(Castle/Leverage) Phishing Bait for ella-bee
Title: Phishing Bait
Author: faithburke
Fandoms: Castle/Leverage
Characters: Rick Castle, Kate Beckett; Nate Ford, Alec Hardison, Eliot Spencer, Sophie Devereaux, Parker
Pairings: No pairings
Rating: PG
Word count: 2700
Spoilers: Through all of Season 4 of Castle and all of Season 4 of Leverage, just to be safe
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Castle and Leverage belong to their respective creators
A/N: Many thanks to P for the superspeedy beta
Summary: The key to any good con is remaining flexible
“It was supposed to be for charity,” the man concluded his story, one that had a familiar ring to Nate’s ears. “That’s why we gave them the information in the first place. They were just supposed to take out thirty dollars a month to help pay for a radio station in Africa. Then we got the statements and the checking account had been cleaned down to just over two hundred dollars. There were all sorts of charges on our credit cards. We started getting letters from banks, and when we reported it the police said there was nothing that could be done. The person was already long gone by the time we realized what was happening.” Jeff West shook his head. “We lost everything.”
“Identity theft,” Hardison supplied. “It’s gotten a lot easier to do over the last few years. Give me a social security number or a bank account and I can do everything.”
This wasn’t exactly comforting to their client and Nate spoke up in the silence. “What makes you think we can track down your thief, if the police couldn’t do it?”
“I don’t know if you can,” West said. It was refreshingly frank. “I just know if someone doesn’t stop him he’ll keep doing it, and it will ruin the charities he’s using in the meantime.”
“He’s right,” Hardison said once they were back. “The charities are real, and this kind of thing will kill them if it gets out.”
“Have you found more incidents?” Sophie asked, sipping her tea and looking interested. “I mean, there have to be more. This kind of scam would be pointless if there were only one mark.”
“I think its safe to assume that they’ve done this before, and that they’re probably pulling the same thing on someone else right now,” Eliot chimed in. “The problem is connecting them and finding the person behind it. If it was easy the cops would have done it already.”
“All right Hardison, get on that. We need some evidence of similar crimes, and we’re going to need some way to shut them down when we find them without hurting the charity they’re using.” His mind was already working, evaluating similar crimes from his mental files and focusing on their weaknesses.
It took a few hours for Hardison to gather the data they needed and once they got a look at the operation Eliot let out a low whistle. “This took some doing,” he pointed out, taking in the hundred of dots across the country. “This is more than one person, or even a team. This is a network, and its way too big to take down without law enforcement. Something like this, you have to go after the whole thing at once or it just disappears underground.”
“A network is only as good as its weakest member, though. If we can pull on a thread and get the details from just one person, we can get that information to someone who can actually do something about it. Hardison, where do you think they’re most likely to get sloppy?”
“New York,” he answered immediately. “It’s probably got more of these high-profile charity things than anywhere else. Lots of low-hanging fruit at those things, people who might not even notice a problem for a few months. It’s where I would go.”
“Yeah, me too. All right, New York City it is. Let’s go steal a charity ball.”
xxx
These things were always open bar (it was a lot easier to get money away from people with an alcohol lubricant) and always a meat market (his mother had been hunting silver foxes here for years), but these days Rick was trying to stay out of the way of territorial society women. It wasn’t that he and Kate (Detective Beckett, need to remember that) were together, exactly. He just wasn’t really interested in being eaten by a barracuda anymore, and these women were all definitely predators.
There was a man sitting at the far end of the bar and he looked like he was attempting the same thing as Rick, so once there was a drink in his hand Rick ambled down to join him. The stranger was muttering into his drink, a fedora perched on a head of dark, curly hair that was just starting to turn grey, and he looked up when Rick sat down next to him. There was something familiar about the man’s face, something that pinged in his memory and had something to do with a story idea he’d been nursing along. He was fairly certain it had nothing to do with the most recent police case, or even a case from within the last few weeks, but it was still much too close for it to be anything that hadn’t happened for the last few weeks. After that things went on the back burner in his mind.
“Can I help you?” the stranger asked. His voice should have been bleary if he was at the stage of drunkenness where you talked to your drink (trust him, he knew), but it was sharp. And just like that, the pieces lined up in Rick’s mind.
“Rick Castle.” He held out his hand to shake and the other man followed suit after a half a second of hesitation. “Just hiding out from women who want to eat me alive.”
“The mystery novelist, right?”
“Yeah, that’s me. And you are?”
“Tom Baker. Taking advantage of the open bar to hide from my wife.”
“So what is it that you do?”
“I work as an insurance adjuster.”
“Really? That sounds like a pretty boring job. Paperwork all day, am I right?”
“No.” ‘Baker’ didn’t elaborate and had turned from Rick to scan the crowd.
Rick did the same. “You know what one of the best things is about being a bestselling writer?”
“No, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”
“I’ve got a lot of fans. Granted, a lot of them are just normal people who like to read my books, but the mayor is a pretty dedicated reader and a pretty good friend. You meet up with a lot of people who are willing to be resources when you’re working on a story, and because I always credit them they stay friends and sometimes share interesting things with me when they come across a file they think will be something I can use as inspiration. On last year’s book tour, I ended up meeting an Interpol agent who was apparently a member of the fan club. And that, Mr. Ford, is how I ended up reading through your file.”
xxx
The key to running successful cons lay in flexibility and adaptation. It was a lesson he was working hard to impress on Hardison, admittedly with limited success. So when Richard Castle, best-selling novelist and minor celebrity, stepped into the game Nate immediately began planning how to incorporate the younger man as a game piece.
“And now I’m starting to wonder exactly what Nate Ford, con artist and thief, is doing at the charity auction,” Castle continued. “Oh my god, are you running a con right now?”
His voice went up a little and Nate winced. “Keep it down.” Obviously the man was the excitable type. It remained to be seen whether or not he was the strictly honest type as well.
Nate’s worries on that front were immediately put to rest by the next words out of Castle’s mouth. “That is so cool!” the man gushed. “Can I help?”
Securing Castle’s help wouldn’t be a problem, obviously. It would be best if he could avoid revealing the rest of the team to the man, partly for everyone’s sanity (he didn’t even want to think what would happen if this man was put in close quarters with Eliot) and partly for security. Interpol’s file on him last year probably hadn’t included many details on the others, since Sterling was the one who handed them that information. “I believe I could find a place for you, yes.” The man would make excellent bait, or a good distraction. Nate was less sure that Castle could keep his mouth shut long enough for it to be any use whatsoever.
“Awesome! So who are you taking down? According to your file, you mostly pull Robin Hood jobs, which must mean that something is going on with someone at the auction, or with the auction itself.”
“Here’s what I want you to do,” Nate began.
xxx
Richard Castle was not supposed to be abducted. That was never part of any of Nate’s plans, though plan L came the closest. Charlene Morris was most likely an identity thief, but that was the extent of her criminal activity to their knowledge. The plan was to dangle Castle’s bank account in front of her eyes and follow the information back to her partners, tugging on the thread until the whole thing unraveled. She was not supposed to contact those partners, drug the writer, and kidnap him.
To make matters worse, Castle had apparently attended this particular function with his teenaged daughter as a date and she’d sent up the alarm before they could really get started on a plan to retrieve him (and get the client’s money back). She’d called the police and apparently the detective that Castle shadowed for research had shown up as quickly as humanly possible and had locked down everyone in the room. Hardison was back at their current headquarters and Parker was still in the vents, but he, Sophie, and Eliot were all out of active play until they could find ways to break out.
Detective Beckett was projecting calm and professional to the best of her considerable abilities, but Nate could see the cracks of real, genuine worry without much trouble. The two of them were in some kind of relationship, either platonic or romantic. Either one gave them an in, if they played it exactly right.
Of course, the plan to spin out an escape and stage a rescue hit a snag when Detective Beckett got a good look at Sophie. “Do I know you?” she asked, her gaze suspicious.
“I’m sure I just have one of those faces,” Sophie prevaricated, her voice flat Midwestern. Up until now she’d been using her typical accent, so Nate was fairly certain her answer should have technically been yes.
“No, we’ve met before.” The younger woman’s hand wasn’t exactly resting on her weapon, but it wasn’t exactly far away either. “What’s your name?”
“Stall, Sophie. Eliot, help her out if you can.” Nate was too far away to get there without raising attention, but Eliot was in this mess as a waiter and was much closer.
“How am I supposed to do that?”
Because he was keeping his eyes on Sophie and Detective Beckett, Nate caught the way the detective’s eyes narrowed before anyone other than Sophie. “Ten years ago,” she said. “A statue went missing from a private collection.” There was a muffled curse from Hardison, who had wiped all electronic records for the entire team but couldn’t do a thing to hack the memory of a particularly astute police officer. “I’m going to be taking you in for questioning.” She called the two other detectives over, giving them instructions that Sophie (and by extension, the rest of the team) couldn’t hear, and then left with Sophie.
“What do you want us to do?” Hardison asked.
“Give me a minute,” Nate said. It had spiraled out of control very quickly. He should never have allowed the writer to get involved.
“I can track down Charlene,” Eliot volunteered, speaking quietly from the back of the room. “Castle knows me, anyway. He’s a lot more likely to trust me than Hardison.”
“And how exactly do you know Richard Castle, best-selling author?” Hardison asked.
Nate could practically hear the smirk on Eliot’s face. “Because I was one of the people he consulted when he was writing the first Derrick Storm novel. Unlike Powell, though, I made damn sure he didn’t credit me anywhere.”
“I heard about that,” Parker said over the earbuds. “It ruined the guy’s career. Archie thought it was hilarious.”
“Focus, please. Eliot, you’re sure you can find him if you can slip away?”
“Charlene’s a local operator. It shouldn’t be a problem.”
“All right. I’ll be the distraction. You slip out and retrieve our writer. Hardison, Parker, keep pulling threads for Charlene. Sophie, keep the detective busy.”
“Not a problem,” Sophie said, her normal accent back in place, though her voice was quiet. “I will be needing someone to remove me from her custody once we’re done. I have the feeling that she isn’t the type to let someone go unless ordered to do so.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Nate told her. “Go.”
xxx
Charlene’s crew had been almost laughingly incompetent. Eliot had managed to infiltrate the cliché warehouse without any ripples at all. There were six of them including Charlene and only three that could even charitably be regarded as muscle. It had been less than a minute’s work to put them all down.
Castle was fastened to . . .was that a folding chair? Charlene and company had used up most of a roll of duct tape to tie him down. He was looking between the would-be kidnappers and Eliot, a bemused expression on his face. “I’m guessing you’re with Ford, then? Think he could have mentioned you were on the payroll?”
They’d neglected to gag him, which had probably been a mistake. Richard Castle’s best weapon happened to be the words he used. Eliot wondered what stories he’d told those three. It might account for at least a little bit of how easy they had been to take down. “Give me a minute. It looks like I’m going to have to cut you out of a roll of duct tape.”
Castle tried to shrug his shoulders, but with his arms taped to his sides and his torso taped to the chair the move was pretty ineffective. “That’s my fault. They started out with rope, but they had me in the back room.”
Eliot nodded with approval as he started on the first layer of tape. “You’ve been practicing.”
“I use it for research. And also when I get kidnapped because of a case I’m working with Beckett.”
“By the way, I’ve seen your detective, man. She’s hot.”
“She’s also a feeling, thinking person. Hands off.”
“Don’t worry, man, I’m not going to mess with your girl.” One last cut and Eliot started to pull on one end of the tape. “They tell you anything you can use?”
“No, but Charlene’s got a smartphone in her purse and she was making a lot of calls.”
Eliot continued removing tape. “Hardison, you got that?”
“Get me the phone and her computer. I can do pretty much anything and everything with those.” There was further muttering on that end, something about not being appreciated or heard, but Eliot had gotten used to it and ignored the younger man as he collected the items.
Castle was standing up on his own by the time he was done shaking the pins and needles out of his limbs. “Your team should drop by the Old Haunt when you’re done, have a few drinks. I’d love to pick their brains for material.”
“What, you don’t want us in your penthouse?”
“Not really. Besides, I bought the bar a couple of years ago. The last owner got killed and it went up for sale.”
“You bringing Alexis?”
“Not a chance in hell.”
“Inviting the detective?”
“I think she might kill me.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
-END-
Prompts:
-Characters are genre-savvy
-Meeting old friends / the people from opposite shows have met before
-Castle/Leverage: Castle is used as a pawn in a con, but he is genre savvy and catches on, and becomes the inside man. OR he needs to use the Leverage team for a source / research in his new book, and Kate learns from them too. OR he was previously conned by Sophie (Castle/Sophie, but past only), and runs into her again.
Author: faithburke
Fandoms: Castle/Leverage
Characters: Rick Castle, Kate Beckett; Nate Ford, Alec Hardison, Eliot Spencer, Sophie Devereaux, Parker
Pairings: No pairings
Rating: PG
Word count: 2700
Spoilers: Through all of Season 4 of Castle and all of Season 4 of Leverage, just to be safe
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Castle and Leverage belong to their respective creators
A/N: Many thanks to P for the superspeedy beta
Summary: The key to any good con is remaining flexible
“It was supposed to be for charity,” the man concluded his story, one that had a familiar ring to Nate’s ears. “That’s why we gave them the information in the first place. They were just supposed to take out thirty dollars a month to help pay for a radio station in Africa. Then we got the statements and the checking account had been cleaned down to just over two hundred dollars. There were all sorts of charges on our credit cards. We started getting letters from banks, and when we reported it the police said there was nothing that could be done. The person was already long gone by the time we realized what was happening.” Jeff West shook his head. “We lost everything.”
“Identity theft,” Hardison supplied. “It’s gotten a lot easier to do over the last few years. Give me a social security number or a bank account and I can do everything.”
This wasn’t exactly comforting to their client and Nate spoke up in the silence. “What makes you think we can track down your thief, if the police couldn’t do it?”
“I don’t know if you can,” West said. It was refreshingly frank. “I just know if someone doesn’t stop him he’ll keep doing it, and it will ruin the charities he’s using in the meantime.”
“He’s right,” Hardison said once they were back. “The charities are real, and this kind of thing will kill them if it gets out.”
“Have you found more incidents?” Sophie asked, sipping her tea and looking interested. “I mean, there have to be more. This kind of scam would be pointless if there were only one mark.”
“I think its safe to assume that they’ve done this before, and that they’re probably pulling the same thing on someone else right now,” Eliot chimed in. “The problem is connecting them and finding the person behind it. If it was easy the cops would have done it already.”
“All right Hardison, get on that. We need some evidence of similar crimes, and we’re going to need some way to shut them down when we find them without hurting the charity they’re using.” His mind was already working, evaluating similar crimes from his mental files and focusing on their weaknesses.
It took a few hours for Hardison to gather the data they needed and once they got a look at the operation Eliot let out a low whistle. “This took some doing,” he pointed out, taking in the hundred of dots across the country. “This is more than one person, or even a team. This is a network, and its way too big to take down without law enforcement. Something like this, you have to go after the whole thing at once or it just disappears underground.”
“A network is only as good as its weakest member, though. If we can pull on a thread and get the details from just one person, we can get that information to someone who can actually do something about it. Hardison, where do you think they’re most likely to get sloppy?”
“New York,” he answered immediately. “It’s probably got more of these high-profile charity things than anywhere else. Lots of low-hanging fruit at those things, people who might not even notice a problem for a few months. It’s where I would go.”
“Yeah, me too. All right, New York City it is. Let’s go steal a charity ball.”
xxx
These things were always open bar (it was a lot easier to get money away from people with an alcohol lubricant) and always a meat market (his mother had been hunting silver foxes here for years), but these days Rick was trying to stay out of the way of territorial society women. It wasn’t that he and Kate (Detective Beckett, need to remember that) were together, exactly. He just wasn’t really interested in being eaten by a barracuda anymore, and these women were all definitely predators.
There was a man sitting at the far end of the bar and he looked like he was attempting the same thing as Rick, so once there was a drink in his hand Rick ambled down to join him. The stranger was muttering into his drink, a fedora perched on a head of dark, curly hair that was just starting to turn grey, and he looked up when Rick sat down next to him. There was something familiar about the man’s face, something that pinged in his memory and had something to do with a story idea he’d been nursing along. He was fairly certain it had nothing to do with the most recent police case, or even a case from within the last few weeks, but it was still much too close for it to be anything that hadn’t happened for the last few weeks. After that things went on the back burner in his mind.
“Can I help you?” the stranger asked. His voice should have been bleary if he was at the stage of drunkenness where you talked to your drink (trust him, he knew), but it was sharp. And just like that, the pieces lined up in Rick’s mind.
“Rick Castle.” He held out his hand to shake and the other man followed suit after a half a second of hesitation. “Just hiding out from women who want to eat me alive.”
“The mystery novelist, right?”
“Yeah, that’s me. And you are?”
“Tom Baker. Taking advantage of the open bar to hide from my wife.”
“So what is it that you do?”
“I work as an insurance adjuster.”
“Really? That sounds like a pretty boring job. Paperwork all day, am I right?”
“No.” ‘Baker’ didn’t elaborate and had turned from Rick to scan the crowd.
Rick did the same. “You know what one of the best things is about being a bestselling writer?”
“No, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”
“I’ve got a lot of fans. Granted, a lot of them are just normal people who like to read my books, but the mayor is a pretty dedicated reader and a pretty good friend. You meet up with a lot of people who are willing to be resources when you’re working on a story, and because I always credit them they stay friends and sometimes share interesting things with me when they come across a file they think will be something I can use as inspiration. On last year’s book tour, I ended up meeting an Interpol agent who was apparently a member of the fan club. And that, Mr. Ford, is how I ended up reading through your file.”
xxx
The key to running successful cons lay in flexibility and adaptation. It was a lesson he was working hard to impress on Hardison, admittedly with limited success. So when Richard Castle, best-selling novelist and minor celebrity, stepped into the game Nate immediately began planning how to incorporate the younger man as a game piece.
“And now I’m starting to wonder exactly what Nate Ford, con artist and thief, is doing at the charity auction,” Castle continued. “Oh my god, are you running a con right now?”
His voice went up a little and Nate winced. “Keep it down.” Obviously the man was the excitable type. It remained to be seen whether or not he was the strictly honest type as well.
Nate’s worries on that front were immediately put to rest by the next words out of Castle’s mouth. “That is so cool!” the man gushed. “Can I help?”
Securing Castle’s help wouldn’t be a problem, obviously. It would be best if he could avoid revealing the rest of the team to the man, partly for everyone’s sanity (he didn’t even want to think what would happen if this man was put in close quarters with Eliot) and partly for security. Interpol’s file on him last year probably hadn’t included many details on the others, since Sterling was the one who handed them that information. “I believe I could find a place for you, yes.” The man would make excellent bait, or a good distraction. Nate was less sure that Castle could keep his mouth shut long enough for it to be any use whatsoever.
“Awesome! So who are you taking down? According to your file, you mostly pull Robin Hood jobs, which must mean that something is going on with someone at the auction, or with the auction itself.”
“Here’s what I want you to do,” Nate began.
xxx
Richard Castle was not supposed to be abducted. That was never part of any of Nate’s plans, though plan L came the closest. Charlene Morris was most likely an identity thief, but that was the extent of her criminal activity to their knowledge. The plan was to dangle Castle’s bank account in front of her eyes and follow the information back to her partners, tugging on the thread until the whole thing unraveled. She was not supposed to contact those partners, drug the writer, and kidnap him.
To make matters worse, Castle had apparently attended this particular function with his teenaged daughter as a date and she’d sent up the alarm before they could really get started on a plan to retrieve him (and get the client’s money back). She’d called the police and apparently the detective that Castle shadowed for research had shown up as quickly as humanly possible and had locked down everyone in the room. Hardison was back at their current headquarters and Parker was still in the vents, but he, Sophie, and Eliot were all out of active play until they could find ways to break out.
Detective Beckett was projecting calm and professional to the best of her considerable abilities, but Nate could see the cracks of real, genuine worry without much trouble. The two of them were in some kind of relationship, either platonic or romantic. Either one gave them an in, if they played it exactly right.
Of course, the plan to spin out an escape and stage a rescue hit a snag when Detective Beckett got a good look at Sophie. “Do I know you?” she asked, her gaze suspicious.
“I’m sure I just have one of those faces,” Sophie prevaricated, her voice flat Midwestern. Up until now she’d been using her typical accent, so Nate was fairly certain her answer should have technically been yes.
“No, we’ve met before.” The younger woman’s hand wasn’t exactly resting on her weapon, but it wasn’t exactly far away either. “What’s your name?”
“Stall, Sophie. Eliot, help her out if you can.” Nate was too far away to get there without raising attention, but Eliot was in this mess as a waiter and was much closer.
“How am I supposed to do that?”
Because he was keeping his eyes on Sophie and Detective Beckett, Nate caught the way the detective’s eyes narrowed before anyone other than Sophie. “Ten years ago,” she said. “A statue went missing from a private collection.” There was a muffled curse from Hardison, who had wiped all electronic records for the entire team but couldn’t do a thing to hack the memory of a particularly astute police officer. “I’m going to be taking you in for questioning.” She called the two other detectives over, giving them instructions that Sophie (and by extension, the rest of the team) couldn’t hear, and then left with Sophie.
“What do you want us to do?” Hardison asked.
“Give me a minute,” Nate said. It had spiraled out of control very quickly. He should never have allowed the writer to get involved.
“I can track down Charlene,” Eliot volunteered, speaking quietly from the back of the room. “Castle knows me, anyway. He’s a lot more likely to trust me than Hardison.”
“And how exactly do you know Richard Castle, best-selling author?” Hardison asked.
Nate could practically hear the smirk on Eliot’s face. “Because I was one of the people he consulted when he was writing the first Derrick Storm novel. Unlike Powell, though, I made damn sure he didn’t credit me anywhere.”
“I heard about that,” Parker said over the earbuds. “It ruined the guy’s career. Archie thought it was hilarious.”
“Focus, please. Eliot, you’re sure you can find him if you can slip away?”
“Charlene’s a local operator. It shouldn’t be a problem.”
“All right. I’ll be the distraction. You slip out and retrieve our writer. Hardison, Parker, keep pulling threads for Charlene. Sophie, keep the detective busy.”
“Not a problem,” Sophie said, her normal accent back in place, though her voice was quiet. “I will be needing someone to remove me from her custody once we’re done. I have the feeling that she isn’t the type to let someone go unless ordered to do so.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Nate told her. “Go.”
xxx
Charlene’s crew had been almost laughingly incompetent. Eliot had managed to infiltrate the cliché warehouse without any ripples at all. There were six of them including Charlene and only three that could even charitably be regarded as muscle. It had been less than a minute’s work to put them all down.
Castle was fastened to . . .was that a folding chair? Charlene and company had used up most of a roll of duct tape to tie him down. He was looking between the would-be kidnappers and Eliot, a bemused expression on his face. “I’m guessing you’re with Ford, then? Think he could have mentioned you were on the payroll?”
They’d neglected to gag him, which had probably been a mistake. Richard Castle’s best weapon happened to be the words he used. Eliot wondered what stories he’d told those three. It might account for at least a little bit of how easy they had been to take down. “Give me a minute. It looks like I’m going to have to cut you out of a roll of duct tape.”
Castle tried to shrug his shoulders, but with his arms taped to his sides and his torso taped to the chair the move was pretty ineffective. “That’s my fault. They started out with rope, but they had me in the back room.”
Eliot nodded with approval as he started on the first layer of tape. “You’ve been practicing.”
“I use it for research. And also when I get kidnapped because of a case I’m working with Beckett.”
“By the way, I’ve seen your detective, man. She’s hot.”
“She’s also a feeling, thinking person. Hands off.”
“Don’t worry, man, I’m not going to mess with your girl.” One last cut and Eliot started to pull on one end of the tape. “They tell you anything you can use?”
“No, but Charlene’s got a smartphone in her purse and she was making a lot of calls.”
Eliot continued removing tape. “Hardison, you got that?”
“Get me the phone and her computer. I can do pretty much anything and everything with those.” There was further muttering on that end, something about not being appreciated or heard, but Eliot had gotten used to it and ignored the younger man as he collected the items.
Castle was standing up on his own by the time he was done shaking the pins and needles out of his limbs. “Your team should drop by the Old Haunt when you’re done, have a few drinks. I’d love to pick their brains for material.”
“What, you don’t want us in your penthouse?”
“Not really. Besides, I bought the bar a couple of years ago. The last owner got killed and it went up for sale.”
“You bringing Alexis?”
“Not a chance in hell.”
“Inviting the detective?”
“I think she might kill me.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
-END-
Prompts:
-Characters are genre-savvy
-Meeting old friends / the people from opposite shows have met before
-Castle/Leverage: Castle is used as a pawn in a con, but he is genre savvy and catches on, and becomes the inside man. OR he needs to use the Leverage team for a source / research in his new book, and Kate learns from them too. OR he was previously conned by Sophie (Castle/Sophie, but past only), and runs into her again.