Chapter 2: Shawn Takes a Shot in the Dark... Again?!

Buzz pulled up to the scene of the crime. He heard on the police scanner that there had been shots fired by the beach, and since he was in that immediate area, he went to check it out.

"Over here!" He heard a voice call out. Buzz turned to see a woman dressed in joggers clothing on her cell phone as she waved him over. Right away Buzz noticed a man sitting on the bench, holding his right upper arm; blood had soaked the guy's blue sleeve.

"He's been shot!" the woman said as she hung up her phone. "I just got off the phone with the police. You came here fast."

"I was just driving by when I heard it on the scanner. Someone must have heard the shots and called it in." Buzz said, before directing his attention to the man who was also dressed in joggers clothes. The man was breathing heavily. "Sir, just hang in there and take it easy." Buzz took a look at the wound. It had barely grazed the man, but still took a piece of skin off. "You'll live."

"It hurts like hell!" The man yelled.

"Tony!" the woman scolded him for yelling at the police.

"What, you want me to lie about the pain, Lisa?"

Buzz didn't seem fazed by being yelled at. "It's okay. The person who had the gun, where did they go?"

Lisa shook her head. "He took off; probably long gone by now."

"What happened here?" Buzz asked as he took out his pen and notepad.

"My husband and I were on our morning jog when this man ran right between us. At first, I thought he was just in a rush, but then I heard a gunshot and when I looked at Tony, he was down holding his arm. Next thing I know, the man who fired the gun runs past us and disappears around that corner." Lisa said, pointing in the direction the shooter left in.

"So there were two men? One was chasing the other?" Buzz questioned.

"Yes,"

"Okay," Buzz scribbled down the information as he then asked, "Do remember what they looked like, what they were wearing?"

Tony spoke up saying, "The man that was running away had brown hair and wore a blue button-up shirt with blue faded jeans. The second man with the gun wore all black."

Buzz nodded his head as he heard the sirens to the ambulance and police car coming closer to them. He finished his notes and tucked his notepad and pen back into his pocket. "I'll go check things out. You said he went right?" Lisa nodded her head and Buzz left in that direction.

He turned the corner and walked a couple of steps further. So far there wasn't anything that seemed out of the ordinary. Buzz looked to the street off to his left and noticed some tire marks left behind.

"Could be something," Buzz thought to himself.

...~~~...OWWBLT...~~~...

"These are definitely fresh," Detective Lassiter said after examining the tire tracks that Buzz had directed him and Juliet to. Buzz wasn't the least bit surprised to see Lassiter on the job, even though his wedding day was yesterday and he should be on his honeymoon. But Lassiter insisted that he would be leaving for his honeymoon with Marlowe this coming Friday so that they would have a romantic weekend to themselves.

Lassiter looked up, expecting to see his partner writing down what he was saying, but instead saw the young woman staring at the notepad with a blank stare. "O'Hara," Lassiter said as he got up from his crouch position and noticed that Juliet seemed kind of out of it. "O'Hara," Lassiter said once more, snapping his fingers to get his partner's attention.

"I'm sorry, what?" Juliet said, shaking her head.

"Sorry to disrupt your daydreaming there, but we have a job to do. The marks are fresh."

"Okay," Juliet said as she snapped back into reality. "So we can try asking the neighbors here if they saw anything or heard anything unusual in the past half hour."

"That's what I was thinking. McNab, what do you got for us?" By this time Lassiter, Juliet, and Buzz were walking back to the scene of the crime.

"Married couple were out for their morning jog. Apparently, a man with a gun was chasing another man, and when he tried to aim fire on his person of interest, he shot one of the joggers. Mrs. Kimberlee, the elderly who lives four houses down, was the first of many to call the police about the shots."

The trio made it back to the crime scene, where they also happened to see Gus making his way toward them.

"Hey, Gus!" Buzz said as he waved over to his friend.

"Hello Buzz," Gus said as he returned the wave. "Lassie," Gus turned to acknowledge the other person in their circle. "...Juliet." He said as he barely made eye contact with her.

Juliet stared at Gus. Something about the way he said her name seemed like he wanted to say more to her, but he held back instead.

"Where's Shawn?" Buzz asked, interrupting her thoughts.

"I don't know," Gus responded. "He should have been here already. I called the Psych office and left him a message to come to meet here."

"Was Spencer at the office this morning?" Lassiter then asked.

Gus nodded his head. "As far as I know from what he told me he should have spent the night there."

"Then let's head there," Lassiter said, already walking over to the Psych office. "Maybe Spencer might have heard something."

"Yeah," Buzz then said, "maybe we can take him to those tracks and see if he can pick up any psychic readings on them."

Juliet tensed a little. Hearing Buzz say that made her feel all emotional inside because she now knew the truth. Shawn wasn't a real psychic. It hurt her to know that Shawn had played them all into thinking that he was. How much longer was he going to play this game of his, the game of pretending to be a psychic so he wouldn't go to jail? Juliet so badly wanted to tell Buzz the truth. She wanted to tell everybody in the station, but in a way she felt like that would be betraying Shawn. Which made absolutely no sense to her because Shawn was the one who had betrayed her. He lied about who he really was. He lied to her day after day after day. What if all those "I love you's" he said to her were all lies, too? Just to play his role in not getting jail time?

No - she couldn't think like that. Not right now. She was going to see him and needed to act professional about this for the case. When they came up to the Psych office, Gus stepped forward and pulled out his keys to unlock the door. Juliet took deep breaths to control the anxiety building up inside her.

"Shawn," Gus called out. They walked further in, making their way over to where their desks where.

"What the hell happened in here?" Lassiter said as they observe the room. Both desks were a complete mess with papers and little toy figurines scattered on the desks and the floor. Thinking that the place was in the middle of a robbery and that someone might still be in the building, Lassiter and Buzz drew their weapons and scoped the rest of the place out. Juliet drew her gun out but stayed with Gus by the front door.

"Gus, where's Shawn?" Juliet questioned. She knew that she had to remain calm, but this was Shawn and Juliet cared for him. Maybe more than she realized.

"I don't know. Shawn!" Gus yelled out.

Lassiter and Buzz came back, weapons placed back into their holsters. "It's clear," Lassiter announced.

"He's not here," Buzz stated. "Maybe he left for some breakfast?"

"I hope so," Gus said. "Wait," Gus took out his phone from his front pocket. "Buzz, when did the calls for the shots start being reported?"

Buzz thought about it for a second. "About 10 minutes before 5. Why?"

"Shawn left me a voice message at 4:48. Two minutes before the calls started coming."

"What did he say?" Juliet asked.

Gus shrugged his shoulders. "I never heard it yet."

"Well, play it," Lassiter demanded.

Gus gave Lassiter the look. "You must be out of your damn mind! This is my work phone and there's no way that I'm going to be answering a message left by Shawn on here! We can wait for an hour to see if he comes back from wherever he is."

"Burton, give me the phone!" Lassiter growled out, reaching for the phone. Gus pulled his arm back preventing Lassiter to reach his work phone, not realizing that he had practically made it easy for Juliet to take the phone right out of his hand. And that was exactly what Juliet did.

She quickly pressed on Shawn's message and put it on speaker so they all could hear.

"Ah, Gus-Gus. You didn't pick up your phone," Shawn's voice said through the phone's speakers. "I think I'm being followed. It might be nothing, I could be just paranoid, you know, after what happened at Lassie and Marlowe's party... but anyways, I didn't get a good look at the dude's face. He's wearing all black clothing - even rocking the hoodie and beanie, too." The gang's face went slightly pale because of the suspect's description they got from the shot jogger matched what Shawn had described. Their thoughts also went to when the jogger described what had happened: a man wearing all black, chasing a brown-haired man. Their minds immediately when to Shawn. "But he had something all over his clothes and face. It was blood, Gus -" There was a loud crashing noise that was heard."... Listen, I gotta go."

Juliet, Gus, Lassiter, and Buzz stared at the phone. The message was over but they were a little afraid. Their friend was possibly taken by some serial killer and it may be too late for them to find him. Racing through their minds were the tire tracks. Worst case scenario, the guy could have caught up to Shawn and stuffed him into the trunk of some sports car.