Chapter Sixteen
Fun fact: I got a spam email recently from somebody named Carlton and it occurred to me that I've never known anyone with that name in real life. I also, on two separate occasions, discovered that there's a Carlton Street really close to where I live (same street, I am just forgetful).
-v-w-.-w-v-
Sometimes, in tricky situations, Juliet helped focus her mind by asking herself what would Carlton do? The answer was usually rush in, guns blazing, and tackle the bad guy, so it wasn't necessarily a useful exercise, but it nonetheless forced her to find her own approach. The opposite of his, if necessary. Lassiter had a certain fatalism about the way he confronted danger, almost as if he wanted to die heroically in the line of duty. After all this time together, she hoped that she'd been able to show him the benefits of living to see another day, but in the meantime, she would take what lessons she could from him.
For her part, Juliet considered herself an optimist, even when the odds were stacked against her. Up until the moment she found herself backed into a corner with a gun pointed at her face, she felt confident that she'd get out of this little encounter unscathed. Now she wasn't so sure.
In this case, Lassiter would probably scold her for violating protocol. There were many things she should have done differently: second-guessed one of Shawn's dubious visions, called for backup, collected evidence, requested a warrant. Forgotten the whole thing, given the case was officially closed.
As the door had slammed shut behind her upon her entry into the building, she knew she'd made a big mistake. Entering private property under a questionable pretext – worse, with the civilian backup of Shawn and Gus – was a dumb move, for starters. But Shawn had imposed a sense of urgency on her that, on further reflection, was perhaps unjustified. The magnitude of that mistake amplified once she heard the safety release of a handgun in the darkness.
On the other hand, there was a good chance they'd actually tracked down the man she'd been seeking all week. So… silver lining?
"Steve Pollack?" she called out to the darkness. "SBPD. I need you to step into the light and drop your weapon."
"Oh, I don't think so."
She heard thudding footsteps, made by heavy boots, approaching from the direction of the voice, somewhere toward the right. Her view of the interior was blocked by a long rack running parallel to the outside wall, arranged to store pallets of product, like in an Ikea warehouse. On enemy territory now, Juliet decided to retreat and assess the situation further before engaging with Pollack. Staying light on her feet, she stepped backward to the left and around the corner.
From this angle, she could see out into the warehouse, which was faintly lit from a few sources. It was laid out in an orderly way, with rows of shelves, mostly unstocked. Though long-abandoned, the site showed clear signs of disruption – overturned boxes, scattered detritus. She had to be careful not to trip while walking.
"Don't tell me it wasn't even worth sending two officers to arrest me." The voice, cold and sneering, came from roughly the area where Juliet had entered. Now that he knew she was alone, caution ruled the day until she could find another way out.
She decided to try for a bluff. "We've got officers covering all the exits, so I'd think twice about doing anything rash if I were you." Good, she'd managed to keep the tremor out of her voice. "You don't need any more charges against you."
"Anita sent you, didn't she?" Pollack cursed under his breath, from just opposite the metal shelving serving as a barrier between them. "Whatever she told you is a lie!"
"So does that mean you're admitting to the assault?" Juliet tried reason. "You know, a confession could mean leniency in sentencing."
"Yeah, I've heard that one before."
What was the first rule of crisis negotiation? Establish a rapport with the suspect. That seemed unlikely here.
Juliet prowled down the walkway towards the loading zone, keeping an ear out for the direction of Pollack's footsteps. If she could get enough distance, she figured she might be able to seek out an alternate exit – surely there was another way out of this building. Barring that, she needed to keep a healthy distance between that gun and herself.
In the rare scenarios she'd been in that called for negotiation, Lassiter had always taken the lead. Under normal circumstances, he was hardly what Juliet would consider high in emotional intelligence: impatient, apathetic towards the feelings of others, utterly lacking in tact. Somehow, though, he excelled in negotiation, as if all of his social acumen was intended strictly for professional use.
Carlton. She knew she couldn't get out of this alone.
At the end of the row, there was a precarious stack of pallets, and she ducked around them, hoping she couldn't be heard. She pulled her phone from her pocket and flipped it open, racing to find Lassiter's name in her contacts. A phone call would be the quickest way to reach him, but text might be safer given her need for strategic silence.
Her thumb made it halfway through a message before the pallets shifted with a high-pitched wooden creaking. Juliet had about a half-second to dive away before the entire tower came crashing down around her. The corner of a pallet clipped the back of her head and her shoulder on the way down. Her cell jerked out of her hand and skittered along the floor into the darkness. Out of pure instinct, she'd managed to retain her grip on her Glock.
"Have you got the message yet that you don't belong here?" His voice came from her left side, too close, too loud.
Juliet felt a little dazed by the collision, but somehow regained her footing just as Pollack stumbled into a pallet. One of the deckboards splintered under his boot, startlingly close to her, and only the complete disarray of the knocked-over pallets protected her from falling into Pollack's grasp. She ducked to the side, dodging stray boards underfoot, and found the floor clear beyond. Behind her, she heard Pollack struggling with the pallets and wondered faintly if he was drunk.
"Bet you're feeling pretty good right now, huh?" he snarled. She'd made it to the end of an aisle on the opposite side of the loading zone by the time she heard his voice again. From the clattering wood sounds, he seemed to still be struggling with the pallets.
"No, actually. But not as bad as you're going to feel when we add assaulting a police officer to your charges." More comfortable now with the increased distance between them, Juliet rattled off a litany of crimes she'd be pleased to add to his record.
The heavy footsteps resumed, and Juliet paused to triangulate their location. Far enough, but still too close.
Pollack took her silence for the unease he knew it to be. "Why do I get the feeling you don't have anyone waiting for you outside?"
She thought of Shawn and Gus – definitely someone, though she didn't have a lot of faith in their ability to save her at the moment. How long had they been standing around out there without doing anything?
"Did you just show up here all by yourself?" He chuckled, the noise a bitter rattle in his throat. "Trying to get a promotion, maybe? Need to prove yourself?"
Juliet rounded the corner of the aisle, moving deeper into the inner recesses of the building. The red glow of an exit sign caught her eye and she edged closer in that direction. Sure, she'd been there once, the rookie with a desire to impress, to show off all that she'd learned in the Academy and more. Now, she felt confident in what she knew, comfortable with all that she still could learn. What she'd done here wasn't about that – not really. It was about putting her trust in the wrong person for the wrong thing and having to rely on herself to get disentangled.
"Hey!"
She looked down the aisle and saw the silhouette of a man at the far end; she in turn had unknowingly walked into a pool of light from the dim track lighting above.
"You're not a cop," Pollack scoffed. "You're just some chick out on a jog in the wrong neighborhood."
Juliet raised her gun. "Put your hands on your head and I'll be happy to show you my badge and handcuffs."
Pollack pointed his own gun back at her. "Guess again, sweetie."
She bit back her first retort. At least try the negotiation tactics, even if you have to shoot him at the end of it. Discharging her weapon, that would be the last resort (notwithstanding Lassiter's perspective). "Why don't you tell me about Anita?"
"Anita?" He said the name as if it were something distasteful in his mouth. "Bitch betrayed me."
Juliet edged away from Pollack and the gun he still pointed in her direction. "Okay. What did she do to you?"
The question seemed to distract him a little, enough that he lowered the gun slightly. "She got some crazy ideas in her head. I gave her more than enough time to sort herself out, and then she comes at me with divorce papers. What the hell is that?"
"Hmm. Maybe she was ready to move on."
Wrong thing to say. "What we had was good," he snapped, swinging his gun back in line with her face.
Before he could pursue her further, Juliet dove behind a box to one side and clambered through the empty rack to the next open aisle, calculating that the darkness might shield her movement. Once through, she dashed for the exit sign, wherever it might lead. Behind her, Pollack sputtered something offensive before breaking into pursuit. When she came upon the exit door, she found a set of stairs leading up, and took a moment to thank whatever higher power guided her to wear sneakers tonight.
Taking full advantage of her head start, Juliet took the first door that opened and sprinted into the new space, assessing it at a dead run. A lot of locked doors on one side, a lot of potential hiding spots on the other. Only when she heard the door clang open did she stop to hide inside one of the cubicles, trying to control her panting.
"Where'd you go, little girl?" Pollack called out from the entryway. "I wasn't finished with my story!"
Quiet. This time, she knew better than to try negotiation. Now, it was all about survival.
The footsteps moved, sounding as if they were moving farther from her. The floor was set up in a large loop, with one main pathway, and Juliet intended to remain as far from Pollack as possible. If she could lure him to the far side, she figured it might give her a window to get back downstairs and out of the building.
For a time longer than she could track, she played a game of cat-and-mouse with the sound of his staggering footsteps, moving away and back in response to his movements. Juliet heard a noise far off, like something being toppled over, and decided to risk venturing back out into the hallway.
Too late, she realized that she'd been duped.
"There you are." Pollack was standing between her and the exit, his gun trained once again on her.
Stay calm. She narrowed her eyes, raising her gun to match Pollack's. Carlton always stays calm in standoffs. Maybe Shawn and Gus had found another way into the building, she reasoned.
"Well, you'll be happy to know that the bitch lied about me."
She remained silent, mind racing to plan her next move.
Pollack seemed unbothered by her refusal to engage. "I'm a good guy. You just don't know me the way you should."
It was harder to concentrate with the gun at close range. "I've known a lot of good guys, Steve, but none of them pointed a gun at me." That wasn't completely true: Lassiter had run drills with her, training her for a confrontation like the one she faced now. Not the same thing. He always tried his best to look intimidating, flashing her his trademark scowl, and she couldn't help but laugh. She knew who Lassiter really was, underneath all the tough guy bluster.
Pollack smiled then, and it looked like a scar across his face. "Ah, what does it matter? You won't be around to tell anyone else, anyway."
She ducked out of pure instinct, yet the sound of the gunshot still reverberated through her, deep in her bones. Her elbows hit the cold concrete floor, catching herself as she toppled forward.
Her ears were ringing, and it took a long moment for Juliet to realize that she wasn't dead. Whether it was the darkness, his drunken state, or sheer providence, Pollack had missed his shot. Her whole body trembled with adrenaline as she tried to regain her footing.
This was it. For perhaps the first time in her professional life, she felt truly alone. She could, and should, shoot Pollack, and while there would be a lot of paperwork, there'd be no difficulty convincing anyone that it had been self-defense. All she needed was a clean shot.
And still she hesitated.
Then she heard it, clear even through the aftereffects of the gunshot: a low rumbling, followed by the faint sound of breaking glass.
Carlton.
As soon as she thought it, she questioned herself. Why not Shawn or Gus? But somehow, she was certain that it was her partner who had found his way to her. The idea filled her with renewed strength.
How will he know where to find me? Depending on whether he'd been able to bring a fleet of uniforms (or a whole SWAT team), it would take time to clear the building, room by room. She could scream, but that was more likely to provoke Pollack than alert her backup. All that was left was hope that she could stall long enough…
Juliet pushed herself back to her feet, raising her gun, determined. Pollack had seemed just as startled as she by his gunfire, and he certainly didn't miss the ruckus from below. Still, instead of backing down, he took a step towards her, pointing his weapon at her chest. At this distance, she could see the tremor in his hand, from nerves or booze.
She retreated. He followed.
It was hard to move backward while keeping a close eye on Pollack to make sure he didn't rush her. Every few seconds, she glanced over her shoulder, trying to gauge where to move next. She was nearly to the far end of the hallway, and running out of space.
"In there," Pollack ordered with a flick of the gun. Behind her, there was a cubicle, and in the near-darkness, she saw the shapes of some kind of heavy equipment.
"So why don't you tell me how Anita lied?" she ventured. "She must have done something pretty bad to you."
"Damned right she did!" Pollack said, his anger growing the closer he approached. "But I know you're only trying to distract me."
Juliet felt behind her for the workbench she'd seen shrouded in shadow. She tried to maintain a casual demeanor. "You got me. I really don't care about your justification for beating your ex into unconsciousness." With another step, she tucked herself behind the bench, giving her at least partial protection. She couldn't count on him to miss again.
Pollack smiled. "So what have I got to lose?"
This was it. Out of time. She had to shoot or be shot.
Juliet steadied herself, raised her gun. Finger poised.
A flash of movement caught her eye, moving in from the shadows, and there he was: Carlton. He moved silently, a crowbar raised in one hand, an undersized gun – not his service weapon – in the other. Juliet's eyes were drawn to his, seeking reassurance, and found the same pleading in his return gaze. Something eased in his face as he took her in, and though he was still too far away to intervene, she felt as comforted as if he were standing right by her side.
Lassiter remained silent, waiting for her lead. Any abrupt action or noise might startle Pollack into firing the gun, and at such close range, she would surely not be able to avoid the shot a second time.
Now, Juliet smiled at Pollack. "Maybe you can try explaining it to my partner behind you."
He let out a sharp, bitter laugh. "You must think I'm an absolute idiot to fall for that one."
"Oh, I'd love to hear your degenerate ramblings all the way to the station," Lassiter said, and Pollack whirled around at the sound of his voice.
Without thinking much beyond take him down now, Juliet pounced forward in the tackling stance she'd seen Lassiter pull off on countless occasions. She had neither his weight nor wrestling background, but managed to catch Pollack entirely off-balance, and he staggered backward, howling, into a counter, with Juliet tumbling after. They slid to the floor, Juliet pinning his arms with her lower body.
"And don't call me sweetie," she said, landing a quick jab to his nose for good measure. Pollack moaned as blood oozed from one nostril.
Lassiter moved in quickly, and she felt him gently nudging her off Pollack so he could plant a knee on their suspect's chest. The crowbar hit the ground with a metallic clatter.
Resting on hands and knees, Juliet tried to fight off the wave of dizziness that had taken over her senses following the collision. Carlton always made it look effortless. Beside her, Lassiter busied himself with subduing Pollack and relieving him of his weapon. They were arguing – or at least, Pollack was shouting something and Lassiter shutting him down – but Juliet was having trouble processing the exchange.
"Cuffs?" Lassiter asked, and when she didn't respond, his hand found her holster at the small of her back and unsnapped it.
He made short work of Pollack, locking up the cuffs and leaving him on the ground to attend to Juliet. He knelt over her, his presence looming but a comfort. "Jesus, O'Hara, why didn't you call me?" The fingers of one hand feathered across her face, touching down on a spot at her temple where she could already feel a bruise blooming. She'd never known him to be so gentle and a part of her wanted to lean into his palm, draw his strength around her.
Instead, Juliet decided to reassert her independence to stave off any lectures. She straightened her back and readied herself to stand up, perhaps trying too hard to seem unaffected. As soon as she shifted from both knees to one foot, she swayed to the side, almost toppling over.
"Whoa, take it easy." He gripped her shoulder, steadying her. She was certain he could feel her trembling, the aftereffects of the adrenaline rush still coursing through her body. Juliet tried to shake him off, but his hand held firm, guiding her as she regained her footing. Even after she'd managed to stand upright without issue, he kept the hand resting lightly on her arm.
Guilt nagged at her, both for letting herself get caught in a dangerous situation and for dragging her partner into it. "I thought you'd think I was stupid for listening to Shawn."
"I do. But that doesn't matter. You never go in without backup, you hear me?" He bent down, doing his best to meet her eyeline despite their height difference and her attempt to avoid it.
Finally, she looked back up at him and took him in: the blue textured shirt, open deeper at the neck than he would allow himself at work; the light scent of a cologne she'd never smelled on him before; even his hair was less spit-and-polish, more free waves. "I'm sorry, Carlton. I interrupted your date."
His expression didn't change. "It's fine, O'Hara."
"You look so handsome."
He broke eye contact. "Thanks," he mumbled.
Juliet tried to play it off as a casual remark, to cover up the awkwardness. "But still. You didn't have to come all the way down here just to rescue me."
He grabbed both her shoulders, squared his own across from her, to emphasize the importance of his words. Waiting to ensure that she met his eyes, bright with the intensity of his feeling, he said, "I will always come for you."
Suddenly, a commotion broke out around them, as no fewer than five uniformed cops surrounded them, flashing lights in their eyes. Lassiter split off to command them to stand down. Someone took custody of Pollack, someone else came to Juliet's side, shining the light in her eyes again. She turned away, but bright spots lingered in her vision.
"Jules!" Shawn appeared beside her, breathing as heavily as she'd ever heard him. "You're okay!"
She wasn't feeling charitable. "No thanks to you. Why did you leave me in here alone for so long?"
He draped an arm across her shoulders, landing directly on a tender spot that had been hit by the pallet. She cried out and pulled away instinctively.
Shawn acted wounded. "But we brought Lassie here. We just told him Jules fell down the well and he came running."
"What's going on here?" Lassiter came up behind them, planting one arm forcefully on Shawn's shoulder and dragging him almost effortlessly away from Juliet.
Shawn let out a yelp to rival her own – that must have been what had drawn Carlton's attention – and backed off. "Jeez, Lassie. I'm just checking on her. I wanted to make sure she's okay."
"If you'd expressed even a modicum of that concern earlier, we wouldn't be here right now."
"Yeah, and you wouldn't have caught your murderer." Shawn looked smug, and Lassiter rolled his eyes but declined to answer.
"Still not dead, Shawn," Juliet murmured, almost too quiet for any of them to hear.
Gus sidled up. "Is it over?"
Shawn sighed. "Yeah, bud. They got the bad guy."
"Sweet." He paused. "Jerk chicken?"
"You know that's right."
They wandered off, indifferent to the aftermath.
Juliet turned around again and examined Lassiter, more fully illuminated now from the officers' flashlights. He'd taken her advice about the shirt. Definitely not work attire. "I'm sorry, Carlton. I interrupted your date."
His eyes immediately took on a worried cast, but before she could ask him why, everything went black.