{Prompt: "Castle goes on becketts computer and finds her logged in to his fan site (so he knows her username). Then starts to flirt with her over the internet with her not knowing that he knows." - anonymous on Tumblr via castlefanficpromts.}

A Storytelling of Rooks – Satisfaction

"No, no, you don't understand. I ordered that knife a week ago and chose express delivery."

Castle is frustrated, and more than a little apprehensive. He's spent the last twenty-two minutes on the phone, first with Amazon, then with the manufacturer of the top-of-the-line military knife he ordered.

"I'm sorry, sir; our records show that it was delivered USPS on Thursday."

He growls and then apologizes exhaustedly to the service rep. It's not their fault that UPS lost his package, or perhaps someone stole it from the collections lobby in the building.

Hanging up the phone, he considers his options for the rest of the day. He begged off work (well, Beckett's work, he forgets sometimes that it's not actually his job too) at noon to deal with this minor calamity, to give himself plenty of time to pick the almost-certainly-ill-advised present up at the post office if found and hide all evidence before she arrives home.

He could relax. Catch up on outlining the next Heat novel – oh, he has plenty of ideas for that now, with Caskat(e)'s frequent (if unconscious) inspiration from their frequent discussions of what direction Castle might take the next book.

But then he'll be stuck home. All alone. On an unseasonably freezing spring day. Without Beckett. Even his mother and daughter have abandoned him, took off early yesterday evening for jump on a three-day-weekend retreat to the Hamptons.

No, there will be no relaxing. He can't really enjoy it anyway, even if he tries. Not with this Keaton mystery to solve. Lanie's hair analysis showed a significant reversal of physical strain, indicating a probable cessation of drug use and a reversal of lifestyle in the months prior to his their victim's murder. It doesn't prove anything, but it's evidence of pattern and it backs up the financials.

They're tantalizingly close, their suspect pool narrowed down to a few associates. All of whom have since been to prison, luckily for the team. Their prints and DNA are all on file now, and could prove useful if they ever manage to find the items taken from the office that have been lost to time and clutter in evidence.

It turns out that whoever killed Kenny Keaton to silence him went to a whole lot of trouble for nothing; the IRS and Major Crimes had already been onto the scheme and were closing in at the time of the murder. Six co-conspirators were arrested and charged in December of 1988 in connection with the Ponzi-scheme that robbed individuals and charities of an estimated $600 million in just a few short years.

Two viable suspects emerged, both co-conspirators with no alibi for the time of the murder. He and Ryan were dispatched early that morning to interview the ex-cons in Jersey. Nothing panned out; one had early-onset Alzheimer's and thought it was 1988, but knew nothing about a murder. Even if he did it, the secret's been lost to time. The other tolerated a few questions before telling them quite politely to go fuck themselves when an over-eager Ryan jumped the gun and accused him of murdering Keaton.

Beckett left just as he and Ryan had returned to the precinct, gone with Esposito to haul in the former Mrs. Keaton, see if they can't jog her memory for detail. There's no way he's missing out on that. He can catch the interrogation if he heads to the precinct quickly. Mind made up, Castle hurries back, the lost package all but forgotten.

"Mrs. Keaton," Beckett says evenly, her tone commanding respect from Keaton's widow, "or do you prefer to be called Mrs. Previtt now? Mrs. Oliver?"

The woman's unnaturally tight face purses into an elongated shape that reminds Castle of a Komodo dragon, and he mentally pictures the long ropes of venomous drool to complete the look. It's a disturbingly short leap that requires little imagination.

"It's Mrs. Wong, actually," she snaps haughtily, working-class Long Island oozing from every note. "But you a'ready know that, don't you? I told the detectives in 1988 and I'm gonna to tell you the same thing now: Kenny was a basta'd and if somebody else hadn't'a killed him, I would'a eventually. But I didn' do it, though I'd like to send flowers to whoev'a did, so send me a postca'd when you catch him."

"That's nice, Mrs. Wong," Beckett clips, "but we're not questioning you as a suspect. We just have this quota to fill, so we're working through some cold cases. We pulled up your late husband's case this morning and just figured we'd touch base, see if there was anything you remember now that might make more sense after all these years than it did back then."

Now this is an interesting tactic. Beckett obviously has found reason to be suspicious in his brief absence, if she's already leading the woman off their trail. Castle jumps in.

Entering interrogation and catching his fiancée's mildly surprised expression, he mouths, 'bored already,' and seeing her approving nod, he takes a seat next to her, opposite Mrs. Keaton-Previtt-Oliver-Wong.

"Mrs. Wong, this is my partner Mr. Castle," Kate introduces. Mrs. Wong's face – what still moves of it – lights up like Christmas morning.

"I know you!" not this again, Castle groans internally, "You're the authoa!"

He ignores her attempt to steer the conversation away from herself, though he's briefly impressed by her identification of him. He wouldn't have pegged her as ever having voluntarily opened a book.

"I consult for the NYPD," he recites robotically for what must be the hundredth time, gritting his teeth before moving straight into interrogation mode.

"You were on the eligible bachelors list a few yeah's ago, weren't you?"

Ah. It appears his initial, if uncharitable assessment that she wasn't much of a reader was correct after all. His faith in his reader base is restored. Moreso, when he looks over at his partner, his favorite not-deranged fangirl.

"Mrs. Wong," Castle begins, shooting Beckett a 'follow my lead' glance and hoping she'll go with it, "we know you were in Atlantic City the day your late husband was killed. When was the last time you saw him?"

Mrs. Wong glances suspiciously between them, as if searching their faces for the correct answer.

"The day before he died, Friday," she finally answers, "he came back from a meeting in Denver early. I saw him and told him to get his shit outta my house. I didn't hear from him again, but we a'gued, so I figured, we were through. I took the weekend before the Fourth off and went to Atlantic City, next thing I know I come home and there's cops all ova my house sayin' they's been looking for me for days, and Kenny's dead."

Seeing no resistance from Beckett, Castle presses.

"Can you tell us anything about his behavior, right before you left? Was he perhaps doing more drugs than usual, making reckless decisions, getting in trouble for belligerence at work? We found a couple of old disturbance reports from his office. Were there any more of those types of incidents that perhaps didn't get reported to the police?"

It's an inspired improvisation. For his laundry list of crimes, Keaton's record was entirely free of violent or confrontational offenses. From the old associates they've been able to track down, and from the statements given to the first round of investigators back in 1988, he was addicted to personal risk, but not prone to imposing risk or harm onto others.

Castle waits patiently for her reaction, hoping he's given her a rope to hang herself with, or at least a ladder on which she can to climb to the gallows. Kate glances over at him, impressed.

"Yeah," Mrs. Wong croaks after a moment, looking like she's been thrown a life ring, as if she can't believe her good luck. Jackpot.

"Kenny had a real problem wit coke, an' a temper too. You know he almost put me in the hospital right before he bit the big one? He was gonna kill me one day, if I didn't do him first!"

His partner lights up.

"If you didn't 'do him' first?" she states neutrally.

"Not like that," the lizard-woman backpedals, "I was gonna kick him out, divo'ce him, take him for all he got, y'know, for pain and sufferin'! But the gangs got him first, his coke suppliers or one of his coke buddies. He was outta control!" her voice climbs higher and higher with every syllable, "Doin' lines offa my kitchen table, desks, even offa the urinal! It was awful, I lived in constant fea', I tell ya!"

It's not often that something truly surprises him, but he's caught entirely off guard when Mrs. Wong erupts into large, loud sobs that go on forever. Hiding her lack of genuine tears, she drops her entire face into her tastelessly bejeweled hands.

Amateur, thinks Castle. Mother taught me how to cry on cue before I was even in Kindergarten.

Five years earlier, Castle would have burst out laughing at the sheer absurdity of her performance, but his hard-won self-control miraculously holds. Though possibly only because Beckett's 4-inch heel is pressing brutally into the top of his foot to keep him quiet. Chancing a look at his partner, he sees the tell-tale quivering beginning at one corner of her mouth and spreading down into her chin that tells him he's hardly alone in his utter disbelief at the theatrics.

"Mrs. Wong, get a hold of yourself!" Beckett snaps forcefully once she regains her poker face, changing tactics. The sniveling ceases immediately, and her garish makeup hasn't even got a smudge, for all the crying she's been pretending to do.

"Now, I need you to tell me," she says in a measured tone, "anything you remember about the days and weeks before your husband was killed."

The lizard-woman talks in circles, contradicting her statements from the original report wildly. Castle leaves the rest of the interrogation to Beckett and instead elects to jot down her statements, trying to make some kind of sense of them and keep track of the confounding number of contradictions she's been caught in so far. Beckett excuses herself well over an hour into the interview under the guise of getting a cup of coffee. In reality, she seems to be finding it harder and harder to not either laugh at the staggering idiocy of it all, or to not explode in sheer frustration since for all the lies they've cornered her into, she still has an alibi. Castle follows her out.

"She did it! She's the killer!" he blurts out as they emerge from the interrogation room, unable to contain the thought any longer. "She definitely did it."

"Yup," Beckett agrees crisply and sighs in exasperation. "Now how do we prove it? She's not going to confess outright, she's just telling us anything that she can to try to throw us off."

"Or she's already preparing an insanity defense." Beckett snorts. Insanity wouldn't be a stretch, actually.

"Well, all records put her in Atlantic City at the time of the murder. How do we break a 25-year-old alibi?"

Arriving home at a shockingly decent hour to an empty loft, Castle sets the oven and begins to prepare his workspace to cook while Beckett disappears to their bedroom to shrug out of her work clothes.

He's meticulously sawing the marrow bones in half lengthwise when she emerges, hair let loose in soft curls and dressed for bed already… in one of his shirts. And nothing else.

Mercy.

"What's for dinner?" she asks coyly, as if she doesn't know where all the blood in his body has rushed. His mouth runs dry. Less at the prospect of the actual meal, more at the visual feast she's lain before him, her bare legs and that shirt unbuttoned just far enough to let him glimpse the raised, faded circle that punctuates her chest.

"Marrow," he mutters distractedly. It's a meal she was apprehensive about at first. Wouldn't even try it, in fact, the first time he offered it to her. Good old fashioned peer pressure finally convinced her when he made it for Ryan, Jenny, Espo and Lanie prior to a poker night. Now it's among her favorites, and he reserves its preparation for when they've had a particularly grueling day. Something about the nutritional density, the sensuous taste, and the bold carnivorous appeal of the dish seems to satisfy her like nothing else.

"Hmmm," she hums appreciatively. "Can I help?"

"You can go slice that baguette and throw the sundried tomatoes in the oven to warm them up, if you want."

Seasoning the raw marrow with a pinch kosher salt and fresh pepper, he slides the skillet into the oven and turns around to find her hovering behind him. Staring, with this strange rapacious look in her eyes that he's scarcely seen.

"'Bout twenty minutes," he gulps, hoping that's the right answer. Just like that, the moment suspends and the look dims when she returns to her task. He mentally files it away, a thought to be explored or stoked out of her. Later.

They migrate to the counter while their dinner simmers in the oven and bounce ideas off each other. How to break the black widow. How she could have done it when she had a seemingly rock-solid alibi.

"Hitman?" he tosses out.

"Mm, no. A hitman doesn't use a pen to kill someone. A hitman uses a gun or runs you down with a car or puts a knife in a vital organ," she reasons, and it surprises him that the latter mention no longer chokes her voice or produces any noticeable distress. Then again... that story...

"A pen is close, personal. You don't get close enough to someone to jab a pen in their neck if they're afraid of you..."

Castle finishes, "and you don't use a pen to kill someone if it's not personal. Weapon of opportunity and rage. So, no hitman."

Kate snarls with aggravation.

"How did she do it?" she demands to no one in particular. "Unless she's an actress to rival Streep, there's no way she's smart enough to have gotten away with it on purpose. The original investigators missed something, or we've missed something."

On purpose. That triggers his mind, synapses firing off all at once. Something almost comes together, swims in the corners of his brain. He almost has it... and his timer sounds. It's gone.

"Damn it!" he erupts childishly. She shoots him a sympathetic glance, no explanation required, as if she were almost there too.

They dine without discussing the case and lapse into comfortable silence, side by side at the counter. He scrapes some of the marrow from the bone and smears it across the toast, garnishing it with this and that and passing it over to her before preparing his own. Her foot wraps around his calf and strokes gently. The looks, the shirt, the touches – she's gradually winding him up for what's sure to be an interesting night. She finishes her meal first and vanishes upstairs for reasons unknown with only a parting pat to his cheek.

Castle's retired to his study when she reappears, a small, wooden box in her hands. A chill runs through his whole body. He's never seen it before, but he knows exactly what it is. The look in her eyes says she does too.

"Kate –" he starts, not sure what explanation he can offer. Not sure he even has one. It started as a silly curiosity but he's sure he's taken it too far, even without bringing her secret kink into it.

"I know," she stops him. She's… not angry? Her mouth is curled into a faint smirk, her eyes flash with challenge and interest and amusement. Her posture, though, it's downright predatory. Shoulders rolling slightly as she stalks toward his desk, she leans forward and slides the box over to his nervous hands.

"Open it," she says simply.

He knows he's in no position to refuse or stall. On autopilot, he pulls the box open to reveal a military knife.

His mouth, unfortunately, also runs on autopilot.

"You know it's a federal crime to open someone else's mail," he quips breathlessly.

Her tinkling laugh is a simultaneous balm and accelerant to his firing nerves.

"What are you going to do, Castle? Call the cops?" Kate sing-songs deviously, every bit the playful predator.

"Er…" Castle stammers, "no, no, I'm good. Not something I particularly want to explain to Ryan and Esposito."

"Explain it to me, then," she asks, perching on his desk and swinging her legs around to rest her feet in his lap.

Taking a deep breath, he decides to start from the beginning. He tells her about the accidental discovery, how he just wanted to play with her originally, how he continued the charade because he liked getting to know her in a different medium, liked the insight it gave him.

"When did you know?" he asks, thinking at last he's safe with asking a question of his own, since she hasn't killed him yet.

Kate wrings her hands and stares out the window distractedly, fiddles with the cup of pens on his shiny wooden desk. Oh? he thinks. Secrets of your own, Kate?

"The username should have been my first clue, but it wasn't. About a week in, I got suspicious. You described Derrick Storm as "boring" in one of your messages. You're the only one who'd call him that."

She takes a deep breath.

"But you know what made me absolutely sure, Castle?"

Castle shakes his head no, entranced by her teasing, seductive voice like spice and honey.

"What made me really, really, absolutely sure…?" - the sweet siren act is momentarily replaced by her blunt Beckett snap and spark - "was that I've got seniority privileges on the forum. I looked up the I.P. addresses that 'Storytelling-of-Rooks' was being accessed by. Beaming straight from home."

And he can't do anything but gape like a stranded fish, opening his mouth and closing it with a click over and over. Her warmer expression returns, and she needles him mockingly.

"Wasn't the idiom, 'hoist by one's own petard' coined by Shakespeare, Castle?"

"Yes, it was-" but he never gets to explain to her that it was indeed Shakespeare, and another wonderful idiom from Hamlet, which was always his favorite play, and - the words never find their way into life when she crushes her lips to his.

He feels her pour the whole month of this stupid game into him, her tongue twining with his own, letting him taste her. It's not cruel or punishing. Not angry. Not betrayed. He might even avoid that night on the couch he resigned himself to, if he survives the night at all.

"I tried to be mad," she admits quietly when they come up for air.

"You had every right to be. Why aren't you?"

"Hmm, I was a little, at first. But I'm not exactly in a position to talk. I wrote that stuff, after all. I've never been a really creative person, but it helped, after my mom's death, and it was just kind of an outlet I went back to once in a while after that, when I had things I couldn't talk about or get out any other way. I kinda figured that you stumbled on the knowledge by accident from the beginning. I know you wouldn't have snooped intentionally. Maybe years ago, but, not now. And once I knew, I could have stopped, or told you, but… it was fun for me too."

"That's good," Castle says hazily, amazed by her. "I never wanted to invade your privacy, Kate, but when it dropped into my lap like that…"

At that, she slides the real her into his lap and reaches behind her, balancing precariously while she produces the knife lodged safely in its box, then fishes something out of his desk. The sound of clinking metal and rustling fabric – oh.

"Will you?" she requests shyly, still unable to speak about the fantasy aloud. That gives him pause. If she still can't own it verbally, that's worrying. But Beckett's never been the best with spoken word. Her preparation, her willingness to forgive him, the way it was so carefully and safely dealt with on paper, all speak for her readiness more than verbal pronouncements ever could.

"Yes," he replies sincerely, putting his full trust in her. "I'd be honored."

The author stands cautiously to avoid tripping her or dumping her on the floor, walking her backward slowly as he works on the buttons of his shirt with one hand and curls the other around her waist.

"There's just one thing I'm still confused about," Kate stops suddenly, as if only just remembering.

"What?"

"How did you send those messages when we were at work or when you were asleep next to me and all those other times?"

It's Castle's turn to laugh; it seems she's not the only one manipulating technology to her advantage.

"I used an app that allows me to queue messages, emails, notifications. Anything with a form-type input, I can type it up and schedule it. I use it on Gina to make it look like I'm working real hard on those Storm novels. I knew you'd be suspicious if you only got correspondence when we were apart, so I set it up to make it look like… I was on a whole different… timeline…" his voice dies off and fades into the air.

One by one on rapid fire, the pieces start to snap into place.

"Kate," he whirls around excitedly and dashes back into the office, "what if we've been thinking about this all wrong?"

For once, she doesn't catch on, her mind still somewhere in the bedroom and more specifically, on the one cuff she'd gotten around his wrist before he darted away.

"Wha?"

"The case. What if we've been looking at this wrong? What if Mrs. Wong didn't prepare that alibi, but she just happened upon it by good luck?"

"I don't follow, Castle," she replies, the haze of arousal clearing but leaving her no less confused.

"What if the timeline is wrong? The M.E. report from '88 says he died on July second – a Saturday - the day before the offices all closed down. He was discovered on a Wednesday, giving the body plenty of time to putrefy in a hot office. But with bodies more than a couple days old, it can be hard to tell exactly, right?"

Kate nods so he continues on, "the widow said he'd been gone for two days in Denver, which if that were true, it would mean he'd have to have left on a Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, to get back on Friday, see and fight with the wife, only to be killed on Saturday as he checked in at work before the half-week company-wide holiday."

The realization dawns on Kate and she picks up where he left off.

"But none of our reports have anyone else seeing him less than four days before he supposedly died. The secretary said back then that he didn't always check in with her when he traveled, so she didn't bother checking on his office right before the holiday, thinking he'd only be back in for a few hours."

"And what happens in an office like that only when everybody is away?" he prompts her.

"The industrial air conditioners get shut off and the heat speeds up decomp, and with the lapse between when he was supposed to arrive home and when everybody came back to the office, he was too decomposed for the M.E. to tell exact T.O.D., so they just assumed Saturday was the only possible date of death."

"Exactly," confirms Castle. "He never made it to Denver. Keaton was killed in that office in late June, not July second. By the time anyone realized he was dead, the timeline was screwed up by the air conditioning slowing decomp for a few days, then speeding up rapidly when it was shut off."

"And by that time, she was already in Atlantic City and no one looked twice at her because she was already there on the day they assumed he had to have been killed," Kate finished.

"We've got her," they uttered breathlessly, in unison.

Sure enough, Mrs. Wong breaks. Theatrically, of course. Confronted with their theory, it doesn't take Beckett more than fifteen minutes before she's pouring her guts out.

They had the motive right from the beginning. Keaton had a change of heart, an attack of conscience. According to lizard-woman, it was brought on by a near-fatal cocaine overdose months before his death. Intent on turning all evidence over to the cops, he held on just a few days too long, tragically determined to right a few wrongs personally. The Mrs. found out and wasn't prepared to lose it all by exposing the secret, and so the would-be redeemer found himself with a hole in his neck for his good intent.

They head home early after officially closing the case, at long last able to be alone and enjoy a well-deserved, case-free night.

"Ever thought of writing true crime, Detective?" Castle asks conversationally as they shed their coats at the door, both damp from a spring shower that caught them by surprise on the walk home.

"Think Keaton's story would make a good one?" He nods eagerly, and she rolls her eyes in affection.

"It would. But I think I'll leave the writing to you from now on, Castle," she quips, "my days are over."

They move as one toward the office, a singular goal in mind, he's a little disappointed by the idea of never reading about her kinky fantasies again.

"I don't need it any more, Castle. I've got you," Kate admits tenderly, her happiness and honesty lighting her up, "though I'll happily be your consultant, if you like."

"Will you follow me around while I do research and annoy me and stick your nose where it doesn't belong, as all good consultants do?"

"Definitely. I'll also consult to help you with," she pauses seductively, "certain scenes, between Detective Heat and reporter extraordinaire Rook. You know. Woman's perspective."

"Deal."

Reaching the office and kicking the door shut, he steers her back toward the desk to finish what they'd started the night before. Suddenly shy, she produces his very-well-advised gift, a dull facsimile, a navy blue silk tie, and her handcuffs and sets to work on his shirt.

"You can tell me anything, you know," he murmurs, trying to ease the lingering anxiety over the fulfillment of this long-held fantasy that she can finally own and explore without the burden of secrecy or taboo.

"I know that now," she says softly. "And if I don't, I'm sure you'll just find out anyway. Too damn curious."

Castle brushes his nose to hers while a cold handcuff clicks closed around his wrist and she gently pushes him onto the crisp, cool bed, swinging herself astride him.

"Curiosity killed the cat," his voice is gravelly and low with anticipation as he whispers it out between her fiery kisses –

"But satisfaction brought it back," she finishes for him.

Note: That's all, folks. Hope you enjoyed this mini-fic, and that I've done the prompt justice. Though I'm quite sure this was not what was intended! This story somehow found a case along the way, the first time I've written one beginning to end. I already spot some mistakes in that part, but, hopefully they can be overlooked and the piece enjoyed for what it is – thoroughly silly and scrapped together with no planning at all.

Comments, questions, concerns, complaints and constructive criticisms, all welcome. Please review and tell me what you thought!