The Coming Future (A Castle Fanfiction)

Part Twenty-Two: Puppet Show

"Sir, we've got something," Beckett said as she poked her head into her boss' office. The woman followed her detective out to the bullpen where she stood with Murphy and Carpenter. When Gates was in with the group, Beckett spoke out, "Alright guys, tell her what we know."

A voice over the phone spoke out, "Sarah has an adopted sister named Isabella who goes by Isa who is seventeen."

Melissa's statement was then followed by Valgora's, "Gerick found his daughter, Isabella, who would now be seventeen, and according to Rachel she is highly gifted in the technology zone."

"According to Mrs. Drobney, Isa, her adopted daughter, is not only gifted with technology, but she has hacked video games, Facebook and Twitter accounts, emails accounts and the school's mainframe," Melissa continued.

"So Sarah's adopted sister, Isa, is also Gerick's daughter? And Gerick's daughter is our hacker?" Gates asked in absolute surprise.

Beckett nodded, saying, "It seems like it. Plus, she was sexually abused by her father as a child when she was in foster care. She could have easily developed a form of psychopathy or sociopathy that would have allowed her to do this to someone she knew for so long. She also would have been the perfect way to lure Sarah or Destiny away without arousing their suspicion. Valgora and Harris are on their way to her school now to pick her up."

"Alright," Gates said, "Let's bring her in easy and get this case over with." With this, Gates turned and walked away, calling over her shoulder, "And once you're finished with that girl, all of you are to go home and take the day off. And I don't want to see my people back here until Monday."

They all answered, "Yes sir," not quite in unison, but close to. When the door closed to her Captain's office, Kate was greeted by the sight of her fiancé and Maddie coming off the newly arrived elevator. She smiled a bit when she saw the two of them laughing and was delighted to say, "Castle, we figured to out."

He looked at her and knew that they'd agreed to keep Maddie outside the loop from the loose accomplice. Instead of asking what he wanted to ask, he looked at Javi and asked, "Sito, would you take Maddie into the break room and show her how to use the espresso machine?" Espo did as was asked of him without question and lead the girl off into the other room. The moment she was outside of ear shot, Beckett filled him in. He took all of this in and simply looked at his wife with a troubled look. She questioned him and he replied, "Does this seem a bit... easy to you? I mean, this all seems a bit anticlimactic."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Murphy asked, confused by his trouble.

Beckett, on the other hand, had more experience with him. She knew enough about him to know better than to push aside his instincts about these kinds of killers. "What are you thinking, babe?"

"I don't know," he replied, mulling over the problems in his mine. "It's just- she hacked into our security system during the day and uploaded these videos to our server. She hacked into the security cameras at One P.P. She wrote on the walls of the stable when she would have been in school. If she can do all of that in a classroom, I'd be shocked. Are we sure she's at the school?"

"No," Ryan replied, "That's why Burns is going to the coffee shop across from the elementary school that said was Isa's favorite place to be. Just to be safe." The writer still didn't seem satisfied.

Again he argued, "No, there's something wrong, something we're missing. She knows we're closing in on her, but yet she's still killing. She still took the time and effort to write our names on the body and on the wall. She took the risk of killing someone who we'd be able to personally link her to. She's not backing down or caving in, but she's actually playing with us more and more. No, something else is about to happen. I can feel it."