Juliet O'Hara hung the phone up without having realised she'd done it. She stared at it for almost thirty seconds before Shawn's voice was able to slice through the fog.

"What?" she said dully.

"I said, what was that about? I've never heard such unladylike talk."

"Did someone just let a sailor in here?" Gus agreed.

Time sped back up and the bustle of the station zoomed back into sharp relief. "That was Buzz," she said, feeling ill. "Victoria Parker is missing."

In the periphery of her vision, Shawn leaned in toward Gus, muttering, "Who?"

"Mrs Lassiter!" Gus hissed back.

Shawn frowned instantly; Juliet could feel the sudden suck of energy being drained out of the station into the pit of his dismay. "Dammit," he cursed softly.

Juliet shook her head. Carlton needed her. He probably wouldn't be her partner after this was over, but until that moment, she - until that moment happened, he was. "We need to go to the chief with this."

"Jules wait!" Shawn gasped, his fingers flying to his temple in an obvious play for time. "I'm sensing... I'm sensing she's fine!"

"What?"

"Yeah, Shawn," Gus accused privately. "What?"

Juliet rolled her eyes. "Stop it, Shawn. I know-"

"No, really!" he insisted. He looked at Gus, spreading his hands like he could fix everything, as usual, with some stupid psychic claim or- "I just... know. She's fine!"

Juliet stood from Carlton's desk. "I'm sorry guys. I have to consider the worst case here." Oh God, her legs were numb. She steadied herself. She steeled herself. She took a deep breath. She pointed herself at Vick's office and willed herself to start walking. But suddenly, Shawn and Gus were at her either side, steering her toward her own desk and muttering nonsensical things about fish and cheese and pineapples. She pulled all three of them to an irritated stop. "Shawn-!"

"Sorry. I'm looking for Shawn Spencer?"

Juliet blinked. Beside her, Shawn frowned and leaned across her front to murmur to Gus: "Dude what is the guy with the bad hair looking for me for? Do we owe him money? Oh oh! Does he owe us money?"

"Shawn," Gus started, but Shawn was already pulling away, putting on his best charmer face. The man had been asking at the desk at the top of the steps, and it was never difficult for even the greenest faces to point out Shawn.

"I'm Shawn Spencer," Shawn enthused.

Juliet frowned, her fingers twitching at her sides. How could he - Did he really just not care?

"What can I do ya for?"

The guy looked a little confused. He looked Shawn up and down in doubt, then looked to Juliet. "I was supposed to meet a Detective Lassiter later this week, but I needed to - to talk to him now, and I - so I called him. But I just got his voicemail, saying to ask for-"

"Shawn?" Gus scoffed. "Yeah, right."

But Juliet frowned in sudden thought. It was department policy to change your voicemail message if you went on vacation. She beelined for her desk and dialed his number from her phone. The voicemail picked up immediately, which meant his phone was off. She hit the speakerphone. His stern, disembodied voice filtered through the line into silence.

"This is Head Detective Carlton Lassiter of the Santa Barbara Police Department. I am on vacation and will return on April 26th. If you are in need of immediate attention, please call my partner, Detective Shawn Spencer. If this is in reference to case number 04202010-0543, please reference item MDR-THB when speaking to him."

The silence dragged on long after the beep. Then Juliet hung up. "That's..."

"He is never going to live this down."

"Shawn!" Gus hissed. Juliet looked up in time to see the tail end of Gus nodding meaningfully at her, and she straightened her shoulders.

"Oh, Jules. I'm sure Lassie doesn't mean anything by-"

"It's code, Shawn," Juliet interrupted, staring at the phone in thought.

"He knows," Gus said softly.

Juliet looked up to see Shawn looking off, uncharacteristically serious. She felt immediately guilty. She'd always understood Shawn better than Lassiter had - the joking, the song and dance. Carlton didn't have the capacity for - or maybe he just didn't have the luxury. "What are you thinking, Shawn?" she asked, touching his arm.

He startled. "It's a date."

"What?" Juliet blinked. That was inappropriate. A date? This wasn't the time to-

"April 20th." Shawn grabbed a pen from her desk and wrote the numbers from Carlton's voicemail message in large print. He boxed off the first 8 digits. "That's a date. And maybe this is a time?"

"If he's trying to get a message out," Gus said, catching up, "then that means Shawn was right. This isn't a-" He stopped himself short at a look from Shawn, and Juliet silently thanked him - both of them, on Lassiter's behalf. "Whatever it was. It's not that. That means we can go to the Chief and get more people working on it. Right?" Shawn nodded. "But he is probably on vacation. His toothbrush, his groceries-"

"Which I saw in a vision," Shawn interrupted hastily. "Yes. I saw those things, the ones he said and any others he might randomly bring up without thinking."

"Wait. His toothbrush is gone? But he's clearly not on vacation-" Juliet pulled a drawer open and rummaged for a moment before coming up with Carlton's appointment book. She flipped to days previous. "Here. He did leave town, Friday night, for a seminar on antique military munitions and weaponry. Fairfield Inn, Santa Clarita." She frowned at the tiny handwriting. "If that's a time, it's 5:43 am on Saturday morning. This says check out isn't until 11. The conference isn't even over until 4."

"Why do you have Lassiter's appointment book?" Gus wondered, sounding faintly creeped out.

Juliet dialed the number to the Fairfield Inn front desk. "I had to take over his appointments," she answered. "Hello! Hi. This is Detective Juliet O'Hara with the Santa Barbara Police Department. Yeah. I'm just calling to check on something, if you don't mind. Yes, of course." Juliet rolled her eyes and tapped in restlessness on her desk. "Hi. I'm trying to find out if a Carlton Lassiter checked in last night. His reservation number is- Oh, really? No, that doesn't surprise me at all. Thanks very much." She hung up. "He never checked in. The front desk said he made a big deal about the parking arrangements and how well-monitored they were, and whether or not the in-room safe would be adequate for storing his-" She airquoted. "-Stupid old guns. And then he never actually showed up."

"So what you're saying is, we have a case," Shawn said.

Juliet frowned.

Gus elbowed him. "We already had a case," he whispered.

"I know dude, just go with it," Shawn hissed back.

Juliet rolled her eyes.

They took over a conference room. On an easel at the head of the table, a large map of the area had been fastened, with a pin at Fairfield Inn, Santa Clarita. Lassie left the station just after 7:30. It took an hour and fifteen minutes to get from Santa Barbara to Santa Clarita. Concentric circles eddied out from the pin, denoting how far away Lassie could have got between 9 pm Friday night and 5:43 am Saturday morning using different modes of transportation.

"This is your priority, got it?" Juliet was saying at the open doorway. She waited for the uniformed officers to nod before turning into the room. "I've got as many units as we can spare looking for Victoria Parker. The Chief is going to reschedule whatever appointments she can and go to the rest for me."

Shawn frowned. "The Chief is-"

"I'm not saying it wasn't a fight, but after- I think she just knows. I'm not going to stop until I find him."

Shawn nodded, trying not to smile. He could be serious! But she was so cute when she was determined. "Okay! Wait for the sweetness." He fluttered his fingers through the air. "Wait for iiiiit... Got it. Lassie isn't in his car."

Juliet frowned. "You're right. The front desk at the hotel confirms that his car is still in the parking structure across the street. I've asked Santa Clarita PD to look it over for signs of struggle."

Shawn nodded, ignoring Gus' eyerolling. Sometimes being psychic was as easy as calling the hotel while Juliet was in Vick's office, but it didn't make success feel any less satisfying. Shawn put his hand over the map, tracing the outer most circle, then the next one in, stalling for time; knowing about Lassie's car had actually been his only bit of information. "Gus," he said. "Where did I say that doctor's office I sensed was, exactly?"

Gus gave him a look, but said, "You said it was just north of Santa Barbara, here." He stuck a pin into the map and leaned close in. "What are you doing? You think the doctor had something to do it this?"

"No. Why, do you?"

"Doctor Moryma's office?" Juliet said, sweeping toward the map. "Why would Carlton's - I mean, what could he have to do with this?"

Shawn groaned inwardly. "I... don't know. Yet." Probably nothing. Dammit.

"We found his phone number on a scrap of paper in Lassiter's back yard."

Juliet frowned. "What were you doing at Lassiter's house?"

Shawn glared at Gus. "I... was led there. By the spirits." He fished the number out of his pocket. "I called it already."

"Got em!" Buzz pushed the door open and dropped the stack of photos onto the conference table. "Can I ask - What happened?"

The stack of photos slid forward. Right on top: the photo of Lassie's perp board, accusing them all of neglecting some very important detail. If only Shawn could figure out what it was. He turned back to the map, mentally collecting and discarding the names of every tiny town on the outer perimeter. If Lassiter had seen fit to note that time, it had to mean something, it had to be an attempt to give them a range in which to look. None of these towns stuck out in Shawn's memory.

"We don't know," Juliet replied vacantly.

Shawn turned around. Jules had the photo in her hand. "We'll find him. Don't worry."

"Worry," she shot back. "Can't you, just once?"

"Uhm, I'll let you guys get back to work." Buzz gave them all a sympathetic look and backed out of the room.

"Jules," Shawn started, but she wasn't finished.

"Look at this. He's done. We want there to be foul play because it means we can save him and everything can go back to normal, but it can't always go back to normal Shawn. The hard evidence we have - the pills, the doctor's appointments, the note, the neighborhood watch report - and now Mrs. Lassiter is missing."

"But- what about his car? The voicemail message?" Gus tried.

"Like you sensed," she snapped. Shawn listened mutely. "Red herrings. He's a better detective than you've ever given him credit for, Shawn. He wants you to go haring off after these leads. He wants us to look far away. He's probably holed up somewhere close, somewhere deserted... planning to... He probably never planned to go to the conference. He probably-"

"Jules. Jules!" Shawn moved forward to take her wrists and make her look at him. When she did, he caught her hand and took the photo. "Juliet," he murmured. "Let's think this through here..."

She shook her head. "He could be in danger of hurting himself or someone else. Look. Look at this." She grabbed his hand and turned the photo in it so face him. "You told me yourself, he said almost this exact thing to you four years ago. He was done. And you just walked away from him. I'm not going to walk away from him."

She jerked out of his hands and stalked to the board.

Shawn stared after her, protest dying on his tongue. I did not! he wanted to say. We spent the whole next case spiking his koolaide with awesome sauce just to make him feel better. But she wasn't going to listen. And besides, he thought with sudden realization. She was right. Well, not right right, but she was right about the red herring. The whole thing-

It's over, I'm done. The words flashed in his memory, on the board in Lassie's living room. No, no, under that. The photos. And the list of emails on Lassie's computer. Lassie's face after coming back from the little boy's room on Friday, pale, pained-

"Whoa whoa wait," Shawn said, feeling a bit like a real psychic might have. His spine felt a little numb from the excitement and cold realisation. "I got it. I mean, the spirits are telling me... Names are swimming in my vision. Andre Yast. Clive Brinkle. Tori Numma."

Juliet frowned. "Those are names from his files." She went for the stack of Lassie's monthlies and pulled a few out. "They're all really recent."

"They're splashed with red."

"Blood?"

"No," Gus said, picking up the photo and peering at it. "They're on his creepy board."

"Would a guy ready to end it all spend time painstakingly updating his perp board?"

"Lassiter might," Gus replied off-handedly. Shawn threw a death glare at him. "I mean, no. No he wouldn't."

Shawn swept his hand toward the file on Lassiter's house. "They dusted the marker for prints. I'm sensing they didn't find any."

Juliet rushed for the file and scanned it hastily. "No, they didn't. Shawn, what-"

Shawn squeezed his eyes shut. "Lassie never got the Chief's email confirmation of his time off, or Mrs. Lassiter's second letter."

Gus held up the envelope. "You mean this letter right here, from his desk?"

"Precisely that letter, Gus. Strong psychic vibes are telling me that Lassie's delicate but masculine fingers never touched that envelope."

Juliet spared one more moment in the room before she rushed out. Shawn and Gus followed in her wake. She barreled toward Lassie's desk and didn't even sit at his desk before tapping at the keyboard. She scrolled, scanning. "Shawn's right. Chief Vick's reply isn't in his inbox."

"Maybe he deleted it," Gus suggested.

"Nope," Shawn said, reaching over Juliet to scroll. "Eleven thousand five hundred and sixty two emails. This guy's not a deleter. Look, he doesn't even delete my weekly joke emails." He pointed at an example, complete with laughing emoticons in the subject. He bent down to look through Lassie's drawers, just in case. The almost empty bottle of anti-nausea medication rolled. Shawn froze in memory.

"Shawn?" Juliet said, sounding worried. "What is it?"

"Dude," Shawn murmured. "Refresh my memory. What are the side effects of taking Adderal without a prescription?"

"Nausea, headache-"

Shawn pulled the anti-nausea medication and ibuprofen from the drawer and set them up on the desk in evidence.

"-Insomnia, weight loss, palpitations. Psychologically...? Paranoia."

Shawn gestured accusingly at the computer, although Lassie was paranoid enough normally that just changing his password wasn't an indictment.

But Gus wasn't finished. "Anxiety, psychotic episodes, and severe depression."

Jules frowned. "Half of those are just normal Carlton," she said. "And half of those are because of you."

"Ouch, Jules. That hurts. Just trust me on this - I know what it looks like. Don't ask." He pulled out the prescription bottles and handed one to Gus. "Do those look right?"

Gus popped the tops off and nodded. "And full. I told you, he hasn't been taking these."

Shawn looked at the bottle, trying to force his thoughts to focus in on the one clue that would break everything open - Dr. Moryma. "You checked out Dr. Moryma in your database, right? Are you sure nothing sounded... off about him?"

"I'm sure, Shawn. I told you-"

"You just want to get into their metaphorical drug pants."

"That's not why."

"Admit it. You totally want to make sweet love to Dr. Lou Vega's medicine cabinet."

"It's Dr. Lobego, Shawn. And it's not a cabinet, it's more of a - you know what Shawn -"

"Wait." Juliet straightened, brows furrowed in thought. "Lobego? I'll be right back." She grabbed all four bottles and jogged toward the conference room.

"Dude what was that about?" Shawn whispered, watching her go.

"She probably just remembered a clue. Not everyone has a clue-face, Shawn."

"What? No, man. I-. She's been totally mean."

"What do you expect, Shawn? Her partner's missing and you can barely even pretend to be serious."

"I am serious! I'm very serious. I just don't..."

"I know that, Shawn. But Juliet doesn't. You need to stop acting like a jackass."

Shawn sighed and shook his head. "Et tu, Gussy? Duly noted. We need to see the Chief."

The Chief was shuffling a stack of reports into a file folder when they threw the door open. She looked harried; her hair was slightly out of place and she still had a napkin tucked into her collar from the lunch she'd had at her desk. She startled when the door hit the wall. "Mr. Spencer! Is there something I can do for you?"

"I have reason to believe that Detective Lassiter has been kidnapped!"

Vick stared. "We already have reason to believe that. Remember? I gave you the conference room? I'm taking over all of O'Hara's administrative duties?"

Shawn raised his brows. "Yes, of course. Right. What I mean is, I have even more reason-"

"The point, Mr. Spencer."

"The point? My point. I need to see the email Lassie sent you."

Vick frowned, but then she tapped at her computer. "Here it is." She swiveled the monitor to face him.

Shawn hitched his bottom up onto her desk to read it; Gus watched over his shoulder.

Vick wrinkled her nose. "Mr. Spencer, are you sitting on my-"

"Don't worry, Chief. I have in the not so distant past been described as svelte. Oh, here, that. 'It's been a long couple of weeks and I could really use the time off?' That doesn't sound like him."

"It sounds normal, Shawn," Gus murmured.

Shawn kept reading. It was pretty much as the Chief had said, bland statements about not wanting to make a big deal about it, not having his phone on. "But we know he's not on vacation."

Chief Vick frowned as the light dawned. "Then where did this email come from?"

"Not Lassie," Shawn said, triumphant. "And whatever you said back, he didn't get it."

"Oh, may I?" Gus said, holding his hands up. "I'm something of an amateur expert." Vick backed away from her desk to give him access to her keyboard. Shawn leaned over more to keep the monitor in view as Gus swiveled it back to face him. "I'm checking the header information on the original email. Here, does that look like his email address?" He pointed.

Vick looked over his shoulder. "Yes..." she said uncertainly.

"Dude, what's that?" Shawn tapped on the screen, one line lower.

Gus frowned and clicked around. "It's a reply-to address. Normally, it'd be hidden in the header information which nobody looks at. It's routing all replies to a different address." He highlighted it for the others to see more clearly. "It's just a random string of letters and numbers." He opened a browser and typed in the host's web address. "It's a free webmail client. This could be anyone."

Vick was already on the phone. As it rang, she said, "I'm asking for a court order to get the IP logs from the company for the last month of use for this email address. In the meantime-"

The door banged open again. "I got it!" Jules cried, waving a folder in the air. "Dr. Kurt Lobego."

Vick waved them away as her call was answered. Shawn hopped off the desk and joined Gus and Juliet just inside the door to Vick's office.

"Lassiter busted him twelve years ago for - you guessed it - stalking Miss Victoria Parker." She looked at them expectantly.

Shawn stared. Gus elbowed him and muttered, "Mrs. Lassiter!"

"Oh. Oh! Dude-"

Juliet held up her hand to stop him. "Lassiter's been keeping tabs on this guy for over a decade. His notes are extremely thorough. Lobego's clean. Every note of suspicion has been followed up with a reasonable explanation."

"Then he has a partner! Jules- We have to find him. Someone's going through a lot of trouble to convince us Lassie's off offing himself." The image of a broken bottle in the fake fireplace sparked in his memory. Shawn fingertips flew to his temples. "I see bottles. Bottles of evil, smashed and broken, but they've already done their work!"

"He was poisoned? Drugged!" Juliet exclaimed. "His moodiness, the paranoia - side effects of Adderal. Stalking Mrs. Lassiter-"

"He was stalking Victoria Parker?" the Chief cut in, hanging up the phone.

"No," Shawn said. Things were becoming clearer by the moment. "Check the scotch-"

"Scotch? Alcohol heightens the effects-" Gus murmured into Shawn's ear.

Shawn's stomach plummeted. Of course it did. And if he stopped getting dosed, he'd go into withdrawal. Shawn squeezed his eyes shut and the room disappeared.

The broken bottle of scotch - the photos on the wanted board - the photo in Lassie's desk drawer - wait. The man in the photo, the blurry man in the corner he'd assumed was the man Mrs Lassiter was seeing - was actually a blurry, younger Lassiter, happy and with better hair. No wonder Shawn hadn't recognized him. So the man taking the photo was - the rose on the doorstep - MDR-THB - Juliet's voice: somewhere deserted - the map, the much smaller area closer to home that Juliet had been focusing on.

"The neighborhood watch... The report! Give it to me!" Shawn insisted. Juliet pushed it into his hands, confused. He flipped it open and - the phone number. The originating phone number. "I wondered what felt off about that doctor's office. What self-respecting doctor answers his own phone?"

"What are you saying, Shawn?"

"I'm saying... crap. We have to find Lassiter, and fast. I know where he is. I'm sensing - this might end up a suicide after all."

The shot startled him. Even though he'd known it was coming. He'd been railing at the door, screaming until he was hoarse, pounding until his hands were raw and swollen. She pleaded, for his life, for hers. And then there was a shot, and it startled him into silence.

Oh God.

A moment later, the door opened. The other bastard pulled him up by his shirt collar and pushed him into the other room. She was sprawled indecently where she'd fallen, the pool of blood rich and warm and smelling too much like the thousands of crime scenes which should have inured him to the sense of hot sick panic.

Carlton fell to his knees at the edge of it, but he couldn't bring himself to breech the perimeter - the steadily encroaching edge of the - but the giddy part of his brain reasoned that it was only habit, do not disturb the crime scene.

Screw the crime scene. He threw himself onto her body, shaking her shoulders. There was life in her yet, and she croaked something he couldn't understand. Behind them, the bastards talked quietly, derision in their voices but he couldn't understand them either. He couldn't understand anything. Another sick flashing moment later, she was gone. Her hand had left a sticky trail on his cheek and then flopped onto her chest, still.

"Couldn't save her." The voice wasn't his, but it might as well have been. "It's over. Isn't it?"

Carlton nodded mutely.

The gun slid toward him and the door closed. It's over. He reached for the gun.