Part the Fourth

-x-

Shawn shut the bedroom door. The blinds were still drawn, like dawn had never happened, morning hadn't come, and that event in the kitchen was still a glint in the changeable future. He tried to replay it—Lassie, leaning in—breathing him in—but it began to break up, damaged by interference and his own vengeful spirit. Better to let it burn out, he thought. It wasn't real. None of this was real.

Grabbing his iPhone, he read the missed calls. Lassie, Lassie, Lassie—his dad—Lassie. He'd probably in the bath forty minutes. It was nearly noon…

He dressed and cantered back to the kitchen, supposing Lassiter had gone back to the station, bewildered to see him sitting at the table. Rather dejectedly, too, with his hands in his hair and his face hidden. Instead of referencing it—homoeroticism was not exactly meant to be the diving point of conversation—Shawn tracked the subject he most wanted to hear. The point, anyway, right behind his aching desire to know if Carlton had a bit of a bisexual streak in him. The men of the southern California should be so privileged. But Shawn first, if any man was to be lucky; Shawn first.

Claiming a chair and sitting in it backward, feeling a bit like Judd Nelson in The Breakfast Club, Shawn rubbed his chin across his wrist three times before initiation. "So—who is the guy?"

"Chief says his name's Thomas Akroyd Brown."

"The chief says? What, Karen wouldn't let you talk to him? That's odder than the number one."

"Not really, Spencer. And—" he raised his head, poised for the conundrum, "what?"

"Did he give you any information?"

"He says he was there freelance."

Shawn swore and shaded his eyes with a hand that slightly trembled. Leftover remains of what Carlton had done to him. He was just relieved he'd been able to button on his jeans, after such an unanticipated instance of fugitive passion. "So the whole thing was unrelated."

"He says it was. Did you get any ideas?"

"Just a couple. I can explain on the way."

"Way to where?"

"Cooperstown, New York. I just have a hankering to see the Baseball Hall of Fame."

Lassiter examined Shawn as though the two of them had never met before. It was just some stranger sitting at his dining room table. Some stranger staying in the guest room. An odd man off the street who left his sandals under the table, set out his roommate's coffee mug every morning. The metaphor failed to last. Only Shawn Spencer could make him so frustrated, professionally and personally. He'd always known Shawn's talents to be unique—but that—that—it left Carlton blind and wanting.

"I'm kidding. I do that. It's what I do."

"I knew you were," Lassiter said.

"Because just for a second there it looked like you were willing to do it. Go to New York, I mean." He didn't want to bring it up, make it stand out—or embarrass either of them. Willing to do it. Too many meanings there.

"Vick doesn't really want you investigating this further."

Shawn snickered, rolled out of the chair, and foiled by his boss, did what he always intended. "I'm going to keep investigating. I need this case."

"That's what I told her you'd say. You're an independent private investigator, Spencer. Sure, you don't have a license, you're exempt from that, but you don't have to do what the SBPD tells you to do. Just like you said to Detective Fielding on the phone. Why should you listen to anyone? I told that to Chief Vick. She said she knows she can't stop you from doing what you want to do, but she can withhold payment, even if you somehow manage to solve the case."

"I need this case, Lassie! You know that better than anyone. Jules and Gus are gone—and—"

"You need a vacation, Spencer. You're losing it."

"You can't see that there's something a whole lot bigger going on here! This isn't local. This is big—national—hell, it could be the work of a universal syndicate for all we know! Come on! Quit holding out on me! I know you know something!" He drummed the back of his hands against Lassiter's shoulder, stepped back, waiting.

"Vice is following up some less than savory characters that might be connected."

"Knew it! We are a go for universal syndicate!" Shawn's hand automatically went to his head. Eyes closed, chin slightly lifted, he held out his other arm and snapped his fingers. "What else? What else? Give it to me baby, uh-huh, uh-huh!" Really, the antics were not so much fun when Gus and Jules were not around to laugh encouragingly. Lassiter just sort of stared wanly and failed to capture the Offspring reference. He really needed to educate Lassie in some more recent pop-culture developments, anything after, say, 1992. "No. Seriously. What else, Lassie?"

"There might be some murders in L.A. associated with Tree's death. Four similar murders—young men and women, in that profession—were killed after accidental O.D.'s. I'm having McNab and Fielding look into it."

"And the houses those other victims lived in? Owned by Winfield Acquisitions?"

"We don't—"

"Oh, I'm sure they are. I'll bet my collection of Mario Lemieux foil-stamped baseball cards that they are."

"Mario Lemieux played hockey, not baseball."

"I know that. I was just—using a general form of the plural noun "baseball cards". What are you supposed to be doing, if McNab and Fielding are doing all the fun stuff? Sit at home and baby-sit me? Oh, is this going to be like—no, God, wait, just too many films with this plot came into my head and I seem to be having a kind of overload."

Fascinated, Lassiter observed Shawn, his simple steps around the dining room, his rather wistful pauses to look out the window, his narrow prints left in the area rug. What was it about Spencer, anyway, that lured him in, equal bits hate and equal bits admiration? Energy, Lassiter supposed. Bountiful, ceaseless energy. Stamina. Things Victoria had never accused him of having, but had plenty of times accused him of being without. He wondered how it happened like that, some people being born with so much inside that they were fit to burst one second to the next; and how there came to be people like him, hollow, seemingly senseless, loving very little but the act of winning. Competition was Lassiter's only true love. Provoked, as Maddie had told him in that ground-breaking psychological assessment, by the thrashings of jealousy.

He sighed, set his head to his hand. He was tired, too. More than once in the last six months, he'd heard it from all directions, from Juliet to Vick to his dentist: You should take a vacation. He would, after he won this case. He'd take Spencer, or follow him—that didn't matter—and the two of them would have a genuine, indulgent, reckless vacation.

"Lassie." Shawn poked him in the shoulder. "You alive in there, Gumby?"

"She tried to get me to do nothing. Sit on my hands. Work on other cases."

"Oh yeah, that totally sounds like you. Especially the part where you sit on your hands until they get little wrinkles in them… But?"

"I told her you hadn't led us astray, not more often than you come through in the past, and I was going to see what leads you came up with."

"I bet she didn't like that. Did she get all red in the face, and did her eyebrow do that twitchy Richard Wilson thing?"

"Uh, no…" Lassiter's eyes scanned an invisible place before returning to Shawn. It was the first time he'd looked at him since this secondary interview, of Shawn actually dressed, had started. "She kind of weighed her coffee mug in her hand. Like she was deciding whether or not to throw it at me. Then she said it was all right, and I was probably correct in assuming you would have a lead by now. Tell me you have a lead, Spencer."

"I do," Shawn admitted. "But involves the two of us getting something to eat—I haven't eaten yet today and—" He skipped naming his symptoms of hunger. "And a drive to Santa Ynez."

"Should I even bother asking why we're going to Santa Ynez?"

"Cougar's Diner, dude. Best cinnamon French toast in the history of French toast. I know you're a sucker for sweet things, so I thought that would reconcile the fact that we're going to need to speak to another psychic by the name of Olga Martina Guilaroff Gomez. Better known as, wait for it," he spun around his hand, finger up, a la Will Arnett in Arrested Development, "Lady Olga."

Because he knew what Lassiter's reaction would be, Shawn spat out the last of the sentence and immediately zoomed out of the back door. "Spencer!" shortly followed along with the mad, racing steps of Lassiter. Shawn ran around the house once, then met Lassie at the sedan like nothing had happened.

"Olga Martina Guilaroff Gomez?" repeated Lassiter, unlocking the car, getting in, and watching Spencer slip into the seat with his usual gracefulness.

"Yes. I met her at a convention a couple years ago. Father was a Russian psychic used by the KGB back in the day. Her mother was a spiritual advisor from Pasadena. Olga's a nice woman. At least, I think she prefers to be called a woman. But we'll eat first, right? My stomach's berserk. Or were you too far away from me to hear my stomach grumbling but close enough to know how good I smelled? I did smell good." There, he'd finally joked about it. And if he did it again, Lassie might laugh. It was too soon, and all Shawn received was a scowl and tumbling insides as the car backed out of the driveway upwards of thirty miles per hour.

At Cougar's Diner, Shawn made good on his word about the delectable cinnamon French toast, and Lassiter wouldn't deny its scrumptiousness. They were coldly civil to one another, for the first ten minutes, and found amiable common ground discussing the itinerary of Gus and Jules, where they were likely to be at just that very minute. Before paying the bill, as Lassiter knew he would have to do, Shawn didn't have a cent on him, judging by the thinness of his wallet in the back pocket, he went into the restroom to get rid of coffee and orange juice. Shawn, the second Lassiter was gone, took out his phone.

"I can't believe you're calling me."

"Hello to you, too, Mr Chocolate-dipped Wafer Newlywed."

"Shawn, what is it? I'm standing outside the British Museum. It's pouring rain. I hope this is important."

"It's an emergency." Self-conscious, and he couldn't believe he was using the word with himself, Shawn maneuvered out of the restaurant, out of the vestibule, and into the Santa Ynez air. "I really have a problem. Huge, huge problem."

"What is it?" Now Gus became concerned, his voice softened while the rain increased. He noted by the quiver in Shawn's voice that something wasn't right. "I know about the break-in at your place."

"I know that you know. It's not about that. It's complicated. And not that awful Meryl Streep movie, either. This is real life, and I can't get out of it."

"Breathe, Shawn. You're starting to scare me."

"Is Jules there?"

"She's in the gift shop. I stepped out to take your call. Are you all right?"

"Well, you know how I've always sorta had that secret," Shawn cringed a bit, "that secret side to me?"

"Oh. Wait. Are you talking about the 'I secretly really like bookstores' or the, um, 'What happens when I drink too much in a bar' secret side?"

"Yeah, that's it, that's the one!"

"Shawn, you've been that way ever since high school."

"I like to be sure I experience as much as possible."

"Going to bed with another dude is not really what I'd call an experience."

"You are not me. And you know I've always tried to keep quiet about that. Although I told Abigail. She thought it was kind of hot."

"I'll just bet she did. Is this pertinent? Did you wake up in bed with another man and wonder how you got there? Oh. My. God. Please tell me you didn't—"

"Oh God no, Gus. Give me some credit. Only—something sort of happened, and I wasn't even drinking."

"With Lassiter?"

"Who else?"

"Are you sure you weren't drunk?"

"It was eleven-thirty in the morning, Gus."

"Wait, this was this morning?" Gus used a bit of his astonished laugh and a bit of his mocking chortle. "Oh I can't wait to tell this to Juliet. She is going to freak."

"I'm freaking! My freak out time first! You have to tell me what to do!"

"Go give him a nice big kiss."

"Are you kidding? Wait. Of course you're kidding. The only way you wouldn't be is if you wanted me dead. Gus! He'd shoot me."

"Well, then you'd know. Was he drunk?"

"Lassie? Uh, no. I don't know how it happened. I was in a towel. We were in the kitchen. He smelled so good. Then he said I smelled good. And—ugh! He was just oozing all this charisma and masculinity, and—and it was all very bucolic, very Bridges of Madison County. I've been a closet bisexual all my life—"

"I don't think they make a closet for that."

"Yes, they do! I've seen it!"

"Where, Shawn? Where have you seen this closet?"

"In the California Closets store at Paseo Nuevo."

"Whatever. And just the fact that you told me doesn't make you in the closet at all."

"You know that my telling you secrets doesn't really count as telling secrets. Great, there's Lassiter. Dammit! Gus! Don't be a rebellious Zoltar machine. Hurry up with the advice."

Gus laughed again, thoroughly enjoying his best friend's sexual dilemma. Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. Not with Lassiter, maybe, but that Shawn would find himself in a situation he couldn't lie his way out of. Then, aware that it might be a while before he spoke to Shawn again, Gus attempted to do what he could to soothe. "Shawn, be careful. Lassiter did not sound very happy about any of this when we spoke this morning. And don't worry about that other thing. I'm sure it's fine."

"It's not a rash, Gus. It's not going to just go away with a little hydrocortisone cream! What am I supposed to do?"

"I already gave you my advice. Get out of that case, Shawn, or I'm coming back there. And you do not want me to cut my honeymoon short to watch after your sorry ass."

"I can't let this go, it's too important." Returned to the restaurant, Shawn shed his nervous outward demeanor, donned his serious voice, and met Lassie at the diner's register. "We're going to meet Lady Olga."

"The psychic cross-dresser you met at the Greater Los Angeles Psychic Convention last year?"

"That's her—him. I'm a bit torn about that."

"You met her at a convention they didn't even advertise."

"Why would they if it was for psychics? Of course we would know about it ahead of time. Really, Gus, you know better than that. How's the little cream-filled cupcake?"

"I assume you mean Juliet."

"I don't know any other cupcakes, aside from Lassiter's ass. Ow. Sorry, it just slipped out."

"Did Lassiter just hit you?"

"Very hard, yes. Not in the nice way that makes me dance to the Pet Shop Boys."

"Maybe you should curtail your flirting before you end up black and blue. Have fun with your psychic, Shawn. But, really—be careful. I'd better have a best friend to come home to."

"You will, buddy. All right. Have fun at those stuffy old museums."

"We will. And Shawn?"

"Yeah?"

"Stay out of trouble, and—and um—"

"I love you, too. Hugs and kisses to Jules."

Lassiter wouldn't have admitted it for anything, but he was often envious of Shawn and Gus's friendship. Who would he have called the moment his life hit a impassable crisis, as it had that morning, in his very own kitchen? There was only one person. The guy next to him.

-x-

"Dude, wait out here." Shawn barred Lassie from the back-door entrance to Lady Olga's single-room establishment. Lassiter's reluctance was, by the shift of his torso, the stance of his long legs, more than a little obvious. With threats postulated by Gus looming over him, Shawn nonetheless reached over and patted Lassie right on the sternum, sure to touch the obnoxious tie. "I sense that she'd rather you wait out here. Olga and I have a very complex confederacy type of thing going on, and I don't want anything to bust that up. Also, she's—he's—I'm still not clear on that—not that fond of guns. And what do you call this?"

Shawn sliced at the end of Lassiter's suit coat: after a floop, it revealed the holstered sidearm.

"Ah, the FNP-9 today? That's interesting. Did you wear that because the matte finish goes with that tie? Never mind. Nothing in this world goes with that tie but spoiled tapioca. I'm throwing that thing away, seriously. Stay here. If it's safe for you to come in, I'll hail you, Sulu-style."

"Shawn—" But all he got was a raised hand, a pointer finger, before Shawn vanished into the shadows, the door snapping shut.

Inside, it smelled just as he remembered: lavender, jasmine, gardenia. It was like Bath and Body Works and not the standard, patchouli-drenched new-age gizmo shop one would expect. While bookcases lined the shelves, and plastic stars hung from invisible string straight down from the cathedral ceiling, it was a bright, airy atmosphere, at once relaxing. Smooth jazz played from the direction of Lady Olga's living quarters, through the screen door and up a step. But upon her "direction table", as she called it, really like her desk, where she laid out tarot cards and transacted business, sat her tiny, tailless tabby cat.

"Hey, Nikolai! What's up, king of the castle?" His fingers received loving rubs as he was greeted with a drool and a purr. Why couldn't all cats be as nice to him as Nikolai?

"Shawn Spencer, is that you?" came the voice from the kitchen, through the screen, over the music.

"Who else would you be expecting?"

"Well," now she came into view, an imposing, broad-shouldered woman with flawless dark skin and blazing brown eyes, "I did have a feeling, when I got up this morning, I'd be meeting a handsome leading man today. I was hoping for Rupert Everett, but you'll do."

He took her hand and pressed it to his lips, around a few gleaming gemstone rings. "So nice to see you, buttercup of the hearth."

"You don't have to fill up our time with placations. You're in a hurry, aren't you?"

"Almost constantly. And yet not. It's all so—antithetical."

"The marvel of Neptune retrograde, sweetie. Behold it."

He was bewildered by her inability to sit still. The last two times he'd met her, she sat down immediately, in her pretty red chair, and made him sit opposite her. Now she moved, went to bookshelves, took down objects he couldn't see in the charming chiaroscuro.

"Your friend is outside?"

"I can ask him to come in."

"No," she flapped a hand at him, "no, you did right, asking him to wait. I want you to take this. It is a gift from me to you."

He accepted a four-ounce glass jar with a wire bale, and, to her amusement, had to sniff its contents. It repulsed him, then lingered in his nose, tingling but strangely settling.

"It is for your headaches," Olga said. "You have had headaches lately, haven't you?"

He glanced left, then right, then at her. He forgot there were real psychics in the world. And while Olga had known him for what he was, she could've spotted him for a charlatan a mile out, she believed his talents helpful and his motives genuine.

"Daily," Shawn admitted, affecting a shrug. "And sometimes even hourly."

"Put it in some hot water."

"To drink?"

"Let a girl finish, honey."

"Sorry."

"Put it in some hot water and let it soak into a clean, white washcloth. H'mm, maybe have your friend sweep your brow with it? It will be very erotic. He likes to take care of you. Capricorn?"

"No, thanks, we just ate. Oh," Shawn understood, "he's an Aries, apparently. Not like a real Aries."

"Don't let it bother you, Shawn."

"It doesn't bother me that he's an Aries. Maybe he has a watery moon." All the better for sweeping fevered brows, for erotic surprises, for intense stares that lingered. Shawn rubbed another ache rapping at his temple.

Olga smiled delicately. "You would do better to relax, let the universe unfold however it wants. It will anyway."

Shawn clutched the bale jar closer, swept up in a moment's insecurity. The things she saw! Locked away in the heart of him. "I'm afraid other people are going to die if I can't figure this out."

"People will die."

"Can't I stop it?"

"Can you stop it? Shawn, look at me."

He did so, teetering into the oblivion she created, that miasmic mysticism. The ache in his head increased to a vermicular band from temple to temple, flickering in and out of intensity.

"You are human. Every human is fallible. You are becoming too rigid in your scope."

"I'm tired."

"I know you are, baby. I know you are."

He wondered if she saw a vacation in his future. Maybe snow and plains that slipped infinitely into an empty horizon…

"It's a long way off, sweetie, but you'll get there." Olga held her hands next to his temples, breathed in, and seemed to take the pain out of him. "I'm a clairvoyant, Shawn, but with you I get a hundred hints of premonitions. Lots of little Jungian symbols. You're like a tarot deck unto yourself. You have faced Death recently. Not the mask and the scythe, but the change of him."

"Some of the mask and scythe, too," said Shawn, trying to adjust her spool of images. "The thing is, Olga, I don't know who to start with. We've got zero leads. I can't even fake my way out of this one. Whatever I'm in, I want to stay there."

"Well, yes. Who'd Shawn Spencer be if he up and dashed away, tail between his legs? He'd be like everyone else. You're persistent. I admire that in you. So do your friends, your family. If you don't know where to start, just quit looking for a beginning, and go back to the ending."

A gurgle sounded in Shawn's throat, mouth open, then suddenly tightly closed. He didn't even know what that meant.

"I see a forest in front of you. A copse. Filled with fruit trees. Peach trees."

That sent such a signal of coincidence up his spine that he grappled for his breath. "Peach trees. In the summer?"

"What other season would they bear fruit? You have to find the connection between the things you've seen and the things you think you know."

Again, a capricious riddle, meaning one thing in an instant, and another thing as soon as the light changed. Riddles, double-meanings, they always required adjustments. Summer Preacher, Avery Tree—their names. Why hadn't he seen it before?

"You were too clouded by the obvious. You can't expect to find everything you're looking for right next to you. Things are not always lateral, are they? In logic, perhaps they are, yes. But we work outside of logic, in its recess. Even you. Will you come back and visit me again? I should like to have a chat with you when you don't have to run off. Your friend is anxious. Didn't I tell you what a fine couple you'd make?"

"Yeah," Shawn nodded, remembering, turning the jar against him. He started to smile, tried to laugh, because then his monstrous misinterpretation of the previous utterance seemed far away. "Yeah, you did. But I thought you meant—"

"It is not up for me to clarify everything, is it? You, too, leave things open for interpretation. Most artists do. How far we are willing to take what is given to us, well, that is up to our willingness to face it. You are afraid of change, Shawn. At your heart, you really love comfort, you really want to believe you are as untouchable and as vain as everyone believes you are."

"Wow."

She chuckled at his offended face.

"I know," he gave a nod, much too nervous in her presence to induce an argument he wouldn't be able to win, "you're not here to tell me what I want to hear, either. You're just hear to show me things as they are."

"We see ourselves in our own realities. There isn't another way."

"Great. Let's just skip the expert romantic advice and go straight into abstract philosophy. What was it you said, Olga? Something about not knowing where the beginning was, but knowing where the ending was." Shawn's thoughts began to drift, slant sideways, as he looked at Nikolai, the living creature inspiring disillusionment, and thought of all he'd been through with the case. The names… He could work with that. Money, sex, drugs—he could work with that, too. At least until the LAPD vice department brought their own conclusions.

Olga stood, back to him, at the high workbench in the far corner of the room. He heard a splash of oil falling into another jar, caught a whiff of a sweetly-scented unknown that exhilarated.

"Olga, tell me something."

"Anything for you."

"The case. How big is the case? I told Lassiter universal. Maybe it's just the Canadians. They're always up to something."

"I would say it is pretty big. Canada's big, but not that ambitious. You will find help from outside sources more than inside ones. No," her gaze slivered as she reaffirmed the slippery statement, "no, that is not right. It was not you I was reading, but your friend out there. I read him as though he is the entire SBPD."

"You're not entirely wrong there. He likes to think he is."

"Men who don't have much else will devote themselves to their work. That's partially why he is afraid of you. You make him think of other things. His loneliness. His principles. His values. He's afraid you'll hurt him. But you don't understand what it is to really hurt him, do you? No, of course you don't. People have different forms of hurt, Shawn, and different ways they can be hurt, too. But, to digress—you don't want emotions right now—yes, inside sources. Other police departments."

"The LAPD?" He whispered it for himself, for Nikolai, hardly for Lady Olga.

She heard, too, and gave a negative shake of her head. "Perhaps more than that. Here, take this, and you'd better go."

He took the proffered bottles, two small ones, containing the mixtures she had concocted. "What is it?"

"Massage oil. Ylang-ylang in one, and sandalwood in the other. His favorites. He doesn't know that yet, but we are always learning new things about ourselves. If you need something else, Shawn, you know I will always be here for you." She saw him lifting the goods, the jar and the two bottles of massage oil, and immediately interrupted his query. "Next time. You can pay for it next time."

A lunge ahead let Shawn land an accurate kiss right on her cheek. "Thank you! I owe you one! I might owe you a thousand in a few weeks!"

In the car, as Shawn entered, Lassiter examined him, snatching a scent of what Lady Olga's place must have smelled like. He'd been pondering a doltish burst into the shop just as he saw Shawn emerge, with two tiny bottles and a jar full of crushed herbs. "What the hell's all this? Christmas?"

"Never mind—I don't know—but I think I have an idea of what to do now." He loved seeing Lassie get the slightest bit excited. A glow came into his eyes, his grin turned fiendish and hungry.

"Great! Ha! Where's your psychic vibration leading us?"

"SBPD headquarters."

"What?"

"Just drive, man, drive! Or do you want me to drive? Can I sit on your lap and—"

"Spencer."

"Oh, fine. Spoil my fun. Or would that be your fun? So hard to tell. Just way too much going on there… I want to help Detective Fielding and McNab look through those files. I think I know how we can close in on other potential victims. Their names, Lassie, their names! It's always the name! Who said that? Shakespeare? Also, what do you think of this?" Shawn, as Lassiter threw the car into drive, popped one of the massage oil bottles beneath Lassie's nose. "Take a little sniff. Just a little one. I don't want you to hurt yourself."

"Smells all right, I guess."

Such a downplayed response surely meant just the opposite. Lassiter loved it. Shawn read the bottle, marked in Lady Olga's computer-printed labels as being Ylang-ylang. Whatever it was, it was going to drive Lassie crazy, as soon as Shawn had the guts to live with the changefulness of that.

"So many possibilities," Shawn said aloud.

"Well," Lassiter proudly misapprehended Shawn's message, "let's just go with one possibility at a time. I know what happens when you face too many things at once. You get that glassy-eyed stare and go a bit comatose."

"I do not!" protested Shawn.

"You do!"

"When has that ever happened?"

Lassiter examined what he could of the past, running into brick walls, then unnerved since the statement he was so sure about turned dubious. "I don't know… but there's a first time for everything."

"That's exactly what I'm counting on. Just not the glassy-eyed, semi-comatose thing. Unless I'm in bed. And you're the one next to me."

Lassiter slammed on the brakes and pulled the car to the nearest curb. Shawn's hand hurt, bracing as he had to the end of the dashboard. His neck had a thin layer of skin removed by the intrusive safety belt. But it proved too warped a situation for Carlton to handle. Too much to move through. Too much to explain. All he managed to accomplish was a point, an irate glare, until Shawn nodded, capitulating.

"Sorry, that was out of line."

"So far out of line, Spencer."

"But true."

"Not helping."

"Just drive. We've got people to save. We can work out our unresolved sexual tension later."

"We don't have any unresolved sexual tension."

"Lassie, that's all we have."

"That's not true! You're crazy."

"I'm tired, and borderline sleep-deprived, and perhaps a little ADD, and certainly psychic—but I am not crazy. Maybe I need this." Shawn's thumb released the cap from the oil bottle. He knew little about aromatherapy, but that Lady Olga believed strongly in essential oils: they were good for everything.

"What is that stuff, anyway?"

"It is ylang-ylang, my sweet Lassie bear. I have no idea what it's supposed to do, but she said it was your favorite. Along with this one." He tossed the other bottle and caught it. "Sandalwood. Sandalwood."

The repetition jabbed Lassiter's conscience, so altered was Shawn's inflection. There it was, that glazed, glassy-eyed, straight-ahead stare. "Spencer?"

He zoomed right out of that anti-reality vacuum and into the present. "Step on it, Lass. Put out the blinky gumball and blare the sirens. I think I know who our next victim is."