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Chapter 3
By Monday Juliet has no answer, and no plan. A weekend of old movies and every bit of ice cream left in her freezer did not help at all.
She spends far too much time on her hair and her makeup that morning and she doesn't know why she does that, either. She tells herself it's simply something to do; she's been up since before five anyway, and she can't get back to sleep.
She puts on the black suit she bought a year ago during that case with the dead fashion designers, and she's in front of the mirror trying to decide if it still fits right and if it's too much when her phone goes off. Texts from the chief ordering her to the station right now if she's not on her way already. Come to the conference room. There's a situation.
It's barely six thirty. A problem this early can't be good. She wants to change into something more conservative, but she doesn't have time. Not when Karen is this serious. She sends off a message back that she's on her way and the chief still calls her halfway there to be sure she's coming as fast as she can. Something in her voice puts Juliet on edge.
At the station Shawn and Gus bounce out of Gus's blue car and charge up the steps behind her.
"Any idea what this is about?" Shawn asks.
"No."
"You look nice."
She doesn't have any focus left over to answer.
Karen is waiting outside the conference room. The doors are closed and all the blinds are drawn and she's pacing. The chief doesn't pace lightly.
"What's going on?" Juliet asks. She looks around. "Where's Carlton?" He's in the conference room already. He has to be. Why is Karen looking at her like that?
The chief takes a deep breath and looks at all three of them, and over Juliet's shoulder Shawn curses.
"What's Lassie gotten himself into?"
"Someone remind me to buy my two year old a present later," Karen says. "She was up at three this morning and I checked my work e-mail. At two thirty I'd gotten an anonymous e-mail informing me my head detective had been taken in retaliation to the raid on Friday, and the three men we have downstairs. I sent a detail to Detective Lassiter's house." She swallows. "Signs of a struggle, and no sign of him."
"What?" Juliet says. "You didn't call me!"
"I didn't want to worry you if it was a hoax. Those aren't uncommon, and all we'd have is an irate Carlton on our hands upset about being woken in the middle of the night. As it is, this is very likely real. We still can't get in touch with him. We've been trying. I already have someone here trying to trace the e-mail."
Juliet takes a deep breath. An overreaction is exactly what the chief was trying to avoid by not calling her in until now. By waiting until she was sure the threat was probably real.
"What else did the e-mail say?" Juliet asks evenly.
"You want me and Gus to check out Lassie's place, right?" Shawn asks. "See if I can sense anything?"
"Yes," the chief answers Shawn. "But forensics is securing the site right now, and there may be something else we need to see first."
Juliet realizes her question hasn't been answered. "Chief?"
Karen sighs and opens the conference room door, ushering them all into the room. A projector screen is pulled down displaying a computer screen, and a man with dark curly hair and glasses sits at the table in front of the computer being shown.
"They're demanding we release their people," Karen says. "In exchange for Detective Lassiter."
"But that's not how it works, is it?" Gus asks. "We don't negotiate with criminals, do we? Like we don't negotiate with terrorists. I mean, besides things like hostage situations...been there done that...but even then it's really just stalling until they can take the guy down or talk him out or something usually, isn't it?"
"Besides, that's not even fair," Shawn points out. "They've only got one guy, supposedly, and we've got three. Totally not fair at all."
"They have him all right," the guy at the computer says grimly. He's been quiet until now. He pulls off a pair of headphones and looks back at them, specifically at the chief. "That link in the e-mail is a live feed. I've made sure it's safe. No viruses, spyware. But it's not good. It's not easily traceable and it confirms they have him. I checked it while you were out there," he says, nodding outside to the bullpen.
Karen takes a quick step toward the screen. "You can see him?"
"Yeah." Something in the guy's tone is a warning. The chief looks at him, a silent question, and he nods. The look on Karen's face when he does and the way she looks down and away and her hands clench into fists does not make Juliet feel any better.
"What is it?" Juliet demands.
"Their way of evening the terms," the chief says quietly. Angrily. "We may have two more people than they do, but we-we don't—" Karen Vick is not often at a loss for words, either. She stops and takes a steadying breath and Juliet can't breathe. "We don't...hurt people," the chief finishes with difficulty. "Not purposefully. Not with malice." Now the anger is back.
"What?" Juliet manages. She feels Shawn shift closer to her.
"Well of course they'd threaten to kill him," he says. "That's just...good kidnapper form."
"It's more than that," the chief says tightly. "Show me, " she says to the computer guy.
He looks back at them all apologetically first. "You may want to brace yourselves. I don't know what's going on right now. The quality's not the greatest, but it's definitely live."
He brings up a web page, and it's otherwise blank. Just a video window in the middle of a white screen buffering over pixelated colors.
Then the feed resolves itself, and the audio filters into the room and it isn't loud, but it's clear no one was prepared. Even the computer guy jumps a little.
Carlton is screaming. As much as one can scream with closed lips and when unable to breathe.
What little air she had left herself goes out of Juliet's lungs. She stumbles back a step and her hands clap over her mouth and Shawn is catching her. He's probably holding her up but she doesn't know. She can't feel her legs anymore.
The color is washed out and greenish and the feed is grainy, but it isn't so bad they don't know it's him. It's more than clear that it's him, tied to a metal chair with arms in a dim, dingy room. Maybe an old office somewhere, an abandoned building or warehouse. The places scum like these people use.
People who make and deal drugs and kidnap good men and tie them to chairs and electrocute them.
The strangled cry from the speakers cuts off and on the screen Carlton's chest is heaving, and she doesn't know if he's breathing or moaning and that's her partner up there. And just when she thinks it's over for now he goes stiff once more and starts making that awful sound again.
"Oh my god!" Gus is saying.
Juliet is holding the speaker cord from the computer. The audio has cut off, but she doesn't remember pulling it out. Shawn's arms are still half out, and she remembers them holding onto her but not how she pulled away. They're all looking at her.
"We have to get him out of there," she chokes.
The window minimizes. The computer guy pulls something else back up, numbers and code she doesn't understand.
"I said the feed was difficult to trace; not that I couldn't do it," he says quickly. "Once I do we'll know where he is. I'm already working on it."
"You're right, Mr. Guster," the chief says, clearing her throat. "We don't negotiate. But we don't leave our people behind, either."
Shawn straightens. He's visibly shaken but he's already moving. "Lassie's place. We're on it. Gus, come on."
"You don't have anything yet, Mr. Spencer?" Karen asks.
"I um...not yet. Sorry, chief, really I am. But it'll be easier at Lassie's. Where the abduction happened. I'll be able able to feel more, and…" He motions vaguely to the screen. "Computers can stifle the spirits, you know?"
"Of course," the chief nods, though doesn't really seem to get it at all. But when do any of them understand Shawn's ways? "Whatever you need to do, Mr. Spencer."
"Yeah. Jules?"
Shawn is looking at her. Maybe he's asking her if she wants to come. If she doesn't want to be here. But there's nothing she can do at Carlton's place that forensics or Shawn cannot, and she needs to be here if anything changes.
Her hands are shaking. She pulls them close to her body and knows the chief would tell her she shouldn't be in the field right now anyway. Not when it's her partner. Not until they know where he is and she can go out there and know they're taking down the bastards who have him.
Or maybe he's only asking if she's all right. She isn't.
Juliet tells him to go on.
"You sure?"
"Yeah...I'll be here."
Then Shawn and Gus are gone and chief excuses herself to her office. "You know where I am if you need me, Juliet," she says before she goes. "We'll get them. He'll be fine." She shrugs once. "And now we have enough evidence to put all of these guys away for a long, long time. That's something."
"Yeah…"
Carlton would think it's worth it. It's probably what he's telling himself right now.
Juliet doesn't think so.
Then she's alone in the conference room with the computer guy, and she realizes she doesn't know his name. Maybe when this is over she'll be able to ask him, be able to thank him, but she doesn't have the social energy to do either right now.
The computer he's set up in here to do his job has two screens. He's using the space on one and half of them, but there's half of one where the background shows through, and the fall leaves on a street seem incongruous to the situation. It's a default; she's seen it before.
Juliet takes a seat beside the guy. He glances at her.
"Could you bring it back up?" she asks quietly.
"You sure?" he asks warily.
She can't answer, so she nods. The window comes back up and nothing is happening. Not anymore. It's difficult to tell because Carlton is all they can see, but nothing seems to be happening. Except he's glaring at something. Someone. They can't see who.
They can't see where the wires wrapped around one of Carlton's arms and one of his legs are coming from either. There's no way to know what they're using to administer the shocks, but it doesn't really matter, does it? It's bad enough knowing they're doing it at all.
The speakers are still unplugged, and the guy beside her offers Juliet his headphones.
She takes them, but she doesn't put them on right away. Not until Carlton's head turns, like he's watching someone leaving. Until the vehement glare on his face starts to relax.
She slips the headphones on and she can hear him breathing heavily. Just that. If she closed her eyes it might be two nights ago, with him pressed against her in her doorway.
She wishes it were still Friday. That this was just a nightmare.
Carlton…
Juliet wants to tell him it'll be all right. They're coming for him. But he can't hear her. He has to know it, anyway. For now it has to be enough to know he's alive.
She hears a creaking door close in the feed, and footsteps echoing, fading away. Carlton relaxes a little more, and she thinks he must not know about the camera, wherever it is. He's not looking that direction and he starts to struggle with the ropes to no avail.
He tries maybe longer than is really necessary, she thinks, to know he's not going to budge them. When he stops his head falls back and he moans, just once.
"Oh god," he gasps.
Just one moment. One private moment of fear, that she shouldn't have seen.
Juliet yanks the headphones off and pushes back from the table.
"You okay?" the guy asks. He doesn't know her. He doesn't know asking will do no good.
"Fine," she lies. "I'll be at my desk."
She will be there, but not now. First she goes back out to her car, because she's going to cry and she doesn't want anyone to hear.