Finding home

Chapter 3 - Story

Lanie had left us to drive to the precinct to help out our colleagues with the crime they're stuck on. So we had said goodbye and then me and Alexis had headed up for the apartment. When we got up I had read a few chapters in her father's book before she had stopped me by curling into my arms and tried her best to hide her tears. That's when I put the book away and pulled her closer to me, trying my best to comfort her.

"Schh, it's okay, I'm here for you" I whispered in her ear and she nodded.

"I know, but he's not" she cried quietly and I couldn't help but myself let a tear fall down my cheek.

It hurt so much knowing the pain she was in. We sat like that for a while, just taking in each other's presence. I could feel her breathing calm down and before I knew it she had fallen asleep in my arms, something she had never done before. To my relief I had my computer on the coffee table by the couch so I could reach it with ease. I checked my email and found the evidence Esposito had sent me. They were looking at a woman in her twenties who got shot in her stomach and had bled to death. She was bruised as if she had been in a fight right before she got killed. In the papers stood her name, Marah Adams, and it also said she had been found by her best friend. Apparently she didn't have a boyfriend, at least according to everyone Esposito and Ryan had talked to, and she was very shy. When I got to the last page of the notes Esposito had sent me I saw a piece of paper with something written on it. According to Esposito the note made no sense but that perhaps I would be able to understand what it meant.

'On the first day she will cry, on the first week she will see, on the first month she will speak, on the first year she will be ours' it said.

At first I didn't understand one word on that paper. It was probably written by our victim because Esposito wrote they had compared it to her handwriting in her notebooks. Suddenly Alexis took in a deep breath and I couldn't concentrate on the evidence anymore. I thought about what she had said today, about her wanting to see her father, about her missing him. I couldn't help but open a tab on internet to go into google and search for him. I clicked into his official site, the one I had been into so many times before.

'Full name: Richard Edgar Alexander Rodgers Castle
New releases: Wild Storm'

I didn't find anything I hadn't seen before, except that he had canceled all his book signings. It didn't say why but I had a feeling I knew, the day he started canceling them was the day he lost his daughter. I clicked up the pictures there were of the man and I couldn't help but remember that first time I met him. He had seemed like such a gentleman, what the hell happened to him? I clicked out of his official site and searched for the most recent articles there were of him.

'Richard Castle haven't showered in days... maybe even weeks!'

'What really happened to Richard Castle?'

'No news on the canceled book signings, Richard Castle gone?'

'Richard Castle, career over?'

I clicked into one of the articles and saw a picture of the man. He actually did look like he hadn't showered in weeks, he had even grown a small beard. I couldn't find anything on Alexis, it was like the reporters didn't know she existed, or they didn't know she was the reason he acted this way.

"Is that dad?" Alexis's voice startled me and I immediately closed the computer.

"Sweetie, you scared me, I didn't know you woke up" I said and she looked up at me as I looked down, into her ocean blue eyes which I knew came from her father.

"Sorry" she mumbled as she hugged closer to me again.

"It's okay honey" I stroke her hair.

"Did you find him?" she asked quietly and I gave her a confusing look.