Shawn felt his mouth go dry as he read and reread the words on the paper. Bring your psychic. We'll bring his friend. It didn't matter how many times his eyes tried to find a different order in the words; they were always the same. There was no way the sentences could mean anything other than what they all thought.
Bring Shawn. We'll bring Gus.
It wasn't like Shawn had never thought through a situation where a hostage may be taken. That had always been a possibility but in every scenario Shawn had thought of, he was the hostage. Like it or not, his dad had equipped him with the skills necessary to make it out of a hostage situation. Shawn was confident he'd be okay and even if he weren't, he'd be fine with that.
But Gus didn't know what to do if they had him in the trunk of a car. Gus didn't know how to look around a room and find something – anything- that could help him get out of danger. Gus didn't know how to talk a criminal out of inflicting pain. Gus didn't know the things that Shawn did.
Shawn glanced around the room, trying to unread the words. Maybe if he could do that, Gus would just walk into the room and everything would be okay again. They'd go get pineapple smoothies and make comments about Lassie's new haircut.
It was Lassie who finally interrupted the long silence. "What did you find at that apartment, Spencer?"
"Nothing." He mumbled, refocusing on the words printed on the piece of paper.
We'll bring his friend.
Shawn shook his head and looked over at the chief. "We entered, looked through his desk, didn't find anything and then left. We were there for ten minutes tops."
"Shawn, think really hard. What was on the desk? What did you find?" Juliet spoke up.
Focus Shawn. How many hats are the in the room?
Shutting his eyes, Shawn tried his best to concentrate on the things he saw in Capelli's apartment. There were pictures on the wall of Capelli and some other men hunting, their shoes covered with dirt and mud. In the corner of the entryway, there was a purple mat with a pair of boots sitting on top of it. Capelli had a girlfriend. Shawn couldn't fathom how anyone would find anyone who likes killing animals for sport the least bit attractive.
That doesn't matter now.
On the table, there was a pile of envelopes that appeared to have been untouched, except for one brown one that had the address of a cable company on it. And in the closet, there were empty brown boxes. He was moving out and Shawn figured it was because he was moving into his girlfriend's place gradually.
Despite how dirty the man was in all of his pictures, there wasn't a single thing out of place in his office. The guy was a total neat freak. Even Gus had been impressed. Every receipt, every address, ever paper was in some sort of order whether alphabetical or based on importance.
On the wall, there was a giant picture of Capelli standing with what Shawn could only imagine was his mother and father. Despite how neat the man seemed to be, the picture was slightly crooked. . Shawn focused instead on what was inside the man's drawers. There were magazines – hunting ones- and some science newsletters.
But there was absolutely nothing in the room that could have pinpointed any sort of crime on the man – except maybe the killing of defenseless animals.
He opened his eyes and shook his head slowly. "We found absolutely nothing."
Shawn bit the inside of his mouth as he remembered how upset Gus had been when he found out they weren't at a new Taco place. He remembered how nervous Gus was about breaking into a suspected criminal's house. He remembered telling Gus not to be that last bit of melted ice cream at the bottom of the container. He remembered-.
Wait.
You bring your psychic. We'll bring his friend.
They don't want to hurt Gus. They don't even care about Gus because as far as they're concerned all Gus is, is an assistant. After all, Shawn is the psychic one. Shawn is the one who feels things. Gus is just some guy who tags along. Gus doesn't have to get hurt and neither does Shawn if they do this right.
"They want to do a trade." Shawn spoke, his voice even despite the small amount of fear that was racing through him. He wasn't sure if that was fear for himself or fear for his friend.
"Yes but Shawn," Juliet started only to be interrupted a few seconds later.
"Then we do the trade."
Lassiter rolled his eyes at the younger man's words. It wasn't hard to come to the conclusion that going to Capelli's was Spencer's idea. Every stupid idea the pair of idiots ever did was the work of Spencer's messed up mind. And as much as Lassiter may agree that Shawn should have been the one who was taken and not Guster, there was no way the chief of police would allow a civilian to be traded for another. Shawn was a liability. "Spencer, you're-."
"I'm not saying we actually do the trade." Shawn interrupted once more, earning a glare from Lassie. "I'm saying we make it look like we're doing the trade."
"And how do you suppose we do that?" Chief Vick asked, her eyes narrowed slightly as if she was considering his words.
Lassiter rolled his eyes as Shawn shrugged his shoulders. "We do one of those cool things that always happens on NCIS and CSI. We beat the guy at his own game and take him out before he catches the bait."
Just as Lassiter was about to interject, the Chief uttered a sentence that made Shawn's stomach do one of those flips. You know, the one when you know you're in danger of being embarrassed or – in this case – dying.
"That may work."
PsychPsychPsychPsych
So there's chapter two. It's not very long but I'm actually really behind on some Chem homework and I'm super tired. I'm still not entirely sure where I'm going to go with this story, but I've decided to just figure it out along the way! :)
Also, I'm probably not going to update for at least a week because as I've said, I'm really behind in my chem class…. And guess who's terrible at Chem. That's right. Me. Anyway, please please please review! It'll make me want to finish my homework quicker so I can write another chapter sooner.
Thanks to everyone who's reading this! PLEASE REVIEW! And have a nice week!