CASTLE

Flowers For Your Grave - Chapter 7

Rick put down the piece of paper aside once again. There was something about the woman in front of him which told him that she was more than she let on.

"Well, you're not bridge and tunnel. No trace of the boroughs when you talk, so that means Manhattan, that means money."

He was not wrong. She smiled at him, impressed. But she didn't need to tell him that.

"You went to college, probably a pretty good one. You had options. Yeah, you had lots of options, better options, more socially acceptable options, and you still chose this."

He was observant. It was true. She chose a different major in college. She did have other plans.

He continued, all while staring into her eyes hoping to find answers to everything about her.

"That tells me something happened. Not to you. No, you're wounded, but you're not that wounded. No, it was somebody you cared about. It was someone you loved. And you probably could have lived with that, but the person responsible was never caught."

Kate and Rick both somehow knew what he said was correct. The smile she wore at the beginning had disappeared from her pretty face.

He realized he overstepped, hit a sore spot in her heart. Probably a wound that never healed.

"And that, Detective Beckett, is why you're here." He said looking back at the letter not wanting to say anything else that may hurt her.

"Cute trick.", she said after a heavy pause. "Don't think you know me." she continued as she looked down, not wanting to make any eye contact with a man who could read her like an open book.

"The point is, there's always a story... you just have to find it." he said, not wanting to continue a conversation that made her uncomfortable. He was, after all, a person she just met that day.

"I think I just did." she replied staring at a letter she picked up.

The letter she picked up was from a yellow legal pad with a drawing of the Tisdale crime scene. Roses on her body. Sunflowers on her eyes.