Hello lovelys! I managed to upload again this Holiday, so YAY! Next update will definitely be up by the 7th. Maybe the 6th. No sooner.
Could someone also explain the difference between "who's" and "whose"? Even my word doc couldn't make up its minds. (One sentence I wrote 'Whose' initially. Word underlined it in blue and changed it to 'Who's'. Then, as soon as it changed, it underlined it in green and changed it back to 'Whose'. Repeat cycle about ten times before I finally just gave up on it.)
Review! Reviews are always very much loved and always appreciated so please tell me what you think. Even if you thought it was rubbish.
Trying to keep this Author's Note short, so Enjoy!
Present Day
Carlton Lassiter POV
I was speeding through traffic. I tried to ignore the thrill and the excitement of this chase but… I simply couldn't. I know Psychic Spencer is in danger and I know I'm chasing the person who killed so many and I know how serious this all is. I should be professional… but there's just something about a car chase that just gets my heart pumping.
Junior Detective Harold Gurley was on the phone with the chief. He was tracking Ethan Stuart's license plate and guiding us to follow him. Even though my lights were flashing, hardly any cars were making way for me. It's like they've never seen a police car before! And, believe me, if it were anybody other than the chief sitting in the passenger seat, there would be a lot of colourful language and rude gestures throughout this entire car ride.
Then, a car screeched in front of us causing me to slam on my brakes.
"Move out of the way you son of a-" I started.
"CARLTON!" The chief screamed at me.
"Sorry" I replied automatically, taking in a deep breath to calm myself.
"No, look!" she said pointing at the car's license plate. RE09XBQ.
"Well, I'll be damned…"
We followed the car but soon enough, we were out of traffic, out on an old abandoned road and the black Nissan had come to a stop. The chief and I exchanged an odd look. It did not seem at all likely that a brilliant criminal like The Hour Killer would just give himself up like this. No car chase? No leaping valiantly into a river? Something was wrong here.
The chief and I exited out car, gun in hand. We slowly and carefully approached the driver seat. In one swift motion, both the chief and I were pointing our guns to the driver. Who was not Ethan Stuart.
"Woah! Please! Don't shoot!" the driver yelled. "I mean, I think I was speeding back there, but surely that just means I get fined! Not killed!"
"Shut up!" I yelled.
"You do realise you're in a car that belonged to The Hour Killer, right?" the chief asked. The man looked at her in horror.
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to step out of the vehicle" I said. The man did as told. The chief started to search the car. She searched the trunk, the back seat and even the hood of the car. It was clean. Of everything. Not just of The Hour Killer but also of any type of weapons or anything. Was O'Hara mistaken? One look at the chief and I knew she was thinking the same thing.
"Is this your car?" she asked the man.
"No…" he admitted. "I… I was having car trouble. I couldn't get it to work. So this man came up to me and offered me his car."
"And you took him up on this offer?" the chief asked.
"Well… yes. I needed to get home and my car wouldn't start."
"What did he look like?" I asked.
"Tall, brown hair, brown eyes… very odd scar."
"Stuart didn't have a scar" Chief said.
"But the Hour Killer did…"
"The scar was fake" Chief deduced.
"As were the tattoos. Makes it impossible to identify him with the witness description because… that wasn't his actual description."
"But why now? Why even bother putting on the scar now?"
"To let us know he got away."
Almost as if by fate, an LAPD car approached us. Out came Detective Charles Baxter and Junior Detective Harold Gurley. We explained very quickly our situation. How once again The Hour Killer outsmarted us. How once again, he got away. How once again, the families of the victims won't be able to look into Stuarts eyes, knowing that he was responsible for their pain. Once again, Ethan Stuart is living his life as a free man.
"This is just like last time" Baxter said glumly. I nodded in agreement. Then the chief looked up with inspiration.
"You're right! It's exactly like last time!" she said enthusiastically. We just stared at her. "Every little detail! He committed a crime, and there were witnesses. The same witnesses as 16 years ago. Shawn, just like last time, received the worst of all three witnesses. And again, the police had to make a choice between chasing him and saving the witnesses. He knows that we will always save the witness!"
"So? What are you suggesting?" I asked.
"So! Where did Stuart go after the bank robbery in '96?"
"Several eye witnesses reported that he was at his wife's funeral" Gurley answered. The chief looked at me with a smile on her face. And then it clicked. Of course! It was exactly the same as last time!
"Was his wife buried in Los Angeles?" I asked.
"Yeah. Not too far from here- Oh my God!" it clicked with Baxter too. I slammed my hand on the Nissan.
"Let's go!" I ordered. Chief and I ran to my car – I made sure to get into the driver's seat first. Baxter yelled orders at Gurley before running into his own car and driving off alone. The Junior detective then asked the man to step inside the Nissan and he drove them away. Clearly, the man was going to be questioned. Give a statement. Something of the sort.
I then followed Baxter's car, lights flashing skipping through traffic.
We arrived at a cemetery... depressing little place. But, no time to criticise the mood of this place. I have things to do and they have a good enough excuse. What with everyone being dead here. The chief, Baxter and I ran along the path, looking desperately for either a man sulking over a grave or simply the actual grave of his wife. Not a very easy task to do in pitch black darkness.
Just as we were going to give up hope, Baxter pointed us into a certain direction. We could only just make it out. The outline of a man, standing by a grave. There was no other man in sight, especially not at this hour, so we went with the assumption that this is in fact Ethan Stuart.
The three of us surrounded the man, gun at the ready. Finally, we turned on our flashlights so we could see the man clearly. Relief: it's Ethan Stuart. We didn't stop the wrong man again. Annoyance: he's smiling. Why the hell would he be smiling?!
"Ethan Stuart" I said proudly. "You are under arrest for the murder of Carl Jackson and Nathan Hayworth, the attempted murder of Shawn Spencer and the bank robbery in 1996. You have the right to remain-" he laughed. Why is he laughing?
"Is that all, detective? Is that all you can pin on me?" he then flashed me a smile.
"For now."
"Well, let me just speed along the process and confess" Stuart said. "I murdered Saunderman. But, you thought that was suicide, didn't you? silly detectives. He denied the loan. He's the reason she's dead" Stuart gestured towards the grave stone in front of him. He took a brief pause to mourn his wife, but then continued. "I murdered Wayne Macaulay, David Fermin, Harry Connolley, Roger Cook and Nicholas Griffith. But you didn't even know their names, did you? At least I remember. I murdered Carl Jackson and Nathan Hayworth. You were right about that. The bank robbery in 1996 is a given. So I won't congratulate you on that. As for the attempted murder of Shawn Spencer… I doubt it'll be attempted. I was very thorough." I had to fight every urge to shoot him. How could he sound so proud?
"That doesn't change the fact that you are under arrest." Baxter said.
"No. But this should." He pulled out a gun. The three of us tightened our grip on our guns and pointed it directly at his head. Finally. An excuse to shoot him.
"Put down your weapon!" I yelled at him. He shot me a smile before pointing it at his own head. Simultaneously, the chief, Baxter and I lowered our weapons.
"Ah. Now that's what I like to see" Stuart said. "Just a second ago you were willing to shoot me. And now, here you are. About to bargain for my life. Tell me why that is. I'm just dying to know."
"You don't deserve to die" I said, after a very long moment of silence. "You deserve far worst. You deserve to rot in prison. The families of everyone you hurt deserve to look you in the eye and know that you're getting what you deserve. Shawn deserves to be able to see you behind bars. None of that happen if you die right here." Stuart smiled at me.
"There's something more. You want to catch me. You want to be the one who catches The Hour Killer. And you see, detective… this is my final victory."
"No…" Chief whispered.
"I trust that if Shawn somehow miraculously survives, you will tell him that it was his gun that killed me. Goodbye detectives."
BANG
Ethan Stuart is dead. The Hour Killer is dead. I should be happy. He's dead! There will be no more deaths because of him. California is that much safer now that he's dead. And yet… he was right. It was his final victory. And worse than that, all I can think about is that it was Spencer's gun! Why did he have a gun? Where did he even get it from?
"Was that really Spencer's gun?" I found myself asking.
"I don't know" Baxter said.
"Well find out!" I yelled at him. "Dust for prints, look up Shawn's shopping history! Do something!"
"There's no point!" Baxter yelled back. "The Hour Killer is dead. He can't hurt anyone anymore. Does it really matter whose gun killed him?"
"Listen to me you incompetent fool. Shawn Spencer is a good friend of mine and an even better detective. He can do many things but one thing he cannot do is cope with death. No matter who's it is. If he were to find out that it was his own gun that killed someone, he would never be able to live with himself. So yes, it really does matter. Now would you stop being so stupid and just do as I say?" The Chief and Baxter both started at me for a while. Until, at last, Baxter admitted defeat and pulled out his phone.
"I'll get Gurley and forensics over here" he said. "You can go and be with your… friend." I nodded in approval and then walked towards the car. The Chief stared me for a while before finally deciding to follow me. She climbed into the passenger seat, fully accepting that I would be driving.
"Good friend of yours, huh?" she asked when we were in the car.
"What are you on about?" I asked.
"Shawn Spencer. You said he was a good friend of yours."
"With all due respect, chief, what have you been smoking? I said nothing of the sort."
The chief and I ran into the hospital. The first thing I noticed was the horrible look on Bigger Spencer's face. That can't be good. Guster doesn't look much better. He looks like he's about to be sick, actually. That can't be too good either, considering he only pukes when seeing a dead body or a horribly abused body. O'Hara was nowhere to be found.
"How's Shawn?" the chief asked Spencer.
"Don't know" he said grimly. "They won't tell me anything. They wouldn't even let me in the ambulance with him. I had to drive with Sir Pukes-A-Lot over here." We all looked at Gus. He shot us an apologetic look, but other than that did nothing but stare ahead of him in worry and shock.
"Where's O'Hara?" I asked.
"Cleaning the sick off of herself" Spencer replied. Again, Guster shot us an apologetic look. "She went that way" Spencer gestured towards a hallway. I walked where he gestured quickly. I don't really need anything from O'Hara. I just can't bear the look on Spencer's face.
By accident, completely by accident, I came across the last thing I wanted to see. I was walking down the hall, not being able to find any bathrooms. Suddenly, a door to my left burst open. A doctor and a nurse came rushing out. I couldn't help myself. I peered inside. It was him. Of course it was him. Just my luck.
Shawn Spencer was hooked up to about five different machines, all performing different tasks to keep him alive. That wasn't the worst part. There was blood all over his face and his body. They were working very hard trying to stitch it up, but judging from the response of the machines, it wasn't going very well. That wasn't the worst part. His hands were just a bloody mess. They weren't even focusing on it though. They were too busy with the gut wound to even start working on his hands, though there were bandages on it. Probably done by the paramedics. Fair enough, I think. Knife wound in the gut is a lot more deadly than a knife wound on hands. But that wasn't even the worst part. His legs were… just awful. His pants were off. All you could see was a horrible burn. It looked as if there was no skin left only… muscle. Just horrible burn marks all over his legs. But, believe it or not, that wasn't the worst part.
The worst part was that his eyes were closed, and the machines seemed to be showing less and less life signs. As time went on, each machine would give signals of more and more failures. Shawn Spencer was dying. At this current moment in time, the machines are literally the only things keeping him alive.
"Hey!" a doctor called out. I didn't dare move. "What the hell are you doing here? This is a restricted zone!"
"That is a detective-"
"Yes, and I'm a doctor. Get out of here."
"We work together-"
"I don't care. You can't be here! Just who do you think you are-"
"I am Carlton Lassiter, Head Detective of the Santa Barbara Police Department. I have the right to be here and watch over one of my detectives!"
"Well, I got news for you, Detective. This is Los Angeles. You don't have power here and even if you did, this is a restricted area! Now, if you could please wait in the waiting rooms? We will tell you as soon as we get any information on your detective's condition." Suddenly, the beeping in the room stopped having a general rhythm and just became a steady, hair raising, ear-splitting, high pitched noise. "Now if you excuse me, I have an emergency to deal with." The doctor then ran into the room to take care of his patient.
He's right. I know he's right. But I can't help it… I need to see that Spencer is alright. He is a good detective and a good person. He doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve his pain or his suffering or any of the crap that anyone puts him through. Including me. If he doesn't survive this I… I don't… I couldn't even imagine what I'd do. To go back to life in Santa Barbara without him. He was a pain in the ass, yes, but also a damn good person. The fact that this happened to him of all people just… I can't.
