using the shower that was attached later, to clean up. I barely heard the 'Goodbye Nikki' from that bastard's detonator, and just had time to duck into the tub before the bomb went off. And then I couldn't move. Everything around me, even the towels caught fire. If Castle hadn't come when he did, I never could have made it out."
Castle wanders back to Beckett after a conversation with Montgomery. "The captain says the fire dept is putting their best arson investigator on this. She'll be teaming up with CSU and the NYPD's bomb guys. They should find something to pick up the "motherf***er's trail."
"The real killer obviously framed Ben Conrad. That should give us new clues to get on his trail too," Kate says.
"Not you, Beckett," Shaw declares.
Kate points up at the smoldering ruins. "It's my apartment – or it was. My life and my case. I can't just walk away."
Shaw breathes exasperation. "OK. Fine. But by my rules. You do what I say and how I say it. And there will be a security detail on you at all times. They won't just be standing outside a building, either."
"Fine," Beckett spits back.
"Fine," Shaw echoes.
Montgomery nods to a fire captain and approaches the ambulance. "Fire's out, Beckett. You can go up now."
CSU is already taking pictures when Beckett and Castle return to the charred wreck. Beckett's possessions lie everywhere, displaced by the explosion and the water that quenched the flames. Some of her things were protected inside closets and cabinets, but everything reeks of smoke and explosives. Kate checks the top closet shelf where her mother's things are stored, a relieved sigh coming unbidden from her lungs. At least they survived. She glances at her empty wrist before turning to the team, joined by Castle, poking through the debris.
A man holds up her mother's ring. "You'll be wanting this."
Kate grabs it, slipping it on her finger until she can find or get a chain. "Did anyone find my father's watch?"
"It's not in the hall," Castle replies.
"The damage isn't as bad in the bedroom," Esposito reports, "but the stink got into everything."
"Anyone know if insurance pays for dry cleaning?" Kate asks, half-seriously.
"Hey, don't worry about it," Castle whispers.
"I've got the blast seat here," Shaw calls out.
"Well, it had to have been a small device, otherwise I would have seen it," Kate says.
"The lab will have the breakdown by morning, but that's cyclonite," Shaw assesses. "Same thing we found in Conrad's apartment. But Castle, with Conrad dead, how did you figure out Beckett was still a target?"
"Well, uh, the killer Beckett and I saw was holding a gun in his left hand, and the ME thought he was left-handed. But when I pictured Conrad's body, I realized that he would have had to shoot himself with his right hand. And even if our killer was ambidextrous, he didn't have the time to switch. The shot went off as soon as he stepped out of view. The real killer must have set Conrad up as his patsy and made it look like he killed himself. Then while we were congratulating ourselves that the monster was off the streets, he went through with 'Nikki will burn.' The whole thing was an incredibly elaborate ruse to get Kate."
"But we were outside the door. We heard the shot. We were watching the fire escape. There was no other way out of that apartment," Shaw protests. "So if Ben Conrad didn't kill himself…."
"He was in the apartment the whole time," Kate concludes.
"Then how the hell did we miss him?" Shaw wonders.
"Let's go find out," Castle suggests.
As Castle circles the inside of Ben Conrad's apartment, thumping the walls, Kate finds a small door beneath a shelf. She pulls it open. "Hey guys, take a look. I think I've found something."
"What have you got?" Castle asks.
"Maybe his hiding place." Kate crawls into what appears to be a secret room. "Whoa! Discarded clothing, and a disguise kit. There's rope and duct tape here too."
Shaw crouches, sticking her head into the opening. "That's the exact same outfit Conrad was wearing when we found him."
"Right down to the fake beard to match Conrad's," Kate adds. "The killer wanted us to think he was Conrad. And looking down at Castle and me from the window was the final part of the show."
"He must have held the real Ben Conrad hostage in his own apartment during the entire case," Shaw realizes.
"And Conrad was bound and taped with no idea he was being blamed for three murders," Kate adds.
"And the killer must have always intended to stage Ben's suicide at some point to lull us into a false sense of security. Or maybe he planned to do it after Beckett was dead, so no one would be looking for him," Castle figures.
Shaw rises and pulls out her cell phone. "I'll get the evidence team down here and see what they can find. And we sure as hell are looking for him."
Beckett's cell rings before Shaw can make a call. "Beckett, the killer's on the phone again," Montgomery says.
The familiar voice slithers into the room. "Nikki, you were supposed to be dead."
"I'm sorry to disappoint you," Kate grates out.
"It was supposed to be over, Nikki. It was supposed to be done. But now I've got to keep going."
"A woman's voice cries out from somewhere away from the killer's phone. "No! No!"
The sound of three gunshots vibrates through Kate's cell.
"What? Who?" Kate demands. Her cell still shows an ongoing call, but no further taunts reach her ears. "He must have used her cell phone and left it on so we could trace the call. He's left us another body."
Kate kneels next to a woman sprawled on the unforgiving concrete of an alley. She points to a badge clipped to the woman's shirt. "Her ID is from the Drumtree, that's a hotel in Midtown."
"She was probably on her way home from work," Castle guesses.
"Ha! Found a slug," Shaw announces.
"Letter etching?" Castle asks.
Shaw uses a magnifier on her phone. "No, it looks clean. The other murders were planned. This one was done out of anger, wanting to be in control."
Kate's teeth dig into her bottom lip. "Because I lived."
"You can't blame yourself for that," Shaw responds. "Wait! How did he know that you lived?"
"He was watching at the aftermath of the explosion," Kate guesses.
"Everything about this guy's profile tells me he was watching at the other crime scenes too," Shaw offers.
"Yeah, but the first thing we did was compare crime scene photos," Kate recalls.
"Yeah, I know. We ran them through facial recognition. But he had to have been there," Shaw insists.
"He wouldn't be in the crowd," Castle asserts. "He'd know that's where we'd look."
"No, he's a chameleon. He hides in plain sight. He wouldn't be in the crowd," Shaw agrees, "because he would have been dressed like one of us."
Shaw stares in frustration at the smart board. "Thirty photos, and not one with a clear view of his face. He knows our playbook."
"But he had a book of sorts of his own," Castle points out. "He built his whole story around Ben Conrad. He wove in the dog and all the characters connected to the dog, but Conrad was his starting point. To get details like that down, I do research. But there was no story about Ben Conrad in the library or on the internet. To the world, he was a nothing, a nobody. That's why he was so invested in Mr. Bumpkins. But somehow, our killer must have connected to him well enough to learn his tale of woe."
"That's it! We were treating Ben Conrad as the killer, but he was a victim," Shaw realizes. "So now we treat him as victim zero and find out where he went, who he spoke to. One of those contacts has to be our killer."
A/N My newest book came out yesterday. It's Called "The Believe Gene: Obsession and Cherry Pie." It's the only book with that title so that makes for an easy search on Amazon or anywhere. I posted the press release on my profile. No vampires!