Disclaimer: Don't own

Revised: 1/26/13

Richard Castle.

Katherine Beckett.

Kevin Ryan.

Javier Esposito.

Dr. Lanie Parish.

Victoria Gates.

Roy Montgomery.

Detective Al Rogers stared at the names on the board. She twisted her hands together. Castle. Beckett. Esposito. Ryan. Parish. Gates. Montgomery. Detective Rogers jumped at the ring of a fellow officer's desk phone. She bit her lip and reached for her forgotten cup of coffee at her side. The detective took a slip.

Blah. It was cold.

The dark headed, slim, Detective Rogers turned away from the board, setting aside her coffee. Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, she took comfort in the familiar sounds of the squad room. Suspects being questions, phones ringing, people shouting, papers being shuffled from desk to desk, Rogers pushed away the negative emotions rolling through her mind.

She could do this. She could work this case. She could finish what others had started. She could win.

Detective Rogers opened her eyes, released her breath, and turned back to face the board.

Montgomery. Gates. Parish. Ryan. Esposito. Beckett. Castle.

Her past.

Rogers stole a glance at her partners in crime. Detective Frank Patterson and Detective Hank Willis were two of the few people that Rogers trusted with her life. Patterson was a blonde, blue eyed All-American boy. Willis, the younger of the two, was dark where Patterson was light. The two men shared similar build and height.

Rogers knew that they would back her play; Rogers had proven herself as leader, and as long as she could do so, Patterson and Willis would follow. The three of them had grouped their desks together in a corner of the room.

Rolling her shoulders, Rogers spoke. Willis twisted in her chair to face her, several sheets of paper held loosely in his hands. Patterson had been openly watching her for the past twenty minutes.

"Patterson, go pick up Beckett. She should be crawling her way out of this bar." She paused to turn to her desk and moved papers around until she found the one that she was looking for. "Here you go. The address. Pick her up and get her sober. Willis, go with him. And beware, Beckett was one of us." Patterson took the paper from her.

Rogers swallowed her reaction away. One down. Six to go. She glanced at her feet and took a deep breath. Her eyes met Patterson's when she looked back up.

"Yes boss." Willis careless tossed his papers on his desk and stood to gather his things. Patterson followed slowly.

"Everything okay boss?" He asked never breaking eye contact. Rogers cursed the fact that he knew her so well.

"I'll be fine, Frankie. Go get Beckett." Rogers turned back to the board, listening to Willis move away and Patterson move closer.

"Tell me about it later?"

Rogers nodded wordlessly. She couldn't face him his big brown worried filled eyes. She didn't have handle on her emotions; he would have an arm full of sobbing woman if he kept looking like that. She couldn't tell him now. Everything was too fresh.

"Call me okay? If something comes up, Allie?"

Damn him.

Rogers looked up and nodded. Only if they weren't in the middle of the squad room; she could have used on of his hugs. It was just one of the numbers of things that she loved about the man.

Patterson frowned, nodded, and moved off. Rogers sighed watching him go. She was going to get it later.

She turned back to the Murder Board.

Old habits die hard.

Rogers knew the location of three of her suspects. She also knew that two of them could not have done it. One of them was speaking beyond the grave. Two of them would never talk to anyone about the case. Including someone that was that the center of the whole thing, like herself.

"Rogers? Anything new about the case?"

She was not surprised to hear her captain's voice. Captain Aaron Edwards was in his fifties, going bald, and muscular. He still could out run most of the detectives in his precinct.

"Yeah." She paused to collect stack of file folders off her desk. "There is something new about the case." Rogers turned and grabbed another file off Patterson's desk. "I'll meet you in your office, Captain." She called over her shoulder.

Rogers didn't need to hear the reply she knew that he would be waiting for her. She glanced at the board one more time, taking comfort this time from the names and pictures on it. She spun on her heel, nearly running into a couple of uniforms wrestling a man with long dirty blonde hair to the floor. He looked to be somewhere in this late forties to early fifties.

"Get off me!" The man shouted fighting tooth and nail.

She stepped around them, throwing an apologetic smile at the uniforms. Crossing the distance to Edwards' open office door, Rogers shuffled the folders around a bit getting them in order.

"I need to talk to the Captain!"

Rogers glanced over at the uniforms and the man, shaking her head. Two more uniforms and a detective had joined the fight. It was probably some bum that thought he had important intel to sell.

Edwards' voice pulled her away from the struggle man and the uniforms. Rogers entered the office, completely missing the fact that the blonde haired man had sudden stopped fighting.

"Captain." Rogers closed to the office door after she entered to muffle the man's screams.

Edwards threw his pen down on his desk and rubbed his head.

"Sit." He gestured to the chair across from him. Rogers sat and offered him her stack of file folders. "What do you have?"

"I would like permission to open a couple of old cases. They are connected to the Parish Homicide that Patterson, Willis, and I are currently working on." Rogers said as Edwards took the folders from her. "Patterson and Willis are out right now picking up a suspect." She added as flipped open the top file.

"A murder that happened over twenty years ago is connected to your case, Rogers?" Edwards pushed the file away and opened the next one in the stack. "And missing persons report for a Detective Kevin Ryan?" He set that file a side and opened the next one. "The Castle case?" Edwards looked up at his Detective eyebrows raised. "You better start explaining, Detective."

"Yes sir." Rogers took a deep breath, willing her emotions away.

Edwards eyed her. "Well, come on Rogers, out with it."

"Over twenty years ago, a lawyer was stabbed to death in an alley." Rogers pointed at the first file. "Johanna Beckett was killed because she found out the secrets of a powerful group of people. Ten years later, Ms. Beckett's daughter, Katherine, begin to look into the case."

"Cut to the chase."

"Parish worked with Beckett. Who worked with Ryan. They and another man, Esposito were a team of detectives that Richard Castle shadowed for several years about ten years ago. Parish was a M.E that worked with them for several cases. Beckett was actually married to Castle for a few years." Rogers finished.

Edwards signed and looked through the files on his desk.

"Okay. I'll bite. Tell me how you put together the cases?"

Rogers closed her eyes and sighed. "Sir, understand what I'm about to tell you goes against everything that she taught me?"

"Who's "she", Detective?"

"Victoria Gates." Rogers ignored Edwards' reaction to his mentor's name. The former Captain had been forced into retirement soon after the Castle Murders. Gates had been likely that she hadn't been prosecuted for her part in the aftermath.

"Detective Rogers." Edwards said sharply, getting to his feet. "That woman-"

Rogers opened her eyes and made eye contact with the Captain. "Taught me everything I know about Law Enforcement, Captain. You can check with Gates, Captain. She'll back me up with everything that I'm telling you."

Edwards shook his head and sat back down. "Rogers…"

Rogers switched gears. "What do you know about the Castle Murders?"

"Big shot author, Richard Castle, attacked his wife, daughter, and mother. The mother died of her injuries but the wife lived. They never did find the daughter's body." Edwards rubbed his bald head again. "Found enough evidence at the scene that the ME included that the girl was probably dead. Blood everywhere."

Rogers bit her lip. "What if, the author was framed? What if the author was prepared for the worst, new IDs, money, a new life? And the daughter was the only one that made it out?"

Edwards threw his hands in the air. Rogers twisted hers in her lap. "And now you're talking in riddles, Detective. The daughter lost over half of her blood volume. There was no way that she could have survived that."

"And what about the aftermath?

"The team of detectives was disbanded and Gates lost her job. Castle went to jail. Ryan disappeared. Esposito went back to the army…Beckett. Oh shit."

Rogers breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn't going to have to play all of cards this time. She could keep her trump for now. Edwards went through each folder for several seconds before closing each one. He stacked the folders up and handed them back to her.

"You have my permission to open these cases, Detective. Call on Hendricks if you and your boys need help."

"Yes sir." Rogers stood, and accepted the files.

"Keep me informed and good work, Detective."

Rogers nodded and turned away. She exited the office and made her way back to her desk. Setting the folders on the edge she stood in front of the murder board again.

Castle. Beckett. Esposito. Ryan. Parish. Gates. Montgomery.

It wasn't going to take long for word to get out that she was still alive. Her father might have been successful in faking her death, but the group that had Johanna Beckett murdered were powerful. They might have known the whole time that she was never dead; just waiting for the right moment.

If Rogers played the cards right, she was going to be able to bring down the house of cards that ruined their lives. That ruined her life. Rogers turned and added a picture of under each name on the board.

People were counting on her. Each of these people deserved closure. Rogers touched each picture, remembering, her hand other around the locket and flash drive that she wore around her neck.

She was going to make them pay.

Fifteen years ago…

Alexis Castle stole away upsides as her father moped around his office. She didn't want him to see what was in her hands. If he did, she was afraid as to what would happen. Why had Captain Montgomery sent her a package? Why did he entrust a seventeen year old girl with this package?

Alexis closed and locked her bedroom door. There that would keep her father and Gram out. The teenage sat the manila package down on her bed.

It looked normal.

It felt normal.

By reaching for the clasp, Alexis Castle's life was changed for forever.

Good? Bad? So-So?