Surprise Castle ✔️

Chapter 49

Beckett pov...

We get a call about a new murder, we head to the scene to find a couple shot dead in the middle of a farm. Lanie sees us and says one shot to the leg and then a shot to the stomach in both of them. No ID's on the victims but running prints and through facial recognition.

We examine the scene and try to talk to anyone around but the few houses we can see are all empty and no sign if the person who called in the murders. An anonymous caller said there were two bodies at this location before hanging up.

We head back to the prescient to start looking into the farm were the bodies were found and see what else we can find out. The farm was owned by Betty and John Walman who recently passed away, they have no known family so the land is currently is not owned by anyone while lawyers are looking for wills to figure out where the land ends up.

 Lanie calls up down to the lab, we get down and she tells us what information she found. The victims were shot by the same gun, the bullets are being run through ballistics. She also has the ID for us, 36 year old Leah Mathews and 40 year old Nolan Mathews. The couple have been married for 12 years.

Castle and I go back to our desks to share the information with Ryan and Espo. We add the information to the murder board. Espo says " Leah and Nolan have no children, they have been off the grid for the last 5 years. Their old neighbour Piper Lane still lives in the apartment and has been there since the two moved in"

I nod and say "bring her in, hopefully she can tell us where Leah and Nolan ended up".

Castle and I look for more information while the boys go and see Piper. They emptied out their bank accounts into some offshore bank account. They either sold or gave away everything they owned before they moved.  The boys get back and Ryan says "Piper said that Leah and Nolan left to join a community where you live together and work for each other". 

We have the name of the community and it looks like a cult. You give up everything you had and join them, they provide a home, food and clothes and in return you work for them and follow their rules. We write the information on the board before I say "we can go to the group tomorrow but now it's getting late so go home for the day"

We head home and spend time with Cosmo, Johanna and Hunter, we have dinner, bath time and play with their toys before they go to bed. Rick gets inspiration for a new chapter in his book and goes and writes for a bit before going to bed. I lie there with Rick moving around next to me, I know he's not sleeping and I'm not going to fall asleep with him anytime soon. I turn on the light and sit up. I say "Babe what's going on?"

He sits up and says "I've been thinking a lot lately about work and this case is getting to me"

I ask "what do you mean?"

He says "this couple left their lives to go into a community where it should be safe and peaceful and they end up dead. This job we has so many risks over the cases, every case now I see the victim and think what if one of us died or even both of us, what would happen to our family and everyone else."

I look him in the eye and say "Rick we have always survived, we have each others backs and so do the boys, no matter where we work one of us could still die from a random accident or health we just have a few more reasons"

He doesn't say anything just nods. I say "we can talk more in the morning but right now we are both tired and it's been a long day"

I turn out the light and we lie down cuddled together. We wake up in the morning and get the kids ready before taking them to daycare and we head to work. 

Espo, Ryan, Castle and I head to the cult and talk to the leader about the victims. He has nothing to say about them but we talk to some of the other people from who are there. We interview people they worked with, were close to or lived in the house next to them. It seemed like they fit in with everyone here and had no issues. Espo comes back and says "I think I fond something, the vics were seen going into one of the houses and there was loud yelling before they stormed out. They didn't hear what they were yelling about but I know which house"

I nod and say "let's go"   

We head into the house and search it, we find a basement and a guy is down there looking after drug plants. We arrest him and Ryan says "I think I know what the fighting was about"

We get back to the prescient and Ryan and Espo take the guy we found out is called Marco Ready into interrogation. It turns out that Marco was growing and selling drugs to get money of his own. Nolan wanted to turn him in and but Marco would let him. After the argument Leah and Nolan went to the farm to tell someone outside of the community, he shot them in the leg as they tried to run away before he shot them again.

We finish the paperwork and head home, Martha wanted to spend time with the kids so she has taken them out for the afternoon. Rick and I sit down on the couch, I say to him "are you really thinking about quitting?"

He says "I don't know, maybe"

I say "this would be harder to give up than you realize, what would you do instead?"  

He says "I know, maybe write full time, spend more time with you and the kids"

I say "babe I can't do this without you"

Authors note...

Here is a new chapter, sorry for the long wait. I no longer have the time to write anymore. I will try to get more chapters written. Thank you for sticking with this story, hope you enjoyed the chapter.