A Daughter of a Writer and his Muse

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Kate's POV

Back at the precinct both Kate and Rick was kind of tired of this case already. Not because it didn't have the "story potential" that Rick was always looking for but because it was close to home. Not as close as many other cases they had had but the reason it was so hard on them was because one of their kids was close to it. They didn't want any of their three kids to have to deal with stuff like this and now Johanna would have to try keep Gale together. Kate knew that it would be hard, but she also knew that Johanna could do it and that Gale was lucky to at least have friends who would do anything for him. When Kate lost her mom she totally shut down and the few friends she had had, she had pushed away cause she thought it was the best to keep them out of it. Plus she really needed to know who had stabbed her mother since she find something odd. Her so called friends hadn't tried hard enough to keep her from pushing them away and she knew for a fact that her daughter wouldn't give up on Gale, not that easy anyway. She had both her mother's and father's genes. The sad part about that was that she had gotten their curiosity too. Kate didn't know how to keep her from sneaking after them but she would at least try keep her out of danger. It was kind of weird but it looked like Johanna had gotten all the curiosity cause her brothers wasn't as drifted by it as she was.

Kate had seen it in her daughters eyes ever since the day her and Rick had discussed a crime in the living room in the middle of the night and had been interrupted by the sound of someone making the end of the stairs. Kate smiled at the memory. Johanna had looked so sweet and lit up when her parents turned to her. She had asked them to tell her more about the crime and at the time Rick and Kate hadn't really seen the harm in it. They had picked up the seven year old and brought her to her room. When they had put her to bed and she had begged them to tell her more they had looked at each other and without a word decided to make a bed time story out of it, not giving the details and the violent parts but enough to make her listen carefully. Actually Johanna had even helped them, she had asked them a lot of questions which they hadn't thought of themselves and some of them had led them to the killer.

"What are you smiling at?" Rick asked and Kate could feel his hand slide down her back-pocket in her jeans.

"You remember that time when we told Johanna a bed time story about our crime and she helped us solve it without knowing it?" Kate asked and Rick nodded.

"Yeah, how could I forget. Her whole human being was glowing from excitement" his voice died and he looked at her. "You think it's because of that she sneaked with us to our crime scenes? It's totally our fault" he continued with his poker face.

Kate made Rick stop and look at her.

"Babe, the curiosity was already there, it's in her genes, remember?" Kate said facing her husband.

She could see he thought about it real hard for a second before answering.

"Yeah, you're right" he said and he was on his way leaning down to kiss her lips.

Kate looked at his lips and just waited to get the wonderful tingling feeling when she heard Esposito clear his voice.

"Gate's near" he coughed and Rick pulled away before their lips could touch.

They returned to facing the murder board and tried to find something that could help them.

"Hey! I got something" Ryan said and waved them to come into the room were he had been sitting and watching through the security cameras from the building.

The three of them, Kate, Rick and Esposito, walked over to the room and waited for Ryan to show them what he found. Ryan pulled up a footage of the elevator and pressed play. Kate looked at the time stamp and saw it was about twenty minutes before their victim was murdered. She suddenly saw a man come into the elevator with a black hoody and he sprayed some blue paint over the camera.

"Wait, go back and freeze before he takes down the camera" Kate said and Ryan did as he was told.

"Have you tried to run facial identification?" Kate asked and Ryan nodded.

"No match" he said.

"Send out the picture around the police and tell them to keep their eyes open just in case" Kate said and Ryan answered with "on it".

"We might have a chance getting this killer today" Kate said and hoped she was right.

"Detective Beckett, mr Castle, could you two come into my office?" Gates said while she passed the room and both Kate and Rick could hear it wasn't really a question, it was more of an order.

They looked at each other and then at Ryan and Esposito.

"Don't look at us, how should we know what you've done?" Esposito said with wide eyes.

Kate and Rick made their way to Gates' office and she signaled to them to close the door behind them, so they did. She sat behind her desk and looked down at some papers.

"Have a seat you two" she said without looking up.

Kate and Rick exchanged a look but they both knew they better do as told. When they sat down Gates looked up and took her glasses off wile talking.

"I heard that your daughter visited us this morning, how come?" she asked and raised her eyebrows the way she does when she needs answers.

"Uhm, sir... she uhm..." Kate really tried to find the right words but didn't really know what to say.

"Sir, she wanted a bit adventure and sneaked up on us" Rick just said and Kate mentally face palmed herself.

"She what?" Gates asked and you could really see the surprise in her face.

"Yes sir, but we promise it won't happen again" Kate said and hoped they wouldn't get into trouble.

"Oh she better not. It's hard enough with one Castle here and we certainly don't need a mini version of him playing around at our crime scenes" Gates said and Kate could see that Rick was a little offended plus that he was about to protest.

"Sir, we will handle it. Was that all?" Kate asked before Rick could say something stupid that would get them into moe trouble.

"Yes" Gates nodded.

Kate stood up and took Rick's hand dragging him out of there.

"It's not fair, I help!" Rick exclaimed once they were outside Gates' office and the door was closed.

"Don't get us into more trouble. You know she knows how much you help but just don't, ok?" Kate said and she looked at Rick with a serious face.

"Fine" he pouted and they went to the murder board where Ryan and Esposito stood.

"Did his wife give us anything useful?" Ryan asked and Kate informed them what they had gotten to know at the school.

Rick helped her and they tried to build a story.

"What about the wife and the kid's safety? Do we need to get them into hiding in case the one who did it comes after them?" Ryan asked when Rick and Kate didn't have more to say.

"She didn't thought they were in danger but could you put a police car outside the school to keep an eye on them just in case?" Kate asked and Ryan nodded.

"On it" he said and went to his desk to make a phone call.

What Kate didn't know by that time was that it was too late.