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Trailer trotted down the aisle, his tail wagging, and licked Alexis's hand.
Alexis startled a bit, then looked down and scratched the dog between the ears. "Hi there," she said. "What are you doing here without Artie?"
"Nothing," Artie replied from the end of the aisle. "We have a ping in New York City. Do you want to go?"
Alexis nodded and tried not to smile too much.
"Good. Go grab your gear and meet Pete at Leena's. He's got the file and the plane tickets."
"Why Pete?" Alexis asked. It wasn't that she disliked him. She liked him a lot. She just hadn't gone on a mission with him yet (unless you could count fetching coffee and donut holes a "mission," which Alexis didn't).
"Because if there's a ping in New York and he doesn't get to go, he'll pout and whine at me all month, and I don't want to deal with that."
Fair enough.
Alexis smiled. "Okay. Should I grab a couple Teslas on the way?"
"Would you?" Artie said. "Claudia's got them in the office. I'll take over doing inventory here."
"I'll call you from the airport," Alexis replied.
"And Alexis? You can stay an extra day after you bag whatever's causing this. Go. Talk to your dad."
Suddenly, her day seemed a lot less boring than she'd anticipated.
Against Alexis's better judgement, Pete drove them to Rapid City, giving her time to read the file Artie had printed out for them. Not that it had much to say. A woman had been found dead in Central Park, with her bottom four pairs of ribs, most of her abdominal organs, and all the bones in her feet missing. The mystery was that she had no marks on her: no cuts, no bruises, no scars. Nothing that indicated that a human or animal could have done it.
In other words, there was almost certainly an Artifact at fault. (Artie had scribbled a note in the margins of one of the papers suggesting that a team from the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, of all groups, might also be aware of the situation, and not to let them take over until they'd ruled out Artifact involvement.)
Something felt wrong in her gut as soon as she read the file, almost souring the feeling that she was going to surprise her dad in just a few hours.
It wasn't until they had boarded the plane that she realized the source of the feeling, and failed to suppress a groan.
The section of the park where the woman's body had been found was within the boundaries of the Twelfth Precinct. And if there had ever been a case for Kate Beckett, this was it.
"'Sup, Alexis?" Pete asked. "You all right?"
Alexis took a deep breath. "Yeah," she said.
When Pete replied, his voice was quiet and even. "I may not be Steve but I can tell you're lying. What's the matter?"
"It's my dad. I just realized he's probably going to be there when we show up."
"He works with the NYPD, right?" he asked. "That's good. It could be worse. It means he's been trained not to touch things."
"Just like you've been trained?" Alexis said.
"Hey! That's completely different!"
"Right," she said. "Just keep telling yourself that."
Pete softly elbowed Alexis and stuck his tongue out. It didn't do anything for her mood.
"No matter what, I'm going to have to tell him," Alexis said. "Which I was going to do soon anyway, and I've thought about how to do it, but in my head I'm always the one who comes to him instead of him confronting me. And I can't just tell him 'we'll talk later' because he'll never buy it, and I can't explain anything right when we get there because Beckett and Ryan and Esposito will be there too, and--"
"Alexis." Pete said, and something in his voice quieted the young woman. She'd seen Pete at his silliest, and she'd worked with him on inventory and such, but she'd never seen this side of him before. She suspected it didn't come out very much. "No matter what happens when we get there, you're gonna be fine. Your dad loves you. And you're really lucky here."
"How am I lucky?" Alexis asked.
"You're sitting next to the only other person at the Warehouse who's been in the position your dad's gonna be in."
Alexis looked askance at Pete, but didn't say anything.
"My mom's a Regent. And I'd worked here for three years before I found out. It didn't help that it was a total freak accident that I found out in the first place, either."
Alexis took another deep, deliberate breath. "And besides," Pete continued, "if he's your one, you can always invite him back with us for a tour."
That did it. She had to laugh at that. "Oh my God, it would be like whenever you visit museums."
"Myka told you about that?"
The person on the other side of the aisle from them glared and made a shushing noise.
Neither of them cared.
Alexis decided to take Pete up on his suggestion, and called her dad as soon as they found a relatively quiet nook of O'Hare.
Pete listened in on her side of the conversation.
"Hey, dad! ... Yeah, I'm okay. Yes, I know, it's not my usual time. ... Are you at work?. ... The work where you catch killers or the work where you invent them? ... Yeah, I'm on a case too, kind of. And it's in the city-- yes, I know. Dad. Dad." Here, Alexis looked at Pete and rolled her eyes. "I wanted to surprise you. ... I'm not there yet. No, you don't need to pick me up at the airport. My boss already reserved us a car. ... Look. I called because... because there's a chance we're gonna run into you on the job. And I don't want you to freak out, okay?"
Pete could faintly hear the phrase "on what job?" through Alexis's phone.
"I'll explain it to you today, I promise. But it's not something I can do on the phone. And you can't tell anyone else what I tell you. I mean it. ... All right. Dinner at the loft, then. I love you, Dad."
And she disconnected the phone.
Pete smiled at her. "That went well. We've got forty minutes before our next flight boards, so let's get lunch. I mean, they don't even give you peanuts on airplanes anymore."
Pete had entered the bullpen first, and had been just flashy enough that most eyes were on him. Beckett and her dad were nowhere in sight -- she wasn't sure yet whether that was a good thing -- but Ryan's eyes skipped right past Pete's badge to her, and his eyes got suddenly wide.
Alexis waved at him, smiled, and pressed a finger against her mouth. Ryan understood, bless him, and waved them both closer.
"So this is what you're up to nowadays?" he asked.
"Yeah," Alexis replied. "I can't really talk about the details."
"Believe me, I know. Your dad's been informing us of all the things you're not telling him. Constantly."
Alexis thought that maybe Ryan hadn't quite processed her presence yet. Or maybe he had, and he was just being very Zen about it. Or she supposed he could be internally freaking out, but hiding it very well. Either way, she was glad he wasn't making it a big deal.
"So how are you doing? And Jenny and Bridget?" A little time for catching up couldn't hurt. Odds were, the Artifact was already in Evidence anyway, which meant nobody would touch it without gloves.
"Oh, they're doing great. I'll show you pictures later. Jenny's parents got Bridget this little plastic tricycle for her birthday and she's been doing circuits around the apartment. It's about the cutest thing ever."
Alexis smiled at the image, and then both their faces turned serious as they remembered the work they had to do.
"You're working the case of the woman in Central Park, aren't you?" she asked.
"Yeah, we are. Beckett and your dad are just on their way back from talking to the victim's family, and Esposito should be back in a couple minutes. He just went out to pick up dinner."
Alexis nodded.
"This is my partner, Pete Lattimer. He's with the Secret Service. He'll fill you in on everything. Could I please have a look at the murder board? Our file didn't have a lot of information."
Ryan's eyes darted from Alexis's face, to Pete's, to the murder board, and back. "All right," he said, and then turned to Pete. "What does the Secret Service want here?"
Javier Esposito had been in combat. He'd helped solve more murders than he could keep track of. He'd survived torture. But he still couldn't look at the pictures of this young woman without wanting to retch. Which was why he'd volunteered to pick up the team's dinner order instead of having it delivered.
On a case this grotesque, he figured it was only a matter of time before the feds showed up, so he wasn't entirely surprised when he got back from the food run to find a square-jawed white guy in a dark suit talking to Ryan in the bullpen.
It was the person standing in front of the murder board, calmly examining the pictures he'd be seeing in his nightmares, who caught him by surprise.
"Alexis? What are you doing here?"
Castle's phone went ding just as Beckett parked in the precinct's garage.
"Is that Alexis? She landed safely?" Beckett asked.
"Yeah," Castle said, a faraway sort of smile on his face. "C'mon, watch this."
For once she allowed him to lead her into the elevator. Whatever this was, it was going to be good.
Of course, nothing Castle had said could have prepared her for the sight of him nonchalantly taking a few long steps from the elevator to the murder board, planting a kiss on the top of his daughter's head, and standing beside her as calmly as if she'd never left the city.
Alexis turned around, looked across the bullpen at Beckett, and waved and grinned. Beckett returned the gesture with a wink.
She knew there would be time for reconnection later, but Alexis would need some time with her dad first.
"So. This really is what you do now?" Alexis's father quietly asked as he settled in place beside her.
"Uh huh."
"Really, really?"
"Yeah. I'll tell you more when we get home."
"Okay. Gram's got a rehearsal tonight, but she'll want to see you before you leave."
"Good. I want to see her," Alexis said. As if there'd ever been any question. "And the boss says I can have an extra day after we're done here."
They turned their attention back to the board.
"Any leads on what could have done this? Or who?" Alexis asked. Not that her dad would have any idea yet what they were actually looking for, but if the Artifact had been planted on the victim's person, they needed to know who had done it.
"Not a thing. No leads, nothing; so it's not like it's a really complex case beyond the method of death. It really sucks." They were silent for a moment, before he added: "If you can ignore that she's a real person, it kind of looks like she came out of a badly drawn comic book, doesn't she?"
And that's when it clicked for Alexis. In an instant she turned around and raised her voice over the bullpen's background chatter.
"Pete! I know what we're looking for. Beckett, are the victim's personal belongings still in Evidence? They haven't been sent to the property room?"
"Yeah," Beckett said. "There were no prints but hers on anything, nor anything suspicious."
"Good. We need to pick some of it up."
"But it's evidence," Beckett said. "You of all people should know we can't just--"
"It wasn't a murder," Alexis replied. Beckett looked a bit stunned, but followed her as she walked toward the elevator. Pete and her dad weren't far behind. "It was an accident. And it really, really sucks that I can't tell you more than what you can figure out from what I'm telling Pete now, but you have to believe me. Besides, you don't want Pete to have to get out his badge."
"It does get annoying having to clean fingerprints off it all the time," Pete said.
Alexis pressed the elevator button, and the doors opened almost immediately. As soon as they were all inside, she continued: "Your notes say Garza was probably sketching in the park when this happened, right? And the list of her personal effects included an old pencil case, but with new pencils in it."
"You think it's the pencils?" Beckett asked.
Alexis shook her head. "It was something Dad said that made me think of it. If there's one thing he taught me about comics, it's how to avoid bad artists."
The door opened on an empty hallway, and they all filed out, Alexis and Beckett leading the way.
"So," Pete said. "Bad comic book artists. You don't think--"
"Rob Liefeld," they both said, at once.
"He's this comic book artist. If you could call him that," Pete explained. "I'm pretty sure our boss's dog has a better grasp of human anatomy than he does. And I'm pretty sure Liefeld's never actually seen or met a woman."
Her dad didn't say anything, but Alexis could tell he was bursting with questions. She'd been prepared for him to spend the entire time speculating about aliens and curses and CIA conspiracies. She wasn't sure what to make of his silence.
"I know who he is," Beckett said. "He's why I stopped reading Teen Titans."
"So if a woman got her hands on one of his pencil cases, and started drawing with pencils that she'd put there... well... this happens. Probably." Alexis turned to Pete and put her gloves on as Beckett unlocked the door of the Evidence area. "You have the bags?"
"Right here," he said, and held it open.
Alexis snapped the cuff of one glove against her wrist and pulled the box marked GARZA, R. off of its shelf. The pencil case -- a thin, plain metal one -- was right on top, so she fished it out along with whatever stray drawing implements she could find and stuck it all in the bag.
The sparks that flew out of the bag's opening were bright as fireworks.
"Oh my God, that's so cool!" her dad said, and everybody else in the room had to smile at his enthusiasm.
"Well, that was easy," Pete said. "We can take it from here. All we need to do is make sure she bought this thing on eBay or something and we're set."
"Excuse me," Beckett interrupted. "That's still potentially evidence."
Alexis sighed. Here was the part she wasn't feeling so good about.
"Pete?" she asked. "Can you take care of everything here while I explain things to my dad?"
Pete nodded. "Go. Explain."
"And you're welcome to join us for dinner later," her dad said. "I'd like to get to know who my daughter's been telling me about."
"I'll text you the address," she added as she shepherded her father out the door.
They had barely made it out of the building before Rick succumbed to his desire to lift up his baby girl in the tightest of bear hugs. Alexis hugged him back just as hard, and when they finally separated, he was sure the grin on his face had to match hers.
"You have no idea how hard it was not to do that the moment I saw you today," he said. "But it was totally worth it. did you see the look on Esposito's face when he saw how unsurprised I looked?"
"Yeah. You should have seen the bullpen when I walked in. Just about everybody looked at Pete first because he had the badge and gun, and then they recognized me."
They walked hand in hand to the parking space unofficially reserved for him, and filled the drive with all the chatter and gossip they usually saved for their phone calls, all the while wishing he'd taken a cab that day because he couldn't drive and hug Alexis at the same time. It wasn't until they made it home -- in record time, he might add -- and settled themselves down on the big couch that he asked the big question.
"So. The CDC isn't really who shipped you off to South Dakota, is it?"
Alexis gave him what he would always think of as her "confessional" smile. "Well, they kind of did. On paper, anyway. And I have the credentials, not that I use them very much. It kind of freaks people out when you say you're from the Centers for Disease Control. But that's not the beginning of the story. Dad... before I tell you anything, you have to promise me that you won't tell anyone else. Not even Gram or Beckett."
"I promise," he said. "It'll be harder to keep quiet that you're really working for the Men in Black--" Alexis let out a very tiny snort of a laugh that Rick couldn't quite decipher-- "than it was not to hug you today, but I'd rather know the truth and not be able to tell anyone, y'know?"
"I know."
And then Alexis proceeded to explain the concept that ordinary objects can be imbued with extraordinary energy. She told him how she and Lanie had helped another team from Homicide catch a killer who'd been possessed by David Berkowitz's pen; how a redheaded woman about her age and a guy with bushy eyebrows had shown up to take said pen; how that very night a woman had shown up in her apartment and told her to go to a remote set of coordinates in South Dakota. The whole story spilled out in what seemed like one long breath, and Rick was too wound up in it to interrupt with the questions that were building inside him.
It wasn't a story he could have written himself. If it had been Beckett telling it, he'd have assumed she was playing with him. But this was Alexis. This was the girl who grounded herself for jumping a subway turnstile on a rainy night, who'd tapped into her own savings to pay for the items her friends had shoplifted from a boutique. It wasn't her style to lie about something this big.
So, he did the only thing he could think to do: he pulled her in for a hug and kissed the top of her head.
"You're not mad?" Alexis asked. "That I didn't tell you sooner?"
"God, no!" he replied. "This is the kind of news that needs to be delivered in person. What I am is worried sick about the line of work you're in. I saw the victim's body. The look on her face. And I don't want that happening to you."
Alexis squeezed him back. "It's okay, Dad. There's always someone who has my back. And we have the advantage on these missions because we know we're looking for Artifacts. We have special gloves and everything. We always work in groups, where at least one of us has a badge and a real gun. And... and knowing what I do now, I don't think going back is an option. How could I do that? How could I come back here while God-only-knows-what is hurting people and I have the power to stop it?"
He nodded, and let her continue. She was right. He knew she was right. And he'd let her go back, because she was happy. (And this way she'd be surrounded by people who used to protect the President.)
"And most Artifacts aren't as instantly deadly as the pencil case. Generally they just cause a lot of trouble, but the harm they do to people can be reversed if we neutralize them early enough. Some of them are really cool, too. There's a ring that turns you invisible. It belonged to Plato, though, not Tolkien. As soon as you take it off, everybody around you learns exactly what you did while they couldn't see you. And there's an infinite ice-cream machine that makes any flavor you can think of. And Helena -- I've told you about Helena, right? Well, her full name is Helena Grace Wells. She's written a few books you may have heard of."
Rick blinked hard. "No way! H.G. Wells is alive? And a woman?"
"Really, Dad? I just told you that magic really exists in the world and that's what you get hung up on?"
"No, no, it's just-- I'm just-- I always knew magic existed. But I've seen pictures of H.G. Wells and that must be one hell of a fake mustache."
"That was her brother, evidently. He took the pen name so she could get published. She likes the Nikki Heat books, by the way. She says--" here she affected a hilariously terrible English accent-- "'He clearly has a talent for writing adventure scenes.'"
"Okay, that is so going on Heat-Seeking's back cover," Rick said, smiling into his daughter's hair. Alexis reached back and smacked him lightly on the upper arm. (She always did know when he was kidding her.)
"Seriously, Dad, you can meet her if you want. I'm only allowed to tell one person the whole story of what I do, and since you're my one, you can come for a tour."
Before he could answer, Alexis's phone dinged.
"Oh, that'll be Pete. And he'll be hungry. What are we going to do for dinner?"
He'd been planning on eating leftovers, but this was clearly a special occasion. "Well, now that I have my kitchen assistant back, how about I cook my famous spaghetti pie?"
"That sounds perfect," Alexis said.
And it was.