See Part 1 for disclaimer.
Author's Note: This is completed and I will be posting it all today (3.20.2022).
Author's Note 2: Any mistakes are completely mine as I've made a few changes on the chapters I'm posting today after my beta sent them back. She's awesome…I, however, am fallible. Especially when it comes to writing.
*OoO*
Carlton was toweling his hair dry, thinking about going to O'Hara's now she was out of the hospital.
There had been a discussion about moving her to another hospital since the perp seemed to have the run of the place but the doctor was about to release her anyway so Carlton had stood guard for the day and then made sure O'Hara was tucked up safe and sound in her apartment.
Her friend Simmons was staying with her until she was fully healed. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the one person he didn't expect. The one person, truthfully, he hadn't thought about since O'Hara had been hurt.
"Spencer? What are you doing here? How the hell did you get into my apartment?" he asked as he lowered the towel.
Shawn Spencer shrugged from his lounging position on Carlton's couch. "Hey, Lassie, long time no see."
Carlton was furious. He knew his door had been locked when he went to take his morning shower. He always locked his door. He might be an ex-cop but that didn't mean he couldn't become a crime statistic if he wasn't careful.
"I asked how you got into my house, Spencer!" he growled.
"The door was unlocked."
"That's a damned lie!" Carlton was already reaching for Spencer when the other man moved quickly out of arms' reach.
Shawn ran around the couch to put it between them. "Okay, okay. I picked the lock!"
Carlton stopped. "That's breaking and entering, Spencer, I could have you arrested."
Shawn stopped moving and straightened up. "And I could ask you why no one told me Jules was almost blown up." His tone hardened and something about him changed from the man-child the world saw most of the time. "I like to know when my friends almost die." He shrugged again and in a split second, the man-child was back. "Do you have anything to eat?" he asked as he stepped a bit further away from Carlton.
Carlton stared for a moment, trying to figure out Spencer's game. This side of him wasn't as easy to read. He could predict what Spencer was doing when he was acting childish and spouting pop culture facts. When the grown man came out to play, rare as it was, he was harder to get a handle on.
He stopped stalking him and picked up the discarded towel. "You were out of town and neither Guster nor Henry knew where you were."
Shawn winced. "I needed to go see someone."
Carlton wasn't concerned with Spencer's private life. "I don't really care where you were. It wasn't my job to track you down to let you know O'Hara had been hurt."
"From what I've heard, you don't have a job anymore," Shawn shot back.
Carlton gave him a slow, measured look. "My employment, or lack thereof, isn't your concern. Not even a little."
Shawn seemed to realize he'd made a mistake. He held up his hands. "You're right, Lassie. I shouldn't have said anything." He gestured to the couch. "Can I sit down? I'd really like to know what's going on with Jules."
Carlton sighed as he realized he wouldn't get rid of Spencer until he at least told him the bare-bones of the story. The last thing he wanted was the idiot going to O'Hara and badgering her. He also knew it would probably happen anyway. He leaned against the wall and brought him up to speed.
"Now you know what happened, get out!"
"Wait, wait, wait, you can't just tell me you and Jules have an arch-nemesis and then tell me to leave!" Shawn protested.
Carlton pinched the bridge of his nose as he felt a Spencer-sized headache coming on. "One, O'Hara and I do not have an 'arch-nemesis,' and two, yes I can." He gestured to the front door. "Get out,I have things to do today."
"I can help!" Shawn protested.
"No you can't."
"You can't just throw me out. We work together!"
Carlton suddenly smiled. A smile a great white shark would be proud of. "We don't work together anymore, remember?"
Shawn swallowed hard and remembered how scary Lassiter could be when he wanted to be. "Fine! I'll leave. But I'm going to help Jules, one way or another!" He walked quickly to the door and left.
Carlton rubbed his temples and tried to remember where he'd put his industrial-sized bottle of ibuprofen. With Spencer back in town, he was going to need it.
*OoO*
Carlton heard voices though O'Hara's door when he walked up, and groaned as he recognized one of them as Spencer's. He'd really been hoping to let O'Hara know the idiot was back in town before he showed up at her door.
"Look, Dork Boy, I don't care who you are. Jae is asleep and you're not seeing her!" The voice sounded like O'Hara's friend Simmons.
"Who are you calling Dork Boy?" Spencer sounded offended…really offended which was something new. "I just want to see Jules. Who is Jae?" Offended gave way to confused.
Carlton knocked on the door and was a bit surprised at how forcefully it opened.
"Hi Mr. Lassiter," Simmons greeted him. "Could you throw Dork Boy out?" She gestured to a red-faced Spencer.
"Spencer, what are you doing here?" Carlton felt the headache rearing its ugly head again.
"I just wanted to see Jules and this bulldog lady won't let me!" Shawn pouted.
"Bulldog lady? I'll show you bulldog!"
Carlton stepped between them before Simmons decked gel-head. He'd been in enough hospitals to know insulting a nurse was a one-way ticket to the emergency room. Even if you were in the emergency room.
"Nurse Simmons," he began.
"Call me Christine, Mr. Lassiter, we're not at the hospital anymore."
Carlton didn't generally do first names but if she had been dealing with Spencer for any length of time, he figured he could make an exception. Plus, she was a friend of O'Hara's.
"Christine," he nodded, "What's going on?"
"Dork Boy here—" But she was interrupted.
"Stop calling me that!"
"Was trying to force his way into Jae's bedroom and she's asleep," she continued as though Spencer hadn't spoken.
Carlton's face turned stony. "Why were you forcing your way into O'Hara's room?"
"I wasn't!" Shawn protested, "I just wanted to talk to Jules and see how she was doing and bull…" he stopped at the glare from Christine, "this lady wouldn't let me in!"
"I told you, five times, she's asleep and you're not going in and waking her up. Can't you understand English!?" Christine asked, exasperated.
"You will find, Nur…Christine," Carlton broke in smoothly, "Spencer doesn't understand any language if it runs contrary to what he wants."
Shawn switched his glare from Christine to Carlton.
"Spencer, go home and we'll let O'Hara know you were here when she wakes up."
"Why do I have to leave and you get to stay?" Shawn asked petulantly.
"Because he's her partner," Christine answered before Carlton did.
"He's not her partner anymore; he's not even a cop anymore!" Shawn retorted.
"Okay, that's it!"
Before Carlton could do anything, Christine had Spencer by the front of his shirt and dragged him to the door, opened it, and pushed him out, slamming it behind him. She ignored the banging that ensued. "I'm not letting you back in, and if you don't leave, I'm calling the cops. I don't care who you are! How do you think Jae will like it?"
The banging stopped and Carlton looked at her in awe. He'd never been able to get rid of Spencer so easily.
She turned back to Carlton, "So, what are you doing here? Do you want coffee?" She headed back toward the kitchen, not checking to see if Carlton was following.
He shrugged. He was always up for a cup of coffee.
He sat down at the kitchen table and nodded his thanks when she set a cup in front of him.
"I wanted to check in with O'Hara and also see if she had any ideas about where to go next. I'm hitting a brick wall right now. I didn't realize she'd be asleep. Is everything okay?" He said the last with a hint of urgency.
Christine sat down opposite him and nodded. "She's fine. Just getting home from the hospital wore her out. I told her to take nap and I'd handle getting everything settled." She took a sip and continued, "I took PTO time so I'm staying with her for the week."
He raised a brow. "Any particular reason? I thought you said she was fine?"
"She is. But she's going to be sore for a few days and I also wanted to make sure everything continues healing the way it should. She's doing great but she got banged around pretty good." She ran her finger along the rim of her cup. "She's my best friend, you know? I came awfully close to losing her." She glanced up at him. We came awfully close to losing her."
Carlton couldn't help the shudder that went through him. He still woke up from nightmares about the worst day of his life.
"Anyway," she continued. "I haven't really had much time to spend with her since I moved from Miami so this was as good a time as any."
This also seemed like a good time to ease some of Carlton's curiosity. "Speaking of Miami, how long have you and O'Hara known each other? And while I'm at it, why do you call her Jae?"
Christine laughed. "I've known her since we were kids in elementary school. We call each other Jae and Cee because we thought it was cool when they did it in Men in Black when we first saw the movie." She leaned back. "What about you? How long have you known her?"
Carlton didn't like being on the receiving end of an interrogation, even a benign one. "She's my partner. Has been for almost three years."
"Just partners?"
He glared. "Yes, just partners."
She backed off with a nod. "So what's the deal with Dork Boy?"
Carlton laughed. "You really got under his skin and I'm not sure why."
She grinned. "I don't know either but now that I did…" she trailed off. "Anyway, what's his deal?"
"He claims he's a psychic and he consults on cases."
"Psychic? You're kidding?"
"Nope, he knows things he shouldn't and he gets results, no matter how infuriatingly irritating he is."
"You really don't like him, do you?" She cocked her head.
Carlton shook his head. "It's not I don't like him." He held up a finger to stop her interruption. "I don't like the mockery he makes of police work." He pushed his coffee cup away. "A lot of good men and women work their asses off at the job, putting themselves in danger, to protect and serve." He sighed. "And Spencer waltzes in to crime scenes, makes off-the-wall announcements and waltzes out leaving people he's just made look like fools to figure out what to do next." He shook his head. "The fact he's right just often enough to be useful only adds to the irritation."
Christine was silent for a moment. "How often does he make you look like a fool?" she asked quietly.
"Often enough."
She nodded once and changed the subject. "So, what are you going to do until Jae wakes up?"
"Don't know. I wasn't planning on being here when she was asleep."
"Fair enough. Since we're both here, you can show me how good of a poker player you are." She rummaged through the purse sitting on the counter and pulled out a well-worn deck of cards.
"Just the two of us?"
"Sure, you'd be amazed at what you can do with just two people." She winked at him as she started to shuffle.
*OoO*
"What are you two doing?" Juliet asked as she walked slowly into the kitchen.
"O'Hara!"
"Jae!"
She grinned. "Carlton," she pointed at him. "Cee," she pointed at Christine. "Now we know who we are, what are you doing?" She sat down on the chair Carlton had pulled out for her.
Carlton sat back down and looked at the cards on his side of the table. "Trying to figure out how she's hustling me and we're the only two playing…"
"What can I say? I'm good." Christine grinned as she buffed her nails on her shirt.
"You're a card shark is what you are," Juliet replied with a smile. "Anyway, what are you doing here, Carlton?"
He threw his cards into a pile on the table and turned his attention to her. "Running into a brick wall and I thought I'd see if you'd come up with anything?"
She shook her head. "I thought about it as I was falling asleep and I'm no further along than I was before. It's like this person is a ghost. He can get to us and we don't know when or where he'll do anything. Even just sending his notes takes planning I can't figure out."
Carlton's face was grim. He'd come to the same conclusion.
"Can I throw my two-cents worth in?" Christine asked. She continued at their nods. "Jae told me in one of his letters he mentioned you'd pay for what you had done. Both of you, right?"
"Yeah, I definitely get the feeling he's blaming both of us for something," Juliet said.
"Okay, so I know you've arrested and put away a lot of criminals." She looked at them intently. "But this sounds like more than just putting someone in jail. This sounds like something more." She shook her head. "I mean, I don't know your history as partners, but this sounds like whoever this is thinks you killed someone."
Carlton looked at her and then looked at O'Hara. Could this be it? They'd been looking at people who they'd put away and recently released. But what if it was more personal. What if it was someone who blamed them for someone dying?
"It makes sense," Juliet said slowly. "This always felt like more than just someone going to jail." She looked at Carlton. "It widens and narrows our search at the same time."
"What do you mean?" Christine looked back and forth between them.
"It means it may not be a suspect we've put in prison. It could also be a family member or friend," Carlton answered.
"But," Juliet continued. "It narrows down the search because now we're looking for someone who has a massive, personal grudge against us, beyond putting them in jail." She stood slowly and hugged her friend. "This may be the break we needed!"
To Be Continued…