Kate Beckett, Investigator Chapter 29

"Let me see if I have this straight, Rick," Stephanie Rumen says, "A man met with you offering information on DePove's competitors and threatened you and your family, including your baby daughter, with harm if you continued to write about PFAS and DePove."

"You have it exactly straight, Stephanie," Castle confirms. "But I have news for DePove and anyone else trying a maneuver like that. Blackmail only works in the dark, and my family and I intend to throw as much light on DePove and anything having to do with PFAS as we can. That will include an uptick in my writing and as much legal action as we can bring."

Stephanie leans across the table, which keeps her and Castle within tight focus. "And what about the safety of your family, Rick?"

Castle inclines his head sideways. "That impressive personage just out of camera range works for one of the best security firms in the country, possibly the world. I have engaged it to provide full protection for me and my family. That will be maintained as long as necessary. However," Castle looks straight at the camera, "if anything happens to me or any member of my family, every law enforcement agency will know just where to seek the culprit. In short, if you come after any of us, you cut your own corporate throat."

Stephanie momentarily cups a hand over her perfectly lip-sticked mouth to hide an uncontrollable smile. She takes a breath. "If they're watching, Rick, I'm sure they'll get the message."

"Well, if they aren't, not to diminish the impact of your show, Stephanie, but I will be appearing on other programs. I'll also be doing a number of radio interviews by phone. I suspect the word will spread."

"Rick, you're a bestselling author. What additional writing about PFAS will you be doing?"

"A trilogy of novellas featuring Adley Rains tracking down corporate culprits should be available as e-books very soon."

"I'm sure a lot of my viewers will anxiously await them. I know I will," Stephanie says. "I have to get in a quick break now. When we return, Lucy Orze will be here with tips for paying down credit card debt. Stay with us."

What are you still doing up?" Castle asks as Kate meets him at the door. "Don't you have an early class tomorrow?"

"I do, but Eleanor was up. She's totally taken by the musical farm animals toy Alexis bought for her. While I was trying to put her down for the night, she was doing her best baby imitation of a cow. Since she was wide awake anyway, we watched Stephanie Rumen together."

"And what did Eleanor think of the show?"

"She was fascinated with your face on the screen, but Lucy Orze put her to sleep."

"Ooh, I believe Ms. Orze has a YouTube channel. Something to remember next time we have a problem convincing Eleanor to go nighty-night. But how did you like it?"

"You got the message across. If I were DePove, I'd be looking for a quick change in strategy."

"Ah, to be a fly on the wall in their conference room. Hmm, maybe in my next novella, Adley can figure out how to bug the offices of her corporate nemeses."

"Yeah, you work on that. But not tonight. Feel like celebrating?"

"What did you have in mind?"

"I'll have to show you."

"I'm all eyes."

The slam of Bruck's attaché case on the heavy table vibrates through the room and the hastily summoned executives. "Where the hell is Kissass?" he demands.

"He called my assistant," Emily Brando explains. "He claimed he had an emergency come up and would be out of touch for a while."

"Yeah, I bet!" Bruck spits out.

"With or without him, we have to deal with the sh*tstorm he stirred up," Counsel Ignoso points out. "If Richard Castle or anyone close to him so much as stubs their toe, every prosecutor in the country will be looking toward us and salivating."

"So what do we do?" Brando asks.

"The first thing we have to do is disown whatever Kissass cooked up," Ignoso responds. "We deny any knowledge of threats and claim that we're looking into the situation as rogue activity. Then we do our best to hang the accusation on Kissass and whomever he pulled in. We remove him from the board, recommend that he answer for his actions to the full extent of the law, etc."

"But couldn't that asshole decide to turn it all on us?" Bruck demands.

"He could if he's around to do it. He may decide to leave the country – to someplace very quiet," Ignoso offers.

"And if he won't go?" Bruck presses.

"I'll leave that up to you. I don't want to know about it. I can't know about it," Ignoso declares, pushing his deeply padded chair back from the table. "You can discuss whatever other business you have, in my absence."

As the door closes behind Ignoso, Bruck gazes grimly around the gathering. "Any of you have anything useful to offer?"

"We could announce an acceleration of our clean-up program," Cara James suggests. "I could publicize Buck University's commitment to exploring remediation methods in cooperation with DePove."

"And what's that going to cost us?" Bruck grinds out.

"Not that much," Brando replies. "As long as it's exploratory, we don't actually have to do any real clean-up, just generate a lot of paper through studies. We keep putting out press releases that we're working on the problem and call out 4M, Listerton, and Feenuk to increase their actions."

A greasy smile spreads across Bruck's face. "And with any luck, they'll end up footing the bill for the tech we need to make the public and the regulators happy. Very good, Emily. Meeting adjourned. Get the ball rolling."

Castle spreads the morning Ledger out on the counter. "Look at this. DePove claims that the threats against us were all a rogue operation, and they'll do their best to uncover the truth."

Alexis looks up from shoving her clothes into the washing machine. "Around the time pigs fly."

"It may not even be that soon," Castle says. "And as much as I love to see you stuffing my smiling pancakes into your smiling face, why are you doing your laundry here? Doesn't your dorm have washing machines?"

Alexis chooses her cycle. "Yeah, sure, of course. But this one is…."

"Free," Castle fills in. " Freshman year scrounging for freebies is part of the college experience that I remember well. Is this a not-so-subtle hint that I should be increasing your allowance?"

"The price of a macchiato has gone up again, but," the teen flushes, "that's not really why I'm short. I got a little enthusiastic donating to the clean-up movement."

Castle quirks a brow. "How enthusiastic?"

"I gave them almost everything I have through the end of the month. I've been eating on the food plan, and I have money on my metro card, but I forgot about laundry."

Castle strokes his yet unshaven chin. "Hmm, I see. Well, it certainly was a worthy cause, and getting carried away does run in the family." He glares as Kate smothers a chortle. "So, my older and now hopefully wiser daughter, what would you say to a 20% increase, payable now?"

"That would be great, Dad." The teen throws her arms around her father's neck. "Love you."

"Love you too." Castle's gaze shifts as a messy Eleanor giggles in her high chair. "But finish your laundry fast. Your sister is already generating the next load."

Alexis smiles at the gleeful toddler. "No problem."