10
"Disgusting!" Juliet hissed, lifting her heeled foot from a wad of moldy diaper.
Henry, waist deep in the dumpster behind the Psych office, ripped open another large garbage bag and plunged his arm into it. Whatever he pulled out he cast aside, looking grimmer and more determined with each passing minute. He was unwilling to give up the search on his only son, especially when he knew what was being done to him, possibly at that very moment. His stomach recoiled at the thought, but he suppressed the urge to vomit and continued digging through weeks' worth of trash in all states of stench and decay.
Time was slipping by like water through a crack in a dry riverbed. It had been four days since Shawn's kidnapping. There was no time to sit idly and wait for his son's body to be found by some unsuspecting hiker God knows where.
He wasn't giving up.
Juliet, having finished scraping old baby poo off her shoe on the ground, looked up at the elder Spencer. They all looked haggard, sure, but Henry was much worse off. Understandable, of course, considering it was his son. But enough was enough.
"Mr. Spencer," she said tentatively.
He grunted in acknowledgment, but did not stop in his ministrations.
"Mr. Spencer, a team already went through there," she said softly but firmly. "They didn't find anything."
Henry ignored her. Even if this was a waste of time, he wasn't just going to sit around his house or the police station waiting for news like an army wife—or be hospitalized for shock like Gus. Lassiter was completing paperwork at the station.
"Mr. Spen—"
"Shut up!" he snapped, throwing a glass beer bottle he'd picked up at the far wall, where it shattered noisily.
Juliet's jaw clicked shut, eyes widening in hurt. Henry instantly felt guilty, but not enough to stop what he was doing.
"Sorry," he said gruffly as he tore open another bag. There were only a few left; he'd been at it for several hours, and Juliet had left around an hour into it and only just returned to check on him.
"It's okay," she said tiredly, but sincerely, "but…Mr. Spencer?"
Henry had frozen, staring at something in the bag he had eviscerated. Concerned, Juliet approached the filthy trash receptacle, dodging all sorts of disgusting odds and ends that littered the alleyway. The man looked up—or rather, down—as she reached him.
"I need an evidence bag," he said, voice hardly above a whisper.
Heart leaping into her throat, Juliet peered over the edge of the bin and looked at the gaping tear in the bag he still held.
A frizzy red wig coated with what appeared to be gravy partially obscured a shining piece of plastic—part of a Halloween mask, she was sure. She felt as though she would faint when she suddenly recognized what it was.
It was Chucky.