Disclaimer: I gotta keep telling you I don't claim to own anything about psych? Geez.
Rating: T
Summary: Lassiet. OK? Carlton finds misadventure late one night and Juliet is the first person he contacts to help him from afar.
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It was one of those crisp cool nights which made Juliet imagine she hadn't been raised in Miami and didn't live even now near the sea; a night which made her feel that if she were to start walking, she might find a light dusting of sparkling white snow just around the next bend.
Fanciful thought, but she'd been having a lot of those lately.
The stars were bright and the neighbors quiet, always a good combination. She shivered a little and went back inside her apartment to find her shawl, just as her cell phone on the kitchen counter beeped with a text.
Carlton, she read, and was pleased.
But the words under his name seemed incomprehensible.
Don't call. Track GPS. OK but in car trunk.
She read them twice more.
He wouldn't be joking. Not his kind of joke.
OK, she texted back. Hang on.
It seemed to take forever to get through to Chief Vick, to set in motion the GPS tracking.
They're on it. What happened? Where are you? You really OK?
Was on camuesa w of pbar flats.
She translated that, moving to her laptop to fire up maps. Camuesa was a road winding through Los Padres, and 'pbar flats' was no doubt the P-Bar Flats campground.
It was 25 miles away, but ninety minutes' drive given the winding road, and what the hell was he doing up there on a Saturday night at ten?
Not important right now, she told herself, and passed the information via text to Karen Vick so she could return to her partner.
Situation?
The answer came too fast; he must have been keying it in already.
Stopped to change tire & guy walked up w gun. Hisp 5'9 35ish stocky. Short hair no tats no stash.
More to pass to the Chief.
How'd he miss the phone?
Was in trunk w wallet. Said if I had phone I wouldn't change tire myself.
Juliet had to smile. It wasn't quite true, but if he'd said it with enough acid, anyone would have believed him.
What about the interior trunk release?
Designed for this very situation.
Bastard smashed it with my tire iron.
Oh. Crap.
His response was: . . .
Yeah, hers would be too.
Are you OK really? He hadn't answered that before.
Yeah but cramped. Can't tell direction. Think still w-bound.
There weren't a lot of directions to go up there: any road off of Camuesa would have to fight its way through the forest and the mountains, which didn't… give.
But there were a lot of little campgrounds and dirt roads. If his kidnapper knew the terrain, it didn't matter how precise the GPS tracking was: it would take forever to catch up to them.
That was, she acknowledged with a chill, if they could even keep within range of cell towers so he could be tracked, let alone continue texting her.
Paved or dirt?
Paved until 10 min ago.
She passed that on.
What's your read on the guy?
Said he just wanted the car. Seems like on a mission but not full-out killer.
He had to use the word killer, didn't he. Juliet took a breath. Her partner was locked in a car trunk hurtling through Los Padres and he just freaking had to use the word killer.
Message from Karen Vick: Still haven't got GPS yet.
Juliet's heart sank.
She texted her back: I want to go find him.
No. Stay on the line. Pass details on but keep him with you.
Keep him with me, she thought. If only.
To Carlton, she texted: What else did he say?
Nothing. Gun was Colt.
She assumed the Chief already had people checking on inhabitants of the P-Bar Flats campground; a man on foot wouldn't have come far along that road at night. Still…
Do you think he came from the P-Bar?
Too dark too late to be from anywhere else.
Which might also be why he hadn't merely left Carlton at the side of the road: he knew the campgrounds were close and Carlton might have made it back there to report the theft.
Are you OK?
You asked already.
Tell me again.
Too tall for trunk life but OK.
And he doesn't know who you are?
No.
You didn't tell him?
Because Carlton's love of being a cop did tend to make him tell people.
Didn't seem prudent.
Well, there was a switch.
What were you doing out there?
Driving.
Driving. Late at night, far from home, on a forest road in the dark.
Weapon?
No.
Juliet frowned.
Stopping, he texted. Go dark.
Her heart was hammering, out of the blue. She managed to get the information to Karen, but her fingers were shaking so she had no idea if her text made sense.
Carlton, be okay, she prayed. Don't take chances, don't provoke him, don't you dare take yourself out of my life.
Five minutes went by.
She aged ten years.
The Chief reported that calculations about typical speed on Camuesa, if the driver had continued west, and factoring in Carlton's assumption that they'd left the paved road, showed they could be over near Mono Campground. Units were on the way.
Keep them quiet, Juliet texted back, even though she didn't need to.
The screen lit up, and so did her heart.
Moving again. Slow. Dirt.
You OK?
She let the Chief know they were on the move.
He opened trunk. Forest everywhere. Shocker.
This is no time for jokes, she shot back.
Got nothing else to do. Checked on me. Said be quiet.
Texting too loudly?
No time for jokes,O.
She could almost see the gleam in his vivid blue eyes, the one he got whenever they were engaged in one-upping each other. He'd better damned well get out of this.
S.O.B. How's his mood?
Flat.
Yours?
Pretzel.
Carlton. I will smack you.
Find me first.
Her heart did that hammering thing again.
I'm trying.
That's what you say about me.
She laughed out loud and had to wipe her eyes and had never felt more connected to Carlton Lassiter than she did right now.
Sorry btw.
For what?
For being trying. I don't say sorry or thanks enough.
Partner, you say plenty.
And then you usually say 'be nice.'
Don't be nice right now. It scares me.
Got nothing else to do, he repeated.
She had to know. She knew he probably wouldn't tell her, but she had to ask.
Why were you out driving in the middle of nowhere so late?
The screen was dark too long. She hoped he was just deciding on an answer, and not in renewed danger.
Therapy.
She felt relief, and then confusion.
For what?
Another long pause.
Regrets.
There was a squeezing in her chest.
What do you have regrets about?
No answer. But she knew he knew he had to answer, to prove he was okay there in the trunk.
Carlton?
Inaction. Silence. Me.
She was uncertain how to respond.
He texted: About you.
This terrified her.
Chief Vick interrupted with an update request.
No no no, she thought, and texted Carlton: they think you're near Mono Campground.
She fired off still on the move to Vick, but how to answer Carlton? How did she want to?
Some of her fanciful thoughts lately, along with thoughts of snow on walking paths, had been of him, of her coiled-energy controlled partner and those crystal blue eyes and his lean strength and quiet conviction and utter Carlton-ness.
Of Carlton in her life in a deeper way than he already was.
Of Carlton closer to her than he already was.
As if he could be. As if any man could be closer to her without being her lover.
Carlton texted: Makes sense. Not much else does.
Given the turn of her thoughts, this was at first startling because yes, it did make sense, Carlton as her lover. She'd never thought it so dramatically clearly before, but yes.
But he was not on the same page with her at the moment; his text only showed he was always the fatalist.
She did not like the word 'fatal' in any form.
When you come home we will talk about those regrets.
Not good at talk.
When you are home, she punched in almost savagely, we will establish you have nothing to regret.
Another long pause.
You and what army?
The Army of Juliet.
Can take you down single-handed.
Not when I'm on a mission, buster.
Lost cause more than a mission. Leave it be.
She wanted to stop texting and just call him, and hated that she couldn't.
Carlton, you can't say you have regrets about me and then refuse to talk about it.
Little busy right now, and leave it BE.
You just said you weren't busy, and I can't.
The pause was too long, and the chill she felt was nothing like the one from the night air outside.
Screw this, I'm coming up there after you right now.
Her hand was on her car keys when Chief Vick texted.
GPS definitely places him near Mono. Units moving in on foot. Keep him talking!
Carlton, meanwhile, texted something simpler.
Stopped. Go dark.
Then one last screen light-up…
IWALU.
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In the time that followed, time she couldn't measure but which might have been ten minutes, two hours, or a year, Juliet couldn't stop these thoughts from repeating in her head.
— His situation was worse than he'd let on.
— He didn't expect to make it out.
— He. Loved. Her.
And if Chief Vick thought she was going to wait in her damned apartment instead of doing something to find him, then the woman was certifiably insane.
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