Family Ties - A Castle fanfiction

Chapter 2: Family Ties

The house would've looked perfectly ordinary, and rather nice for a New York home, if it weren't for the swarms of police cars, cops in uniform and bright yellow police tape cordoning off the area.

Castle noted, as he and Alexis walked up the front path, that the front of the house didn't appear to have sustained any damage. Whoever the murderer was, he thought, they probably came in through the back.

On the inside, it was a lot smaller than it looked. A central hallway led to the back of the house, where it opened onto a joined kitchen and dining room, a loungeroom accessible through an archway to the right. On both sides of the hallway, doors opened to other rooms; two on the left, two on the right.

They peered into each room as they passed, footsteps tapping softly on the tile. First on the left, a study with computer, desk and shelves of folders and books, carpeted green. First on the right, a bedroom with a single bed, a small desk and several crammed bookshelves. Second on the left was a bathroom. Second on the right -

Alexis gasped and turned away from the scene, burying her face in her dad's chest as her heart and stomach lurched wildly. She'd been to several other murder scenes working as an intern with Lanie, but this was especially horrible.

A bedroom, with a double bed and a chest of drawers. It was a rather nice room - except for the two bodies lying broken and lifeless, one on the floor, one on the bed. Blood was staining the carpet and the bedspread in puddles and sprays of deep crimson. It was immediately obvious how they'd died.

Both of them had been shot, through both eyes. Blood ran down their faces like crimson tears.

Crimson tears - that's good. I should write that down, said the writer's voice in Castle's head. He shook the thought away for the moment and focussed on moving away from the carnage.

"Now that is seriously nasty," he murmured, edging away from the doorway with Alexis. They emerged from the hallway into the dining room, and he squeezed Alexis' shoulders gently.

"Hey, you alright?" he asked softly. She raised a pale face to look up at him.

"That was horrible," she whispered, her voice trembling slightly.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry." Castle hugged her and kissed the top of her head.

"Castle."

Detective Kate Beckett strode over from a doorway at the far end of the dining room. Alexis reluctantly let go of her dad as Beckett reached them.

"Alexis, thanks for coming." Beckett frowned concernedly and put a hand on her arm. "Are you alright?"

Alexis nodded swiftly, keen to keep her cool in front of her role model. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just... saw..."

She glanced back in the direction of the parent's bedroom and shuddered despite herself.

"Yeah. It's... awful," Beckett agreed sombrely, her voice catching a little.

"So who's this girl Alexis is supposed to be helping?" Castle asked. Beckett gestured to the wide doorway she'd come from. Inside, they could see the living room. A girl with long grey hair, wearing a rumpled dressing gown and bed-socks, was sitting on a lounge, a paramedic tending to her wounds.

"Leslie," Beckett and Alexis said at the same time, Beckett with an air of sadness, Alexis with an air of shock. Castle and Beckett both stared at Alexis in stunned silence.

"H-how do you know -" Beckett started after a few moments

"She went to my school, she was in my poetry class," Alexis explained in a rush, her pallor and shock apparently gone. "We hang out sometimes. Leslie!"

Alexis took off running without warning. In the next room, Leslie looked up and saw Alexis running toward her. Her eyes widened in shock and surprise, and her mouth fell slightly open.

Castle and Beckett watched from the dining room as Alexis sat next to Leslie, and exchanged a few words. Then Alexis pulled her into a hug, and Leslie was crying into her shoulder.

"Small world, huh?"

Castle tried smiling at Beckett, who remained stony-faced. He stopped smiling, hit with the sense that something was terribly wrong.

"So, what've we got?" he asked.

"Looks like a home invasion, double murder. Both parents shot through the eyes. Killed them instantly, Lanie said. We're looking for signs of forced entry, but nothing so far."

Castle looked at her sidelong. "What's wrong?"

Beckett caught his eyes only briefly before looking away. Her shifty demeanour didn't escape Castle's notice.

"Nothing."

"C'mon Beckett, we both know better than that," he insisted.

Beckett sniffed and dragged her thumb swiftly across her eye, refusing to meet Castle's gaze again, and Castle felt a pang of anguish at seeing her on the verge of tears. She took a steadying breath before speaking.

"I know the family... personally."

Castle raised an eyebrow, but kept his voice gentle as he spoke.

"How personally?"

Beckett opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment Alexis came running back to them, looking flustered.

"Dad, Leslie just told me that her last name is Beckett! What does that mean?"

She looked frantically between her father and Detective Beckett, both of whom were standing with their mouths open.

"Well?!"

Beckett swallowed hard and kept her eyes from falling on any one spot for more than a few seconds.

"The husband was my brother," she said finally, her heart breaking with the words, making her voice crack. "Leslie - is my niece."