Author's Note: Apologies for the longer-than-usual wait for this chapter but here it is.

The Best-Laid Plans

Chapter 6

Kate eyed Castle. "So, you ready to get back to work?"

"Once more unto the breach," was Castle's response and Kate felt an absurd lift of her spirits at this evidence that Castle was himself again.

She sternly hid her smile. "We're going to an office, not heading into battle."

"I prefer to think of us as setting out on a heroic quest, hunting for a killer."

Yes, he was definitely himself again. She rolled her eyes. "We few, we happy few?" she drawled.

Castle, in his usual fashion, ignored the irony in her tone entirely and slanted a quick triumphant little smirk at her. "Ha! See, I told you it's more fun to view things in a more dramatic light."

She heaved an exaggerated sigh. "I should have known you'd take it as encouragement. Come on, Castle, if you're done with the self-aggrandizement, we have some actual police work to do."

"Ooh, good word, thank you for that," he told her brightly as he fell into step beside her. "Say, Beckett?" he added, his tone shifting to become entirely sober.

She glanced at him as they stepped into the elevator. "What?"

"Thanks for listening and, well, you know." He waved one hand in a rather vague gesture.

It was not the most eloquent expression of gratitude, certainly not coming from a writer, but the look in his eyes somehow made up for it and made her feel oddly reluctant to make a flippant response. She gave him a faint smile instead. "Anytime."

His eyes lowered to her lips, darkening, and her breath momentarily stuttered in her lungs, the air between them suddenly seeming to thicken.

But then he blinked and hurriedly looked away, facing forward, and then when the elevator door slid open, he almost rushed out, for once not waiting for her as he usually did. While she mentally shook herself a little, keeping her eyes averted as she headed straight for her car, taking in a deep breath of the not-so-fresh New York air and trying to calm her jumpy pulse. It was nothing, nothing had actually happened. It wasn't exactly news to her that Castle found her attractive and there was absolutely no reason for her to react like this to the reminder. It wasn't important, she told herself, just some residual lust, that was all.

Fortunately, the drive to the victim's office didn't take long and Castle spent it fiddling with the radio, keeping the volume just loud enough that it would have made conversation awkward, and for once, she was even glad of it.

And once they arrived at the victim's office, any more personal thoughts were more easily pushed aside as she snapped back into work mode.

The victim's administrative assistant, who introduced herself as Lisa Vernon, was a little pale and flustered, but not unusually so. Kate had wondered, considering the victim's apparently habitual infidelity, if he had also hunted closer to home, as it were, but there was no obvious reason to question her along those lines, at least not yet.

Lisa allowed them into the victim's personal office space and then retreated, telling them to ask if they had any questions, and Kate and Castle duly settled in to go through the office, Kate taking the victim's desk while Castle started on one of the file cabinets.

It didn't take long to find confirmation of what Menosky had told them about the victim's womanizing. There were two different calendars kept in his desk, a large notebook-organizer for real business and a small pocket calendar found in one of the desk drawers which was clearly to keep track of assignations as tucked into the front of it was a business card for a strip club located just a few blocks away.

She handed the business organizer to Castle to glance through while she herself looked into the pocket calendar, although she quickly found that although it was clear the victim had made plenty of assignations, he had the discretion enough to identify his various women only with initials in the calendar so it wouldn't be very helpful as far as identifying the women. She guessed the victim's phone records would end up being better for that–or at least, she hoped.

"Beckett."

"You find something?"

Castle flattened the organizer open onto the page dealing with that week, pointing to one notation, and Kate felt a little thrill. The victim had written down a meeting for the previous night, meeting a Bryce Leonard at 8 p.m., which would put it just at the outside edge for the time of death window, and the name of what Kate guessed was a bar or something.

"It looks like he might have told his wife the truth when he said he had a business meeting," Castle observed.

"Mm. The question is, who is this Bryce Leonard?" she thought aloud and then stood up to call Lisa into the office to ask just that.

Kate glanced at Castle and saw the same little thrill of a new lead when Lisa was immediately able to tell them who this Bryce Leonard was, someone who worked for a Donohue Development company, a business competitor to the victim's own company, and provide them with his contact info.

It turned out that Donohue's office building was on the way back towards the precinct so Kate made the quick decision to simply go directly there. They took both the victim's calendars with them as evidence and warned Lisa that they would likely need to return at some point before heading out.

Bryce Leonard on first glance did not appear to be a promising candidate for the killer, looking like a stereotypical accountant, glasses, an unfashionable, somewhat slouchy business suit, but she reminded herself that as in most things, appearances could be deceptive. Anyway, as she'd once told Castle, everyone looked like a possible killer to her; it was an occupational hazard. "Bryce Leonard? I'm Detective Kate Beckett and this is Richard Castle, a consultant. We'd like to ask you a few questions about Devon Ragar."

Leonard blinked, a faint frown of concern forming. "About Devon? Is he okay?"

"I'm afraid not, Mr. Leonard. He's dead," she answered baldly, watching him carefully.

Leonard paled and stared. "That's… impossible," he faltered with the incredulity with which people so often greeted news of an unexpected death, and then went on, "I was supposed to meet with him just yesterday."

"Supposed to?" Castle interjected before she could do the same.

"Yes. We were supposed to meet. He said he wanted to talk but then yesterday afternoon, the meeting was canceled."

Kate felt the little zing of anticipation over a possible lead vanish like a puff of smoke and sensed Castle's own waning excitement. So Leonard hadn't met the victim at all yesterday. "Do you know what he wanted to talk to you about?"

"No, I'm afraid not. I asked when he originally called to set up the appointment but he told me he didn't want to talk about it over the phone."

"I see. I don't suppose you know why he canceled the meeting?"

"No, sorry, Detective."

Kate bit back a grimace. It had been a long shot question. "Then with the meeting canceled, would you mind telling us what you did yesterday evening instead?"

Leonard looked a little blank, as if he had never heard of the concept of an alibi. "I just went home, had dinner with my family."

Another soft alibi but then again, she was becoming more certain by the minute that Leonard wasn't their guy. He had no apparent motive, simply working for a competitor hardly counted, and then there was his manner. She ended the interview shortly thereafter with the usual remark to call her if he thought of anything that might be relevant and then she and Castle left.

Once back in her car, Castle blew out a breath. "Damn. A meeting with a business competitor the night before he died, I really thought we were onto something there."

She glanced at him. Maybe Castle wasn't entirely his usual sanguine self yet; he was generally more amenable to the initial twists in a case because, as he freely admitted, he didn't like "boring" cases.

"You and me both," she acknowledged. "Guess this case isn't going to be quite so easy to solve."

"Guess not since we're basically back to square one. Does Lanie have anything more?"

"That's our next stop. I'm surprised, Castle," she added, shooting him a smirk, "I thought you'd suggest we go visit the strip club the victim liked."

Castle lifted a hand to his chest in a parody of gratitude. "Why, that's such a thoughtful suggestion, Detective, but I think we both know that going to a strip club before noon would be useless since it wouldn't be open anyway."

"I bow to your superior knowledge of strip clubs," she drawled.

"Hey, I'll have you know I've only been to a strip club twice years ago and that was for research!"

"Is that what the kids are calling it these days?" she mocked, although she did actually believe him. Whatever else, Castle wasn't sleazy and besides, she couldn't imagine that he would ever have needed to pay for sex. He could attract plenty of women just by being himself. As she was all too aware.

He made a face at her. "Funny, Beckett."

She gave in and laughed. "You walked right into that, Castle." She paused and then added, "Your research was for Kissed and Killed, wasn't it?" That book had involved a victim who'd worked at a strip club at night in order to pay for her schooling. It occurred to her, somewhat belatedly, that one of the things she'd liked about it was that Castle's treatment of the victim had been respectful, the inevitable comments objectifying the victim had been spoken by characters who were clearly portrayed as boorish.

He gave her a delighted smile that had her flushing a little, almost in spite of herself. "Beckett, I knew you were a fan!"

"No, just someone with a good memory for books," she denied quickly.

He slanted a skeptical look her way. "Nice try, Beckett. Even I have to admit that Kissed and Killed was not one of my better efforts. I think about 20 people read the book, and that doesn't even include my own mother, but you obviously did."

Damn it, she hadn't known that the book had done that poorly. "I was bored at the time," she tried.

"Nuh uh, too late," he sing-songed. "You're a fan…"

She narrowed her eyes at him. How had she forgotten how annoying he could be? "Shut up."

"Make me."

It was stupid and so wrong that the puerile response made her think about kissing him to shut him up. But she could not do that–had decided she could never do that again. Also she was driving. Instead, she reached out to grasp his ear lobe.

Which proved to be a mistake. Because he ducked away from her and caught her hand in his, forestalling the movement, and sending a stupid sizzle of reaction shooting up her arm just from his touch.

She almost yanked her hand back and kept her eyes firmly fixed on the road, trying–and failing–to convince herself it was fine, nothing had happened, and he might not have even noticed a thing. (He'd noticed. He'd definitely noticed.)

He gave an unnatural little cough and she sensed rather than saw that he was keeping his own head turned away, was looking out the passenger side window as if mesmerized by the passing streets.

The rest of the fortunately short drive to the morgue was spent in silence and when they arrived at the morgue, Castle kept a decorous distance between them of a few inches that somehow felt like much more.

"Lanie, what have you got for us?" she asked briskly.

Lanie's glance fell to the distance between Kate and Castle and she shot Kate a quick questioning glance. Kate knew Lanie wanted to ask if Kate and Castle had argued but–thankfully–Lanie had enough discretion not to make any comment in Castle's presence, only answered Kate's question. "Nothing very interesting, I'm afraid. He was shot with a .32, time of death between 8 and 11 last night. And as you noticed earlier, no sign that he was moved anywhere after death. No drugs in his system but he'd had a drink a little before he died."

"Do you know–is there any way to tell if he had sex in the hours before his death?" Castle inserted.

Lanie raised her eyebrows at him at this contribution and Kate stepped in to tell Lanie about the victim's womanizing and that it seemed likely he'd met with a woman last night who might have been the last to see him alive, if not the killer herself.

Lanie's lips twisted a little, glancing at the victim under the sheet. "Sorry, can't help you there. If he did, he cleaned himself up and he doesn't have a hickey or anything like that either."

Another dead end. Kate grimaced. "Thanks, Lanie."

"Sorry I couldn't tell you more."

"Not your fault. See you later, Lanie."

The visit to the morgue may not have yielded much in the way of useful information but it had, at least, dissipated the tension by providing a distraction and the drive back to the precinct was reasonably comfortable, with Castle speculating aloud about the killer's motive, ranging from the mundane–that he was killed by a jealous husband–to the outlandish–that the victim had gotten involved with the mafia and been killed for it.

They returned to the precinct to find that the victim's financials and his phone records had arrived so they set up camp in the conference room to go through them, joined by Espo and Ryan, who had returned from looking further into the victim's wife, although they could report nothing definite. The victim and his wife lived in a building with a front desk but the front desk person went around the building at various times for security and to respond to any tenant issues so the victim's wife could have easily left the building without having been seen.

The victim's phone records along with his calendar of the victim's liaisons allowed them to identify a number of the women the victim had been involved with and the boys duly brought in four women that afternoon, a couple of whom were married to coworkers of the victim, but the women all claimed not to have seen the victim in at least a week and were, moreover, sure their husbands had no idea about the affair. Kate and, she knew, Castle himself, was skeptical but at the moment, they had no reason to go into any of the women's husbands in particular and Kate, at least, did not relish the idea of a fishing expedition to tell four different men they'd been cuckolded.

By the time the end of her shift rolled around, Kate was distinctly frustrated because as far as she could tell, they really weren't much further along than they had been this morning. All they had really done was find confirmation of the victim's womanizing and an idea of how frequent and habitual it was but nothing that pointed to anyone who might have met the victim on his last night, let alone who might have killed the victim. She hated this kind of case where it seemed like they had discovered a lot but none of it particularly useful. She was too experienced not to know that cases often felt like this before the crucial piece of evidence fell into place but it didn't make getting through it much more fun.

She glanced at Castle who was frowning over the victim's financials. "Why don't you go home, Castle?" she interjected.

He looked up. "You're not going home," he pointed out.

She sternly quashed the little ember of something like pleasure at his, well, loyalty for lack of a better word. She didn't point out that this was her job, not his. "Go have dinner with Alexis, see how she's doing. We'll get back to it tomorrow."

The mention of Alexis tipped the balance, as she'd known it would, although Castle hesitated even as he started to neaten up the records he'd been looking at. "If you're sure."

She gave him one of her bossy looks, although admittedly, it was not usually effective on Castle. "Do I look like I'm kidding? Go, have a good night."

Castle obeyed, for once, and both boys turned questioning glances on her.

It was Ryan who ventured, "Is something up with Little Castle?"

"Just some school stress, I think. Castle was a little worried earlier," she prevaricated, somehow sure that Castle would not want his issues with his ex-wife to be made public, even if it was only to the limited, and friendly, audience of the boys. Odd as it seemed, she was starting to think that Castle, for all his Page Six appearances, might actually be more reticent about his private life than she'd thought. (And he had certainly been discreet about their one night together. Not that she was thinking about it.)

She and the boys had takeout and settled in for a long evening of going through the victim's records, sadly without finding any particular leads.

The next morning, Kate blamed frustration over the case for her distinctly irritable mood. It was the case, she told herself, hated feeling like they had gotten nowhere, had nothing to do with having another night of less-than-restful sleep and unfairly erotic dreams.

She wanted… coffee. She absolutely, flatly refused to think, wonder, about the fact that the coffee she'd made for herself that morning just hadn't hit the spot. She wanted Castle's coffee.

And so what if she did? It was about the coffee, and one he didn't make himself but bought and likely it was at some fancy coffee shop. It wasn't about him at all. No matter what her subconscious mind conjured up.

She focused on the murder board instead, hoping that something on it might trigger an idea as sometimes happened. She was still staring, without having come to any epiphany, other than to think they should look more closely into the victim's professional life, not just his personal life. Especially because the victim had been cheating on his wife for years so if his adultery was the reason, why was it only now that the vic had been killed?

She had just reached that point when she heard the sound of the elevator and then the irritating sixth sense she seemed to have developed where Castle was concerned and knew he had arrived. She sternly kept herself from turning to look at him, keeping her gaze on the murder board instead, until Castle reached her desk, with two coffees as usual.

"Morning, Beckett. I thought you'd be at the murder board," he greeted, placing the coffees on her desk beside her.

She tried not to wonder if the action was deliberate, wanting to ensure their fingers didn't brush as they usually did when she accepted her coffee from him, and only reached for her coffee, sparing him a quick half-glance. "Hey, Castle. How's Alexis?"

"She's fine. She has a chemistry test today so she was a little stressed this morning but she's fine. Anyway," he went on with a change in tone and expression, "I was thinking, what if we've been looking in the wrong place and the victim's promiscuity is a red herring?"

She half-smiled as she turned to him. "I was just thinking the same thing."

His expression lit up as it always did when she agreed with him. "And I was thinking, about that meeting he was supposed to have with Bryce Leonard–"

"You think Leonard was lying and he might actually be the killer?"

He gave a quick negating shake of his head. "I doubt Leonard has the spine to kill a fly, let alone a man. No, I was thinking that he just said that the meeting was canceled."

She blinked. "So? Did his use of the passive voice offend your writer's sensibility?"

He made a face. "Funny. No, I was thinking that he didn't say that it was the victim who canceled the meeting and I remembered that there's nothing in the victim's phone records or his emails contacting Leonard about the meeting yesterday."

"No, but he could have used his office phone or had his assistant call," she reasoned.

"I know but I thought it was at least something we could look into. The whole thing, the unexpected meeting with Leonard about something Ragar didn't want to talk about over the phone and then it being canceled and it just happening to be when the victim gets murdered, it just seems like we need to find out everything we can about the meeting and its cancellation. It's an odd sock."

She shot him a faint smirk. "Listen to you, sounding like a real cop with the cop slang," she quipped before sobering. "You have a point. Okay, Castle, let's go talk to Bryce Leonard again."

"Your words are music to my ears," he declared. "I do love it when you say I'm right."

She sternly bit back a laugh. "I agreed to look into your suggestion but you could still turn out to be totally wrong," she needled.

He clapped a hand to his chest, pretending to stagger. "You wound me, Detective."

"Uh huh," she drawled, "well, you can stay here and nurse your wounds if you like but I am going to go talk to Bryce Leonard."

As she'd known he would, he dropped the posturing and almost bounded forward to fall into step beside her and she hid a smile, her mood unaccountably lifting, aware of a distinct sense of optimism. Because of the possible new lead about the case, of course.

Bryce Leonard greeted them with mild surprise and a little curiosity. "Detective Beckett, Mr. Castle, have you learned anything new?"

"Some things," she temporized. "Mr. Leonard, I just wanted to ask you, did Mr. Ragar contact you directly to cancel your scheduled meeting?"

Leonard blinked. "No, it wasn't Devon. Paul called me that afternoon, told me something had come up."

She met Castle's quick glance, knew he was feeling the same surge of excitement. "Paul Menosky?" she confirmed, rather unnecessarily.

"Yes, of course. Is it important?"

"It might be," she equivocated since they never told persons of interest anything more than they needed to know and there was always the possibility that Leonard might talk to Menosky himself, inadvertently give something away. "Thank you for clearing that up. We'll be in touch if we have any more questions."

She and Castle necessarily waited until they were outside of the building and heading back to her car before Castle burst out, "Menosky is the killer, no wonder he got us started on Ragar's womanizing."

She exchanged a quick smile with him. "You're right. And I think I know why too. It's like in the Bobby Mann case." An expression she couldn't quite read flitted across his face and she abruptly remembered that the Bobby Mann case had been when he'd slept with Ellie Monroe. Oh, she hadn't meant to bring that up. She hurried on. "Bobby was killed by his long-time partner because Hank found out that Bobby planned to replace him and I bet that's what happened here. That's what the meeting with Leonard was going to be about; Leonard is an accountant, basically the same thing Menosky does now. Ragar probably found something out, that Menosky was skimming from the till, I'm guessing, and decided to replace Menosky with Leonard–"

"But Menosky found out, canceled the meeting to keep Leonard out of the way, and killed Ragar before that could happen," Castle finished for her.

"Exactly."

They exchanged quick smiles.

"Well, let's go get him."

"Not so fast, Castle," she warned him. "This is still basically just a theory. We need evidence first, Menosky's phone and financials to start, and then we can go after him."

He grimaced. "Fine, we'll do it your way, even if it is less fun."

"Step by step, Castle, that's how we build a case that sticks, you know that."

"Still less fun," he pretended to grumble and she only smirked at him.

In spite of Castle's pretended grumbling, it didn't take long for them to close the case, some irregularities in Menosky's financials coming to light pretty quickly, unexplained deposits in addition to his regular salary, and when they got Menosky in the box, he cracked the moment they asked about his financials.

"He should have let it go!" he burst out angrily. "After all these years, all the times I lied for him to Natalie about his women, he couldn't let what I did go and it wasn't like I was hurting anyone! Why shouldn't I take a little more, after all the work I put in to help him build the company! He said I'd betrayed him, like he was some saint with the way he betrayed Natalie every day for years! Who was he, to sound so self-righteous!"

Kate called in a couple uniforms to read Menosky his rights and the boys took over to oversee Menosky's written confession while she and Castle left them to it.

"Nice job," Castle offered.

"You too," she threw him a smile since after all, it had been his suggestion to talk to Leonard again that had gotten them here so fast.

She excused herself to give Natalie Ragar a call to let her know the truth about her husband's death and then had to go tell Captain Montgomery about the case.

She returned to her desk to find Castle had started working on taking down the murder board, his expression pensive as he took down some of the pictures they had pinned of the victim's latest liaisons.

"What, Castle?"

He offered her a faint wry twist of his lips. "Oh, just thinking that people can be strange, their ideas of honesty and morality. The people who jump the turnstile in the subway but who would never steal anything else or who cheat on their taxes but then would be horrified at the idea of cheating on their spouse or like the victim cheating on his wife but apparently honest when it came to his business and unable to look past financial dishonesty."

"I suppose it's a question of what people think is more important, what kind of lie they think is worse," she commented, a little surprised even now at his thoughtfulness, the glimpses she had of his serious side. Which she supposed was unfair of her since she did know by now that he could be serious, more serious than she had imagined when they'd first started working together in spite of how much time he spent joking around and behaving like an overgrown man-child. But in moments like this, she was reminded that Castle was, aside from anything else, also a writer of sensitivity and even depth, a writer whose way of thinking and expressing himself had resonated with her long before they had ever met.

"I'm just glad that I was able to tell Natalie Ragar that her husband was killed because he was trying to do the right thing," she went on. "He wasn't a saint but in the end, she can tell their kids that he was trying to be honest in one sense, at least."

"Yeah, that's something." He grimaced. "I was thinking about that last night, what it would be like if Natalie Ragar had to tell her kids that their dad was killed because he'd cheated on her. I mean, they've still lost their dad either way but for it to have been for such a reason would have made it even worse, betrayal on top of loss."

"Yeah," she sighed. "It matters. The reason for losing someone does matter, it can help or make it worse."

"I can imagine."

Their eyes met and held in a long moment of understanding as a mesmeric attraction suddenly shimmered between them, an attraction that seemed less about his looks and more about the way he thought about things, if that made any sense. She found her mouth going a little dry, her pulse picking up, before she abruptly jerked her eyes away, turning to return to her desk. "I should get started on the paperwork," she hurriedly announced.

"Right, of course. I'll finish clearing up the board," he agreed, also sounding not quite himself.

She dove into the paperwork to close the case with an eagerness which paperwork never normally merited except that right now, it was a much-needed distraction, even a shield of sorts against Castle, the danger of Castle. Because this side of him was dangerous, the side of him she couldn't help but like, the side of him that made her think she might, she could–no, no, she was not thinking any such thing, she hurriedly corrected herself.

And it made no sense, she didn't know how it was that it somehow seemed as if this side of him made her physical attraction for him stronger. It didn't matter, it shouldn't matter.

The fact that he could be serious and thoughtful didn't mean he wasn't also a playboy, one who didn't do serious relationships. And he was a multimillionaire and a celebrity and she was just a cop and she wasn't exactly good at relationships either.

And it didn't matter that he'd proven to be very good–okay, amazing–in bed or that she still felt this inconvenient, stupid lust for him because it could only ever be sex and meaningless sex wasn't something she did anymore.

(Although she'd already made an exception for him once, a voice in her mind reminded her. Who was to know or care if she, um, made another exception with him?)

Damn it, no, she would know and she'd already decided she couldn't, wouldn't, have sex with him again. It was too… risky, if it happened again, it would make it harder to forget about this stupid lust she felt, to say nothing of making it just that much more likely that someone might find out and anyway, she'd decided that once would be enough. It had to be enough.

And that was that.

Until she found herself so antsy in her own apartment she could hardly sit still, almost broke a glass, and found herself picking her phone up and then putting it down again, her gaze drawn against her will to the row of his books sitting on her bookshelf. Which was not helped by the fact that most of the books she had right now were courtesy of him since he had quietly arranged for a delivery of books to be made to her apartment shortly after she'd moved in and–what had really gotten to her about the gesture–not only his books either. He had, of course, included a full set of his books but he had also included a collection of other mysteries, some Pattersons, Cannells, Connellys, a few Agatha Christies, a couple Dashiell Hammett books. It was one of those gestures that reminded her how generous Castle could be. Reminded her that when he wasn't being irritating, he was, well, likable.

Not that she liked him like that. And anyway, what was bothering her had nothing to do with liking him, was just physical. (Liar.) She ignored the pesky little voice.

She was just restless, she told herself as she got into her car. She just needed to get out of her apartment, that was all.

Except her car ended up outside his building before she'd realized it and then she was standing outside of his door and knocking. And telling herself she was only going to talk to him, never mind that it was well after 10 at night, and it was hardly usual for her to just stop by.

The door opened. He'd changed, looked–oh god–almost ready for bed in a thin t-shirt that clung to his chest and arms, and sweats.

"Beckett! What are you doing here?"

"I…" Her mouth had unaccountably gone dry and she licked her lips unthinkingly and then she had no idea who moved first–she might have reached for him–but suddenly his mouth was crashing down on hers and his arms were locked around her and she was clutching at him, needing to get closer, closer. And she honestly didn't know how she'd lived the last couple days without this.

And then they were stumbling into his bedroom and falling onto his bed and her last coherent thought for some time was to wonder how she could ever have thought once could be enough…

~To be continued…~

A/N 2: Thank you, as always, to all readers and reviewers. I'm so glad for you all for keeping the fandom alive.