70. Chapter 70

Chapter 70

Lanie appeared at the door in record time, joining the mood of both somber relief and utter celebration.

Josef answered the door with Kate right behind him, and Lanie rushed past him and grabbed Kate in a bone-crushing hug.

"Breath, Lanie. Breath. I do need breath," Kate said, laughing.

Lanie loosened her grip but didn't let go. "I'm so happy for you." Stepping back and letting her friend out of her clutches, she looked around the room. "I'm so happy for all of you." Then she set her sights on Jim Beckett. "You're not escaping, either, Mr. Beckett." She threw her arms around his neck and he bent to greet her. Congratulations, Granddad."

"Thank you, Lanie. I'm glad you got here for this."

"Me, too." Working her way across the room to the kitchen where Castle was still standing, she gave him the same treatment. He bent to accept her enthusiastic hug as she said, "Castle, you get to be a daddy again. I know you love that."

"I do. We're surprised, but we're both excited."

"Speaking of excited, I get the feeling that having a sibling moving in so soon after she leaves for college isn't going to be a problem for your daughter."

Alexis laughed, and Castle answered, "Not that we've noticed so far, no."

Josef, it's good to see you. Where is that fine looking brother of yours…not that you aren't easy on the eyes, too, understand."

Josef smiled at Lanie's comment. "Ahmed will be here later this afternoon when I leave."

"Lanie, can we talk to you a minute before we get back to celebrating?" Kate asked, looking more serious.

"Sure, Honey. Is anything wrong?"

"No. We just want some medical opinions."

"Okay."

"Be right back," Castle told the others, and he and Kate took Lanie into the study.

They asked questions about how Kate's ordeal at the hands of Vulcan Simmons would affect her, and how it would affect their baby. Lanie answered all the questions she felt confident answering. Then she called a friend from college, who was now an OB/GYN, to verify a few things she wanted to be sure were correct. She noted that there were things she had to know about pregnancies, babies, and children in order to do her job; but other areas related to mothers and babies were definitely a part of treating the living, and she didn't want to make any mistakes with her answers.

"Well, that's three doctors who gave you the same answers," Castle told his worried wife. Actually four…Lanie called another one. Are you feeling better now?"

Before she could answer, Lanie fixed her with a Lanie Parish stare that was practically visible with one hand on its hip saying, "You hauled me in here to ask me all these questions, and don't intend to believe me?"

Appearing to go with erring on the side of caution, Kate nodded her head and said, "Yeah. Much better," and thanked her friend.

"So it looks like girls' night is reduced to ice cream or hot chocolate for a while?" Lanie asked.

"Might be," Kate answered with a smile.

Castle laughed, thanked the ME, and said he was going back out with the others. Kate and Lanie talked for a few more minutes before Kate received another hug and they returned, too.

xxxxx

Bracken was taken to the twelfth until the FBI operation set up there could be moved. He was booked and under guard. Surprisingly, he seemed to be blissfully unaware of the state of his Scarsdale operation, or of the wealth of evidence the FBI agents had against him. Out of sight of the cameras, he finally spoke, arrogantly sneering at Shaw and Avery that their careers were history, that they had no idea of how much trouble they were in.

"You mean from our superiors who are on your payroll…the ones who were arrested early this morning?" Avery asked. "They're no longer a concern to our careers."

"Your operation in Scarsdale, however, is history," Shaw told him with a smug smile. "That was taken down last night, and Vulcan Simmons as well as your staff of contract killers are all in custody. We have evidence of your financial connections to all of them, as well as your ownership of a long-term, international drug operation. You didn't make it easy, but you aren't the only one who knows people smart enough to understand how money is moved."

"And don't count on your judges to save you, either," Avery warned. "We know who they are, too. Not good for their careers, either. Among those of us here in this room, the career that's over is yours. If there's anything you'd like to say, we'll listen; but we have enough evidence that we don't really need your help."

"I want to call my attorney. I need my phone."

Shaw handed him a phone from the NYPD office. "If you don't have the number memorized, I'll find it for you. Your phones, as well as electronic devices from your homes and offices are all in FBI custody until further notice."

"You have no right…"

"We had warrants…most of them executed last night, others ongoing. All the copies are here. I'm sure your lawyer will find them in order."

Bracken was obviously seething, but he went silent again.

"Call your lawyer. We'll be back," Shaw told him. While Bracken was waiting for his lawyer, Vulcan Simmons and the other major players from the Scarsdale operation had already contacted theirs.

Shaw and Avery brought Simmons in for questioning and were still getting an arrogant response very much like Bracken's. They were told they didn't know who they were dealing with and that he would be free before they finished questioning him. His attorney entered the room right behind the agents and put a restraining hand on his client's arm as Simmons let the agents know he had no fear of them.

Avery typed something into his computer and brought up a video of Bracken's arrest. "Is this who you're depending on for protection?" he asked and turned his computer around. "This is from about forty-five minutes ago."

Simmons didn't want to believe it, but his attorney confirmed it for him, telling him he had seen the live footage that morning and that he verified that it had happened. The agents him that his protection from the law was gone, that it would be in his best interest to tell them everything they needed to know before Bracken had the chance to try to pin whatever he could on Simmons. Being caught red-handed ordering the death of a police lieutenant would be enough to buy Vulcan Simmons time behind bars, to say nothing of her near drowning and the drug operation. But when the money trail tying him to Bracken, drugs, and murder all the way back to the nineties was thrown at him, his attorney advised that he start talking.

"If it comes to you or Bracken, where do you think you stand in his mind?" Shaw asked. "He'd have you killed in a New York minute if he could still get away with it. The Scarsdale compound was lost under your watch, and his drug dealing was exposed as being connected to his campaigns. His political career is over, a lot of his network is exposed and discredited and in line for arrest, his power is gone…and he's going to blame you."

Both men had ample knowledge of Bracken and his methods…and that he would do anything to avoid accepting blame.

"At least you can take comfort in the fact that this money trail will take Bracken down with you." Avery encouraged.

Simmons growled in anger. "I'm surprised Detective Beckett isn't here to gloat."

"That may happen later. In front of law enforcement witnesses, you saw to it that she spent the night in the hospital last night, and then ordered her death. We're recording this conversation. Now start talking. We'll ask questions when we need to."

xxxxx

The family atmosphere at the loft and the feeling of celebration continued, and Castle ordered lunch delivered for them.

Kate had filled Lanie in on the Bracken developments, but when they realized the ME hadn't seen the arrest video, Martha found it for her to watch. "Yes!" Lanie responded excitedly. "It's about time. And Jordan made sure he knew you were represented there."

"Yeah. I admit that felt good," Kate answered.

The ME was tired from her busy night, but she was excited enough to stay a while longer before she finally admitted to the need for sleep, and Kate and Castle walked her to the door.

"Thanks for all the answers to the many questions." Kate said appreciatively.

"From me, too," Castle added.

"One more piece of unsolicited advice," Lanie answered. "Judging from what you've told me about yesterday and this morning, you spent yesterday on a simple mission that went all kinds of wrong. Then you spent some intense time thinking on your feet through a pretty rough situation, and that was followed by some heavy abuse and a night at the hospital. I doubt you got enough rest there, either; and you started the morning with Montgomery's tape and hustling to the precinct. Then all this. You and baby Castle in there are probably running on adrenalin after all that, and it isn't going to benefit either of you. You don't have to send everybody home, but close yourself in your room and take a long nap. Doctor's orders. All these people will understand." Looking across the room, she said, "Okay, Josef, I'm leaving. Do your thing." Then she hugged Kate and Castle one more time and said, "See you soon. And congratulations…on all the good news today."

Josef opened the door, checked, and ushered Lanie out.

When she was gone, Castle told the others, "Neither Kate nor I have had much sleep since… I guess it hasn't been that long, but it seems like three days or more. We're both exhausted, and she needs rest way more than I do. We're going to get some sleep. Keep doing what you're doing. Within the next few minutes, we'll probably be too asleep to know."

Once behind closed doors, Kate and Castle fell into each other's arms, holding each other tightly.

"Hell of a couple of days, huh?" he said, and she nodded against his chest.

"Can Bracken still put together enough to make another attempt on my life?" she asked tiredly. "We have so much more at stake now. What if somebody at the hospital let the information about the baby out? That could be used against us."

"I tried to take care of all that. Before Dr. Kovacs left, I took him aside and explained that the same man responsible for your shooting was associated with the current problem…and that we don't want this pregnancy made public yet because we don't want him to have any more leverage because of the baby. Since we didn't know ourselves until last night, if anybody we don't tell finds out, the source of information would have to be this hospital. I told him I'm not prone to lawsuits, but to let the administrator know what I said. To be sure that anybody with access to that information knows that if it's leaked before we announce it ourselves, and if anything threatens my wife or child because of it, there will be no place for them to hide. And the hospital won't be happy about the results, either."

"You had time to do all that?"

"It didn't take long. I was very concise, and judging from the response, convincing. And he knows the security concerns from the last time you were here. He understood."

"Thank you."

"Kate, you need sleep. Come on. Let's talk about this later. Get out of those clothes and get in bed."

"Mmmmm… Bed sounds wonderful."

"Yeah, it does." Castle backed away and started unbuttoning his shirt, and Kate slipped her sweater off over her head. They both shed their shoes and socks and jeans, and Castle pulled the covers back. They wearily slipped between the sheets and automatically gravitated to each other in the middle, then snuggled against one another, and were asleep in no time.

xxxxx

When they went back to work a day later, Esposito saw Kate exit the elevator alone and was immediately back in his snit from two days before.

"So where's your boy this morning?" he sniped.

"Somebody asked him to sign a book for a relative, so Castle stopped in Robbery with him for a minute. He'll be here soon. What's got you all prickly this early in the morning?"

"I'll tell you what's got me angry," he snarled as Ryan watched, looking concerned. "You've been trying for years to get your mother's killer. You would have been safe going in with the FBI, and that husband of yours talked you out of going with them when you had the chance. He had no right…"

"That husband of mine? You can stop right there," Beckett answered through gritted teeth. "The decision was entirely mine. He didn't ask me not to go. Even though I'm sure he didn't want me to, he let me choose."

"Oh, yeah?" His challenging attitude wasn't attractive. "And what would make the Kate Beckett I know miss the chance to cuff Bracken and read him his rights?"

"The fact that she found out the night before that she's pregnant," she whispered harshly. "And her baby had been through enough with her the day before. I wasn't going to take another chance on something going wrong."

"You're…"

"Keep it quiet," she commanded, still whispering angrily. We're not telling anybody yet." There was a short pause as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and settled down. "That certainly wasn't the way I wanted to tell you guys." She paused and took a steadying breath. "Castle has every right to protect his wife and child, but he still trusted me enough to let me make the right decision on my own. You owe my husband an apology."

"I'm happy for you, Beckett," Ryan said quietly with a smile. "Jenny and I are hoping she'll be pregnant soon. Maybe our kids can grow up playing together."

"Castle and I would love that," she answered, softening again. "I do need to tell the captain, though. I'm afraid you two are going to be stuck with me on desk duty again."

Esposito pulled himself far enough out of his surly fit of pique to whisper, "Pregnant?"

"Yes," she answered. "And don't question things between my husband and me again, Javi. We have a good understanding. We balance each other. If I think he's being too overbearing or too protective, I tell him. If he thinks I'm being too reckless, or pushing myself too hard, he tells me…and we work it out between us. Sometimes it's noisy, but we always work it out. You have to leave that to us. We're good at it, and we're both on the same page on this."

"Congratulations," he conceded. "I never thought…"

"That I'd want to be a Mom?"

"Yeah. That, I guess."

"I wasn't sure either until Castle…and Little Castle. I like having a family, and I love that there's gonna be another little Castle." She stopped there and said above a whisper, "Let's table this for later."

"You got it," he answered, looking relieved.

"Anything new while I was gone…other than the obvious?" she asked, looking toward the conference room, which was now empty of the FBI agents and equipment.

"No. It's been eerily quiet since they left yesterday."

"Well, I'm going to see the captain…get it over with. She may have already figured it out. Sometimes she just seems to know things."

"Yeah. She must have been some detective back in the day," Esposito answered. Then he dropped his attitude and smiled at them. "Okay, so she's grown on me. Go talk to her."

Beckett walked to the captain's office and asked "Got a minute, Captain?"

"Glad to have you back, Lieutenant. How are you?" she asked.

"I'm fine…following doctor's orders."

"Where is your partner today? As worried as he was a couple of days ago, I thought he'd be close enough to you to pass for a shadow."

Beckett smiled at the observation and answered, "He's not far behind me. He just stopped on another floor for a minute."

"Everything okay with your team? It looked a little tense when you came in."

"A misunderstanding. It's already resolved."

Castle left the elevator about the time Beckett entered the captain's office, and he received a much warmer greeting from Esposito than he would have a few minutes earlier.

Ryan stood and gave Castle a quick hug with a manly pounding on the back and very softly said, "Congratulations, Dad." Then stepping back and he said louder, "Good to have you both back.

"Thanks. So she already told you?"

"Kind of had to," he answered, glaring in Esposito's direction. "Ask Beckett later," he added instead of explaining.

"Hey, Castle. I'm happy for the two of you," Esposito managed to say.

"So she's telling Gates now?"

"Yeah. Desk duty again. She's gonna be hard to live with," Esposito agreed.

'Maybe not. She says this time it's worth it. Your worst problem may be the caffeine withdrawal. Her coffee rations are going to be severely limited. She's already cut back to just one cup in the morning. It should hit us any day now."

"Not looking forward to that," Esposito answered with a chuckle. "You got my sympathy, Dude. You get her all day long."

"She puts up with me all the time. It all balances out. But it should be interesting."

Ryan snorted a little laugh of agreement. "I've got better words than interesting."

"Would you like your husband here, too?" Gates asked Beckett

"You already know, don't you?"

"I guessed and asked Jordan. She did say you wanted to keep it quiet, and I intend to respect that." She waved a hand at Castle in a way to tell him to come in, and Beckett turned in his direction and waited until he was there before saying, "I'm pregnant, Captain. We found out at the hospital Thursday night…after Scarsdale."

"And we're really happy about it," Castle answered, taking her hand inconspicuously as he looked at her lovingly."

"And I'm very happy for both of you. I can see that this child will be as well-loved as the other one."

"Thank you. It already is," Castle answered.

"For security reasons, we want to keep it quiet until we have a better idea of how much Bracken and Simmons can still control," Beckett explained. "We just…" Her voice drifted off, and she looked tired.

"Too many things have happened for us to be able to relax quite yet," Castle said, taking over for his wife, "I have private security for every time Kate leaves here…old friends I know I can trust."

"Not a bad decision. I think you can trust everyone on this floor now, too. I had Ryan and Esposito arrest two people here at the twelfth. We had to restrain Lupinski when he found out one of them was on his team. The other one was in Narcotics. Beckett, I think you also know you won't be in the field for the duration of your pregnancy. You won't be entirely confined to desk duty, but your work outside of the precinct will be very limited."

"I understand. And I'm sorry to have to be confined here so early in my new rank…but I'm not at all sorry about why."

"I'm sure we'll all cope. Now, congratulations and get to work."

"Yes, Sir." Beckett and Castle left for her desk, and Ryan met them there. Esposito was standing as Ryan told them, "We got a body."

"Desk duty," Beckett sighed. "Castle, go with them and send me videos of everything. Maybe I can work from here. You can be my eyes on the scene."

"That works for us. Come on, Castle. You got the back seat."

"Great," he grumbled. Then he turned to his wife and said, "See you when I get back. Look for videos."

About half an hour later, Kate's phone pinged with a text which included the first video. Castle was narrating and zeroing in on various pieces of evidence. "Hey, Beckett," Lanie said as she relayed the information about the body to all four members of the team. Castle sent several videos from different rooms and perspectives, and Beckett sent texts asking questions. While the rest of the team was on the way back, she sent the videos to her computer; and as she was checking one of them, the captain walked by on her way back to her office.

"What's that?" she asked, stopping next to Beckett's desk. "What are you doing?"

"Working the crime scene," Beckett answered, looking pleased with herself. "Castle is being my eyes and ears." She explained what they were doing, finishing just as Esposito's face appeared full screen telling her something he thought she should know…and he crossed his eyes at her before leaving the camera completely.

"Ingenious. It might actually work out. The two of you are going to work together come hell or high water, aren't you?"

"We work well together. Might as well put it to use," Beckett answered. "Maybe we can refine this method…make it more efficient.

Gates walked back to her office shaking her head and smiling.

By the time everybody was back, Beckett had started the murder board, and they all went to work putting their evidence together.

The following morning there was a call from Lanie saying she had some information for them. Castle phoned Josef, who was on call, while Beckett checked with Gates to be sure visiting the morgue fell into her out of the precinct rules. Josef wasn't far away and met them at the precinct door.

Lanie laughed when Josef walked in the room and asked to check the drawers. "I checked them all this morning, Josef. They were still dead. The only live bodies around here right now are Franklin Stokes next door and me…and the lab techs down the hall. My office isn't big enough to hide anything more dangerous than a rogue staple. Anything dangerous would be coming from the other side of that door." She pointed toward the hall, and after checking her office, Josef went back to the hallway to stand watch.

After Lanie had explained the reason for their visit, Franklin Stokes was allowed to enter the room under Josef's watchful eyes.

"He's okay," Lanie said, waving at Josef. "Castle has Josef keeping an eye on Beckett until we know what to expect from Bracken and Simmons," she explained to Stokes. "So, what brings you to my door?"

"Well, Gorgeous, I got a report from the lab, and they had one for you, too, so I thought I'd drop it off on my way."

"Well, it looks like chivalry isn't dead everywhere." She asked Castle and Beckett if they had met Perlmutter's replacement yet."

They told her they had met him at a couple of crime scenes since Perlmutter retired, and Castle shook his hand.

The two MEs had a short, flirtatious conversation as Castle and Beckett looked at each other in surprise.

"You need to finish up with Lt. Beckett and Mr. Castle," Stokes said, and turning to the couple, he apologized for holding them up.

"Thanks for bringing this by," Lanie said with a smile, holding up the report.

"Any excuse to see you, Dr. Parish," he answered, smiling back, and returned to his area of the morgue.

Lanie was still smiling as she took the report to her desk and returned.

"Lanie?" Kate said questioningly. "What was all that? Are you and Javi on the outs again?"

"Frank? Nothing's going on. Just having a little fun. We flirt, but he knows I'm taken. And I don't cheat. It's just nice for us to be around a live body now and then. The clientele here isn't too entertaining."

"Whatever you say, but it looks like more than nothing to me," Kate sing-songed. "Don't hurt my detective, now."

"Nothing to worry about," Lanie promised.

"Whatever you say," Kate teased on the way out.

xxxxx

By the time the team went home for the night, their case showed signs of the victim's death being family related. They would have to wait until morning to look further into possible evidence, though.

Josef met Castle and Beckett at the precinct and was introduced to Captain Gates before they left. They had decided that, as long as someone had been home all day or Josef or his brother had cleared the loft, they didn't need overnight security. So that night, they were back to just family in the house.

"Alexis, we're home," Castle called from the bottom of the stairs, and his daughter was downstairs a few minutes after she answered him.

"We're ordering in," Kate told her. "Look at the take-out menus with your father and decide what you want. I don't care."

"The lady of the house has spoken," Castle stated, amused. "Guess we'd better get out those menus." He slung his arm around Alexis's shoulders, and they went to the kitchen while Kate dropped to the sofa to do no more than sit for the time being.

The food arrived just before Martha came home, and they sat at the dining room table talking. During the meal, Kate casually brought up the new ME.

"Alexis, have you met Dr. Stokes, Perlmutter's replacement, yet?"

"Yeah. He's a lot more fun than Dr. Perlmutter. He's in and out all the time, and he and Dr. Parish joke around and flirt a lot. I think he'd probably ask her out if she gave him any real encouragement, but she always reminds him she has a boyfriend."

When Alexis excused herself from the table to make a phone call, Castle observed mischievously, "Well, that was convenient, wasn't it? All the pertinent gossip points you were looking for in one tidy little paragraph."

"Shut up, Castle," Kate answered, swatting his arm while she smirked.

"Katherine," Martha exclaimed, keeping it quiet enough not to alert her granddaughter. "You were pumping the child for information on your friend's love life? Well done, Darling. Now tell me what brought this on."