Chapter 9

Castle arrived at the hospital as fast as he could. The traffic lights on his journey here seemed to be on his side. Almost all of them turned green as he approached them in his haste to get to where he needed to be. Dashing past the receptionist he made his way to the ER where he found his mother sitting beside a wheelchair. In that wheelchair was a young, bright-eyed redhead. His daughter, Alexis.

"Alexis!" Castle called out rushing to his daughter's side.

"Daddy!" she cheered, reaching out from the wheelchair for a hug.

He wrapped his arms around the little girl, simply grateful that she was okay. "What happened?"

"I hurt my foot." She raised her leg ever so slightly to show her father the temporary cast.

"Alexis was rehearsing her ballet routine in the living room," Martha chimed in, then after a pause added, "on the coffee table."

Castle glared at his daughter. "I needed a stage," Alexis said innocently with a smile.

"Long story short, she lost her footing and ended up breaking her ankle. But she won't need surgery," Martha said reassuringly. "It simply needs to be set and it should heal on its own in a few weeks."

"Thank god," Castle exclaimed in relief. "Have you called your mom?"

"Gram tried."

"Straight to voicemail," Martha explained. "Typical."

"She's probably airborne." Castle scowled at his mother, having told her before not to speak poorly of Alexis' mother in front of her.

Rick and Meredith met in Los Angeles soon after he published his first Rick Rodger's book. She was a gorgeous young actress and he was a handsome naïve writer in a strange land. Their relationship was fuelled with passion and lust, and they quickly fell in love. They dated for two years in which they travelled the world without responsibility, but it wasn't long after that the flame slowly started to extinguish.

It was no secret that Meredith had been unfaithful to Rick. Though they kept their relationship as private as possible, the paparazzi had snapped many pictures of Meredith making out with co-stars and directors of whatever movie she was filming at the time. But Rick was head over heels for her and tried more than anything to look past it. He proposed to Meredith in an attempt to keep them together, but she couldn't commit. Before they had the chance to end things, they discovered that she was pregnant.

Even though their relationship had been more than rocky before Alexis had been conceived, they stayed together for the benefit of their daughter. After she turned three years old they realised they were kidding themselves and thought it best to end things before Alexis was old enough to remember. This way she would grow up knowing no different from having two separated parents. The last thing they wanted was her earliest memories to be of the two of them fighting all of the time.

Meredith had always been a good mother to Alexis whenever she was around. But she was an actress with a thirst for travel and fame, meaning she wasn't always present. Even Meredith had admitted that she was never cut out to be a mother. Her career was her pride and joy, and Alexis always came second. Nevertheless Meredith loved her daughter immensely.

"She's due back from Paris fashion week," Castle continued. "I'll try get hold of her, okay? She can come stay at the loft for a while and take care of you."

"Oh please," Martha scoffed. "That woman can barely look after herself. I can mind Alexis, dear."

"I know you can, but I don't expect you to be there 24/7 for the next few weeks. So you and Meredith can rotate." He knelt down in front of Alexis. "But for the next few days, I'm going to be Doctor Dad!"

"What about that detective you're supposed to be protecting?" his mother questioned.

"Cooper has taken over for the time being. She'll be fine. Right now," he said ruffling his daughter's hair, "my priority is this one."

It was difficult for Castle leaving his daughter for long periods at a time, especially considering that's exactly what he complains about Meredith doing. The difference was that he was doing this to provide for his daughter, to give her a good childhood. Though he works away from her for days/weeks at a time he always takes long vacation gaps to spend valuable time with his mother and daughter.

Beckett's Apartment

Kate woke up after her two hour nap feeling refreshed and ready to take on the day. She rolled over half expecting to see Castle where she found him only a few hours ago. but he wasn't there. She knew he wouldn't be, but for some strange reason she wished he were. She scooted over to the side he had slept on and inhaled his lingering scent. A smile washed across her face unknowingly as she scrunched up the duvet under her nose, breathing in the woody undertone of whatever cologne he used.

She eventually got out of bed, showered, and dressed before deciding it was time to have brunch. When she stepped out into the hall she could see a man standing in the living room facing away from her. She knew it wasn't Castle, this guy's stature was a lot slimmer. Retreating back into her bedroom, she grabbed her gun and slowly made her way down the hall.

"Turn around slowly," Kate ordered keeping her gun pointed at the man.

He raised his hands and followed her orders. "Rick told me you could take care of yourself," he said followed by a slight laugh. "Relax, Detective Beckett. The name is Nick Cooper, I'm a colleague of Rick Castle."

"Yeah?" she replied sceptically. "Then I suppose you don't mind showing me some ID."

Cooper slowly reached into his jacket pocket to retrieve his ID badge, refraining from making any sudden movements that might alarm her. Once he found it he tossed it to her where she caught it with one hand. Keeping her gun on him at all times, she cautiously glanced at his credentials.

"Where's Castle?" she asked, lowering her weapon before tossing the badge back to him.

"Dealing with a personal matter," Cooper explained. "He had to leave in a hurry a little over an hour ago, so I'm your substitute for the time being."

Kate couldn't help thinking about why Castle could have left so suddenly. Her mind kept going over the conversation they had just before she went back to bed, how he started freaking out about them having slept together. The things he had said:

"It was a huge mistake. It should never have happened."
"I just can't afford to lose my job over a meaningless night of fun."

There was no sign of a note, no missed phone call or text message explaining where he had gone. As far as she was concerned he had fled due to the overwhelming realisation of the looming consequences of their actions. All she had to go on was the word of a stranger to tell her otherwise.

"Don't worry, detective" Cooper said after noticing he had lost her to her own thoughts. "Your protection hasn't been compromised. I'm just as good as Rick, if not better." A knock at the front door interrupted their conversation. "And that must be your lunch time meeting."

"My what now?" Kate tightened the grip on her gun that was dangling by her side.

Cooper glanced through the peephole before unlocking the door. Kate's eyes lit up when she saw her captain walking towards her with a smile on his face.

"Good to see you, Kate," Montgomery greeted. "I see you've met Mr. Cooper. I was sad to hear that Mr. Castle had to leave. Good guy."

"Do you know when he'll be back?" Kate asked.

"I'm afraid I know as much as you do. But I didn't come here to talk about him. It's about your case." Her captain asked her to join him as he sat down. "We tracked down those guys whose names you gave us. They've obviously been operating under aliases since you outed them, but border patrol managed to catch one of them trying to cross into Mexico. A Darren Whitfield." He handed her a mugshot from the file. "Look familiar?"

Kate studied the image for a moment. "He's the guy who first figured out I was a cop. Only he was going under the name Jack Miller at the time. Have you guys talked to him yet?"

"Yeah," Montgomery sighed, clearly holding something back.

"And?"

"He's confessed to your attempted murder."

She scoffed. "I'd hardly call what happened that night an attempted murder. An attempted kidnapping maybe-."

"He's not talking about that night," Montgomery interrupted. He glanced at Cooper before continuing. "Beckett, he's confessing to an attempt on your life that hasn't happened yet."

Kate's face dropped into an unreadable expression. "Okay…"

"We're looking into his phone and financials. Hopefully they'll give us a greater insight into how and when they're going about this."

"You think he's hired someone?"

"He's not in this alone, you know that. These guys always have tricks up their sleeves. I'm guessing he got caught so we'd let our guard down while someone else does his dirty work. You gave us more names than just his."

Kate handed him back the mugshot. "So they're making their move now…"

"Mr. Cooper will be by your side 24/7 until Castle gets back," her captain said reassuringly. "We've got the best people on this case, you know that."

It all suddenly became real to Kate. For the past few weeks she had been living under the impression that her colleagues were chasing ghosts and that the threat was completely circumstantial. She had almost forgotten that Castle had a job to do, that he wasn't just a guy who had come into her life to take her mind off of things. The threat was very much real and just when she needed him most, Castle had vanished.