Kate Beckett, Investigator Chapter 27

Sleepily reaching for her phone to check the time, Kate immediately springs out of bed. "What's wrong?" Castle asks.

"It's almost six a.m., and Eleanor hasn't made a peep since midnight."

Castle hurriedly follows Kate into the nursery and lays his hand on the baby's chest. "She's breathing," he whispers. "She's really sleeping." He urges Kate away from the crib. "It has been almost four months. We finally made it. Six uninterrupted hours."

"Let me guess? You want to celebrate."

"It is worth at least a batch of smiley-face pancakes," Castle insists. "And don't you have a full class schedule today? You can use a hearty breakfast. And your father's coming over around seven. You know that he's been having talks with the other law firms about the PFAS thing, and he passed on what we dug up about the use of PixelStryke in the misinformation blast. I was actually thinking about using something like that in my Adley Rains book. I'm not sure how yet. The real story should help, the way chasing after you at the 12th Precinct did. We can have a family confab over flapjacks, and you can still make it to class on time."

Kate throws up her hands. "All right! I give up! But I want to get showered and dressed before Dad gets here, and Eleanor could be waking up any time."

"Fine, you hurry through your morning ablutions, and I'll mis en place my ingredients for our happy meal."

One Year Later

Castle rubs his eyes and reaches for a cup of coffee. "Wow! I've done plenty of late-night shows before, promoting my books. But they all taped early, like seven p.m. Adley's got me on the cable news channels, and they go out live. I knew the PFAS hunt book was going to get attention, but I didn't think it was going to get that kind of attention."

"Well, PFAS are in the papers almost every day now," Kate points out. "Dad's been on a few radio shows talking about it, and you know Alexis is in the group at Columbia crusading about it. Aside from the court cases, there's a lot of pressure on Congress to do something. But I think people have a lot easier time wrapping their heads around the issue by reading "Adley Rains: Poison Streams" than from news reports or political speeches. How's the sequel coming?"

"Fine, when I can stay awake long enough to write it. It does help that Deirdre uses some of the time she's not in class to spell me with Eleanor. It's a good thing you two have different schedules this year."

I'm picking up more courses in litigation and dispute regulation, and she's doing more in public law. But we'll probably still have some crossover in environmental law somewhere along the line. She sees fighting pollution of tribal lands as part of her portfolio."

"Yeah, she said something about an oil company trying to route a pipeline under a river that supplies water to a reservation," Castle recalls. "Sometimes I wonder what she murmurs to Eleanor. I think our daughter may be learning a tribal chant or two."

"Deirdre hasn't brought a tom-tom, has she?"

"Not yet."

Pens jump as Theo Bruck's fist comes down on the massive conference table. "What the f**k is all this s**t about Adley Rains? Who the hell is Adley Rains?"

"She's nobody, Theo," Emily Brando explains. "I mean, she's not a real person. She's a character in a book."

"So who wrote the f***ing book?" Bruck demands.

"Richard Castle."

"And who the hell is Richard Castle?"

"He's the writer who did Derrick Storm and Nikki Heat – spy and crime books. Adley Rains is in his new one – some kind of environmental crusader. She came from stories in the New Yorker. They were in my report last year, right before we used PixelStryke to dummy up those pictures about kids not having drinking water."

"So put out some new f***ing pictures! Knock this Adley Rains off the radar."

"We can't, Sir. The publications where we planted pictures before got tied up in litigation all over the country. They're trying to get the cases thrown out, but in the meantime, they don't want any more of the campaign. And PixelStryke doesn't want it either. They put out a new consumer app – more money, less hassle."

"Then find someone else who will put our stuff out there!" Bruck commands.

"I'm working on it, Theo," Brando responds, "but with all the litigation, our usual PR contractors are skittish."

"I have another suggestion," Luke Kissass offers. "Perhaps we should go at the problem more directly."

"What do you mean?" Bruck asks.

"What I mean is that the public attention span is short. They'll be on to a different book tomorrow unless the author keeps promoting it or puts out another one. What we do is convince Richard Castle to shut the f**k up."

"And how do you propose we do that?" Bruck sneers.

"Our partnership uses some people from time to time who can be very persuasive."

Bruck's eyes narrow. "How persuasive?"

Kissass smiles. "You just leave that to me."

"I really appreciate you coming on such short notice, Deirdre," Castle says. "This meeting came out of the blue, but it sounded too interesting to turn down. The guy claims he's got information on corporate greenwashing that I can use in my next book."

"There's certainly a lot of that going on," Deirdre says. "All the corporate big boys love to claim their hands are clean while their upstream suppliers do the dumping. But the land and water end up just as fouled. I hope you get something good."

"Yeah, me too. I don't think I'll be gone more than an hour or two. And Kate may be back before I am. You know where everything is."

"Eleanor and I will be fine, Rick," Deirdre assures him. "Good luck."

Without needing to secure Eleanor in her safety seat, Castle feels a twinge like he's missing something as he slides behind the wheel of his car. He's been driving to studios and radio stations by himself often enough later in the day, but usually, a morning trip involves taking Eleanor to the supermarket or some other venue with interesting sights, smells, and people. This feels a little like sneaking off. He got more than his share of tips and deep background for Derrick Storm. He's just never needed to make a meet like this for Nikki Heat or Adley Rains – until now. And he can't quite shake a feeling at the back of his mind that something is off about it. But he can't put his finger on anything in particular.

The meeting is supposed to take place in the back room of an upscale clean food restaurant. There's nothing strange about that. It's reasonably quiet, and the hot chocolate there is almost as good as his own.

Carrying his tray with an oversized, whipped-cream-topped cup, Castle peers into the back room. A man waves him to a table. The potential source is not what Castle expected. For one thing, the suit and tie are a little too expensive for the average muckraker. The haircut, if Castle judges right, ran the man at least 50 bucks, maybe more. His off feeling is getting more insistent. He can only hope that it's wrong.