Chapter One
Broken Recovery

It had been a long two months for Kate Beckett. She had been certain she did the right thing by hiding away at her father's fishing camp in the Adirondacks all summer. Hidden away where no one could find her while she recovered from her shooting. Her dad waiting on her hand and foot until she could do for herself, then she sent even him away, though he hadn't gone far, he had friends just up the road whom he stayed with while she licked her wounds alone.

She agonized over the words Castle had spoken to her as she lay bleeding in the grass of the cemetery. Words she kept trying to convince herself he hadn't meant and failing miserably. Agonizing over the lie she had told, and the promise to call him in a few days, which had strayed to a few weeks, to two months. The nightmares of him dying in her place robbing her of sleep every night.

She had re-read every one of his books, trying to find the magic in his words, the spark in them that had saved her before but every time she thought she was close to it she remembered her own.

Some things are better off not being remembered.

The look on his face when she told that lie and sent him on his way said everything she needed to know.

Suddenly there was a rattling at her front door, a loud insistent pounding. Her hand went immediately to her small 9mm Glock, her backup piece, which she kept under her pillow. Her heart began throbbing loudly in her chest as she flicked off the safety, chambered a round and rose painfully from her bed. Pistol in hand she strode unsteadily to the front of the cabin as she heard a key in the lock.

Just as she pulled the pistol up into a shaky Weaver stance, her father burst into the cabin, out of breath. She managed to get the gun down, behind her back before he could see it as he caught his breath.

"Katie pack a bag, we need to go to New York, now!" he said.

"What! Why?" she said. Shakily.

At her questioning look, her father shoved the morning's copy of the Ledger into her hands. On the front page it read: MYSTERY WRITER STABBED IN HOME INVASION. Under the headline was a publicity photo of Richard Castle and photo from the scene of a distraught Alexis being held by her grandmother taken by a photojournalist. As she scanned the story, it stated, citing a source in the hospital, that he had been stabbed multiple times and was in critical condition.

Her father hastily threw some of her clothes and a change of shoes into a duffel bag and met her at his Ford Explorer for the three hour drive. She spent nearly the entire trip with her head buried in her hands, sobbing quietly. As she thought bitterly to herself, "They were supposed to be after me, leaving was supposed to keep Castle safe, but it had only made him a target."

"What have I done," she whispered over and over again, "Dear God, what have I done"