Chapter Two

Two Cases For the Price of One

Juliet had never been so frustrated in her entire life, at least, not that she could remember.

And she wasn't sure it was frustration either.

She had been calling, or rather trying to call, Carlton for the last hour and though she had left many, many messages, he would not respond.

Dialing his number once more, the junior detective scowled, her bright blue eyes sparkling with annoyance.

The phone call quickly transferred to Carlton's voicemail, which was nothing special. The same well annunciated woman that was on many other people's voicemails. As Juliet listened, she had to admit that the voice was quite beautiful, if not utterly creepy.

Halfway through the electronic spiel about Carlton not being available, O'Hara flipped her phone shut.

Of course, the one case that Carlton decided to be late too was the one at which she most needed him.

And maybe it wasn't Carlton's fault she was so frustrated- it was probably the combination of calling Carlton, Shawn, and Gus and having NONE of them answer.

When she had informed the chief (the only one who had answered her calls so far that morning!), the woman had stated that she was sure Carlton would be there shortly and, as for Shawn Spencer- there was no telling when, where, or how he would show up so she could just forget that option. If he wasn't answering his phone, then that was Shawn Spencer's loss. As for Gus, he was probably at work and couldn't answer his phone. Once he got the message, he'd get in touch with Shawn, who was probably still drooling on his pillow and dreaming of cyber galactic gnomes or whatever men like him dreamt of.

But, this did nothing to calm O'Hara.

Deciding that she could do nothing about her absent colleagues, Juliet began to go over the crime scene by herself. That way, when they came to the scene, she would have something to tell them. No better way to make a man mad than to show him up.

Oddly enough, the crime scene was a small coffee shop downtown. This alone had interest O'Hara, who had always thought of cafés as harbors of peace, this one was definitely far from that.

Bending down, Juliet began to examine the only body on the scene. She was a woman, late twenties with dark brown hair that shimmered in the early morning sunlight.

She was wearing a sundress that showed a little more of her than Juliet would ever dare to flaunt and yet, the junior detective had to admit that the young woman was beautiful. If Shawn was here, no doubt he'd be mourning the loss of another hot woman. This thought made her smile more.

Silly man wasn't here to see this- he was definitely missing out.

There were no visible signs of death, and this surprised O'Hara. The woman looked as if she was only sleeping and yet, she was not breathing and there was no pulse. She was no sleeping beauty- she was a dead one.

"O'Hara!"

Startled, Juliet looked up, her brow furrowing as she watched Carlton move through the sea of blues toward her.

She was about the chastise him, but something stopped her.

For once since she'd met the head detective the man seemed frantic. He still had his signature glower present and yet his piercing blue eyes were more afraid than hard.

Frowning deeply and crossing her arms, trying her best to look upset, Juliet tossed her head.

"Your late. Care to explain?"

The detective sighed, stopping in front of her.

"I do. It's about Spencer-"

"Is he with you because I couldn't get a hold of him, you, or Gus! You men are just impossible to keep track of! I mean really- what were you three doing last night that-"

"Doing? Last night? With Spencer?" Carlton blinked. "I was sleeping, alone, in my house- far, far, far away from Spencer! Are you out of your mind. Why would I be out doing ANYTHING with that…" Lassiter couldn't even find words to describe the psycho psychic. "that… man." he countered and Juliet just rolled her eyes.

"Speaking of Spencer though-" Carlton thrust the morning paper in front of Juliet and she raised an eyebrow at him.

" Shawn want to go to this year's home and garden show?"

Looking down, Lassiter frowned at the add for the Home and Garden show and shook his head, scoffing.

"No!" he flipped the paper over and Juliet gasped.

Gently, the junior detective took the paper and read it slowly, the deep red ink almost mirrored in her clear blue eyes.

Gasping, she looked up at Carlton.

"What is this? Who is this from? Where is Shawn?"

Carlton shrugged.

"How should I know. I just got this this morning." Carlton looked up and stopped talking once he saw the dead body and the disheveled coffee house. "What happened here?!"

Juliet, still in shock of the news gulped and shook her head.

"I don't know. That's why I was calling you and Shawn. The woman's dead and it seems there was a struggle, but not with the woman. Her chair was tipped, but only when she died, the struggle seemed to originate with whoever she was with. A man, I am assuming."

Carlton's brow furrowed as he moved forward, in shock of all that was going on around him.

First Spencer, now this. It was almost too much to thing about.

A part of him knew he shouldn't care about Spencer any more than any normal bystander- and yet, he couldn't stop thinking about the fact that the strange, always frustrating, annoying, eccentric man was out there somewhere, maybe injured or worse, and it was, if the note was any indicator, his fault.

Stooping down, he went to rub his head and stopped.

Something shiny caught his eye and he looked over.

Next to the tipped coffee table was a quarter. It was shiny and new and for whatever reason, Carlton couldn't take his eyes from it.

"O'Hara!"

She turned.

Lassiter smiled thinly. "I think I may have just found some evidence."

"It's a quarter, Carlton. Anybody could've dropped a quarter."

"It's a new quarter. Besides, it's still evidence."

He called one of the officers over and had him bag it.

"Come on, we'll take it in, run some prints and we'll interrogate some of the witnesses and while I'm doing that, you can start looking for Spencer, ok."

"But what about this case?"

"We've seen all there is to see here. There is little to no evidence. It would be better if we head back to the station and alert the chief to all this. We can then question the witnesses and run this for prints. The other officers can clean up the rest of this mess."

Overwhelmed with all this, Juliet took a deep breath and moved some stray hair away from her face.

"Ok." she whispered, blinking.

Carlton briefed McNab, giving him as little detail as possible and told him to make certain that any other evidence was properly taken care of. He understood and Lassiter walked to join Juliet at the cars.

He was about to get into his car when he noticed that Juliet was still standing beside her's, staring off into space.

"O'Hara!"

She snapped from her trance to look at Lassiter, her eyes a wave of fear and he could see that tears had pooled in her eyes.

What had happened had finally caught up with her. She wasn't taking Shawn's abduction very well and Lassiter didn't want to risk her getting hurt in some car accident.

"Come on. Get in."

Once she was in the car, Lassiter did his best to smile, though he hadn't really done it in years.

When she appeared frightened, he wiped the smile off his face and looked sternly into her eyes, at this, she seemed visibly calmer.

"It's going to be ok. We will find Spencer, alright?"

She wouldn't acknowledge his words, but Lassiter didn't want to push it. Truth of the matter was, he wasn't completely certain that it would be ok and if he didn't need anything now, it was for his lie to show through.

TBC.