750. Chapter 750

After Reckoning

Episode 7.15

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I reckon I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: See above.

"What are you rebelling against, Jerry?"

Tyson laughed and gave the response from the old Marlon Brando movie. "What'ya got?" He sneered.

"Why are these two so important? She's not your type at all and he's certainly not your type. So, why."

He ran his hands through her hair. "One, they screwed up one of my plans. I spent four years in prison for nothing. I got Marcus Gates to kill and then to confess to the 3XK murders so I could just disappear and get on with my life. And then Castle and his girlfriend screwed me up. All that work for nothing."

"You should have just killed him then and gotten on with your real work."

He shook his head. "Killing is just the end. The killing itself is anticlimactic." He thought for a second." Do you have any idea how many people I've killed?"

"No. I don't think you ever told me."

Tyson thought again and laughed. "I don't know. I really don't know. I remember the first couple clearly."

His mind flashed back to when he was nineteen and drinking on a false ID in a crummy bar in Virginia. Some dumb blonde was flirting with him. She didn't look much like his mother, but he felt a rage start to build up inside of him. She just went on and on, acting just like a slut. The way his mother would act when a man came by. He finally smiled at her and suggested they leave. He took her around back and then began slamming her head against the brick building until she was dead. Then he jumped in his car and drove for thirty six hours straight to get away.

"God, I was stupid and careless. Half the damned bar had seen me leave with her. I had her blood all over me and I was too scared to even think to steal her purse. Just dumb luck that I got away."

"But you learned, didn't you? You're the best."

Tyson shook his head slowly. "I was just as stupid the second time. I picked her up hitch hiking. Another blonde slut. I parked like I wanted to make out and rammed an ice pick in her ear. She bled all over the car seat and I just left her body by the side of the road."

He looked up and thought. "I'm not sure about the third one. I remember killing a blonde and finding that she was wearing a wig. She had black hair. It took me a couple of years to learn to plan, to consider, to understand that it wasn't the killing I wanted, it was what led up to the killing. Then I became a master."

"But why Castle? You didn't explain that."

"Because he gave me something I never had before. I may have forgotten some of the early kills, but I've killed well over a hundred women and a couple of men who got in my way. But until Castle I never really had an adversary. The police would get all excited about a half a dozen killings in their town, run around in circles and then I'd move on. And the police were just as clueless when I left as when I started killing. Defeating their feeble efforts to stop me was nothing, but Castle was different. He saw I was 3XK, he figured out why I had given the gun to Phillip Lee. Of course I was happy that Lee is in prison for the rest of his life, but I knew Castle had figured out how my mind works. And, in spite of everything I did, he still didn't believe I was dead when I fell off that bridge. He understood me. Of course, that didn't help him any when I stole all of the NYPD's records right out from under their empty headed noses."

"That was so exciting, Jerry. Watching them try and fail to understand what we were doing. I've never been as happy as I am with you."

"And now were ready for the finale. I prove to Castle and his little bimbo just why I'm the better man." He smiled at her. "And you're the better woman."

And so it began and the ending came in a house on the Hudson River.

Jerry Tyson is elated. This is better than any of his prior murders. The other murders were women who were so stupid that they wouldn't have understood him even if he'd been able to take the time to explain himself to them. But Castle was smart. He understood. Tyson laughed. He didn't understand as well as he was about to, but Castle would understand just who and what Jerry Tyson was quite soon. He looked down at the gun in his hand. In a way it was too bad that he had to shoot Castle. Something much longer lasting and slower was really in order. But, he and Kelly had things to do and places to go.

He hardly heard Castle talking to him. Just more desperation.

"The truth is, I lured you here. To watch you die." Castle pauses. "Are we clear?"

"Clear about what?" Tyson is slightly puzzled. The one thing that is clear is that Castle is about to watch his wife die and then be killed.

"Then take the shot."

For just a moment a horrible thought goes through Tyson's mind. He couldn't have set me up. Then the bullet slams into his chest and an awful realization comes over him. This can't be happening to me. He turns and tries to fire, but it's already too late. He falls over.

Kelly Nieman's elation is already fading. She's tried repeatedly to call Jerry, but he doesn't answer. Something is very wrong. She must go to him. Whatever had happened that bastard Castle was part of it. She picks up a scalpel.

"I'm afraid it's time, Detective." She reaches across to sever the detective's jugular, but the woman grabs her hand. She's pulled forward and on top of Beckett, who somehow bends Nieman's arm so that the scalpel slices down her ribs, then bites into her stomach muscles. She staggers back and realizes that she's lost the scalpel. Beckett is using it to slice her other bonds. Nieman staggers towards Beckett, but she's already lost too much blood. "I'll still kill you."

Beckett is off the table and facing Nieman. In seconds, Kelly Nieman is on the floor, bleeding from several gaping wounds. How can this end like this? How can we lose?

The last thing she sees is Kate Beckett standing over her.