Lanie just peered up at her friend. Katherine Beckett, hardcore detective, only let her hair fall down and joke when work wasn’t involved Katherine Beckett, was making bets at a crime scene. Full out cracking jokes and being all light and happy at a crime scene. Since when does she act like Richard Castle at a time like this? Granted, Lanie liked that her friend wasn’t being quite so serious. She knew that Kate always remembered her mom’s murder whenever she walked onto a new crime scene. It’s part of why she always liked Castle. He brought a lighter aspect to her and Kate’s job, annoying as he may be. He helped Kate. So Lanie liked him.
But what was this about playing for pride or clothing and Kate going along with it? And with a smile. A smile she tried to hide, but Lanie could see the sparkle in Kate’s eyes. Javier was right, something was up.
“What’ve we got, Lanie?” Kate asked her. You tell me, Lanie thought. But she made the decision to play along. For now. She could always resort to cornering Kate down in the morgue. Or Castle. Cornering either of them would work. Castle would probably break faster. But for now Lanie would act as though she didn’t see a thing.
“Jane Doe. Preliminary exam shows that she bled out from a stab wound in her abdomen. I put time of death around 2 AM this morning.”
“Body drop?”
“The amount of blood around the body suggests she bled out here.”
“She looks so peaceful,” Castle suddenly said. Both women turned to face him. “I’m just saying, she was stabbed. That’s got to be pretty painful. But she looks so peaceful.”
“Well, Castle,” Lanie explained, “By the time you reach the final stages of dying and you’re on that cusp, you don’t feel the pain. It’s a sort of final defense mechanism. So she was peaceful.”
Kate looked at Castle questioningly. “You okay, Castle?”
Castle looked to Kate quickly and held her eyes. Lanie noted how both their features softened. “Yeah, it’s just—she’s so young and her eyes are closed. Not many of our victims look like this. She could be sleeping.”
Lanie watched as Kate looked back down to their victim, her features clouding over in sadness and anger. Anyone else looking at her, Castle excluded, wouldn’t see the change. But Lanie knew her best friend well. The girl before them was in her early twenties with long, dark brown hair and dark blue eyes. Or they used to be dark blue. Now they were just clouded. After checking them, Lanie had closed her eyes again so Kate could see the body as it had been found. Their Jane Doe was a beautiful young lady, albeit small and petite, though she was muscular for her size.
Lanie watched as something seemed to click in Kate’s eyes and heard her friend respond softly but with determination, “But she’s not sleeping, Castle. Someone took her life from her and those who loved her. It’s our job to figure out who.” Castle nodded, a frown still on his face. His mind was still elsewhere. “Anything else, Lanie?” Kate asked.
“Nothing I can give you here. I’ll call you when I’ve finished back at the morgue.”
Kate nodded to her then turned to her partner. “Come on, Castle, let’s go see what Ryan and Esposito have dragged up.”
“You okay?” Kate asked again. She knew that Castle would tell her the truth now, though she suspected she already knew the answer.
“Yeah, it’s just that she’s so young,” Castle replied.
“And you thought of Alexis,” Kate finished, letting her voice communicate that she understood. She couldn’t touch him here or speak the words that might help his anxiety, but she hoped he could hear in her voice everything she wished she could do or say. Kate watched as some of the tension relaxed out of his shoulders and felt her own fall slightly as the muscles relaxed.
