"Someone had a priest assassinated?"
Well, it's as good a jumping off point as any and Ryan and Espo are sent to interview a nun. Beckett and Castle go to talk to the owner of a neighboring business and he gives them a lead. Ryan is worried about his interview with the nun likening it to combat. Esposito counters that he's been in combat and there's no way the nun could be that bad.
The nun tells the detectives that she knows who killed the priest; Mickey Dolan. They had been friends since childhood and the priest was always trying to reform the mob enforcer. The priest had taken a phone call soon before his death concerning Dolan.
Kate and Castle go downtown to investigate and after quibbling over whether or not to park the car there, Castle reopens the discussion about whether or not his mother could have shown more tack. Guys, we were all there, everyone could have shown more tact including you two.
The pair go to investigate their lead and are soon held at gun point. After briefly getting away, they dash into a man's apartment; as it so happens, the man they had come to talk to's apartment.
"What are you doing here?"
"We're here to save you."
The guy says he didn't really know anything despite running his mouth off to the entire bar. The three of them make a break for it and get back to where the car was parked.
"Dude, where's your car?"
I think I've seen this film. The nearly-vic agrees with Castle; what was Kate thinking parking in this neighborhood.
The nun's story checks out. Ryan and Esposito are having trouble getting ahold of out duo. The alert Capt. Gates who recognizes the potential gravity of the situation and sends squad cars to look for Beckett and her car.
Castle starts ringing a door buzzer which prompts the owner to throw a beer at him. Castle threatens to not stop buzzing until he calls the cops. Unfortunately the cops don't come into that area so they leave before the owner can kill them.
Kate breaks into a car to get a cell phone; which is locked. As one of our commenters mentioned on the sneak peeks, you can still call 911 if a phone is locked. The nearly-vic notes that the tension between Caskett has less to do with the fact men are chasing them than themselves. Fair assumtion.
The car alarm draws the attention of the shooters but our heroes and the near-vic hide in a storm grate while the car passes by. Caskett argue whether there's a schedule for the subway. Castle says that if he can figure out the phone code, that they’ll be safe. He doesn’t say what will happen if he doesn’t.
Martha and Beckett's dad Jim have been notified their children have been misplaced. Unfortunately this is not first-grade misplaced where “lost” is more of an “at the other end of the playground”. Martha directs Jim to Castle's espresso machine while they wait after she calls Cap. Gates a terrible actress. In Gates’ defense, there really wasn’t much she could do about it.
Meanwhile, Castle has not been able to figure out the phone code. He's tried "love" and a bunch of clues from the phone that didn't work but then the phone rings. 'Call Me Maybe' cute. The woman who owns the phone is pissed but tells them the cat's name which is Castle's theory about the passcode. She hangs up, Castle opens the phone, she remotely disables the phone, he drops it.
They leave the grate onto the open street where they meet a cab that refuses to pick them up. And then the gun thugs have found them again. Oh dear.
Gates has brought in a suspected ally to the O’Keefes. Gates offers to drive him to the airport if he tells her where Castle and Beckett are.
The trio hides again but are still being pursued and at some point the almost-dead injured his ankle. The near-vic is not very optimistic that they'll get out of there. Castle offers to tape up the guy's ankle to which the guy pithily replies that unless there’s a new ankle in there for him, it won’t do much good. The guy offers some pop psychology that this isn't about their parents but about them. Seeing the opening, it seems more about the parents but across town, Martha and Jim make up and then bond over their missing children. Jim tells Martha that even after a decade it’s hard for him but he feels better knowing that Kate feels safest with Rick and Martha echoes the sentiment.
Kate and Rick start talking about it and Kate says that when Castle said their parents were from different worlds, it made her think that they’re too different; on paper they shouldn't work. Shortly after, Castle's McGyvered radio breaks into a feed. (Wonder if he's using his training from Trucker for that)
The actual truckers dismiss it as static and the near-vic notes their stalkers have gone. Castle volunteers to go look to save Kate. He finds the Chinese place they had planned on going to call for help but is instead kidnapped up by the mob guys in the SUV. Castle apologizes for kicking the one in the nuts but it doesn't seem to garner very much sympathy.
While waiting for Castle to respond, Kate tries the radio again. The almost-vic offers more advice to Kate but this time it serves the relationship; he tells her not to worry about the future and to live for the day.
In the back of the SUV, one of the kidnappers, Dolan, uses a bluffing theory to figure out where Kate and the vic are.
The FBI comes in to talk to the detectives about the priest whom they believe was the informant. The Feeb tells them that Dolan was going to be the witness and that he ditched his protection when he found out that the priest had been killed.
Across town the gangsters break into Kate's hiding place. She takes them out and then the would-be vic pulls the gun from the thug and points it at Kate. Kate figures out that he was the killer and that he had gone along with them because it would have been hard to be the innocent victim with two dead bodies.
Dolan tells Castle he doesn't want to kill anyone; he just wants to know who killed his friend. Kate calls Dolan on a mob guy's phone and she asks to speak to Castle before agreeing to the deal. Kate signals to Castle that there's something wrong by suggesting a baseball game for a group outing. Rick plays it cool and Kate and Dolan selects a meeting place.
Dolan sets up a trap for the killer because of Kate's tip. He pulls a gun on the killer and Castle talks him down from killing the killer just as the police show up. Kate runs breathlessly to Castle saying she feared she had lost him.
One of the police officers calls them the cab, the same one that blew them off earlier. Back at the precinct, Gates tells them she missed them but was not -could not- have been as worried as their folks. Castle tells Beckett, so what if they don't work on paper, they don't live their lives on paper. And as they see their folks having made up, they prove this because they never could have been astonished if they were on paper.
In two weeks: "Santa is dead?!"
