Reborn in Castle (TV show)

[Morgue]

The morgue doors opened as Travis, Kate, and Castle stepped inside, bringing the noise of the hallway with them for only a moment before the doors swung closed again.

Lanie stood beside one of the examination tables wearing blue scrubs beneath her lab coat. Allison Reed's body rested beneath a white sheet. Several evidence photographs had been arranged on the stainless-steel counter beside her, along with toxicology reports and enlarged images taken during the autopsy.

The expression on Lanie's face immediately told Kate that whatever she'd found went far beyond the throat wound.

Kate walked closer. "You sounded pretty serious on the phone."

"I was serious," Lanie replied as she picked up the preliminary toxicology report. "Because Allison Reed didn't start dying this morning."

Travis stopped beside Kate. "What does that mean?"

Lanie looked between them before placing the report down. "Somebody's been poisoning her."

Castle's eyebrows rose. "Poisoning her how long?"

"At least three months, probably longer," Lanie answered. "The lab found elevated arsenic concentrations in her blood, liver, kidneys, hair, and fingernails. The levels weren't high enough to suggest one large dose. Whoever was doing this gave her small amounts repeatedly."

Kate's expression hardened. "Tiny doses."

"Exactly," Lanie said. "Small enough that she wouldn't collapse immediately, but frequent enough that the poison kept accumulating inside her."

Travis glanced toward Allison's body. "What symptoms would she have had?"

"Fatigue, headaches, nausea, stomach pain, weakness, numbness in her hands and feet, dizziness, trouble concentrating, and eventually irregular heart rhythm," Lanie replied. "Her kidneys were already badly damaged, and her liver showed signs of progressive failure. She would've probably blamed half of it on stress, medication, grief, or whatever else she had going on."

Castle looked toward the photographs on the counter. "Could that explain why she thought she was seeing her daughter?"

Lanie nodded slowly. "Possibly. Severe arsenic exposure can cause neurological problems, confusion, mood changes, and in extreme cases hallucinations. I'm not saying every supernatural experience she reported came from the poisoning, but it could've made everything much worse."

Kate looked at Travis.

The hit-and-run suddenly carried an entirely different meaning.

"If Allison was already being poisoned when she hit Matthew Cole," Kate said, "then what she thought she saw in the road might've been connected to this."

"That's possible," Lanie replied. "I checked the timeline based on the blood samples. She was definitely being exposed by then."

Travis rubbed his jaw. "Three months ago was the hit-and-run."

"Pretty close," Lanie confirmed. "The poisoning may have started a few weeks before the accident."

Castle slowly shook his head. "So somebody poisons a grieving woman until she starts doubting her own senses, and then she begins seeing ghosts that might actually be neurological damage."

Lanie's expression remained grim. "It gets worse."

Travis looked toward her. "Something worse than three months of poisoning?"

Lanie pulled the sheet farther down Allison's arms.

Kate immediately noticed the marks.

Dark bruises covered portions of both upper arms, some fresh and others already fading. Several were shaped like fingers.

Lanie pointed toward one cluster. "These weren't caused during the murder. She's got injuries in different stages of healing, which means somebody had been hurting her repeatedly."

Kate leaned closer without touching the body. "How long?"

"At least several weeks based on the coloration and tissue response," Lanie replied. "Maybe months."

Castle's expression had gone completely serious.

Lanie carefully shifted Allison enough to expose part of her back. More bruising followed her ribs and shoulder blades, along with several narrow marks that looked older.

"She's got repeated blunt-force injuries across her back," Lanie continued. "Nothing severe enough by itself to put her in the hospital, but whoever did this knew exactly how much damage they could cause without making it immediately obvious under normal clothing."

Travis closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before opening them again.

"Someone was beating her," He asked.

"Repeatedly," Lanie confirmed.

Kate stared at the photographs beside the table. "Anything else?"

Lanie hesitated before reaching for another evidence photograph.

"Yeah."

She handed it to Kate.

Kate looked down, and her expression changed immediately.

Castle leaned slightly closer before deciding he didn't need a better view.

The photographs showed multiple small circular burns on Allison's upper thighs. Several were old enough to have scarred, while others had happened recently. Additional burns had been found across her breasts, hidden completely beneath ordinary clothing.

"Cigarettes?" Kate asked.

Lanie nodded. "That's what they look like. Repeated contact burns. Different ages again."

Travis looked away for a second and slowly exhaled through his nose.

"Jesus Christ."

Lanie lowered the sheet again. "I've also got bruising around her hips and lower back that I'm still documenting. I didn't find evidence that proves sexual assault, so I'm not calling it that without evidence. What I can tell you is that somebody had been systematically abusing this woman."

Kate's face had become cold in the way it usually did whenever a victim's suffering stopped being abstract.

Lanie continued, "Most of the injuries were placed where clothes would've covered them. Upper arms, back, thighs, chest. Somebody either got very lucky, or they deliberately chose places other people wouldn't normally see."

Travis slowly walked toward the counter and studied the injury photographs.

Three months of poison.

Weeks or months of abuse.

Then somebody tied Allison Reed to a hotel bed and cut her throat.

He looked toward Lanie. "How close was the poisoning to killing her?"

Lanie folded her arms. "Very close. Her kidneys were failing, her liver was deteriorating, and her heart had started showing damage. If whoever was dosing her continued at roughly the same rate, I'd give her maybe another week or two before she ended up in critical condition or dead."

Castle looked stunned. "She was going to die anyway."

"Yes, in a week or two," Lanie replied. "If she'd gotten to a hospital and somebody figured out arsenic poisoning early enough, she might've survived. Whoever was poisoning her had already done the damage."

Travis stared at Allison for another moment.

"There's a second killer."

Kate turned toward him.

"Maybe even more than two," Travis replied as he started organizing the timeline aloud. "Person one spends three months poisoning her slowly. Person two abuses her, beats her, burns her with cigarettes. Then person three gets her into Room 814, restrains her, cuts her throat, and paints Red John's smile on the wall."

Castle frowned. "That's a lot of homicidal attention focused on one financial executive."

Travis nodded. "Exactly. Poisoning somebody over three months takes patience and access. You need to get close enough to put poison into something she's eating, drinking, or taking regularly without her noticing."

Kate glanced toward the toxicology report. "And the abuse requires even more access."

"Right," Travis said. "Whoever was hurting her had privacy with her repeatedly. Then our hotel killer comes along and finishes her before the poison can."

Kate considered the theory before shaking her head slightly. "Or we're dealing with one killer."

Travis looked toward her.

Kate stepped closer to the table and studied Allison's injuries again. "One person could've been poisoning her, abusing her, and controlling her for months. Maybe the original plan was to let the poison kill her slowly."

Castle's attention sharpened.

Kate continued, "Then something changed. Allison might have planned to go to the police, or heard something she shouldn't have, or the killer realized doctors were eventually going to discover the poisoning."

"So they ran out of time," Castle said.

Kate nodded. "They killed her in the hotel before she could expose them, then used Red John's signature to send us chasing in another direction."

Lanie looked toward the blood-smiley photograph. "That would explain why someone spent months hiding what they were doing and suddenly committed the loudest possible murder."

Travis thought for several seconds before nodding. "Yeah, that works too."

Castle had begun pacing beside the counter, which Kate recognized immediately as the warning sign that his imagination had reached operating temperature.

"What if the poison and the abuse weren't just about killing her?"

Kate looked toward him. "Here we go."

Castle ignored the comment and continued pacing. "Allison becomes obsessed with psychics after losing her family. She spends fifty-eight thousand dollars trying to communicate with the dead. Somebody discovers that she's vulnerable and starts manipulating her."

Travis folded his arms. "Manipulating her toward what?"

"Her money," Castle replied. "Or control. Imagine a psychic cult."

Kate stared at him. "A psychic cult."

Castle pointed toward her as though she had just validated the entire theory. "Exactly. Allison meets someone who convinces her that Daniel and Sophie are communicating with her. They tell her the headaches are spiritual pressure, the nausea means she's crossing some metaphysical barrier, and the numbness means her body is becoming receptive to the dead."

Lanie gave him an unsettled look. "That's disturbingly believable."

Encouraged, Castle continued. "Then they start poisoning her in tiny doses because the symptoms make the supernatural story stronger. She gets dizzy. She sees things. She becomes confused. Maybe she starts hallucinating her daughter, and every hallucination makes her trust them more."

Kate crossed her arms. "And the cigarette burns?"

Castle pointed toward the injury photographs. "Punishment disguised as purification. Some deranged spiritual leader tells her the pain is necessary to cleanse negative energy or open some imaginary pathway to the afterlife."

Travis stared at Castle for a moment. "You realize your wacky theory just became incredibly dark."

Castle lowered his hand slightly. "Murder tends to do that."

Kate looked toward the victim again. "Keep going."

Castle's expression became more serious as he connected the rest. "Allison eventually realizes she's being manipulated. Maybe she finds evidence of the poison or finally tells somebody about the abuse. Whoever's controlling her panics because their victim is about to expose everything."

"So they kill her," Travis said.

Castle nodded. "Inside the room connected to her dead family. Then they paint Red John's smile because they know it'll attract attention away from the psychic angle and toward a serial killer three thousand miles away."

Kate considered the theory.

"For once, Castle, that's not completely insane."

Castle smiled faintly. "I'm choosing to hear that as professional admiration."

"It wasn't."

"I've learned to survive on small victories."

Lanie picked up the toxicology report again. "There's something else you should know before you run out and arrest every psychic in Manhattan."

Castle stopped smiling.

Lanie tapped the first page. "The arsenic wasn't random contamination. Based on the concentration pattern, somebody was giving it to her regularly. Probably several times every week."

Travis looked toward Kate. "Which means we need to find something Allison used consistently."

"Coffee, medication, supplements, food deliveries, alcohol," Kate replied as she started making a mental list. "Anything she consumed without thinking twice."

"And whoever had repeated access to her," Travis added. "Coworkers, housekeeper, friends, lovers, doctors, psychics, anyone who regularly visited her apartment."

"Castle and I will go and check her apartment," Kate said, giving Lanie a knowing nod.

"I'll go and check that hotel room once more in case we missed anything important. And be careful," Travis said as he looked toward Kate and Castle. "We're dealing with poison here. So, put on masks and gloves when you enter her apartment. For all we know, even the doorknobs could have poison on them."

They were about to leave when...

"Travis, a word," Lanie stopped him.

--

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