Chapter Text
"Ryan's got the warrant." Beckett pockets her phone.
"That's good, right?" Castle's eyes dart from her to Esposito. The look passing between them strongly suggests it's not good. Not at all. "Right?" he asks again, but they're both ignoring him.
"How long?" Esposito flattens himself against the door and peers sideways through the narrow window.
"Ten minutes." Her face goes from grim to grimmer. "Fifteen, maybe."
"FIfteen?" Esposito hisses. "We don't have five thanks to Ignacio del Rio here."
"Acrobatic cat burglar from Spain," Castle explains for Beckett's benefit, but the hard stare says it's either unnecessary or just unwanted. Both is a definite possibility. He turns back to Esposito. "Flattering. But that lock was about as complex as the one on Alexis's Snoopy diary. How was I supposed to know it would break?"
"But it did break, Castle." Beckett's glare pins him a little bit harder to the cinder block wall. "And you decided to enter."
"You weren't supposed to follow." He throws up his hands. "What is the good of having a civilian on your team if you don't leave the illegal stuff to me?"
Beckett looks like she has some choice words regarding what good this particular civilian is, but Esposito's already piling on.
"Tried to tell her to let you swing, but she's got this funny thing about not ditching people." He advances, one finger extended and a look on his face that has Castle wondering if the American military actually covers killing a man with one finger. "And now? If even one of the upscale mall cops this place is crawling with spots us, that's the whole bust blown. Fruit of the poisoned tree."
"Spots us," Castle repeats as inspiration strikes. He looks himself up and down. The jeans aren't ideal. He'd kill for a tie, or at least a pocket square, but he's pulled off bolder than this. His gaze jumps to Beckett. She's perfect, of course. Tailored today, and on the severe side, but perfect. He grabs her wrist, lacing their fingers together while she's too shocked to protest. "Come on."
He's already leaning into the stairwell door's push bar when Esposito jerks him back by the lapel. "The hell you think you're doing?"
Castle spins to face Beckett, talking fast before his brain catches up with the very scary idea that she's the softer target right now. "What are the two things we need?"
She pulls her hand free and arches one brow. "A silencer and a super-efficient way to dispose of a body?"
"Lanie'd help," Esposito points out.
Beckett hems, like she's considering it. Castle rolls over them both.
"Time and access to Dana Kenyon's office." He clenches his teeth, impatient as they exchange eye rolls. "So we walk through that door." He jabs a finger toward the hallway. "Up-scale couple looking for opportunities to get more involved in the charity scene. But we're a little lost. We need directions. Maybe a lot of directions."
She turns to him, bright eyed. Convinced. "And we get the lay of the land with Dana Kenyon before she has any idea we're on to her."
"Couple? What the hell do I do while you're getting the lay of the land."
They both startle, Esposito having long been forgotten. They look him up and down in tandem, taking in the zip-neck sweater, work boots, and jeans that have seen better days. They look to each other and nod, in unison.
"Hide."
It's working. Castle takes the lead, chatting and chuckling. Screwing his face up and endlessly repeating directions back wrong to one suited security guard and another until finally a tall, slim assistant with perfect hair is announcing them—announcing Mr. and Mrs. Castle—to Dana Kenyon, Trustee of the Manhattan Generations Fund and their Lady-Who-Lunches-of-Interest.
"I'm so delighted you managed to find your way to me." The woman's demeanor as she retakes her seat behind the desk manages to convey the exact opposite. Impeccably politely of course.
"We . . . ah . . ." Castle manages a blush and a sheepish grin. "This is terribly rude, I suppose. No appointment. And the two of us just wandering the hallways, causing a commotion. But you see . . ." He turns to Kate, his voice falling to a hush. "We just came from Dr. Blumberg. She wanted to tell us in person, and well . . . oh, you just want to kill me, don't you sweetheart?"
"Oh, you." She manages a laugh and lands a swat hard enough that Dana Kenyon clears her throat and looks away.
"You see, Ms. Kenyon . . . "
"Oh, Dana, please."
"Dana." Castle leans in, conspiratorial now, and shehates—absolutely hates—that he's good at this and she's not. That's she's stuck just kind of . . . clinging to him and following along. "Will you tell her? I've already been on this merry-go-round once, but Katie, well . . . she just won't hear that we've only got twenty-nine weeks until little Heliotrope makes her appearance, and we're probably already behind in terms of planning for her education."
Heliotrope.
Heliotrope?!
Kate's fingers tighten on his triceps as the word echoes and echoes and echoes. She feels him wince. To his credit, though, she's pretty sure no one not as painfully familiar with his every tic as she is would notice.
"Heliotrope." Kenyon—Dana—manages a perfectly bred smile. "What lovely name."
"It's my Katie's favorite flower." He turns to her, so honestly adoring that she can't help but blush. "So when the doctor handed over that envelope. . ." He pats her absolutely flat stomach.
"No more callers, please." Kate manages to chirp the words even as she catches his fingers in a vice grip that says I WILLMAKE YOU PAY in no uncertain terms.
"Well." The woman recovers. For the most part, anyway. "Heliotrope. That's just splendid news, I'm sure. But I'm not quite clear on how our fund fits in?"
Kate isn't sure about that either. She's not sure at all what possessed him to start spinning tales about little Heliotrope and her education to a woman who almost certainly murdered an intern to cover up the money she's been laundering through her charity. Worse, she's not sure Castle isn't just . . . possessed. He's way too into the story, moving disturbingly smoothly into the next phase of the con.
"Dana—I have the feeling you know me. My . . . reputation?"
The two of them share a look that suggests Dana is very familiar with his reputation, though maybe not quite as familiar as she'd like to be. It raises Kate's hackles and she's suddenly throwing herself into the part, hooking her arm through Castle's and practically resting her chin on his shoulder as she leans in.
"Oh, but, sweetheart. That's all . . ." She gives a small shake of the head and shoots Dana a look that's shy on the surface, warning underneath. "He's a changed man."
"I am. Since we met. I am," he says warmly, his eyes fixed on her, intent enough that her own drop.
She nudges his shoulder with her own, cursing her stubbornly silent phone and hoping to hell he's not on the verge of inventing an older brother for Heliotrope or something equally insane. It takes him a second. More than a second, and he's so freaking earnest she could choke him, but he picks up the cue. Eventually.
"A changed man," he repeats, patting Kate's thigh. "But the truth is, before Katie, I sort of fell out of the habit of . . . giving." The pause gives enough weight to the last word that Dana Kenyon sits up taller. "And I'm not naive. We've got our sights set on Columbus Park West for nursery school and that's going to take some work on our image. We're not just interested in writing checks, you see. I want the world to see how wonderful—how giving—Katie is, so we were wondering if you could talk to us about some of your more visible trustees?"
He casts a glance at the old-fashioned Rolodex. Dana nods briskly. "Yes. I understand. You're looking for meaningful work, and perhaps some introductions?"
"Yes, exactly. Introductions!" Kate doesn't have to pretend to gush, relieved as she is that they're doing something that looks like investigation if she squints at it.
Kenyon picks up the handset of her desk phone, and with the push of a single button, initiates a low-voiced conversation with her assistant.
Castle's tipping his head toward something—a thick stack of pages on the credenza along the wall opposite them—in a gesture do obvious that Kate's just about to give in to the urge to kick him when voices loud enough to carry through the anteroom stop all three of them cold.
"Javier!" Castle stomps on Beckett's words before she even knows what they were going to be. "Katie, doesn't that sound just like Javier? But he and Kevin . . . Oh . . ." He fumbles his phone out, like something's just occurred to him. "Would you look at that?"
He tips the phone toward her. A text to Esposito: Shut up. You're with us. We're on it. Shut. Up.
"I tried to use that pin thing with the map." Castle shakes his head like he's exasperated with himself. "We're meeting Javier for lunch and I sent him this address. You don't mind if I just . . .?"
He pushes up from the chair without waiting for an answer and slips out into the front office.
"Javier?" Dana Kenyon's polite facade is a little the worse for wear. Her voice is sharp enough to snap Kate out of the longing look she's casting at the door.
"Friend," she says, too loud. "Javier is a good, good friend."
"And obviously you wanted to share your news." Kate can't quite tell if the woman is probing or just making polite small talk.
"News!" That's louder still. Jerkier, but the voices have all but faded and she wants to know if that's good or bad. "Yes, we wanted Javier and his . . ." Sound swells again. Pleasantries now, though, and it's distracting as all hell. "His partner to be the first . . ."
"Partner." Castle sweeps back in. He gives a low chuckle as he stands behind her and rests his hands on her shoulders. '"Fiancé," he says, chiding her. "You know Kevin's going to make an honest man of Javier just as soon as the State of New York will let him." He turns to Dana with an apologetic look. "Heliotrope's godfathers. We're hoping anyway, hence lunch."
"Lunch," she repeats as though it all makes perfect sense now. Castle has her back on an even keel, just like that, and Kate hates him a little bit more.
"I am so sorry about the mix-up," she hears him say. She takes a flying leap at the conversation.
"Mix-up! Oh, don't tell me Kevin came here, too?" She moves to stand, but Castle's hand is heavy. "Rick," she says it through her teeth, and the honey she adds after the fact doesn't accomplish much beyond the dopey grin on his face. "Aren't we late for lunch if Kevin is already here?"
"We're fine!" He waves it off, circling to sit beside her again. "Javi's meeting Kevin downstairs right now." He leans into the words and tightens his hold on her hand. "The two of them will nip off for a little alone time—you know they keep busy—and Dana can still show us those materials she was going to . . . Oh." He breaks off as if he's just thought of something else. "Oh, Dana, you are just going to hate us." He shifts in his seat toward the door. "I'm afraid Javier needed to borrow your assistant for directions. This really is the most confusing building."
Kate doesn't know if Dana Kenyon is suspicious or just sick of them. She rises, looking more than a little dazed and murmurs, "Of course," as she heads into her assistant's office at the front of the suite.
"Heliotrope!?" The back of Kate's hand connects with his chest the second the door snicks closed. "What is wrong with you?"
"It was off the top of my head," he says absently as he darts behind the desk and goes straight for the credenza. "And she bought it." He casts a glance around the more-than-a-little-too-too office. "At first it seemed like the kind of name she'd buy, but it's growing on me."
"Growing?" She glares at him hard enough it actually kind of hurts.
"Like you really ought to be by eleven weeks." He circles his fingers in the general direction of her abdomen. "Money launderer she may be, but she's not the sharpest knife in the drawer." As if the desk between them might save him, he risks a glance at her. "Would you like to help?" He gestures to the file folders and stacks of papers peppering the flat surfaces. "We've got maybe three minutes of snooping and maybe ten for probingly clueless questions about probable accomplices before Esposito, Ryan, and the warrant make it up this floor."
"Fiancés." She sounds stupid, spitting out single words like this. She shakes herself and sets to work, moving efficiently from pile to pile, her mind taking in names and dates and transaction amounts and somehow still reeling all the while. "What was that even about?"
"Los padrinos?" He flashes a grin over his shoulder. "That was just for fun."