[ Road Trip ]

[mmkaternater]

[ Set about a week after this. ]

A white SUV with a ski rack rattling with gear makes a sudden, unsignaled turn into their lane. Castle checks the license plate, then glances excitedly at the paperwork in his lap, even as Beckett struggles to keep their squad car between the yellow lines.

"One-oh-five," he declares, "that's the prefix for Montauk. All right!" He scratches something in the margins of the paper propped up on his knee. "I don't have an 'M' yet. Doesn't matter that Montauk is already in New York, right? Oh well. I'm counting it anyway." This is the second hour of license plate Bingo and, either Castle's doing it wrong, or the cars on the freeway aren't cooperating with the spirit of the game.

It's been a week since he and Beckett found themselves living out a literal reenactment of the contents of Chapter Ten of Heat Wave; seven days since they took separate cabs to work; one hundred and sixty-eight hours since he and Beckett even recognized the fact that they'd seen each other at their worst and, after a couple of minutes of fumbling around between Beckett's sheets, at their best. It hadn't even been a matter of avoidance -- the opportunity to sit down and have a real talk just hadn't presented itself. Less than six hours after Castle left her apartment, Beckett got a new case and the two of them had spent the last week tracking down leads.

Esposito always liked to say that Beckett had a taste for the "freaky ones," and this case was no different. A wealthy patron of the New York City Ballet had been found dead in his apartment, his body covered by a pelt of tropical fire ants. It had taken CSU a couple of hours to remove the body (after several calls to Animal Control proved fruitless -- "We don't really...deal...with insects") and the amount of tissue deterioration had given Lanie a hell of a tough time determining time of death.

Now they're on the road to Philadelphia, bound for Drexel University, where the world's pre-eminent expert on the 280 different species of fire ants is their last-ditch hope for a solid lead.

Castle has taken advantage of the three-hour plus drive by starting several games of license plate Bingo, none of which have so far engaged his companion's interest.

He cranes a look out the window.

"Hey! Palm Beach!" He marks off another square on his sheet. "As in 'Florida', as in fourmis de feu -- the French term for fire ants. I swear, after this case, I'm never going to look at the menu at Le Cirque the same way again."

Comments

[fanofthegenre]

"Uh huh," Beckett mutters, clearly sounding as though she believes him.

"Can you pull this?" She waggles the sleeve of her coat at him in an attempt to get some assistance pulling it off. Comfort while driving is a matter of minor importance.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Minor importance and visual interest, at least for Castle, who holds on as he's asked while she shimmies out of her coat. He helps shove the thing into the backseat, then turns to her, eyes comely and imploring.

"See. I didn't pull the back of your coat over your head. I can listen."

[fanofthegenre]

"When it suits you," Beckett counters.

The expression she gives him is a clear indication that she remains completely impartial and unaffected by his attempt at comely.

Relatively.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Castle doesn't refute this.

He glances over at her again. "Hey, you've got a --" his fingers alight over her forearm to pull a long strand of hair from the crook of her elbow. 'Fingers stay for perhaps a second longer than is necessary to complete the action.

[fanofthegenre]

"Oh, thanks. I always hate it when that happens."

She doesn't flinch, exactly, but there's a tensing that happens and a small intake of breath. Mostly because the touch is bringing her back to that night from last week all too readily.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

He lifts his fingers from her skin, rather than sliding them away. A moment passes, during which Castle puts a few things to order in his own brain.

"So," he finally says, somewhat brusquely. "Why fire ants? Why not bees? Or badgers? Badgers have always gotten a bad rap. There's got to be a reason for the stereotype. Why shoot a guy and then go to the trouble of covering him with a swarm of ants?"

[fanofthegenre]

"Badgers, Castle. Really?"

She rests her elbow against the armrest in between their seats, drumming her fingertips over the padded end in a staccato rhythm.

"Unless it was the other way around. Did the report say anything about Cavendish being allergic to ant venom?"

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"They're mean," he says, like he's had some personal experience.

He pulls the file from the console and picks through Lanie's report. "From what I've read, most people have some kind of general sensitivity to insect venom. You know: mosquitos make us itch, bees ruin a baseball game. It's called --" he rolls the Greek word around on his tongue before attempting a pronunciation "-- anaphylaxis. Symptoms are anything from difficulty breathing to rapid heart rate. Whoa --"

Castle squints at a line in the file.

"Am I reading that right? 'Dysrhythmia with subsequent myocardial infarction'?" He folds back the front of the file so Beckett can see. "That means his heart went crazy and then exploded, right?"

[fanofthegenre]

"Remind me to ask you about that one later."

Beckett raises her hand, keeping her elbow propped over the armrest while she pinches her lower lip between two fingers. There's a small detail here, one they're just not seeing, and if it can just click into place -

"What if he wasn't shot first? What if the ants were first? Most people would just have a general sensitivity, but what if whoever it was wasn't counting on Cavendish having a more severe allergy? What if they dumped the ants on him, figuring that alone would be retaliation enough, and then realized he was actually suffering - and shot him to put him out of his misery. Whoever it was couldn't have been a good shot - they were probably aiming for his heart and missed."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Castle's excitement grows as she builds the narrative; he practically starts climbing over the back of the seat in his earnest.

"No, no, no, it's not sympathy. You don't cover a guy with ants and then suddenly grow a conscience as they start nibbling. What if..." he frames the air with his palms "...the gunshot was the red herring? The killer knew we'd check for an heart damage. That many ants? That dosage? What if they knew Cavendish had an allergy? 'Tried to shoot the guy to cover up the evidence. Destroy the heart, destroy the tissue, destroy the killer's link to Cavendish's personal life?"

He swings his focus to Beckett's face.

[fanofthegenre]

"Someone with that kind of inside knowledge would be exactly the kind of person who would want to watch him get slowly poisoned to death. The only problem is, who? Who would have motive? Every check we ran on the guy came up clean - honest business dealings, good personal life, no rap sheet. There's got to be something we're not seeing."

The closer they're getting to the answer, the more his excitement is rubbing off on her and the further they're getting from the city. Beckett's suddenly compelled to pull the car off onto the shoulder so they can take a breath and line everything up.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Nobody is that clean. There's always something." At least in literature. There's always some dark, greasy crack in the facade of a perfect life that doesn't weather well. Castle will bet dollars to donuts that Cavendish doesn't evade the corollary.

His brow furrows. "You remember that reading I did at Broadway Books after Storm Fall came out? The one you --" he rolls his eyes dramatically in her direction "-- crashed?"

[fanofthegenre]

"There's got to be something. Maybe I'll call Esposito and Ryan, tell them to double-check everything."

She's reaching for her cell while Castle keeps talking in a seeming non sequitur.

"Crashed? Please. If I recall correctly, you looked pretty happy to see me."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Hold that thought." He certainly will.

"The day before, my agent left a message with Alexis telling me that if I didn't show up to the reading, she was going to drip honey on my eyeballs and let loose a 'thousand fire ants'." He holds up a hand to forestall the snort of disbelief he knows he's going to get. "I'm not saying my agent killed Cavendish. But my agent is also my ex-wife."

He flips through the file.

"What was the wife's alibi again?"

[fanofthegenre]

Beckett's first reaction is to scoff, and then the temptation to ask him just often he's managed to piss off his two ex-wives in the past arises. But she pushes that thought to the back of her mind as a more prominent one takes its place.

"She said she was out shopping, and the doorman confirmed her story. Said she left the building empty-handed and came back with - shopping bags."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

He turns to her with an intensity so honed that it'd make Caruso jealous.

"Someone'd better tell the guys at Sak's that there're ants in their pants."

[fanofthegenre]

Beckett flips open her phone and presses a number on her speed dial.

"Esposito? It's Beckett. Bring in Anne Gordon for questioning. Castle and I will be back as soon as we can."

She closes the phone with a wide grin and leans in.

"Okay, Castle. This time you get to work the siren."