XXVI. Am I Not A Wonder

Lassiter did not get home until 9:45 that night. He was glad that the house was quiet, that a light had been turned on somewhere so that he wasn't walking into a black hole. Henry had fixed the doors, Lassiter had phoned him earlier that day when he wanted to know how Shawn was doing, before Shawn showed up at the station, then disappeared again before Lassiter could talk to him. The door still stuck a little bit when Lassiter pushed it in, but that was a nice touch. It felt like home, having the back door stick. He closed the door behind him, unsure how he'd feel being there after what'd happened. He saw the table, dropped his keys on it just as he'd imagined doing that afternoon. They clanked against the glass.

"You need a dish," a voice said from the living room.

On the couch, beneath the soft glow of the lamp, Shawn was lying on his side. A book was in his hands. Lassiter tried not to be elated to see him. It was nice that Shawn had chosen to come there, rather to his dad's, to the laundromat. He'd chosen that spot to stay comfortable through a night, after a day of riotous discomfort.

"A dish," Shawn repeated, not moving much. He was beginning to get stiff. His neck was sore, and his head ached. "To drop your keys in and put in lose change and all that stuff."

And he was still babbling. The doctor said that was okay. Shawn had been trying to do some grounding exercises to keep himself from floating far, far away. Sometimes, far, far away sounded really damn nice. He'd settled for a trip to the bookstore with his dad, where he picked up Mary Poppins, the first two books, and Peter Pan. He was reading Mary Poppins. She did sort of remind him of Lassie, in a way. She was tough—much tougher than Julie Andrews, but Shawn just pictured Julie Andrews in his head and that softened the Mary Poppins from the book. She was tough, yes, and when anything at all unusual or magical occurred, and Jane and Michael knew it, and tried to call Mary Poppins on it, she would pretend it never happened. She would act like it hadn't happened. She would admonish the children for saying that it did.

Somehow, that sounded a lot like Lassie. Shawn is magical? Hogwash! Spit-spot, into bed!

Carlton decided to give a small smile. "A dish. I'll look for one. What's that smell?"

"Dad brought over some of his chicken and noodles."

"He didn't!" Lassiter launched himself into the kitchen. The light over the stove was on, highlighting the edges of a big cooking pot with the lid on, keeping warm over low heat. Lid removed, steam piled high, and scents with it. Carlton's stomach kicked itself to life. A bowl and spoon had been left out on the counter for him to use. Shawn had already eaten some, told by the spoon and bowl in the sink.

Shawn was in the kitchen with him. "Do you want some bread? It's Italian loaf. Dad brought it over, too." The tip of his finger removed the foil that covered it on the cutting block. Nearby, a serrated knife that Shawn used to slice it. Crumbs flicked around, on the counter, on the back of Shawn's hands. "Warmed, yes, with butter, more yes?"

"Most yes, thanks."

Shawn sliced generous helpings of bread, warmed them in the microwave for a burst of seconds, then smeared them with butter from the nearby dish. He kept one for himself, gave two to Lassie. "How did it go? At work. At the station. Did anything happen? Are they out on bond? Did you arrest them?"

"We arrested Will. We let Adrian go," Lassiter swallowed his first bite of Henry Spencer's delicious chicken noodles, "at least for time-being. He knows he'll be looked into now."

"For?"

"You already know."

"I want to hear someone who's in an official SBPD capacity say it." And he just wanted to hear Lassie say it. That would mean a lot more.

"Accepting some of the money his cousins embezzled from Collins Bank. There, happy?" Lassiter tried to snap at it with a fitful rage, but it dissipated quickly at the look of despair on Shawn's face. It puzzled him. "You know he accepted that money."

"It was the porcelain chips."

"The what?"

"The porcelain chips found on the body—on Jasper's body."

"I don't get it."

"Adrian and Jasper met in person recently. I'm sure if you get a search warrant for Adrian's office—"

"Oh, we most certainly will," and Carlton was going to grab a front-row seat.

"You'll notice that there's a fountain missing."

Lassiter paid very close attention now.

"I guess he must've had his cousin take care of it. There were fountains all over the firm's office. Adrian had a nice one in his, over in the corner. It was resin and porcelain, a crashing wave and dolphins coming out of the wave. It was pretty. Something must've happened. Maybe they argued. It must've broken."

Carlton had a moment's pity for Jasper Collins. "He must've been too unwell to work."

"Yeah, that's how he got the burns on the bottom of his feet. He must've spilled something at work. Or at home. Which might've just been work."

"We did find evidence of a spill at Jasper's store, as well as a cot and other items to suggest he was living there. I think he wasn't well. Hadn't been well for a while. Would Adrian have—have been mean to him if he broke the fountain?"

"Very likely. Adrian was possessive. He liked his things being his things. Jasper probably went there to tell Adrian that the money his uncles had given him had been stolen from the bank. Either he wanted Adrian to do the right thing—or he wanted to blackmail him. If I were Adrian," Shawn's eyes, looking more gray right then, flashed with a kind of brilliancy, a genius that Lassiter couldn't imitate, "I think I know which story I'd try to tell the police."

"Don't worry," Lassiter said, picking at a slice of bread rather than looking at Shawn and feeling his ribs go soft with emotion, "we will find the truth."

"All the Collinses have vices," Shawn went on. "Brooke likes food. She eats more when she's stressed. When I saw her the other day to talk about my beautiful launderette, she had a tiny crumb on her boob-shelf," he indicated the area with his palms, "and a little smear of chocolate on the inside corner of her mouth. I knew she'd been eating more often."

"Jasper called her a couple of times, too."

"Probably trying to get her to talk to Adrian."

"That's what we're considering. And Adrian drank."

"Like an ugly deep-sea fish. I didn't notice it until—" Shawn paused, considering, squashing down feelings of self-resentment because he hadn't noticed until it was too late, "until I was too far in to climb out again. And Jasper drank. Adrian's mom takes a lot of pills and drinks. I don't know about Andre. He probably has mistresses or—what do you call male mistresses?"

Lassiter stopped chewing, staring at Shawn. "What?" he cried with his mouth full of bread.

"Relax, Lass, I'm kidding."

Lassiter didn't know about Andre Collins, either. They would look into it. They would look into a lot of things. "Do you think Adrian knew where that money had come from?"

"It's possible. He was an egomaniacal upperclassman at Stanford Law when his cousins finished pulling that heist. I don't think he knew what they were doing. But he didn't exactly have a free ride at Stanford, and any money they wanted to give him would've been welcomed. Do you think he knew? You do," Shawn could read it in his gaze, "you do think he knew."

"Not the whole time, not explicitly," Lassiter commented, "but I think he knew something was going on, that they were planning something. He worked there, didn't he? He was in that family. And that is one hell of a tight-knit family. You want to stand there and tell me he didn't know what was going on?"

Shawn hedged the question. "What about Brooke? Do you think she knew?"

They hadn't decided that yet. It edged Lassiter's doubts. But Adrian— "I don't know." It took a lot out of him to admit such a thing. He pawed his way around Shawn, who seemed to be everywhere and so close to him all of the sudden, and took a seat, where else, at the table. Shawn claimed the other seat. There were only two. Lassiter had pieces he couldn't fill in, not the way Shawn had filled in certain broken parts and certain empty spaces of the case, of his life, of his house—

"Why did Jasper go to Englers?" he asked, knowing that Shawn knew the answer.

"Jasper worked there when he was a boy," Shawn said. "I found it in an article I read. His mom and dad were divorced, and he lived up here with his mom while the rest of the Collins family were still in Ventura. He worked at Englers. It was something my dad said a while ago—just a few days ago, I guess. People go where they are most comfortable when something is going on with them. When people have a lot of anxiety—or injuries," he swabbed a hand around the left side of his face, now bandaged with something more plain and practical and the Turtles were gone, "they go where they are most at home, where they feel the most like themselves."

"And Jasper went to Englers. Do you think he knew he was dying?"

"Probably. Don't they say that people usually know those sorts of things?"

"I hope I don't know," confessed Lassiter. Shawn got up and went into the kitchen, came out two minutes later with a mug of tea for him, for himself, and then went back to the kitchen again. Lassiter could hear him filling up a bowl with more chicken noodles. It wasn't really like a soup, more like—a stew? A casserole? It was really hard to define it, except to say that it was delicious. It took all day to cook, to get the chicken so that it would shred in the broth sauce and stick to the noodles. It was spiced just right with salt, pepper, sage, onions, and probably some garlic.

They ate in silence for several minutes.

"What do you think," Lassiter began, "Adrian will say about possibly being blackmailed by Jasper?"

"I don't know. Jasper thought Adrian knew what was going on, thought that Adrian had some of the money. Adrian always did seem to have a lot of money. When he wanted to buy a house, maybe he thought it was a way to finally get rid of it. Maybe clear his conscience. I don't know, can't make suppositions about a guy I thought I knew really well—and I didn't know him well at all." Shawn abruptly snickered, his eyes lost in the recent past, close enough to still pain him, far away enough to bring out the irony. "You know what I said to him when he walked in? You know, it was genuinely funny, because they came through the front door, and no one who knows us would ever come through the front door."

"Our friends—and relatives—use the back door. They came to the front. How fitting. What'd you say to him? Did you tell him I wanted to use his mansack for target practice?"

"No," Shawn said, lifting his gaze just long enough to release a flicker of humor, and fall away again. "I told him that he could've never made this place much of a home—he never would've liked it as much as I did—or you do. I should've mentioned that you'd like to do something with his precious mansack. Will might not have hit me in the face. So. Lass. What about Will?"

"Singing like a canary downtown," Lassiter said. He remembered who he was saying it to. "I'm sorry—sorry that they—"

"It's all right." He dug his spoon around in the noodles. He found a big piece of chicken and started breaking it apart. "We all make mistakes. It wasn't until I started thinking about it, really thinking about it, that it seemed unlikely that Will would've split up with Adrian completely. Even if he did really hit him. I think he did. I think that was part of the draw, too. I think they're two sick, very messed up—"

"Shawn," Lassiter called out to him, set his hand over Shawn's fingertips to bring him back, "don't. They're not worth it." He had to say the thought that torpedoed across his mind. "And, whatever happened, Adrian did love you. I think the pressure from Jasper must've gotten to him, and he took it out on you."

Shawn had reached that conclusion hours ago. It was too nice of Lassie to say so, and Shawn didn't let on that he'd already had the same thought. "Yeah, that makes sense. That doesn't make it right. And that didn't make those things he said, the accusations he made, any more true. And if he'd been seeing Will the whole time—I don't know—don't think I can trust anyone again." It sounded horribly cliché, and Shawn instantly regretted letting the mundane phrase out of his mouth.

"What did he say?" Lassiter thought it might be a distraction, soon finding that he was right but for the wrong reasons.

"He said the work that I do was cheap, made me look cheap. He said that I wasn't really helping people, and if I believed I was psychic, then I was no better than the charlatans and murderers that I helped put away. And he said—what else did he say?—that he knew all along that I was a beggar, that I'd never amount to much, because he'd seen all these red flags. I told him, well, if he had all these red flags and had been collecting them for as long as we'd been together, then why was he any better than me? I mean, no one who cared about you would do that. No one would admit it, only if he wanted to hurt you. He got really mad at that point, because I'd called him on it. He didn't like that. And he said I was lousy in bed, which, of course, we know isn't true. Well, I know it isn't true, Pooch, even if you don't."

"You are better than them," Carlton said instead of commenting about the lover thing. That seemed like hot coals. It was easier to assuage Shawn's talents. "I've seen you do things that are—"

"Astounding? Virtually impossible? Uh—like the magical work of intervening dragons, unicorns and angels?"

"Sure," Lassiter answered easily, and it brought a smile to Shawn's face. A real one, anyway, that lit up his eyes and made the life between them spark. "You work like your spiritual counterpart; you work like Pandora. You bring chaos in a box—"

"Jar," Shawn automatically corrected, then waved the correction aside. "Never mind. Go on. I bring chaos in a box—and then I close it up again?"

"You do. That is what you do," he said in a soft, barely-there voice. And all around him, the quiet continued. Shawn had closed the box.

"Well, Lassie, don't you know by now that everyone has a box of chaos? They take it out once in a while, and can't help but peek inside."

"That feels true. I think mine's been closed for a while."

"But you know what's always inside, don't you?"

Carlton struggled to answer this riddle, and gave up. He expected a joke. "No, what?"

"Hope. They say that was all that was left in her jar after she'd opened it. Hope."

Lassiter got no punchline, after all. "So—to change the subject. When did you get here?"

"About an hour ago. We weren't at the hospital long. I have a concussion and a booboo on my cheek. I have paperwork somewhere that you're supposed to look at, as my designated caretaker."

"I'm flattered."

"It's mostly about food and upcoming appointments. We stopped at my dad's and got the soup—stew? I don't even—"

"Me either," Lassiter said, smirking. "Casserole?"

"Cassoulet?"

"We'll never be sure. What were you reading?"

"Mary Poppins."

"The book?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"You remind me of her."

"I remind you of Mary Poppins? Spencer—"

"No, really, in a good way! Hear me out, Lass, before you demean my interpretation!"

"I need more chicken and noodles for this, don't I?"

"Very likely. I won't stop you. Could you bring me a little more, too, Pooch?"

Carlton didn't even bother to ask him to stop with the Pooch thing already. Like the way Shawn grabbed the ends of his ties and the way he appeared out of nowhere, the way he acted like the two of them together was a natural progression of things, Lassiter decided there was no point in arguing. He could make Shawn go away, and all he had to say were two little sentences.

In the morning, Lassiter woke from the pressure of a nightmare. It was gone within seconds, leaving him haggard and listless. It was Monday, his mind told him spontaneously. Work day. And then it all rushed back, everything that'd happened yesterday. He kicked the covers off and hurried across the hall to check on Shawn. He wasn't there. The coverlet was gone from the bed, and Lassiter found it smothering Shawn on the couch instead.

Shawn was awake, upright, reading again with the television playing gentle music. The lamp burned against the incoming dawn, not quite coating the house in a silvery light. It was early, a little after six-thirty.

"Hi," Shawn said, dropping the book. He never used bookmarks, or very rarely did. He always remembered where he left off. "How did you sleep?"

"All right. Nightmares—just a few of them. You?"

"I think I'll be a little sleepy throughout the day. Do you mind if I stay here?"

"No," Carlton grumbled, "I'm your caretaker, remember? But pretty soon I'll be asking you for rent." He didn't have to. Shawn always did more than his fair share of chores. It was like having a free housekeeper. But it started to snap and twinge Carlton's conscience. It plagued him as he sipped his first cup of coffee, and watched Shawn from the kitchen door. He wasn't reading Mary Poppins. He was reading something else. "What happened to Mary and Jane and Michael?"

"And John and Barbara?"

"Who?"

"The twins. They're in the books but not the movie. I finished it last night. I'm reading Peter Pan. You're very Captain Hook-like. Or Peter-like. I can't tell. Maybe that's why they didn't like each other: they saw too much of themselves in each other. Peter saw in Hook what he would be like if he grew up. Hook saw in Peter what he was like when he had youth and a life ahead of him. Resentment all around. I got an email from Adelaide Barkle Smith last night. Do you remember her from the workshop we went to?"

"Yes." He drew in a breath and tried not to think of all that'd happened since then. "What about her? Did she ask you out?"

Shawn chortled, surprised by the comment. "No, not hardly. She wants me to make an appearance at the next talk she's giving. Talk about my experiences in the imaginal realm and how that helps me be a psychic detective."

Carlton was momentarily stunned. Shawn, give a lecture? In front of new-agers, in front of hippies? The idea was both ridiculous and appealing. "Sounds like a serious adventure. I suggest you do it. When is it?"

"A couple of weeks. I have some time to work on my thoughts, unscramble them, maybe put them down on paper." But why would he have to do that? He didn't usually take notes, certainly not copious ones. If he did, they were limited, and often in Swedish, so very few people could make anything of them. Most of the work he did, the cases he solved, the projects he worked on, were completed using only his head. Sometimes the continuity was a little off, here and there, but it was nothing that couldn't be seamed over. "Yeah, I already told her I'd do it."

"Good. I'm going to shower and get ready to go. I have a feeling it's going to be busy at work today." He didn't bother asking Shawn if he'd drop by later. He knew Shawn would. Staying away would be too difficult. He'd want to know what was going on. If, that is—if he ever talked to Lassiter again, or could stand being in the same room with him.

Carlton showered slowly, letting the eucalyptus body wash turn to soft lather, to bubbly suds, to an expensive perfume that went down the drain with the water and the dirt and all the emotions of yesterday. He took his time toweling off, despite getting cold in the elongated process. He went out of the steamy bathroom with a towel at his waist, pinched in place by his hand. Shawn was still on the couch, lost in the billows of blue and white, still with his nose in a book, and a Tigger coffee cup in his hand. He must've gotten up once to fill that mug. Lassiter took the image of Shawn on the couch into the bedroom with him, shut the door so that he could get dressed. He turned, saw a suit suspended on its hanger from the upper part of the closet door. Not the one he thought about wearing today, it was a dark gray and he felt like wearing navy or black. But, okay, dark gray it was. The shirt with it was dark blue, and the tie dark green, of the same color family, with flecks of the same blue and a soft textured stripe. As a joke, along with laying out his outfit for the day, Shawn had set a pair of underwear on the bed, too: green bikini zebra stripes.

Shawn looked up, put the book aside, when Lassie appeared from the hallway. He shone with handsomeness. The colors had been chosen for their effectiveness together, not for the way they worked with his complexion, which was paler than usual from lack of sleep and a higher-than-normal level of stress. Shawn put aside book, but not the cup of coffee, and untangled himself from the killer comforter. "Are you wearing them?"

"I suppose you mean the underwear you set out."

"That's what I mean, yes. Are you?"

"A gentleman doesn't talk about such things."

"Come on. I've had a rough couple of weeks. The least you could do is give me that image to get me through the day." Shawn paused, then gave a shake of his head as he pretended to fix Lassie's tie. "Never mind. After you leave, I'll simply rifle through your underwear drawer and find out if they're missing. If they're missing, then I'll know. Problem solved. And you think there's only one detective in this household—ha!"

"Shawn," Carlton started to say, and Shawn looked as though he was about the be reprimanded for the household comment, "there's something I want to tell you." It was time he said it. The guilt was getting to him. He couldn't stand it anymore. He could hardly stand to look Shawn in the eye. And he had such nice eyes, most of the time, when they weren't skirted or hooded or shielded by his lies. "Sit down."

"No," Shawn said, drawing on inner strength, "no, I think I'd better stand for this. But—to the kitchen, okay? I need more coffee." That way, if it was something really bad, and he felt like being dramatic, he could flick a cupful of coffee all over the front of Lassiter's suit. He doubted he'd feel such an inclination. Things were never that bad. Things were never, ever that bad. Then why was he shaking? Why did his legs feel like water? He dove for the obvious conclusion. "If you want me to leave, if I've overstayed—"

"Don't be an idiot," Lassiter snapped, the closest he could get, right then, to tell Shawn to shut up. "I like having you here. I like that you clean the toilet and iron my shirts and wash the dishes. I like that you dust while listening to jazz. I like that you sit on my couch and watch movies and read books and I never know when or if that magical bike of yours will be in the driveway."

"Nobody knows," Shawn inserted, "that's why it's magical."

"I am not an idiot, and I know I'd never even have this house if it wasn't for you. And against your better judgement, maybe, when you knew that if Adrian found out about it, you two would probably be in some kind of fight, you told me about this house because you knew I'd like it. That it's where I can see my future—such as it is. You already know your way around the alarm system, and how to get in here in the middle of the night so that you think I don't know it's you—"

"Stop," Shawn said, wishing to put an end to this. It was hurting him. "If you didn't want me to get by your alarm, you should not have made the code so very, very obvious."

It almost brought a blush to Carlton's cheeks, and he almost got super-hot in embarrassment. The humiliation was not from the ease of the code, but from the fact that of all the people whose birthdays he knew, Shawn's birthday was the code.

"Nevertheless, I like having you here," he concluded quickly. "After I tell you what I have to tell you, I doubt you'll want to be back here at all—or even speak to me—maybe ever—maybe you just need—"

"STOP!" Shawn shouted. "What is it? Please—for the love of all that is holy—for all the jittery, happy cuteness in my Tigger mug—just tell me!"

Carlton blanched, opening his mouth to make the proclamation, only closing it again to restart. He found a more suitable beginning. "I knew that you were seeing someone. I knew you were. Last year. When you weren't around so much. I wondered—I thought you might be in trouble—you were quiet and you were thin—not as thin as you are now, but—I worried, okay? I followed you a few times. Down to Ventura. I knew you were with him. I just didn't realize, for a while, who it was. I just knew it was someone. And I thought you were supposed to be happy, and there were times when I saw you that you didn't seem happy at all. And I worried more. I told O'Hara about following you. She worried. I don't know if she told Gus—I didn't—I don't know if you ever did—"

"Gus knew," Shawn mumbled, still shaking, rocked out of his usual world. His eyes darted upward, landed on Lassiter's. "And I knew."

Lassiter sucked in a deep breath. "You knew I was following you."

"That you had, yeah, a few times. I knew it was you. But I didn't know why."

Lassiter read into those statements as much as he could. Little things squirmed, little things fell into place. "You told Adrian. You told him I was following you, and that's why he—"

"He thought you were jealous, yes. And he was jealous of you because I wouldn't tell you to stop following me, and I wouldn't tell you more than what you could see from your car window." Shawn picked at Lassiter's tie, pulled it out of the suit coat, tucked it back in again. "And, honestly, man, you are not one splendid detective if you never, ever thought, for one single second, that I didn't know anything about the Collins Bank embezzlement case. Come on! It's, like, only the biggest thing to happen in Santa Barbara in the last dozen years! How could I not look into it?"

Carlton claimed a half-step retreat. "You were—were working a case? You dated Adrian—to work a case?"

"No, no, no," Shawn said rapidly, "that was an accident. I had studied the case, yes, but I met Adrian a few weeks later. It seemed—it seemed—"

"Like it was meant to be?"

"Yeah. That's why I didn't like any of it. I didn't like finding out that it was Collins who'd died in holding, whose body I just happened to find. Like it was—it was a warning or something. But it was Adrian who started to scare the shit out of me, but I was so blinded by my own conceit and—" Shawn grunted, groaned, turned around in a circle. He put his hands to his face.

"Are you okay?" When he thought that Shawn would storm out on him as soon as he made the declaration that he'd followed Shawn parts of last year, this sudden worry over what Shawn was going through was a change in his future he hadn't seen. There was always a lot in his future that he didn't see coming. "What is it?"

"When you brought Jasper in, did he say anything?"

"No, he was drunk as a skunk. Smelled like one, too." Carlton amended the statement, only when harrowed by what Dr. Strode had told him on the phone yesterday. "He was also sick. Acidosis. He wouldn't have known, probably, unless—" He and Shawn looked at each other, chills coming across his neck, and Shawn could feel it too. Carlton dismissed it with a grunt. "No—no, that isn't—there is no way in hell that Jasper Collins would've known you'd be the one to find him in holding—dead!" He doubted his own statement. "Was there? He'd just talked to Adrian, and maybe—"

"Adrian told him that we were having problems. I heard him on the phone the other day—a couple of weeks ago. I was eavesdropping," Shawn said, "in case you want to know, and in case you think I'm this great and wonderful boyfriend because I'm not—I do things like that, like eavesdrop, and check messages, and break into your email—"

"You already do that," Carlton blinked slowly as he stated the obvious. "So it is possible that Jasper wanted to get caught, so he broke into Englers—"

"Because it was familiar to him. That way, if the cops didn't get there in time—"

"He would pass out where he was comfortable. Eventually, if no one did catch him, he would've died." Carlton thought the whole situation rather maudlin, and it poked at his conscience further. "I still don't believe it. All I know about this, Shawn, is that I followed you around without your permission, and it was a dirty, seedy, stupid thing to do, and it's been bugging me ever since I found out that you and Adrian split up. Hell, I didn't even know it was a guy you were seeing, I just thought—I thought you were in some kind of trouble."

"I was," Shawn said honestly, innocently. "I was going to get myself out of it, too. Eventually. I just had to know," he went on to say, keeping his watery eyes on Lassiter's, "where the money came from—the money we were going to use to buy the house. It didn't make any sense. If you knew him, if you heard the way he laughed at me when I talked about going without certain things so we could have enough—so we'd have enough—you would've wondered, too. You would've."

Carlton moved Shawn back to the couch, threw the duvet over him. "Gosh all," he grumbled, "what is this thing made out of? It's—it's everywhere! Are you in there?" It'd gotten tossed over Shawn's head, and he pulled it down to reveal Shawn's sad face, with the bandage on it, and his droopy, tear-rimmed eyes. "I thought you were never going to talk to me again."

"You were just doing your job," Shawn said, shaking his head, tucking his hands just over the comforter's edge. "You weren't even just doing your job. You were doing what any good friend would do."

He nodded before finding Shawn a tissue. It was any wonder he didn't need one himself, roiling around in these unchartered emotions. What was he going to do? He couldn't leave Shawn, still racked with his own guilt and the questions riddled between them. He texted Chief Vick: Going to be a little late this morning. In later.

Vick texted back promptly. What's more important than your job? Because she was nosy, she wanted to know what he'd say. He was too honest to lie.

He didn't even think about lying. Shawn, he wrote back, adding nothing else.

"Come on," he grabbed Shawn by the shoulders and squeezed. Shawn had taken a blow to the head with the butt of Will's pistol, and was in no place to be jerked around or moved too quickly. The headache would last a while. There'd probably be physical therapy, and maybe some mental therapy, too. Carlton squeezed him again. "Want some breakfast?"

"Sure—where?"

"Didn't we decide that almond kringle fixes everything?"

"Did we?" Shawn got off the couch, one foot in front of the other down the hall. Lassiter supported him with a hand at his back, pushed him along gently. Otherwise, Shawn was not so sure walking was possible, or that being upright was an action a human could do.

"But doesn't it?"

They were playing that game again—holding a snippet of a conversation only by using questions.

"Lassie, are you trying to say that we're going to Platypus Park?"

"Who else does almond kringle better?"

"Won't your Irish ancestors roll over in their graves at you eating something so decidedly, you know, European?"

"What do I care? What do the Irish eat in the morning that tastes as good as almond kringle from Platypus Park? Put these on."

Shawn's arms were suddenly full of jeans—jeans he'd had on last night when he'd arrived back at Lassiter's. The house on Sunberry Lane. Home—not home—but like home.

Carlton opened a dresser drawer, closed it; another opened a second later, closed again. "Why are these empty? Do you have a spare shirt somewhere?"

"Did you check your closet?"

"You keep your clothes in my closet?"

"Would you ever notice them there? And, no, I don't," Shawn brought a momentary hiatus to the game, as Lassiter had when he asked Shawn to put on the jeans, "just grab something—something warm, too. I'm cold. Is it ever going to get sunny and warm in California? What do I live here for?"

"Almond kringle?" Lassiter suggested from his room across the hall.

"Probably. And my dad. And Gus. And Jules. And you. And, let's face it, ninety-percent of why I live here is Chief Vick. I can't hide it anymore." He heard Carlton's laugh carry from the other room, and it went far into him, warming him and healing him.

Lassiter brought him a t-shirt in blue, of course, and an old jogging sweatshirt that smelled faintly like shoes and fresh fruit. In the dining room, Shawn's head popped out of the sweatshirt, scattered his too-long hair. He shifted it out of the way. Lassiter breathed in when the waft from all of Shawn hit him, and there was that smell again. Today it was coffee and ocean waves and the remnants of sleep, and the exciting promise of beginnings.

Shawn turned around, certain that his phone had been left on the couch. It wasn't there. Pandora was.

"Forget something?" She held the jeweled box in her lap. That didn't keep it still. It quivered. He could sense it. He could hear the crackle of electricity within.

"No," he said. The weight of his phone against his leg. "No. My mistake. It was in my pocket the whole time."

She smiled, innocent, almost demure, keen and cunning. "That's okay, Shawn. Go play with Carlton, if you want. I'll wait here. And when they come?"

It was obvious that they would come, those things he'd been dreading. His dad had already talked to him about it, too, and it was embarrassing. But he'd gotten himself into such a tireless mess of mistakes and sorrows, and he would get himself out of it, shed himself of one big mistake and a lot of sorrows.

"We'll see that chaos through together," Pandora promised. The box quivered again, sparkling jewels and gold and the serpent wriggled. A hiss was heard, and a faint cry as of a soul in pain. "Go play now. It'll be good for you. He's good for you. And Shawn?"

"Yeah?"

"I'll be here when you get back."

He knew that. Chaos was behind him. Chaos was ahead. Chaos never ended. But he hadn't been defeated yet. Hope was still in the bottom of the jar.