Thanks to AutumnHaddock for reviewing! You're fantastic and I'm so happy you're liking the story.
Back to the story…
Chief Karen Vick had seen a lot of crimes in her days but none of them had prepared her for this. She'd seen police officers shot and she'd seen many brutal murders that left her sleepless for several nights. This case, however, was a special kind of disturbing.
Someone in this precinct had made a mistake and now two innocent - albeit sometimes aggravating- civilians were in harm's way. Consultants or not, they were civilians in the eyes of the law.
Karen sat her desk, watching in wonder as her entire force dug through files trying to find a link. She hadn't seen them work this hard in years – probably since the first time a certain Psychic team had found themselves in harm's way. Even then tension had been bearable, though, with Guster making jokes and Spencer sometimes playing along.
Henry had taken to working in his old desk, right next to the doors that led to the file room. He'd been there for over 12 hours already, furiously digging through file after file and when he finished a pile, he'd start over. Karen knew his diligence and determination had been what made him such a great cop, but now she could only see chaos in his eyes. He was losing it. They all were.
She felt useless sitting at her desk just watching police work being done, but she'd been given orders from the mayor to watch the computer. He'd been notified of the case hours prior and wanted to avoid the press. The less the perp knew about their investigation, the better. She had agreed with the sentiment, but eventually the media got a hold of the information and were demanding interviews, starting with the Mayor himself.
He was 'unavailable for comment'.
"Chief, we have a lead." Carlton marched in, buttoning his jacket on the way. He reached to shut the door behind him, almost hitting Detective O'Hara in the process. Karen ignored the younger detective's scowl as she leaned forward and motioned for Lassiter to continue. "Dan Capelli is not behind the abduction."
Karen leaned back. "And what makes you say that detectives?"
"Good old reasoning." Juliet answered, crossing her arms and she threw a file towards her superior. Karen's eyebrows shot up at O'Hara's confidence, but looked at the file shortly. It was Dan Capelli's. "You'll notice that Capelli was only a chemist. He wasn't big and strong. He didn't have to be."
"I fail to see-."
"So whoever was on that dock obviously wasn't Dan." Juliet continued, shooting the chief an apologetic smile once she realized that she had interrupted her superior. "And we've located Capelli a few minutes ago. He's been in Reading, Pennsylvania for the past 3 months waiting on our previous investigation to end."
"We tracked his phone records and they're clean. He called his Parole officer, Andy Greer, but no other calls were made from his phone to anywhere near the Santa Barbara area." Lassiter continued for his partner. "This isn't Capelli. I'd even go as far as to assume that this has nothing to do with the drug ring at all."
Karen sat back in her chair, letting the information sink in for a few seconds. "Well that's all fine, detectives, but we're still at square one. If Capelli wasn't behind this, then who was?"
"I think I found something!" Henry shouted from his desk as he waved a file around.
PsychPsychPsychPsych
Shawn's eyes opened slowly. His leg was starting to throb and he was freezing cold. Why was he so cold? Looking around, he didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Well, besides the fact that he was tied to a chair, his leg was bleeding, and he was sure he had a concussion. Besides all of that, everything seemed pretty normal.
He tried to turn his head, but it was pounding so instead he shut his eyes for a few moments. For what felt like a few seconds, his mind grew accustomed to the darkness and his head stopped throbbing. Instead, the pulses were replaced with a faint dull of pain. As long as he didn't focus on it, he should be fine. So, he opened his eyes once more and blinked a few times to get adjusted to the light.
Definitely have a concussion. He thought as he turned his head in the direction of the door. From what he could tell, it seemed to lead to a little kitchen. Shawn scrunched his nose. Boy, was he hungry.
If Gus was here right now and they weren't in this situation, Shawn imagined they'd go out to Red Robin and then on the way back to the Psych Office they'd stop for pineapple smoothies. Shawn's eyes closed slowly as his mouth watered at the thought of his favorite food.
There were so many different things you could do with pineapples. There were cakes and pies and ice cream and smoothies, not to mention just eating it raw. His stomach growled and Shawn's eyes opened once more.
His head whipped around when he heard something bang in the kitchen. Blinking, Shawn thought through all of the possibilities, stopped when he reached one that interested him. Maybe, they were making him waffles and the pan fell. As unlikely as the scenario was, Shawn found himself growing excited. He loved waffles and they'd taste even better since his stomach was practically empty.
Unfortunately, when the door swung open and Col. Mustard came into view, he was not holding a plate of waffles. Shawn frowned. He really had been looking forward to those waffles.
"Mr. Spencer." The man spoke, a small smile hiding in his voice. Shawn wanted to roll his eyes but he decided to save some energy. "Let's talk."
Shawn opened his mouth and was disappointed to realize that it was really dry, making it almost impossible to voice his words. "You're in luck because I'm a great talker."
"So I've heard." The man quipped as he pulled a chair up to sit directly in front of Shawn. As he sat down, he reached behind him onto the coffee table to grab a bottle of water. "I bet you'd like some of this."
Shawn hated how much interest he showed in that water. He didn't want to beg and he definitely didn't want to give the impression that he needed it. But he did need it. He was so thirsty. Before he could give it another thought, his tongue was licking his lips slightly. The man chuckled and unscrewed the cap. Slowly, he bent the water bottle towards Shawn so he could take a few sips.
He pulled it away too soon and Shawn sunk back into his chair.
"Here's how this is going to work." The man murmured, reaching behind him once more to pull out a box of Chips Ahoy cookies. Shawn's mouth watered. "For every satisfactory answer you give me, I'll give you a cookie and some water. That sounds like a good deal."
Shawn blinked. He hated being talked down to. "I kind of had my heart set on waffles."
"For every question you don't answer, we'll have to use this." The man continued, ignoring Shawn's quip as he pulled out a Taser. Shawn had never been tased before although he remembered asking his dad once if he could tase Gus. The answer had been an obvious no. As the man bent forward and placed the Taser onto Shawn's arm, Shawn realized why his dad had said no. It fucking hurt.
Shawn convulsed for a few seconds before the man pulled back. It took a few more seconds for Shawn to stop shaking and he hung his head in exhaustion and pain. When he watched videos of people being tased, he hadn't imagined it'd hurt so much. Sucking in a deep breath, Shawn looked up again, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"Let's get started." The man began; his voice an immediate irritation to Shawn's already annoyed state. Without waiting for an answer, the man continued. "Tell me about Chief Karen Vick."
"There's not a lot to know really." Shawn answered, licking his lips. When he noticed the other man's hand twitch towards the taser, his eyes widened. "That's not a fair question. What exactly do you want to know? Do you care that she has the most comfortable chair that my butt has ever had the pleasure of touching? I don't think so."
The man's lips pursed. "They said you were annoying."
"I prefer the term 'talkative' and 'easily distracted' but that's just me." Shawn couldn't stop the words from flowing out of his mouth. They just kept coming, each one aggravating Col. Mustard more than the last. "I'd even go for immature before I went with annoying."
"Your constant inability to take things seriously must get annoying for your friends." the man noted as he brought the Taser up towards Shawn's chest once more. "You have one last chance to answer my question."
Shawn looked down at the taser and then back up at Col. Mustard. "Technically speaking, you never asked me a question."
Shawn's screams filled the room.
PsychPsychPsychPsych
Juliet looked at herself in the mirror, unhappy with what she saw. Sure, she looked the same as always. Her hair was down with her bangs clipped back. She had little makeup on. She was pretty and she knew it to be true. But beneath the makeup, there were dark circles and worry lines.
It'd been 37.5 hours since Gus had been taken and 30 since Shawn had been.
There wasn't a lot of evidence and there wasn't much any of them could do besides wait for another feed. Henry had found a lead but it was a long shot so Karen sent both Juliet and her partner back home for the night. Juliet had tried to follow the chief's orders and sleep but she was too worried.
Gus, for one, wasn't emotionally strong enough to deal with this. He sobbed when someone else did. He was too innocent. Too good. Shawn on the other hand seemed to live only annoy. If you asked anyone, he had this coming to him. But that didn't mean he deserved it.
Juliet sighed and shut the light off in her bathroom and retreated into her bedroom. There was so much to do and so little time. Gus had been gone a while now and Shawn had been shot. Who knew how much time either of them had left?
How in the world did the chief expect both herself and Lassiter to stop working? Juliet huffed and went into her kitchen to pour herself some coffee. She would not sleep. She'd solve this case.
Licking her lips as her coffee began to brew, she pulled her phone out of her pocket to see that she had three messages from Carlton. She smiled. Of course he wasn't going to listen to the Chief either. Too much was at stake for that.
Before she could hit 'call back', she heard a noise coming from her garden. The kids in the neighborhood had been experimenting with ding-dong ditching, so Juliet sighed and reached for a mug. Perhaps if she'd had more sleep, she would've taken more note of the noise. Maybe if her stomach wasn't empty, she would've put more thought into where it was coming from and the noises that followed it.
Perhaps, if her mind wasn't spinning in all different directions, she would have noticed the man that was now standing behind her in her kitchen. Before she realized him, he was already reaching to grab her.
As a cloth was brought to her face, Juliet realized she had no chance of getting away. It was too late. She was already falling asleep.
PsychPsychPsychPsych
Yay! So halfway through writing this, I remembered the Scary Sherry episode and how Shawn and Gus ran out of the house screaming. So if you need me, I'll be watching that again (for the millionth time) while I clean my room.
Please review. It's so hard to write when you think only one person is reading it.
