She's the worst hitman in history.
Technically, she isn't a hitman at all. She was (and still is, she reminds herself) a cop, a detective, to be exact. She had transferred to the Santa Barbara Police Department from Miami a year ago, and things were going great, until the former chief of police went on maternity leave.
The new chief of police, Decon Gribbs, was secretly a crimelord, operating under several aliases. How he managed to claw his way up to the top of the department remains a mystery. In all honesty, she hadn't even heard of him until it was announced that he would be taking over the department. Like everyone else, she ran a background check on him, and found that his record was clean. She wouldn't have suspected anything of him.
Until she walked in on him discussing a major plot to his master plan, or whatever. She should've taken the closed doors and blinds as a sign that he was busy, but it was a Friday evening and there was a bottle of pinot gris in her fridge at home and the only thing keeping her from it was putting the files on Gribbs' desk.
His accomplice, Clayton Martin, was sitting right there in the chair across from him. Clayton, she had heard of. She had been trying to arrest the greasy bastard for months, with her partner, Carlton Lassiter, yet somehow he had always been just two steps ahead of the police. It didn't take long for her to put two and two together. Gribbs had been giving Clayton the inside information all along.
And the list! The hit list was sitting right there in the open of Gribbs' desk, the names written in big bold letters, clear enough that she could see each one from her vantage point, halfway between the door and the desk.
"Detective O'Hara," says Gribbs in an unsettlingly calm voice. He reaches into the top drawer of his desk and draws his gun. "This is unfortunate."
"Chief Gribbs, I swear to God, I will walk out of here and never tell a soul-"
"I'm afraid that's not an option," he says, clicking the safety off. "You have two choices here. You can die as a good cop, or you can walk out of here alive, but you swear allegiance to me."
She'd like to think that she would've chosen to die, but there was a streak of stubbornness in her that said that she could take him down if she could gain his trust.
"I'll swear allegiance to you," she says, swallowing her fear. Gribbs sets the gun on the desk, and she lets her shoulders drop a bit.
"Are you kidding me? That's it? She walks in on you plotting a murder, and you're just gunna let her walk away?" Clayton demands.
"She's gunna have to work for my trust," Gribbs assures. He motions for her to come over to his desk, where she drops the files. He slides a picture towards her. She's seen this type before, one with him just going about his regular old day, and another with a red 'X' through his face. "Shawn Spencer. He calls himself a psychic, and he's called in dozens of tips that spawn from his deranged 'visions'. And you're going to kill him."
Juliet's blood runs cold. Of course she had heard of Spencer before, whether it be around the office, or in the news. She had been intrigued by him, despite her partner's disdain for him.
"Oh, and I should add that if you fail to do this, I will kill you," Gribbs mentions. "You have three days. I want a full report on Monday."
She wants to ask if Monday is a part of her allotted killing time, but she figures that she's in enough trouble as is, and doesn't need to make matters worse.
"Yes sir," she says, promptly moving to exit the office.
"And O'Hara," Gribbs calls out. "If anyone finds out about this, you're done."
She wanders into his office, called 'Psych'. It's messy and looks more like an apartment than a workspace, but she knows that Spencer's methods are far from conventional.
"Mr. Spencer?" she calls out, wondering if she had come at a bad time. It was ten o'clock, most businesses would be getting ready to close if they weren't closed already. However, the sound of a television show echoes through the office, enticing her to move farther into the office.
"Oh, hi!" says a voice from a bean bag chair in front of the television. "You need to book an appointment for psychic readings, and also we're kinda closed."
"Kinda closed?" she asks. "Your sign says that you're open until eleven."
"Ugh, I told Gus to get that changed," says the guy in the bean chair. "We're open until eleven, unless Survivor is on, and then I'm busy."
"You could just lock the door," she suggests.
"Sorry, I didn't realize this was 'barge in and verbally attack Shawn' time," he says, turning around to face her. She watches his facial expression change from offended to embarrassed. "But, I've been mistaken before."
"That was smooth," she admits, taking a seat beside him on the floor like they're friends or something. Friends that stab each other in the back, literally.
"So what are you doing here?" he asks once a commercial break comes up.
"You're a psychic, don't you already know the answer to that?" she quips. He chuckles a little and looks at her right in the eyes.
"You're right," he agrees. "You're here to seduce me in hopes of-"
"I'm gunna stop you right there," she says, although she can't prevent the blush that's starting to creep into her cheeks. "I'm here strictly for business."
"Yeah yeah, I've heard that one before. Shawn, we can't do this! We're co-workers! Nothing more! We need to be extremely professional about this, even if I am secretly in love with you!" he cries, doing his worst impression of her voice.
She laughs, and wonders why Gribbs would want him dead. She's good at reading people, and she can tell that Shawn is an innocent guy. The only crime that he would be guilty of is bad impressions.
"Well, if we're gunna watch Survivor together, I think I need a name to work with," he says.
"I'm Juliet," she replies. Maybe she should've made up a cover, but she's going to have to kill him anyways, so it doesn't really matter. She should just do it, get it out of the way, but she feels like if she can get close to him, she can somehow make this less painful for both of them.
"Can I get you a beer or something, Juliet?" he offers, and she obliges. It's no pinot gris, but it'll do the job. Because there is no way that she'll kill someone while she's sober.
Before she knows it, it's three in the morning and they're watching reruns of reality shows that she hadn't realized that she was invested in. They're both pretty drunk, and there's a voice somewhere in the back of her mind that tells her that this is dangerous, but she silences it with another drink. Shawn disappeared for a while, leaving her to her own devices in his office, and when he had returned, he was armed with blankets and pillows and hot chocolate. This time, he locks the door.
She wakes up on the couch, tucked under a blanket with one of the pillows that Shawn had brought over. She sits up slowly to prevent her head from pounding, and she observes the office. There's pillows strewn all across the floor, and among them, Shawn is sleeping under his own blanket.
She settles back down against the couch, wondering how she's going to be able to kill him. She could just slip something into a drink- or pay someone else to do it? Get him so drunk that he dies from alcohol poisoning? He doesn't seem like that type. Maybe she should just accept her fate and give up on fighting Gribbs.
But looking at Shawn, sprawled out on the floor under four blankets and sleeping like a baby, she realizes that if she doesn't kill him, Clayton will, and he will not be as considerate as her. A bullet in Shawn's head (or worse), and he'd still walk away with a clean conscience.
If she can't kill him in a way that won't drive a wedge in their budding friendship (she assumes that they're still on that level- the events of last night aren't entirely clear to her yet), she'll have to protect him. That, she can do. That's her job- her real job anyways.
But first, she needs to shake this hangover.
She goes back to the Psych office later that day, coffees in hand. She finds Shawn with his head down on his desk, mid-nap, with his fingers on the keyboard of his laptop which leads her to believe that he had either fallen asleep while working, or was pretending to have been working.
"Hello- can I help you?" asks a new voice from the opposite desk that had been unoccupied last night. She notices the nametag on his desk- Burton Guster.
"Uh, I came to see Shawn," she says, setting one of the coffees on his desk. "You must be the Gus that he never shuts up about."
"Yeah, that sounds about right," he agrees, smiling a little. Shawn wakes up, and takes in the situation.
"Juliet, what are you doing here?" he asks groggily, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead, fending off a headache.
"Do you want to go take a walk out on the boardwalk?" she suggests, unsure of how to go about Gus. He seems trustworthy, but telling him the news might be a bit too much for him to handle.
"Right now?" he asks, taking a sip of the coffee that Juliet had given him. She nods.
"Shawn, you have an appointment-"
"Yeah, an appointment to suck it," Shawn interrupts crossly, and the two of them shoot glares back and forth, having what looks like an elaborate conversation with just their eyes.
"I can come back later if it's a bad time," she offers, feeling like she's walked in on something intimate.
"No, it's fine, I'm free right now," Shawn says pointedly, getting up and grabbing his jacket.
It's the early afternoon, so the boardwalk is pretty busy, but Juliet doesn't mind. It helps them blend in to avoid anything getting back to Gribbs.
"So, what did you want to talk about?" Shawn asks.
"Promise you won't freak out?"
"Jules, this isn't the first time that someone has confessed their undying love for me. It's okay, it happens, just know that I'm with you 100%," he says, taking her hand. She pulls her hand free, but she blushes anyways. Bad habit- especially as a cop.
"Surprisingly, that's not even remotely close to what I was going to say," she admits. She could keep stalling, and Shawn would probably let her, but she needs to tell him, now. "I was sent to your office last night to kill you."
"Jules, you are such a bad liar," he laughs, and she wishes that she could laugh along with him, but her stomach keeps twisting into knots and her knees feel weak and she just needs to spit the rest of this out.
"No, really. My boss is a hitman and I walked in on him plotting something and if I don't kill you then he's going to kill me, but I'm a cop and I don't do that sort of thing and you're such a nice guy and I can't kill you," she says, the words tumbling out before she can process them.
"Okay, so the one thing that I'm taking away from this is that you're into me," Shawn says, his face breaking into a grin.
"Shawn, please be serious for like ten minutes, and then you can go back to being flirty and annoying," she pleads.
"Okay, okay," he agrees. "Some guy wants me dead. What else is new? What's his name?"
"Deacon Gribbs," she tells him.
"As in, the new chief of police?" he asks.
"That's him."
"The only time I've ever seen him was when I went to pick up some reward money for a tip that I called in," Shawn says. "So unless he holds grudges against good samaritans like myself, I can't think of a reason why he'd want me dead."
"He's working with Clayton Martin, if that helps," she offers.
"Oh, that guy," he says in a slightly more hollow tone. "He's the one that I called in that tip about."
"Gribbs has been giving inside information to Clayton all along- that's why we haven't been able to arrest him," she explains, keeping her voice quiet to keep others from hearing.
"And he's afraid that I'm getting too close," he deduces. "That's why he needs me dead."
"Don't worry," she says. "I'm going to protect you. That's my job."
"Aw, Jules," he says fondly, smiling at her, and it makes her heart melt a bit. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't deny that she was starting to feel something for him. "I appreciate that, but I don't need protecting. I'm a psychic, remember?"
Moment ruined.
"Fine- maybe you don't, but the only way that we're going to make this work for both of us, and that means we're going to be working together, and as a cop, I have training to deal with people like this, and you don't, so if you have any other ideas to protect me that don't involve you turning yourself in, I'd love to hear them," she says, albeit impatiently.
"If you're so good at this, then why are you hiding from Gribbs?" he retorts, in a voice that's too loud for her liking.
"Shawn, he's dangerous. I don't understand why you aren't taking this seriously- our lives are on the line here," she whispers angrily, taking him by the wrist and pulling him over to the edge of the boardwalk so she can watch his face.
"I'm not sure what you want me to do- I'm not trained to deal with these situations like you are," he explains, and she feels bad for snapping at him.
"Then let me help you," she says in a gentler tone, realizing that she's still holding onto his wrist.
"On one condition," he says in a serious tone, and she braces herself for whatever he's about to say. "I get to choose when and where we stop for snack breaks."
"You're ridiculous," she laughs, letting go of his wrist and continuing down the boardwalk.
"Come on Jules," he says, catching up to her. "You haven't known me that long, so there's no way that you could know this, but I never admit to needing help. So I think that giving me control of snack breaks is more than reasonable compensation."
"Fine," she relents. "You can choose the snack breaks."
Shawn's plan consists of fleeing the country, changing their names, and getting married on a boat in the middle of an ocean (complete with dolphins jumping over them as they read their vows). As appealing as it is, it isn't realistic. Not completely, anyways.
"I was actually thinking more along the lines of stopping Gribbs for good," she explains to him, taking a sip of her smoothie. Shawn's first snack break was at a smoothie shop just down the road from the Psych office, and has a view of the ocean and reminds her why she loves living in Santa Barbara. "I could bring my partner in on this, but it's a bit difficult to say whether or not he's involved."
"Let's not risk it," he suggests. "My dad used to be a detective though, I'm sure he'd help."
She's embarrassed that she hadn't made the connection between Henry Spencer and Shawn herself.
"That's a good idea," she agrees. "Got any others?"
"Making brownies with cookie dough inside of them," he says quickly, as if it's all he's been thinking about all day, which isn't unlikely.
"I was thinking more along the lines of saving our lives," she corrects, although she can't help but smile a little at his idea.
"Oh, right. We could call up another police department to help us out- Ventura is close?" he offers.
"It's outside of their jurisdiction," she says. "Otherwise that would be a pretty good idea."
"Lives are on the line," he points out. "And who's to say that the entire department isn't compromised? We need outside help, Jules."
"You're right," she admits. "Hand me your phone. I don't want to use my work phone for this."
"Wait! I'm getting something!" he insists, putting a hand to his head. "Camping.. Canned peaches… Vaporub… Karen Vick!"
"Vick is the former chief of police!" she exclaims, astonished with how quickly he produced the name after no hints or anything. "Obviously she isn't involved with Gribbs, so she can totally help us. Good work, Shawn."
He leans back in his chair and smiles smugly while Jules calls Karen for help.
Karen helps them establish a better plan, although she didn't completely object to Shawn's original idea, which if possible, just makes him even more smug.
Instead, they go to Henry's house, where they'll be safe at least for the weekend, until they can hatch a better plan. Shawn calls Gus and makes up some elaborate excuse about why he won't be around, but stresses about it for the rest of the evening.
They set up a place on the floor to sleep so that they can all be in the same room in case anything happens. Shawn takes the floor in the living room while Juliet gets the couch, and Henry makes some supper with his rifle nearby.
After supper, they sit around the television and watch episodes of criminal minds that Henry had recorded on his DVR, until Henry goes upstairs to go to sleep. Then Shawn turns the channel to American Duo's, because apparently his father can't stand it which makes him love it even more.
"So you're a psychic? How does that work?" she asks, laying back against the pillows that Henry had lent to her.
"Oh, I can't really tell you how it works," he says, like it's embarrassing or something. "The physics of it is just too complex for normal people to comprehend."
"Oh I see. Can you get a psychic read on me? Like what's going to happen tomorrow?" she asks, feeling a bit desperate, and honestly, she could use a good sign.
"It doesn't really work like that. I'm not that kind of psychic," he explains.
"Could you refer me to that kind of psychic? It's kind of important. If we're going to die tomorrow, I need to make arrangements for someone to look after my cat," she explains.
"Sorry, my guy just retired. Looks like we'll just have to play it by ear," he says in a defeated tone. "But I am getting something."
She rolls onto her side and looks at him, laying on the floor with his hand to his head.
"I'm sensing that your favourite colour… It's raspberry?"
Honestly, she hadn't had a favourite colour- if anything, it probably would've been blue. But she looks down at him, and he's grinning back at her like a little kid, and it makes her heart melt a little bit. She can picture the colour clearly in her mind- she has a bottle of nail polish in the exact colour. A shirt, a set of pillows, probably a pair of socks, all in the same shade.
"Yeah, how'd you know that?"
"Psychic," he says smugly. "You just have that kind of aura."
The smile that spreads across her face couldn't be controlled, even if she had tried.
"Hey listen, Jules," he says in a softer, more serious tone. "If we make it out of this.. Do you want to go for coffee sometime?"
"Shawn-"
"It doesn't have to be coffee, it can be milkshakes if you want."
"Okay," she relents. "If we make it out of this, we'll go get milkshakes."
It's Monday, and an hour and a half has passed since Juliet was supposed to be at work. Instead, she's sitting in Henry's wine cellar with Shawn, on a pile of pillows and blankets, with her gun ready to fire if need be. Lassiter had called several times and left at least five voicemails and three texts telling her to answer her phone. It kills her to ignore him like this, but she just can't risk being found, or letting Shawn get killed.
"So we're just going to sit here until Gribbs gets found out, or what?"
"I don't know, Shawn," she sighs. "I was hoping that I'd come up with something while we sit down here, but I can't really think of anything that's completely foolproof."
"I think you should talk to your partner," he admits. She looks at him, unsure of how to process the idea. "If he's not in on the plan, then he's pretty much our only chance at taking down Gribbs. Legally, anyways."
"And if he is in on it?"
"Well, then it was nice knowing you, Jules," he says, giving her a half hearted grin. As nervous as the idea makes her, she knows that he's right. She needs to be able to trust her partner, and even if he is working for Gribbs, she'd rather die knowing the truth than have died living in his lies.
With a shaking hand, she calls Lassiter on his burner phone, so that there's no chance of Gribbs listening in on it. He had given her the number just in case, but it was only for emergencies. She figured this counted as an emergency.
"This is Lassiter," he says in a suspicious tone when he picks up.
"Hi, Carlton, it's me," she says quietly. "Are you at the police department right now?"
"No- I'm on my way to investigate a missing person case, and I was going to bring you with me, but you failed to show up, without any notice or anything? O'Hara, is everything okay?" he explains, sounding genuinely concerned.
"No, everything is not okay, actually. I need to tell you something, can you pull over somewhere?" she asks.
"Um, sure, one second," he says. Her free hand is shaking on her lap, and she hopes that her nerves don't come through her tone. She feels like she's going to cry or something, but Shawn reaches over and takes her hand. Yesterday, she would've pulled her hand away before he had the chance, but now, she finds herself appreciating the gesture. "Okay, what's up?"
"Gribbs is not who he seems," she blurts out. "He's the one who's been feeding inside information to Clayton Martin. He's kind of the guy in charge of all Clayton's assaults."
"How long have you been keeping this from me?" he demands, and she bites her lip. She had seen this one coming, but it still hurts. She grips Shawn's hand a bit tighter, all too aware of how clammy her palm is.
"Since Friday," she admits. "I couldn't tell you, because I walked in on them plotting something and they told me that I have to kill Shawn Spencer or else they'll kill me and I don't know how many people are on the inside and I didn't know if you were one of them or not-"
"O'Hara, relax," he says in a more understanding tone, and she reminds herself to take a breath. "Where are you? I'll come get you and Spencer and we'll sort this out."
"You can't," she says, the fear rising again. "It's too risky. Just arrest Gribbs and Clayton and then you can come get us."
"You say that like it's going to be easy," he laughs dryly. "I'll do what I can, but you be careful too, okay? Stay put, wherever you are, and I'll come find you when the coast is clear."
"Thank you, Carlton."
She hangs up the phone and has to fight the urge to toss it across the cellar. Now that she's off the phone, she releases the sob that she had been holding back for almost the entire conversation with her partner. She's embarrassed to be this emotional, but it's probably warranted.
Shawn immediately moves closer and puts his arms around her, and she lets him. She buries her face in his shoulder and just lets the tears flow freely until she's ready to compose herself.
"Hey, why are you crying? It sounded like the conversation went well," Shawn points out. "Your partner is going to help us, isn't he?"
"He is," she agrees. "It's just… This is such a mess! I could've just avoided this if I hadn't gone into his office- and I should've known, his door was closed and everything!"
"Don't blame yourself for this," Shawn says. "Blame… Sealions. They're the less cute version of otters, and everyone knows that they're conspiring something."
She thinks of the Shabby-Cam that she had set as her screensaver at work, and has to disagree with Shawn, but his heart's in the right place. She takes a deep breath and rolls her shoulders back before pulling away from Shawn's hug.
"Thank you," she whispers, leaning back in to kiss him on the cheek.
Hours go by, and just as Shawn is about to finish singing ninety nine bottles, her phone rings, and it's Lassiter. She grabs Shawn's hand excitedly, but braces herself for the worst.
"This is O'Hara," she says, trying to keep her voice steady this time.
"We got 'em," Lassiter says, and she can practically hear him grinning through the phone. "Where are you? We'll come get you."
"Who's we?" she asks, her stomach sinking a little.
"Just me and McNabb," he says. "Don't worry- I promise, he's not going to come after you."
"We're at Henry Spencer's house," she says, a bit reluctantly. She trusts Carlton, but it would be too easy for him to be faking.
"We'll be there in fifteen."
She clicks the safety off her gun just in case.
Luckily, when Lassiter shows up at Henry's house, it really is just him and McNabb. Jules lets her guard down, puts her gun back in its holster. She lets Lassiter take her and Shawn to the police station to fill out witness statements, and she takes her time to make sure that she doesn't leave anything out.
"So, are we still on for milkshakes?" Shawn asks, finding her after he had written his witness statement.
"Oh- um, yeah, sure, let me just wrap this up quickly," she says, scribbling down the last few words in a hurry. He leans over to look what she had written.
"Woah, that's a lot," he says, leaning away. "Are you writing like a novel or something?"
"It's important to be thorough with these, Shawn," she insists, shooting him a look before she gets up from her desk and putting her pen back in its cup.
"I was thorough," he insists. "I wrote like, three complete sentences!"
She doesn't say anything, but sincerely hopes that he's exaggerating. She grabs her jacket off the back of her chair and her keys from the drawer of her desk.
Shawn gives her directions to the milkshake place using a GPS app on his phone, reading the directions out in stupid voices that shouldn't make her laugh so hard, but they do anyways. It's a restaurant that she's never been to but she figures that if anyone knows milkshakes, it would be Shawn. Or maybe Gus. Together they've probably been to every cafe in Santa Barbara.
The restaurant is twenty minutes outside of the city, but Shawn promises that it's worth the drive (there's a cheesy pick-up line thrown in there somewhere, but she's stopped paying attention to them). It looks like an old gas station with picnic benches outside, but Shawn is just beside himself with excitement. He grabs her hand and almost skips up to the window. She barely has time to read the menu before he's ordering.
"Okay, so that's one pineapple milkshake and two orders of chili cheese fries- Jules, what are you getting?"
"Uh, just a vanilla milkshake," she says, fishing out her wallet.
They sit down at one of the blue and grimey picnic tables farthest from the building. It's hot out and there's no shade, so Juliet is grateful for the cold milkshake in front of her.
"Oh, Jules, there's something on your hand," he says in his most concerned voice, and she looks down at her hands, although there's nothing there. He reaches out and takes her hand. "It's my hand."
"How long have you been waiting to use that one?" she asks, rolling her eyes. But she doesn't pull her hand away.
"Just a few days. Pretty much the second I met you," he explains, and she smiles. "And even though we could've died this weekend- I'm glad that I got to meet you. And that it was you that came into the Psych office and not Clayton. And while I'm at it, I'm also glad that we have public healthcare in America."
"We don't have public healthcare, Shawn," she reminds him gently.
"Oh right, I'm thinking of education," he corrects.
"Nope, we don't have that either," she says, becoming a bit concerned.
"Man. What do we have in America then?"
"Milkshakes and freedom," she jokes, although he does have a valid point. She doesn't say anything though, being a cop and everything.
"Well then, I guess it's worth it," he says, taking a loud slurp from his milkshake.
"Yeah, I guess so," she agrees, wondering if there's some deeper meaning behind his words. She squeezes his hand a little, and he squeezes back.
"Look at us. Holding hands and drinking milkshakes. If I didn't know better I'd take us as a couple," he says, grinning widely.
"We could be," she says. "If you want."
"Really? Because I was waiting until you wanted to," he explains, his grin spreading.
"Shawn, I like you. And normally I'd like to get to know someone better before I'd date them, but I mean, we shared a really intimate experience and I think I can make an exception this one time," she explains.
"I like you too, Jules," he agrees.
And when he kisses her on the cheek, she doesn't even think about leaning away.