(Next Chapter 7)

The next morning, while waiting for Lassiter, O'Hara curiosity made her leave the comfort of her air-conditioned car and inspect the tires of Lassiter's Crown Vick. The left rear tires was flat just as Lassiter had said. Upon closer examination, she noticed that the punctures were from a blade. Slashes might be a better description due to the size, shape, and location of the cuts in the rubber were made by a blade. These slashes were not in the tread but on the soft sides of the tire near the rims. As O'Hara studied the slash, she came to the realization that there was no way that they had been caused accidentally.

O'Hara considered, with a chill, that someone had deliberately caused this kind of damage to Lassiter's car, possibly as a warning? A threat? Was this why Carlton had been acting so strangely lately? Could this tire slasher be bringing on Lassiter's loss of appetite? Provoking enough stress that her partner was losing nightly sleep, and was so exhausted on duty that he was falling asleep on the way to delivering the news that someone's daughter, someone's sister, had been murdered?

O'Hara's chill was quickly replaced by white hot anger. She made a silent vow to bring this person—or people—to justice on Lassiter's behalf.

O'Hara saw Lassiter exiting his apartment and heading towards her car. Her first instinct was to confront him and demand answers but the voice of reason poked holes in the plan. Carlton Lassiter was a deeply private man; accosting him for keeping secrets and then drilling him for answers was the quickest way to ensure his silence. No, O'Hara decided, the best way to go about getting Lassiter to admit he needed help was with tact and delicacy.

She met Lassiter at her car with a smile firmly locked into place.

"Morning, O'Hara," Lassiter greeted, climbing into the passenger's seat.

"I had a private phone call," O'Hara spluttered, pointing to her phone, as though that explained why she had been milling around Lassiter's car.

Lassiter raised his eyebrows, "I didn't ask."

As they drove toward work, O'Hara stopped at a local café and ordered two large iced coffees. She handed one to Lassiter.

"I love the anniversary gift you gave me," O'Hara said warmly. "It's hanging on my living room wall."

Lassiter smiled. He could be a man of few words.

"Don't you like iced coffee?" Juliet couldn't help but ask. Sure, she may have never seen him drink anything but hot coffee. . . "I should have asked before ordering you one. I just figured, since it was so humid today. . ."

"No, it's fine." As if to prove it, he took a long drink from the straw.

O'Hara pulled into her usual parking spot and the SBPD. She put the car into park but paused before switching off the engine. "Carlton, we've been partners for a years now. You know you can tell me anything, right?"

Lassiter stared at her, clearly taken aback by the seriousness of her tone. "I know," he agreed.

A few more moments stretched on with neither saying a word. Finally, Lassiter sighed heavily. Sensing he was about to open up about topics he had so far kept secret, O'Hara rotated in her seat to give her full attention at her partner, but was disappointed when Shawn's sudden appearance at her window caused Lassiter to snap his jaw shut and adopt an expression of annoyance.

"Hey, Jules," Shawn beamed. "What's up Lassie?"

O'Hara directed a scowl in Shawn's direction for his interruption.

"Did I do something wrong?" Shawn asked sheepishly, noticing O'Hara's scowl.

"Give us a minute," O'Hara said, her frustration giving her voice a sharp edge.

Undoubtedly deducing the importance of what he had just interrupted from threatening inflection of Juliet's voice, Shawn did what she requested without delay. He turned around and briskly walked into the station.

"Carlton, were you about to tell me something?" O'Hara asked hopefully.

Despite Shawn's quickness to remove himself from whatever he had unwittingly disrupted, the moment was over. Whatever spell Lassiter had been under had broken, his defenses back up.

"No," Lassiter shook his head. "It's nothing."

He got out of the car without another word, heading in mere seconds after Shawn.

O'Hara cursed silently under her breath before switching off the engine to her car and also walking into the station.

#####

Lassiter stared down at his desk calendar. Three more days, including today, before he got the results from his blood test. He faced an internal struggle, a battle where he desperately wanted to side with his natural enemy, optimism. Still, he could feel the pessimism destroying his precious hope faster than the optimism could hide it away.

He ran a hand through his hair. Lassiter had never seriously considered the relativity of time before, but now it seemed like the most important thing on earth. Three days . . . three sunrises, three sunsets until he knew his fate.

The best way to distract himself was to get back to the case. He picked up Rachel Owens' file, a standard driver's license picture clipped to its front. He noted her expressionless mouth, her soft blonde hair framing her face. She could be any other girl, any other victim, really, except for those sharp green eyes, which seemed to beseech him. He became lost in those green eyes. She could be any other victim, but he saw her just before she died. Her eyes bore into him.

Yes, he knew it, blinking and looking away from her frozen face. There was a whole file of untapped information a hop, jump, and skip away, in a filing cabinet at the free clinic. His conscience made him feel guilty for not simply revealing the truth and procuring the files that way. It would be a whole lot easier.

Lassiter stomach flipped, not from pain or nausea, but from plain old nerves. If he told the truth about his illness, there would be no going back. Best case scenario, reprimanded and assigned to desk duty. Worst case scenario, he would be reprimanded and then suspended. Either option was highly undesirable to Lassiter.

For a minute, he allowed himself to give in to his worst fears; that he did have cancer, that it had progressed too far for a cure to be likely, that this was the end. But if it was the end, wouldn't to be better to finish what he had started? To see this last, final case, to the very end or until his body quit on him, whatever came first?

Lassiter fortified his resolve. He would stay the course he had chosen.

Lassiter's brain went into overdrive. How was he going to lead someone to the information without outing himself?

A quick search brought him an answer. "McNab!" Lassiter called from his desk.

McNab put down his coffee mug, hurried to Lassiter's desk, and stood at attention. "Yes, sir?"

"I need you to look into something for me," Lassiter said very quietly.

"What, sir?" McNab leaned over Lassiter's desk to better hear the Head Detective's hushed tone.

"Rachel Owens' was pregnant."

McNab nodded to indicate that he aware of this fact.

"But when we called her usual practitioner, she had no knowledge of this." Lassiter raised his eyebrows, "Do you see what I am saying?"

"Not really, sir." McNab admitted.

"It's most likely that if Rachel knew she was pregnant, or even suspected the possibility and wanted to keep it a secret, she might have sought out a doctor that wouldn't recognize her, that wouldn't ask for proper identification or proof of insurance."

"Like a free clinic."

"Exactly," Lassiter said, relieved that McNab had caught on.

McNab beamed.

"I want you to go to the free clinics and start flashing around Rachel's picture. See if anyone remembers her dropping recently." Lassiter pulled out a map from his top desk draw. "Start in the downtown area."

"Why there?" McNab questioned, studying the area Lassiter had indicated with his finger. "That is at least twenty miles from where her body was found. Why not this clinic?" He pointed to a building on the outskirts of town, closer to where Rachel had been found.

"Think, McNab," Lassiter intoned, tapping his forehead with a finger. "If you wanted to blend in, would you chose a clinic were you're bound to be remembered at simply because there are fewer patients or would you chose the clinic that you would assume would be crowded because of its location in the heart of down town Santa Barbara?" Lassiter pointed at the location on the map he had indicated earlier. "This clinic might explain her unusual choice in clothes. Maybe she wanted to blend so completely that she went to extremes to look like she belonged there? It is their 'usual type of patient'," Lassiter finished, borrowing a phrase from Dr. Tolbert.

McNab mulled this over before agreeing. "That would explain it." He leaned even closer to Lassiter. "Is this a secret assignment?"

"What?" Lassiter raised in eyebrows in confusion.

"Oh," McNab murmured with a note of sadness in his voice. "I just thought because we were whispering that you didn't want anybody else to know."

With a sudden sense of amusement, Lassiter realized that McNab was actually disappointed that it wasn't a secret. Lassiter's amusement led to shining moment of genius. He could use this to his advantage. Why couldn't it be a secret mission? It would ensure McNab's discretion. He would report directly to Lassiter, which would give Lassiter time to figure out the best way to proceed.

"I'm glad you understand," Lassiter remarked, suppressing a grin. "Don't tell anyone, not O'Hara, and especially not Spencer. Report what you find only to me. Got it?'

McNab nodded vigorously. He strode out of the police station with his chest puffed out due to the inflated sense of ego at being personally chosen as Detective Lassiter's confidant.