There were three men standing near the Lockwood cronies in the large room. All of those were down, shot just once so she saw just briefly. Then her attention was drawn to Lockwood, and the man standing over him.

To her right someone swallowed something rather hard " I've heard there's a double for everyone, but this is ridiculous." Castle noted.

" That may be the case, Mr Castle, but to us it meant a whole lot of trouble." Beckett turned around as a shadow fell over her in the same way as Darth Vader towered over Princess Leia. She received a curt nod " Is this the man you're looking for?"

" I want to know who hired him. And, " Kate produced her badge " I want him in custody." Kate wasn't through yet " And, I want to know who you are."

Snake Doc smiled when he noticed how determined the petite woman in front of him was. He kept on smiling as he answered " you may know me as Snake Doc."

Nobody noticed how a still restrained Esposito nearly jumped out of his own skin.

" Seems we have a bit of a problem here. I think the detective wants to have a word with mr Lockwood." Beckett heard the voice belonging to Cool Breeze wonder about it.

Dirt Diver, whose eyes never wavered stayed quiet.

It was Snake Doc, again, that broke the silence " Why?" Again those fierce piercing eyes.

Kate repeated her story " I wanna find out who hired him. Whoever he is he's the one that ordered the hit on my mother." Castle wasn't really surprised that Snake Doc didn't flinch at all.

" Your story makes sense, Detective. Although prison is a lot better then what I had in mind." The rather smug smile on Snake Doc stayed and as Castle looked at the hit man and his double he couldn't help but wonder if those guys would indeed be able to get into prison and...his mind blankly refused to fill in the rest.

" What you say Dirt Diver? Do we give the lady her due?"

All eyes in the room fell on the man standing over the hit man. The silence in before the answer was brief.

" Chester, the child molester. I wonder which punishment will be worse? Hers? Or mine?" With that behind him, the man walked away from the hit man enabling Kate to put the handcuffs on him. It was a cue for the others as well. One by one they faded out of the room until only Snake Doc remained " Don' try to find us, detective. You got what you came for and so did we." Then he too disappeared in to the dark.

A few days later Ryan and Esposito were back on the job. All three detectives were doing paperwork, this time without Castle around. Esposito noticed that Beckett went to get a new cup of coffee and followed his boss to do the same.

" You still thinking about that thing with Lockwood or whoever he is?" Beckett took a quick zip from her espresso. " Yeah, and I'm also wondering about who those guys at the warehouse were."

Beckett noticed Esposito's demeanor change " Special Forces." He watched his boss frown.

" Special Forces? Isn't that a violation of a number of laws?"

" Yeah, probably. But did you notice the similarities between our hit man and that Dirt Diver guy?" Esposito went on to describe his theory on how somebody must have found out about their similarities and send that particular team to the city to track him down. He added one other thing

" I don't think you'll ever run into those guys again, and maybe that's better."

" I could see that in his eyes." Kate answered

With that said he headed back to his own desk. Leaving Kate Beckett to ponder a little more about her mothers case file and the recent events which had brought her a little closer to solving that case.

fin