"This is it. This is where I was!" Chuck shouted, pointing out his window like a kid. "That's the crosswalk where the car tried to hit me!"
Casey slowed down and pulled into a spot along the sidewalk. "Everybody out. Bartowski, you stay close to me and Sergeant Walker, got it? Don't get separated, don't touch anything," Casey ordered.
"Roger that," Chuck said with a half-assed salute. "So uh, what are we looking for?"
Me and Walker are screening the area. You aren't looking for anything," Casey explained.
"Then why am I out of the car?"
"Because I'm not leaving you in my car unsupervised," Casey answered.
"Captain, there are treadmarks, but they're a three yards or so past the crosswalk," Sarah said, splitting the senior cop's attention from Chuck.
"Good eye, Walker. They probably slammed the brakes when they missed Bartowski. It doesn't look like they did any quick-turning maneuvers to try again. Your little friend must have grabbed you too fast for them to try anything again."
Casey pulled out his cell phone and snapped some pictures of the treadmarks. "Hopefully we can use these to identify tire treads of the perp's car if we get that far," Casey explained.
"Mr. Bartowski, do you know if there are any witnesses who saw this? ANyone who might have seen a license plate?" Sarah asked.
"You can just call me Chuck, Officer. "And not that I saw, or remember seeing," Chuck huffed. "It was pretty late, and everything happened so fast," he said.
"Well shit. That leaves us practically nowhere," Casey grumbled. Casey tilted his head and scanned the buildings.
"What are you looking for, Captain Casey?" Chuck asked.
"Probably security cameras, hoping one of them may have caught the scene," Sarah explained.
"Exactly," Casey confirmed. "And bingo," he said, pointing to a Kum n' Go. "Leave it to a corner store to have a camera."
"Why would they have a security camera inside, and outside?"
"Do you always ask so many questions, Bartowski? Is this a field trip for you?" Casey growled.
"Pretty much," Chuck answered. "I just want to know what my tax dollars are going for."
"What tax dollars? I thought you were homeless?" Casey quipped.
Sarah flashed her eyes to Chuck, and she felt her heart break for him. She saw the immediate dejected look take over his features, the boyish wonder slipping from his face in an instant following that harsh jab.
"Cameras inside a store are good for identifying a thief and helping us find witnesses. Cameras outside the store help us identify car makes and models, and the direction they went," Sarah answered Chuck's question with a much softer, patient tone.
Chuck just smiled and nodded, but didn't say anything else. Sarah could still see the hurt in his eyes. She worried the sting would be there all day. It went against her general nature, but she wanted to hug him. She knew he needed one after that.
"Let's go talk to the manager and see if we can get access to that camera's tape or feed," Casey said, and the odd trio made their way inside.
"Mornin'," Casey said, flashing the counter attendee his badge. "I'm Captain John Casey, this is Sergeant Sarah Walker. This guy behind us nearly got hit by a car just outside early this morning. "Care if we take a look at your corner camera footage? I don't have a warrant, but I'd rather us not have to play that hard."
The station attendant just stared and blinked, trying to take in the whole situation. "Uh… ya… you can talk to the manager, Bill. He's in the office over there," the shocked young woman said, pointing over at a corner office.
"Great, thank you," Casey said and gave her a quick salute as they headed off to talk to Bill.
"Bill, got a minute?" Casey asked, tapping on the door with his knuckles.
"Uh, sure, how can I help you?" the confused manager asked, clearly not expecting the police on a slow Tuesday morning.
"Burbank PD," Casey said, flashing his badge again and pointing at Sarah. "There was nearly a hit and run and we believe there to possibly be malicious intent outside your store last night. Care if we look at your security footage?"
"Uh, sure. Be my guest," Bill said, but didn't look too quick to move.
"What seems to be the problem?" Sarah asked, much sweeter than Casey would have.
"Well, I don't really know how that stuff works," Bill said, scratching at a patch of eczema-affected skin on the back of his neck.
"If I may be so bold," Chuck began, "May I take a look?"
"Knock yourself out, kid," Bill said, wheeling away from the computer but stayed in his chair.
After just a few seconds of scanning the desktop, Chuck clicked on an app icon and a feed popped up, a current-time stream from the camera.
"Okay, so there's not going to be any kind of a play-back feature," Chuck said aloud to nobody in particular. "So I bet it feeds right into a cloud storage." Chuck licked a little button with three dots, and it brought up a log of dates and times.
"I think it was somewhere in this time frame," Chuck said, clicking on a clip ranging from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. Chuck grabbed the cursor and slowly dragged it forward. "Woah, there it is!" he said, and backed it up just a bit before letting it play.
"Okay, so there's you walking at a pretty good clip," Sarah narrated. "And there's you looking over your shoulder. You run, the car speeds right up with you and…"
"Damn Bartowski, you feel the wind on that one?" Casey chuckled, watching Chuck just dive out of the way of the vehicle. "Sure as hell, it looked like they were gunning for you," Casey confirmed. "You were damn near a homicide, Bartowski."
Sarah couldn't believe how cold and crass Casey was being. Chuck was white in the face and about to pass out, and Casey was laughing at him.
"Chuck, are you okay?" Sarah asked, full of genuine concern.
"I'm fine, Sarah. I just need some air," Chuck said, dry heaving a bit as he waddled out of the cramped room.
Sarah was frozen still, knowing Casey had heard that.
"Can you give us the room for a moment, Bill?" Casey asked, completely void of tone.
"Sure," Bill said, and wheeled himself out of the room, still in his chair.
"When were you going to tell me you knew Bartowski, Sergeant?" Casey asked, closing the door.
Sarah stared at him blankly. Her brain was gone in that moment.
Casey crossed his arms and sat on the edge of the desk, and waited.
Sarah felt like she was being scrutinized for a poor paper by her criminal justice professor back in college.
"Sir, I'm sorry," Sarah began, but Casey held up his hand.
"Apologies are cute, Sergeant, but don't answer my question."
"I wasn't going to tell you I knew him, sir," Sarah admitted, staring straight at the floor. She knew the captain would sniff out any lies at this point.
"Uh-huh," Casey said, keeping that same damn stance. "Is you knowing him why you give a shit about this?"
"No sir," Sarah said, her head quickly snapping back up and meeting Casey's eyes. "I would be all over this no matter who it was; Chuck or a perfect stranger."
"First name basis. So you know him pretty well?" Sarah's head falling again told him the answer. "I still believe you, though, that you'd be doing this for anyone. I think you brought it to me because you know him."
"Correct, sir," Sarah confirmed, her eyes lowered again.
"God damn it, Walker, have the spine to look me in the eyes. "You should have told me from the beginning, but I get it. You were right to get my attention on this, though," he assured her.
"Sir?"
"Whoever is after Bartowski meant to either kill him or put him in the hospital. That footage tells me without a doubt he was followed. Whoever 'they' is, knows Bartowski. We need to keep an eye on this before he ends up a case for homicide."
"What's our next step, sir?" Sarah asked, her spirits refreshed by Casey's willingness to work the case.
"If there's going to be an 'our' next step, you need to be completely transparent with me, Sergeant."
"Of course sir," Sarah said, relaxing her stance.
"How do you know Bartowski?"
Sarah regaled the captain with how they had met that rainy night, how she had helped him look for his stolen cart, how she had warned him about the police sweep, and how she had let him shower at her place once, and the clothes she bought him.
"He was leaving my apartment, sir, last night, when he first noticed the vehicle.
Casey scowled at that, but let her keep going.
"It was his first day of work, and we celebrated with a pizza, beer, and Dairy Queen."
"How cute," Casey quipped.
"I fell asleep during a movie we were watching, and Chuck tried to walk home, and then this all happened.
"Well congratulations, Sergeant. Whoever is trying to kill your boy knows where you live, and probably knows you're connected to him."
"Sir, are you going to take me off of this?" Sarah asked, snapping to a tight, back-straightened stance, almost like she was under inspection.
"You're not on a damn thing, Sergeant Walker. You're a patrol cop. You're not a detective yet."
Sarah tried not to latch onto the "yet" or that it had meant anything to her.
"But we don't know how much these people know about you. And you know Bartowski probably as well as anyone could know him. So no, you're not off this. It did just become a case, and because I can't spare any detectives for an almost homicide, you and your partner, Pattell, are the only two badges I'm putting on this."
"Thank you, sir," Sarah said, feeling immediate relief.
"Don't thank me until we know what's going on here, Walker. We don't know what he's into, or what he's in trouble for. And we don't have any leads right now because we didn't get any license plates. I'm putting out a b.o.l.o for the car, but that's the best we can do."
"What are my orders, Captain?" Sarah asked as Casey left the desk and went for the door.
"You're going plain-clothes for a while, Walker," Casey told her. "Pattell's going to shadow you from uniform, but you're going to stay close to Chuck, and we're going to see what we can pick up, or if we can even bate them. Keep your badge, gun, and cuffs on you at all times. "Oh, and Walker?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Make sure you keep your door locked and gun ready."
"Yes sir," Sarah said, swallowing dryly.
"Report to me whenever you have anything."
Casey headed for the door, blowing past Chuck, and not acknowledging him at all.
"How are you doing?" Sarah said as she approached her new charge.
"I'm freaking out, Sarah. Why would anyone try to kill me?" Chuck said, visibly shaking.
"That's what we're going to find out, Chuck," Sarah said softly. "We're going to find out before they can hurt you, okay?"
"Yeah," Chuck said, watching his shaking hands. "That sounds good."
"Come on, let's get you back to work, okay?"
"Yeah. Stuff to fix," Chuck nodded.
"That's right," Sarah nodded and led him out of the store, a hand on his shoulder. "There's going to be some changes, for a while," she said.
"What kind of changes?" Chuck asked, 100% nerves at this point.
"Well, until we can figure out what's going on, you're going to be under police surveillance."
"Oh, okay," Chuck said numbly.
"Lester will be keeping an eye on you, and so will I," Sarah explained.
"You'll be fine, kid," Casey pitched in from the front seat as they headed out of the parking lot. "Just keep your head on your shoulders and don't get Walker shot."
Casey pulled up to the Buy More and unlocked the door for Chuck.
"Bartowski, keep your head down, act perfectly normal, and don't let anybody know about what's going on. You're in good hands with Walker, understood?"
"Understood."
"Chuck, I'm going back to the station, I'm going to change and pick up my car, and then I'll be back. We're going to fill in your boss because he already knows everything up to us taking you back to the scene. He knows I'm a cop anyway, so if he was involved, we're already blown," Sarah explained. "But, we need his cooperation right now, okay?"
"Uh, yeah… sounds good," Chuck said, his voice coming out of his throat, but he didn't register he had said them. All he could think about was the footage, the near miss, and that there was a target on his back, and he didn't know why, or by whom.