With tremendous might, Lassiter tried not to drift off during the long car ride to the outskirts of Santa Barbara. Yet, the gentle lulling movement of the car, so unlike the jerky movements of O'Hara's cruiser, and Shawn and Gus's nonsensical chattering proved a potent sleeping draft. 'Maybe it's not the either of those things, or even the combination of the two,' Lassiter thought wearily, 'maybe it's just the pills?' He vaguely recalled Dr. Tolbert cautioning him about operating heavy machinery.
'Or maybe . . . you're just dying.'
Rachel was running through a field of daisies. She was sun-kissed and had a true smile playing on mouth. She turned towards Carlton and froze. She looked down at her belly, swollen with child, her long blonde hair spilling over her shoulders. When she looked up again, the tips of her hair were stained with blood. A hole over her heart was pumping red hot blood down her front with every heartbeat. She wasn't smiling anymore but weeping.
Lassiter snapped back to reality when Shawn slammed the passenger door closed.
"Shawn!" Gus chastised him. "This is a company car."
Lassiter pushed himself out of the back seat with a grunt of pain, thankful that Gus and Shawn were too busy arguing to witness his ungraceful uncoordinated exit.
He began pacing the stretch of road slowly, deliberately. Though Lassiter's reasons for coming out here was a ploy to avoid running into Tolbert, that didn't mean any new evidence couldn't be discovered.
Rachel's blood had faded to a brownish color, almost invisible against the ruddy hue of the gravel road. Lassiter circled the spot several times but gained no new knowledge. Afterwards, Lassiter tried to shout but his throat felt constricted. His voice came out dry and raspy. A result of pure exhaustion? "Spencer, Guster," he tried again, this time able to make himself speak a little louder. Shawn and Gus broke their argument to listen to Lassiter.
"The day we found Rachel's body, you came from that direction," Lassiter reminded them, once he'd gained their attention, and pointed towards the woods.
"Yeah," Gus grouched, apparently still peeved over that woodsy trek, "the patrol officer said he didn't know who we were."
"Can you believe that? Not knowing who we are?" Shawn ridiculed. "We've only solved, like, a million cases."
Lassiter rolled his eyes. "Can you focus? That's where you came from, correct?"
"Yes."
"Did you seen anything out of the ordinary?"
"No, why?" Shawn looked vaguely perplexed.
Lassiter indicated the bloodstained road again. "There were no tire tracks. Meaning—"
"The killer most likely hiked in," Shawn interrupted. "They must have carried Rachel's body and dumped it here, or else there would have been signs of a struggle."
Lassiter nodded. "It hasn't rained, so with a miracle, we might be able to pick up on their trail. Maybe we can root out which direction the killer came from."
"Dude, race you to the edge of the woods!" Shawn shouted excitedly.
"It wouldn't be a fair race. You know I'm faster then you, Shawn." Gus laughed.
"Are not," Shawn bit back.
"I was on my college's track team."
"You were the water boy."
Gus shoved Shawn, pivoted and sprinted off towards the woods.
"Unfair!" Shawn shouted at Gus's retreating back.
Shawn looked over his shoulder at Lassie, who had remained curiously silent throughout Gus's and his argument. Shawn had expected him to respond with his usual fire, or at the very minimum with a disapproving scowl, but Lassie hadn't done or said anything.
"Lassie?" Shawn asked concernedly.
Lassiter ignored Shawn's and started walking in the direction of the woods.
#####
They trudged through the thick undergrowth of the woods, battling the thorny plants and uneven terrain.
Lassiter limbs felt heavy and uncooperative. They protested every movement, but there was no pain. The pills had numbed him everywhere. Even his mind felt dull and sluggish. He was irritated with his rash indulgence of more than the recommended dosage. It was true that he wasn't suffering, but how many vital clues might he overlook in his current state of mind?
"Hurry up, Lassie."
Lassiter had had his attention so fully fixed upon the area directly in front of him that he was surprised to see Gus and Shawn yards ahead when he looked up.
"It's called being thorough," he yelled back, a convincing lie.
"Don't they have teams for this sort of thing?" Gus complained.
"Resources are stretched too thin as it is," Lassiter snapped back. "Besides, they've already been here."
"What?" Gus exclaimed. "Then why are we doing this?"
"I thought something could have been missed," Lassiter mentioned, catching up to them.
"It's happened before," Shawn whispered snidely.
Lassiter sneered. "Just keep looking."
And they did keep looking for almost two full hours. Similar to examining the dirt road, Lassiter gained no new knowledge from their search. No footprints, broken tree branches, or swatches of torn fabric. Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch.
The three men lumbered out of the woods and back to Gus's car. Shawn's and Gus's arms and hands had dozens of small cuts from the trees' splintering branches and the thickets. Lassiter's arms had been spared the same abuse by the long sleeves of his suit.
Gus and Shawn were in foul moods as they nursed the small wounds. They dabbed the cuts with cotton balls soaked in peroxide from Gus's first aid kit, which he kept in the trunk of his car. Lassiter relished the idea that it was years of complied karma finally catching up to them.
"You don't have to look 'so' amused," Shawn grumbled, dabbing a scratch along his elbow.
Lassiter's smirk flattened, and an expression of grave seriousness overtook it, but not because of Shawn's comment. His brow furrowed and he stared at something in the distance hard enough to melt it. When Shawn turned his gaze in the same direction he didn't notice anything that would call for that level of concentration.
"Lassie?"
"We have to get back to the station," he said cryptically before climbing into the backseat.