"They were definitely here. No doubt about it," Castle murmured, staring up at the hallway ceiling.
Even though church bells didn't ring at night, the faint hum of a large commercial ventilation system—connected to the restaurant downstairs—could still be heard through the ceiling's soundproofing panels.
"Here." Brian pushed open a door and immediately noticed something unusual. He snapped his fingers to get the others' attention.
Unlike the slightly outdated hotel rooms lining the hallway, this room had been completely gutted—no partitions, no windows. It looked like an oversized shipping container.
The walls were covered with wavy-patterned soundproofing panels. Jack stepped inside and noticed that the floor was slightly sunken—probably packed with additional layers of sound insulation.
Tapping the wall, he was certain that even if a flashbang exploded inside, as long as the reinforced door was shut, barely any noise would escape.
Inside, there were only two single beds. Castle rushed forward, picking up a golden hair strand tinged with red from one of the pillows. He mumbled, "They were here."
Jack sniffed the air. He wasn't sure if Kim wore perfume, but he recognized the scent of this floral body spray instantly—Alexis had begged Hannah for a few bottles of it back then.
Brian stood still, gazing at the two single beds, his expression unreadable.
The inconsistencies were piling up. Jack's attention shifted to the wired telephone in the middle of the floor. Something about it felt off.
"The phone works?" Castle picked up the receiver, hearing a clear dial tone. "I can't believe this."
"They want us to find this place," Brian said grimly, glancing at Jack.
Jack let out a soft "Shh," scanning the room with his flashlight. His beam finally rested on a slightly raised section of the wall. Compared to the surrounding soundproof panels, this spot stood out.
Brian walked over and used his knife to cut through the wallpaper, revealing a listening device embedded in the wall.
"Why?" Castle mouthed dramatically.
Jack didn't answer. Instead, he leaned toward the bug and, mimicking Brian's raspy voice, said, "Hello? Dumb pig? Marhaba?"
After greeting in three different languages, he switched back to English.
"Whoever is listening, we just want to make one thing clear. You've already received your money. Those two girls have no value to you anymore.
Since you left a working telephone here, it means you wanted someone to find this place. So contact us. Name your terms.
We are the fathers of the kidnapped girls.
We came to Paris privately. There are no police, and we don't care about any legal issues. We just want our daughters back."
Before Jack even finished speaking, the telephone rang. Castle snatched it up. "Hello?"
"Tomorrow at 4 PM. The woods outside the Palace of Fontainebleau. Coordinates are as follows. Five million euros. Only the two of you are allowed. If we detect a third person, both girls die."
The speaker, a man with a thick Arabic accent, hung up immediately.
Before Castle could say anything, Jack clamped a hand over his mouth and dragged him out of the room.
——
"This place was prepared as a holding site in advance. But with only two beds, that means they originally planned to kidnap just two people," Brian finally spoke, breaking the heavy silence as they returned to the hotel.
"One of the three girls must have been taken simply because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"They didn't install easy-to-track security cameras like last time," Jack pointed out. "Instead, they used a wiretapped phone line—impossible to trace without prior preparation."
The implication was clear: they were lured to Paris on purpose.
"What the hell is going on?" Castle groaned, sitting on the bed and tugging at his hair in frustration. "Bugs, anti-tracking measures… are we dealing with intelligence operatives?"
"Are you sure you haven't gotten yourself tangled in some kind of espionage case?" Brian squatted in front of him, his face deadly serious.
Castle's eyes widened. "Me?! You're the one with a spy background!"
Brian shook his head but didn't argue. Instead, Jack answered for him.
"If they were after Brian, they wouldn't have needed such an elaborate setup. His security clearance isn't that high, and since retirement, he's spent all his time with his family."
"Think with that brilliant mystery-writer brain of yours—if you wanted to target Brian, would you go through all this trouble?"
"Of course not," Castle admitted. "Even if they wanted to lure him out of the U.S. by kidnapping Kim, there'd be no need to take anyone else.
That ransom from Sara's parents—15 million euros—was just a smokescreen. So was today's 5 million. Their real goal was to get us to Paris for something else."
Castle's voice trailed off. His eyes widened in shock.
"So… their true target wasn't Sara or Kim. It was Alexis?"
"Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth," Jack said grimly. His head was starting to ache.
He swore Alexis never got kidnapped in the first three seasons of Castle.
By Season 4, he had switched to Person of Interest and only skimmed later episodes. There was a weird time-travel subplot that stuck in his memory, but as for Alexis getting kidnapped? Not even a faint recollection.
"But I'm nobody! And Alexis has even less connection to espionage!" Castle's voice wavered, his confidence shaken.
A sudden ringtone shattered the tense silence.
Castle and Brian both turned to Jack.
To avoid tracking and exposure, neither of them had brought a phone. Only Jack had two—his FBI-issued one and the mystery phone.
It was his FBI phone ringing. Seeing the caller ID, he put it on speaker.
Beckett's voice came through. She had two updates.
First, they found Roger Hansen's girlfriend, who led them to his apartment. There, the FBI recovered a computer. The hard drive was filled with surveillance photos—of Alexis.
Second, Beckett had privately contacted Sara's mother. Sara was currently being escorted back to New York.
But during a tearful conversation with her mother, Sara revealed something chilling:
During the kidnapping, two Arab women had conducted full-body inspections of all three girls—an examination far more invasive than necessary.
As the call ended, Jack and the two fathers exchanged grave looks.
______
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