Shawn and Gus tried to walk stealthily as they entered the empty Fernando Moncada Theatre. The building had gone out of use just after Allison's drama troupe had put on their performance of Twelfth Night. Now dark, abandoned, and dusty with neglect, the Moncada was the perfect place for a showdown with a kidnapping psycho and her new apprentice. Also, Gus thought, as he looked around at the Mission Revival style architecture, it would make a good venue for community theatre. Or maybe a trendy art gallery.
"I still think we should have called Lassiter," Gus whispered.
Shawn swallowed the sharp bite of pain that shot through his chest at the mention of Lassiter's name. "Pfft," he scoffed, trying to sound lighthearted. "Where's he gotten on this? Nowhere, that's where." He squinted into the gloom, trying to see through the dust suspended in what little light there was, his ears straining for the sound of a crying baby. His crying baby. "You and me, buddy. We're all over it."
The words had barely left his lips when something heavy made contact with the back of his skull and everything went dark.
"I don't feel all over it, Shawn." Gus stated, swiveling as best he could with his arms shackled above his head.
They were backstage, now, and it looked like the theatre was rotting around them—the stage was dusty and full of holes, the curtains faded and moth-eaten. Unfortunately, the ropes that bound them looked brand-new. Gus tracked them with his gaze up to the ceiling, around a series of pulleys, and down again to sandbags that looked as though they weighed more than both him and Shawn combined. He twisted his hands, his wrists chafing against the metal restraints, and squinted up at his watch. He pressed a few buttons and the watch face glowed to life. It was 9:40 pm. They hadn't been out long.
"This place is awful." Gus reconsidered his thoughts about the trendy art gallery . Perhaps they should tear it down and build some condos.
Shawn didn't respond to his comment, but hung motionless beside him. Gus lashed out with a leg, kicking Shawn's immobile body. He swung slightly, grimacing at the weight it put on his wrists, and managed a second, stronger kick.
"Ow!" Shawn's head came up and he wriggled as if trying to evade a third attack. "Uncle. Uncle. I give up. It's bad enough that I'm humiliated and helpless, do we have to stoop to kicking?"
"This place is awful," Gus reiterated, relieved that Shawn was alive to hear his complaint.
"Agreed." Shawn twisted energetically, trying to pull himself free of his restraints and, failing that, to turn toward Gus. "It's a little Phantom of The Opera. Although it's still well below the standard as evil lairs go. At least there are no meathooks."
Gus rolled his eyes. "Who does meathooks anymore?"
"The cannibal family from Texas Chainsaw, the cannibal men from Wrong Turn, and any number of psychos from those Hostel movies." Shawn smirked. "You may kowtow to my superiority any time."
Gus scowled at him. "Just because you've watched every movie on FearNet—" The distinct creak of footsteps creak sounded behind them and they twirled, panicked, trying to pinpoint the source. Allison and Stella had walked onstage.
It was showtime.
Shawn tilted his head. A torrent of details washed over his brain as they approached. Allison had stopped dying her hair. She'd gained weight, but it was mostly muscle. She'd lost some of her tan, probably spent a lot of time inside, hiding from the police. Stella was three years younger than her cousin. She walked like a dancer. And the most important detail of all: she was carrying Charlotte, who looked confused but unharmed.
Charlotte spied Shawn immediately, and her face lit up. "Papa!" She squirmed in Stella's arms and reached out toward him.
"Shhh," Stella patted Charlotte's back gently. "It's okay, baby." And then, just as Shawn was sighing with relief that Charlotte at least seemed to be well-treated, she added "Mommy's here." Shawn felt goosebumps run up his spine. Whatever went on tonight, he vowed that Allison and Stella were not going to exit stage right with his baby.
"Amanda Cowley." Shawn glanced at Gus's watch. It was almost ten. He just had to keep them talking as long as possible.
"It's Allison, you human fortune cookie. Allison!"
Good. That ought to be a thorn in her inflated ego.
"Of course," Shawn nodded. "I must have confused you with one of my other completely psycho stalkers."
"I'm not your stalker." Allison looked offended. "I'm your nemesis."
"I don't recall approving your application," Shawn said. He turned his head and looked at Gus who shrugged as much as was possible under the circumstances.
"You don't apply to be someone's nemesis, Shawn." Allison scowled at him.
"Mine do. I have a form on our website."
"He does," Gus confirmed.
"I get about thirty applications a year. I turn most of them down. And pass them on to Lassie, of course. So, far be it from me to crush your nemesising dreams, Allison, but," he paused and looked to Gus. "Nemesising? Is that correct?"
"I would have said 'crush your dreams of acting as my nemesis.' It avoids having to use nemesis as a verb."
"That doesn't really answer the question though, does it," Shawn objected. "Is it nemesissing? Nemesizing? Nemesorcery?"
"I don't know, Shawn. I'm not a Latin scholar."
"My point is," Shawn raised his voice and returned to the matter at hand, "that there is a process here, and we can't have you skipping ahead in the line. What would the other wannabes say?"
"Can it, Shawn," Allison snapped, and before Shawn could protest or promise cooperation, she had reached over, seized a sizable chunk of Charlotte's hair between her fingers, and yanked.
"No!" Shawn lunged, then yelped in pain as the shackles cut sharply into his wrists. There was a beat of silence as Charlotte sucked breath; then her howls of pain echoed off the theater's bare ceiling and walls.
"Fucking—" Shawn lurched again. "All right. All right. I'm listening."
"Good," Allison said primly. She walked over to Shawn and brushed the tuft of newly emancipated red hair over his cheek. "I don't want to have to resort to any...violence."
"You're crazy," Gus said, sounding shocked.
Allison shrugged. "Some say."
"Allison—" Stella was struggling with Charlotte, who was arching and kicking as she shrieked. "She's being difficult again, Allie."
"God!" Allison snarled. "A crying baby ruins every performance." She stalked over to Stella and snatched Charlotte away from her. Holding the toddler firmly around the middle, she headed for the wings. "Idiot. Why do I have to do everything myself?"
"HEY!" Shawn shouted. "Where are you taking her?"
"She's earned a time out in the quiet room," Allison shouted back, over her shoulder. "So she can CALM DOWN!"
"Please—" Shawn strained against the ropes. "Don't hurt her. At the very least brainwash her so you can all rob banks together."
"Yeah!" Gus shouted toward Allison's retreating back. "Think how cute she'd look in a little beret!"
Stella gave him a dark look before turning to follow Allison. "Cooperate," she said, "and we won't have to hurt anyone."
Shawn shouted. When he ran out of swear words and ugly names for Allison and Stella, he resorted to nursery rhymes and names of Disney characters. Then he went back to swearing. After ten minutes, during which Gus's enthusiastic reinforcement shouting had waned to occasional whimpers, Allison and Stella reappeared.
Shawn straightened up. "Where is she?" he demanded.
Stella held up a small video baby monitor. On the screen was what appeared to be a tiny broom closet. Charlotte was just visible in the corner, standing with both hands against the door, her mouth open in a silent, unhappy wail. "Safe," she said.
Shawn took a deep breath. Safe, no. He'd spotted at least two containers of liquid in that closet that would require a hospital trip if Charlotte drank them. But she was definitely safer there than with these Psycho-Moms. He twisted in Gus's direction. The glowing watch face read 10:09.
"So what's the plan?" he stage-whispered to Gus.
"Plan?" Gus protested. "Why am I the one that's supposed to have a plan?"
"Oh please. You have a plan worked out in case of fire, earthquake and tidal wave. You seriously can't tell me that kidnapping never made your list."
"Fire, earthquakes and tidal waves pose a real threat. How was I supposed to predict we'd get kidnapped by the flunky of a former antagonist?"
"Flunky?" Allison raged. "I am not a flunky!"
Gus gave her a cold glance from under his eyelids. "Could have fooled me."
"I have to agree with Allison on this one," Shawn said. "I see her as more of a minion. All the Yinnites are minions. Maybe lackeys."
"Lackeys have uniforms," Gus pointed out. "They're like hench-men. I stand by my original assessment. Flunky."
"The thing I don't get," Shawn said. "Is what your goal is. You're not really carrying on the Yin/Yang tradition. I mean, where are the cryptic notes and riddles? Where's the ticking stopwatch, the overarching themes? Your evil plans have none of that. At the very least, you could imprison us in a giant hourglass that slowly fills with sand. And that's just off the top of my head. Are you even trying?"
"You forget, Shawn, I majored in Romantic History." Allison put her arms behind her back and marched back and forth in front of them: a General assessing the troops. "You're the protagonist in the tragic love story I've built for you." She smiled, and Shawn could see the insanity dancing behind her eyes. "Your emotional pain is my work of art."
"Have you tried sculpture?" Shawn asked. "A little papier mache?"
"This is exactly the sort of thing that happens when you cut arts funding in schools," Gus noted primly.
"What about you, Skipper?" Shawn addressed Stella. "Are you just as tagging along with Forensic Unit Barbie here, or is there a whole Spice Girls troupe of wannabes waiting in the wings?"
"This is my show," Allison said with satisfaction. "I'm calling the shots."
"Right," Shawn said. "I forgot how you hog the spotlight."
"Just like in Twelfth Night," Gus added. "When you played Viola, the aristocrat disguised as a page, while Stella played Maria, the servant girl."
Allison smiled. "We both went out for the part of Viola. But I was the one that got it." Stella opened her mouth, then closed it again. Shawn could almost see the wedge he'd made between them. He needed to drive it home.
"I'm willing to bet you didn't win it fair and square though," Shawn said, twisting to face Stella. "Amirite?"
"I always wondered about that co—" Stella started, but broke off when Allison slapped her sharply in the back of the head.
"Shut up," she ordered.
Stella looked at her, an expression of frank shock on her face. "You can't do that," she said.
"Who says?" Allison smacked her again. This time, Stella caught her wrist and twisted.
"Ow!" Allison shrieked.
"I am sick of you always bossing me around," Stella said, twisting harder. "Just like when we were little. Always the center of attention. Prima ballerina. I'm sick of it."
Allison fell to her knees, trying to accommodate the angle of her arm. She swung at Stella with her free hand. "Let go!"
Stella's lips were drawn back in a snarl that reminded Shawn, illogically, of Cujo. She dodged Allison's fist. "And I'm sick—" she grabbed Allison's hair with her free hand, "of fucking babysitting." She wrenched Allison's arm sharply. There was a dull snap, then Allison's shrill scream of pain.
"Look what you made me do," Stella said coldly.
Allison screamed again. Her hand dangled horribly from a grotesque extra joint in her forearm. "You bitch. You bitch."
Stella aimed a hard kick at Allison's hip, and Allison went flying. She curled on the floor, cradling her injured arm and howling.
"And you." She addressed Shawn, walking toward him and putting both hands behind her back. "I. Am not. A. Wannabe."
There was the soft sound of metal sliding against leather, and then she brought her hands out in front of her.
"That's—" Gus swallowed hard. "That's a really big knife."
"Yeah," Stella said. "You like it?" She grinned suddenly, sickeningly, and then she lunged at him.
"GUS!" Shawn cried, and then there was a gunshot, and Stella was cartwheeling to one side. Staggering. Crumpling. Gracefully, like a dancer.
"I'd say that's about enough of that," O'Hara said grimly, rushing across the stage toward the fallen suspect.
"Boy, am I glad to see you," Gus said, at the same time Shawn recovered from the shock and saw Lassiter.
"Get Charlotte," he shouted, kicking with both legs to indicate where Lassiter should go. "Over there. Hurry up. Hurry. Hurry."
Lassiter didn't need to be told twice. He took off backstage at a dead run, ignoring O'Hara's shout: "Carlton! Protocol!"
"Shut up! Shut up!" Shawn was shouting at O'Hara now, who was handcuffing a yelping Stella as McNab secured Allison. "Shut up for just one second."
"Don't tell my wife to shut up," Gus said crossly, but he said it quietly, and a moment later they all heard it.
"Dadddyyyyyyy..." Charlotte's thin shriek, and then her loud, furious crying.
Shawn sagged. He felt every twinge of pain in his muscles now and the rush of emotions he'd been holding at bay threatened to surge up and engulf him.
Shawn and Gus sat in the SBPD bullpen, soft blankets draped over their shoulders, huddled over hot cups of coffee. Their arms ached but the painkillers the paramedics have given them were beginning to take effect. On a blanket at their feet Charlotte sat happily playing with a tiny bear dressed as a cop. Shawn didn't want to take his eyes off her, afraid that if he looked away for even a moment, that the image of her here, safe and smiling, would turn out to be a dream.
Lassiter loomed over them, frowning furiously. In separate interrogation rooms down the hall, Allison and Stella were turning on one another. Hopefully, Lassiter thought, their confessions would put them away for a long time. How he was going to write the report so that he didn't come out sounding like an idiot was an issue he had yet to face. If he spilled the beans about what really went down—waking handcuffed the hotel room, his daughter's kidnapping, not having recused himself from the case, and Shawn's putting himself in harm's way—then he couldn't see how he had a snowball's chance in hell of being appointed Chief.
He turned his frown on Gus, trying not to be angry. His daughter was safe. His test results had just come back negative. And his chance at being Chief, well…the damage to his career was his own fault, not Guster's. If it hadn't been for him and Shawn, they'd still be looking for Allison. And Charlotte. He should be grateful to both of them.
"So your plan," he said, his voice betraying no sense of gratitude, "was to let Allison isolate you, alone and helpless, in a dilapidated theatre? Am I getting this right?" He bent down and picked up Charlotte.
Gus shook his head, looking offended. "My GPS tracker watch was the plan. I hit the panic button as soon as I woke up. I knew you and Jules wouldn't be far behind. We just had to keep them talking until you got there."
Shawn stood and strolled to the window. Outside, a dozen or so reporters milled about, some lugging camera gear, waiting for an announcement on the kidnapping.
Chief Vick leaned out of her office. "Mr. Spencer, Mr. Guster. May I see you in my office a moment?" It didn't sound like a request.
Gus stood, and he and Shawn made brief eye contact and gave each other a nod before walking into Vick's office. Lassiter sat at his desk, letting Charlotte hit randomly at the keyboard, ignoring the jumble of nonsense letters that appeared on his report. He was torn between telling the whole story and trying to create some work of fiction that didn't make him sound like someone who should be knocked down to traffic.
Ten minutes later Chief Vick emerged from her office followed by Shawn and Gus and her mayoral election entourage. Sitting at his desk, Lassiter had abandoned any pretense of writing his report and was instead enjoying the warm heaviness of Charlotte, who had fallen asleep in his arms, her head lolling against his shoulder.
O'Hara came down the hall from interrogation and paused, staring down at her partner. "Why so glum?"
"It's the report." Lassiter sighed.
O'Hara smiled. I wouldn't worry about that," she said. "I suspect that Shawn and Gus have that covered."
Lassiter looked at her suspiciously through narrowed eyes. "Covered how?"
"Detective Lassiter!" Vick called out as she approached.
Lassiter's pulse raced. O'Hara reached out and took Charlotte from his arms. The little girl murmured and stuck her thumb in her mouth, but didn't wake.
Vick was smiling, but that could mean anything.
"Mr. Spencer and Mr. Guster have been telling me how you hired them to run a clever end game on Allison Cowley," Vick said, "trapping her and her accomplice at the Moncada." She looked at him expectantly.
Lassiter stared, saying nothing. It was a tempting story. It was the kind of plan a future Chief might have had. But it wasn't the truth.
"Come on," Shawn encouraged him. "Don't be shy." He chuckled. "Lassie felt that luring the kidnappers to the abandoned theatre was the best option."
"Especially for keeping innocent civilians out of harm's way," Gus added.
"And," Shawn added, "He and Jules were ready for our signal to move in." He winked at O'Hara.
"Well Carlton," Vick said, her smile bright and camera-ready, "given your recent coup, I think this was an excellent time to announce my candidacy and put your name forward as Chief." She raised her eyebrows and looked at Lassiter. "Don't you agree?"
Lassiter nodded his head curtly, trying not to show the relief and elation he felt. He straightened his tie and gave a tug on his suit jacket. "Let's do it!"
As Vick headed for the front doors, Lassiter turned on Shawn. "What the hell, Shawn?"
Shawn smiled. "You're welcome." He and Gus did a congratulatory fist bump. "We thought this called for the Lieutenant Bogomil maneuver."
"The what?" Lassiter demanded, glancing anxiously over his shoulder to where Vick was applying last-minute touchups to her hair and makeup.
"The Lieutenant Bogomil maneuver," Gus said, "At the end of Beverly Hills Cop."
"The first one," Shawn supplied.
Gus nodded. "Bogomil covers for Axel, Taggart and Rosewood by fabricating a story for Police Chief Hubbard in which all of their actions had prior approval. We simply explained to Chief Vick that the whole plan had been your idea."
Shawn wrapped an arm around Lassiter's back and steered him gently in the direction of the doorway, where the press conference was about to start. "And the real beauty of this plan—apart from you maybe getting to be Chief—is that Psych gets paid." He looked at Gus. "Which is a nice bonus, I think."
"Agreed," Gus added, thinking of the bill he still owed for the porch construction.
Vick smiled as they approached. "If you can tear yourself away for a few moments," she said, "I've got an announcement to make and I'd like you by my side."
"Absolutely!" Shawn said, slapping a hand on Vick's shoulder. "I'm here for you, Chief." He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. "I've written a speech supporting your candidacy. It's more like a few notes, really. I need fifteen, twenty minutes maximum." He turned to Gus. "How do you spell dominatrix?"
Chief Vick raised a quelling hand. "I was talking to Detective Lassiter."
She and Lassiter turned and stepped forward through the doors and into the glare of the cameras.
