Unexpected Appearance Chapter 1

"Steven wasn't killed for being a con man," a tearful Elise Finnegan claims. "He was killed for his intelligence work."

As she strides down the sidewalk back toward her unit, Kate shakes her head. "Steven Fletcher pulled the biggest con of all on his fiancée. He wasn't in the CIA. "

"How can you be sure?" Rick questions. "The CIA recruits the kinds of people who would seem most unlikely. That's how they keep them undercover."

"And how exactly would you know that, Castle?"

"I had some, uh, dealings with the CIA. For example, there was one agent I used as an advisor for Storm Warning. To look at him, you'd think he was the kid who got beat up on the playground for his lunch money. But he's one of the most deadly guys around – even more so than how I wrote Derrick Storm."

Kate throws Rick a skeptical look. "How did you get a CIA agent to act as an advisor on your book?"

"Believe it or not, I just asked. I looked up the address of the CIA field office in New York and knocked on the door. Maybe I schmoozed the agent there a little. I told him it would be good PR for the CIA to be portrayed with some level of accuracy in my novels. I didn't think he bought it, but a couple of days later I got a letter delivered by messenger. It advised me to go to a Thai restaurant, order the Pad Kra Pao Moo, and wait. I was just starting my meal when this little man, Agent Gray, slid into my booth across from me. He told me that the CIA is going to make sure my books don't give them a worse image than they have already. He and some of the other agents helped me out with what I needed to know. Then he gave me a number and a code phrase to use if I needed to contact the Company again."

"So, you can just call a CIA agent?"

"Sort of." Rick pulls out his phone and types in a number. "Thai food is pleasing to the tongue." Rick stuffs his phone back in his pocket. "Gray will get back to me."

Kate rolls her eyes. "Uh-huh. This I've got to see."

"So what's up with your Agent Gray, Castle?" Kate queries as he makes fresh coffees in the 12th Precinct's breakroom. "It's been hours since you called in your little catchphrase."

A tall, muscular man with white hair and dark brows passes soundlessly through the doorway and nods at the couple. "Richard Castle, Detective Beckett, you can call me Hunt. I understand that someone has invoked the CIA in relation to your murder investigation."

"Where's Agent Gray?" Rick demands.

"He had a situation arise that needed his attention. I am, however, fully briefed on your involvement with the agency. So, you had a question about a murder victim known to you as Stephen Fletcher. As you know, the CIA rarely confirms or denies anything. However, in this case, I can tell you that Stephen Fletcher was not one of ours. If he was, he never would have admitted to carrying out a mission for our agency on American soil."

"Right," Rick agrees, "he would have told his fiancée he was working for the FBI. At least that would have been legal."

"He wasn't working for the FBI either," Hunt says, a vague hint of a smile on his lips. "As long as he's been pulling cons, they should have caught him by now. But then, they are the agency that spent $10,000,000 putting in a new computer system to cross-index their files and then had to explain to Congress why it didn't work. If we pulled boners like that, there'd still be a Soviet Union. So, as interesting a plotline as it might have made for your next book, Richard, Fletcher's not an intelligence asset, just a crook. Detective Beckett, from your record, you shouldn't have much trouble figuring out who would want to kill a crook."

Rick grins. "And I'm pretty good at helping her with that." He turns slightly toward the espresso machine. "But while you're here, can I make you a latte?" When he turns back, he sees only Kate in the room. "Where'd he go?"

"Probably out the door. I was picking up my mug. I didn't see him leave."

"Damn, I wish the agency had taught me that trick. Then, instead of jumping overboard on a yacht or something, Storm could have just melted into the woodwork. But then, jumping overboard does make for a more exciting scene. And much of what I did get to find out about spy work was pretty dull, a bunch of guys with bad haircuts sitting in front of computers."

"With all the strange plots you put in your books, you must have heard about some kind of action," Kate assumes.

Rick picks up his own mug. "There were definitely moments."

Kate takes a sip of her latte. "Now that we know that Fletcher was conning Elise about being a spy, we need to get back to who would kill him over the con."

"Another run at the grieving fiancée?" Rick asks.

"Even with all the lies he told her, she was closer to him than anyone. She has to know something, even if she doesn't know she knows it."

Elise Finnegan and her friend Sue Vaughn answer the door of the Finnegan's penthouse. Elise nods. "Detective?"

"Can we come in?" Beckett asks.

"Sure," Elise answers way too cheerfully.

Kate and Rick exchange glances before Kate turns back to the fiancée. "We did some checking. I'm sorry, Elise, but Stephen Fletcher wasn't in the CIA. That was just another con he pulled on you."

"OK," Elise acknowledges, "I, um, is that all?"

Kate stares at the young woman. "I don't understand. You fight me tooth and nail that he wasn't a con man, and now you just give in?"

"I just want to put the whole thing behind me," Elise claims.

"There's something you aren't telling us," Rick asserts.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Elise insists.

"Come on, Elise. Tell them the good news," Sue urges.

"What good news?" Rick presses.

Elise crosses her arms over her ample breasts. "Nothing."

"Fletcher's alive," Sue announces.

"Best con ever!" Castle declares.

"So, how did it go, Hunt?" Gray inquires as they meet in the subterranean depths of the CIA's actual New York headquarters.

"Richard had no clue to who I really am," Hunt reports.

"Score one for you," Gray replies. "You got to see your son without endangering him or compromising your cover. That's why you wanted to take my place as his liaison, isn't it, Hunt? And we have to keep an eye on him. You'll see him again from time to time. We don't know just how much pillow talk passed between him and Turner. Sometimes, his stories are a little too much on the nose."

"But he killed off Storm," Hunt considers. "He's writing about Kate Beckett now. His books won't even have anything in them about CIA operations anymore."

"Don't be too sure," Gray cautions. "Our surveillance of overseas chatter picked up a deal with Black Pawn for further distribution of Storm products. They can publish collections of the old Storm novellas, but sooner or later, they're going to want to bring Storm back. Castle will want to keep his work current on CIA procedures. Or he and Beckett may stumble on a case that actually does involve the agency. Once someone is in, they're never really out again."

Lines deepen on Hunts face. "I know that too well. I'll be ready."