oO0Oo
Dawn, Day Twenty-Seven
oO0Oo

Lassiter glanced uncomfortably at the man in the seat beside him.

Henry stared tensely out the windshield, his jaw working.

"It's been almost a month," Lassiter ventured, finally sharing something that had been on his mind for a while now. They had been so focused on solving the case, they hadn't actually talked much about the victim.

No response.

"Have you thought about—"

"What?" Henry snapped, still staring at the road ahead. "Have I thought about the fact that my son has been held captive for nearly a month? My idiot son who can't sit still for more than five minutes?" Henry's hand gripped the car door even tighter, his knuckles turning white. "Are you asking me if I have thought about the fact that if… if we find him alive... he may never fully recover from this? Have I thought about that?" Now nearly shouting, he finally turned and glared at the detective who did not take his eyes off the road. "Once or twice over the last twenty-six sleepless nights, Lassiter," he continued more quietly. "Maybe once or twice."

"He's tougher than people think," was the only response Lassiter had.

"It's all my—" Henry bit off the last word. He didn't need Lassiter knowing his guilt. It was all his fault. Frey took Shawn because of him. And it was his fault Shawn had been held for so long! Why hadn't he figured it out sooner? Why hadn't he made the connections? Shawn would have, had their positions been reversed. Henry wished their positions were reversed. He would give anything to take this burden from his son.

"Henry…" Lassiter decided to go out on a limb. The man needed to hear some things. "You have been a cop long enough to know that you are not responsible for the actions of an insane criminal! Frey was a thief. You caught him and put him away-"

"Yeah," Henry shot back. "Separating him from his only son who was killed exactly twenty-seven days after he was locked up. He never saw him again." That was a kind of fury and a desire for revenge Henry could understand.

"His kid was a gangbanger who chose to live a dangerous life. A drive-by was inevitable." Lassiter glanced over at Henry. "That's not your fault. None of this is your fault."

Henry grimaced. "Go faster."

Lassiter did.

oO0Oo

They pulled up in front of the dilapidated farmstead in a cloud of dust.

Their breakthrough in the wee hours of the morning had given them three possible locations where Frey might be keeping Shawn, so the team had split up. O'Hara and McNab had taken one location, Chief Vick had taken Gus along to the second, and Henry and Lassiter had come here: an old, abandoned farmhouse in the forest above Santa Barbara. The house had a slightly sturdier-looking outbuilding behind it.

Lassiter was extremely uncomfortable with Henry's presence. There was no way the father of the victim should be in on the search. But he had too much experience with the stubbornness of Spencer men to even suggest the older man sit this one out. "If we split up, we'll cover more territory."

Henry nodded once. "I'll take the shed." And, gun drawn, he moved off.

Lassiter almost smiled. He'd hoped Spencer would do exactly that. There had been some intel Karen had kept from the others. She'd shown Lassiter the slender thread that suggested maybe the abandoned house had the tiniest edge in likelihood. Not enough to focus all their resources there; they still needed to check all the possibilities, but…

There was a reason she had split up the teams the way she did. She had gotten to know the charming psychic over the years. No matter what his treatment had been, after twenty-seven days in captivity, she wanted a friend there for him.

But if they were too late… Lassiter was, of all of them, herself included, best equipped to handle that. She'd let her head detective know exactly what she was letting him in for.

Her head detective had agreed with her.

Lassiter had been certain that, given a choice, Henry would take the shed. It looked much more likely to be a prison. And that was where the detective wanted his companion while he checked out the house by himself.

If anyone was going to find Shawn's body, it wouldn't be Henry. Not if Lassiter could help it.

No one spoke of it, but Lassiter was pretty sure he wasn't the only one who had considered the very possible fact that Shawn had been killed the night he was taken. He knew the text had promised Shawn would be kept alive for twenty-seven days and then killed, but he also knew better than to rely on promises from criminals. He mentally braced himself for the possibility that he was about to discover the body of a friend who had been dead for a month.

Gun drawn and ready, he climbed the few steps onto the sagging porch. Opening the cracked and peeling front door, he cleared the dusty front room. He ignored the couch that had clearly become living space for some rodent. He cleared the kitchen, avoiding the cracked and curling ancient linoleum. He went straight to the cellar door—the door with the shiny new padlock on it.

The butt of his pistol made quick work of that, and he was at the top of the stairs. He took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the darkness. He coughed once at the stench that hit him and started breathing through his mouth. The only good thing about the odor was that it was more sewer than crypt.

Maybe.

Maybe Spencer was alive.

Today was the twenty-seventh day since Frey had captured and imprisoned Shawn. This was the day Frey had told Henry—had promised Henry—that Shawn would die—just as his own son had.

But it was still early.

Lassiter tried the light switch to his left, but nothing happened. "Figures," he muttered, pulling out his flashlight and slowly proceeding down the stairs.

When he had descended enough that he had a good view of the small, dirt-floored room, he paused and swept his light around. Was Spencer there? There were a few broken shelves against one wall, some bits of garbage scattered around, a pile of rags in a corner, but not much else. Was one of the other teams having more luck? He moved his light back to the pile of rags…

Was it a pile of rags, a dead body, or could it be Spencer?

The rest of the room being clear, he holstered his weapon as he shouted, "Spencer?"

No response.

As he came closer, he confirmed that what he had initially taken for a pile of rags was indeed the missing psychic. Curled up into a ball, he had squeezed himself as tightly as possible into a corner, his arms across his knees, his head buried in his arms. What skin was visible was pale and covered in scrapes and bruises.

He wasn't moving.

Lassiter approached slowly, his gut twisting in anticipation of what he might find. "Spencer?" he asked more quietly.

Kneeling, he reached out slowly. "Shawn?"

He touched the still man's shoulder.

It was as if he had pushed the plunger on a pile of dynamite. Shawn exploded into motion, scooting frantically along the wall away from Lassiter.

Lassiter saw how his shirt and skin tore on the rough, exposed brick. In the light of his flashlight, he noted how Shawn's left arm appeared completely useless and his right leg didn't move quite right. "Spencer!" he shouted again before Shawn could do too much damage to himself.

Spencer's wild, terrified eyes seemed more animal than human. His mouth was open as if to scream, but no sound came.

"Spencer, it's me!"

No recognition. No response. The other man desperately continued his pitiful attempt at escape. Finally hitting the adjacent corner, he huddled there, visibly shaking but ready to take flight again at the smallest provocation. His one good arm was raised as if to ward off a blow.

"It's me! Lassiter!" A brief pause as Lassiter considered, then reluctantly surrendered, "Lassie?"

At the sound of the hated nickname, Shawn raised his head a fraction and froze. He was utterly still for a moment, his face scrunched up in… pain? Confusion? Both? Lassiter didn't know.

A sound between a sob and a whimper escaped him. Then, with an uncertain and fearful tremble, he rasped so quietly Lassiter almost missed it, "Lassie?"

Lassiter relaxed a fraction: Shawn was alive and at least partially aware. "Yeah, Spencer, it's me. It's over. You're safe."

There was a brief pause.

Lassiter, unsure how best to proceed, waited a beat.

There was no way he could have been prepared for what happened next.

Shawn shot toward him, covering the few feet between them with surprising speed. He threw himself on Lassiter and wrapped his good arm around him as tightly as he possibly could, nearly knocking the detective off balance in the process.

Lassiter braced himself and grudgingly allowed the hug. He put his own arm firmly around Spencer, telling himself it was only to keep the man from falling and injuring himself further.

With his arm around Spencer, Lassiter could feel every rib. Add that to the bony shoulder digging into his chest and the gaunt arm wrapped around his neck, he was shocked at how emaciated Shawn had become. The man was skin and bones and positively trembling from his exertions. Had Frey fed him at all? How badly was he injured?

"Spencer?" He needed Shawn to let go so he could begin to assess. "Spencer!"

Shawn only hugged him tighter, causing Lassiter to realize that, while the psychic was holding on for dear life, his grip was pitifully weak. He could have pushed him off easily, but he suspected the last thing Shawn needed right then was rough handling. And he definitely needed the comfort of human contact. Still, they couldn't stay like this forever. "Spencer!" he shouted.

Finally, Shawn let go and sat back, wincing. What was causing the pain, Lassiter could only guess.

"C'mon, Lassie. I'm blind, not deaf!" Shawn complained as he hugged himself and tried to lean back against the wall again. The fresh injuries to his back made him hiss in pain, and he relented and tried to find a way to hunch over casually.

"What?" Lassiter asked, shocked.

"Yeah. I mean... I know it's… dark down here, but I can't… can't see a thing. I bet you've got… a flash… flash… light." He tried to swallow. "Don't you?" Shawn's voice was quiet and rough. It sounded as if his throat was lined with sandpaper, and he could barely get any air past it.

Lassiter shined the beam directly into the psychic's eyes, and there was absolutely no reaction.

"You just shined it in my eyes, didn't you?" There was a pitiful echo of the familiar humor in his voice.

Lassiter didn't justify that with a response; sadness and pity were beginning to take over for fear.

"I don't think it's... it's permanent, though... " Shawn tried to clear his throat, but coughed instead, wrapping his good arm tightly around his ribs as he did so. Once he caught his breath, he continued, "Smoky just kicked me too hard… in just the right spot... I think… I think it'll come back once the swelling goes down." There was a pause, then a tentative whisper, "That's a thing… right?"

The desperation to sound casual in the face of paralyzing fear was pitiful in the detective's ears.

"Yeah… That's a thing," he murmured, trying not to imagine Shawn being kicked in the head.

They were silent. Lassiter knew he needed to be moving. There were, first and foremost, people to notify. Spencer desperately needed medical attention. But for the moment, both men just relished the fact that the ordeal was over.

Shawn reached out and rested a hand on Lassiter's arm as if he needed to reassure himself the detective was really there.

Lassiter didn't shake it off. "Smoky?"

"Yeah. He stank up the place with his second, third… fourth… maybe fifth-hand smoke," Shawn mumbled. "Never caught… his name." He tried to chuckle but coughed. "This might surprise you, but he wasn't all that chatty… Didn't tell me anything."

There was something about the tone of Shawn's voice.. There was a depth there he hadn't heard before. And then the detective understood; This had been the worst part. Spencer's captor couldn't have tortured him more painfully if he'd tried. For twenty-seven days, not knowing why, who, where… Where everyone else was, why they weren't rescuing him. Wondering if they even knew if he was gone, if they had missed him. His dad, Guster, O'Hara… even Lassiter had to miss him eventually. Who had taken him, why he had been imprisoned, why the guy had wanted to hurt him. The not knowing must have been the worst part of his torture.

"Frey was—" Lassiter began to inform him, but he stopped when he saw Spencer's reaction to the name. He didn't realize it, but, with one word, he had hit Shawn with a blast of information: exactly the information the man needed to start making sense of his whole ordeal, the key that unlocked the whole mess.

It was almost a physical blow. He nearly curled back into the tight little ball again, then Lassiter realized he was whispering to himself, finger half-raised to his temple. The detective leaned in to hear.

"Frey… Thief… Dad... Son killed... Twenty-six… Twenty-seven... I… Ohhh…" Then he gasped and fell silent, his empty eyes darting around pointlessly as if searching for something. "What… day... is it?" he whispered fearfully, putting his hand back on Lassiter's arm, this time gripping hard.

Lassiter, seeing that he was spiraling into a dark place, interrupted, "Spencer, we need to—"

"Where's Gus?" Shawn interrupted in as normal a tone as he could manage.

And he's back. Lassiter knew the kid had a unique mind. He only hoped it would get him through this. "With the Chief. They're checking out another possible location."

Shawn processed that, blinking his unseeing eyes.

Lassiter watched warily.

"My dad's here... Isn't he?"

"Yeah."

Then Shawn smiled, his chapped lips cracking. "You kept him out of here so he wouldn't have to find my body, didn't you? You old softy!" He gave Lassiter's arm a little shake.

Lassiter smiled since he knew Spencer wouldn't see. Shawn was just as sharp as ever, and that went a long way toward relief. He would have a mountain of physical and emotional issues to climb before this was all over, but he was himself… more or less.

"Don't let him down here." A small voice, but desperate.

Lassiter frowned at the odd request. He knew the two Spencers had a rocky relationship, but things had seemed much better between them recently. And if Shawn knew what his dad had been through these last weeks…

"Why not?"

"Because I can't…" Shawn stopped himself abruptly, biting his lip and frowning.

It seemed to Lassiter that Shawn had caught himself telling the unvarnished truth and, for some unfathomable reason, couldn't let that happen.

Shawn's jaw worked as he tried to come up with an excuse.

Lassiter scowled since he knew that coming up with excuses was never a problem for Spencer and let him off the hook. He threw in a bit of humor himself in an attempt to diffuse Shawn's obvious tension. "Have you met your dad? It's not like I could stop him even if I wanted to. And, believe me, after the last few weeks, I don't want to."

So much for humor.

"I…" Shawn tried to interrupt him, holding up a hand and shaking his head as if he couldn't bear to hear the detective's words. "I just…"

Then Lassiter realized that what Spencer couldn't bear was the thought of his father's pain, not to mention the emotional storm that was sure to accompany their reunion. Shawn was barely holding it together as it was. Seeing his father…

Before Lassiter could process that line of thought any further, there was a noise from upstairs. Just a tiny squeak of rubber-soled shoe against the wood floor, but it caused an instinctive, terrified repeat of Shawn's earlier flight response. More fresh abrasions were torn in his back before Lassiter could get ahold of him.

Scrambling after him, he grabbed Shawn's gaunt shoulders and held him still. He could feel the shudders coursing through the man's body, hear the shallow, panicked breaths as Shawn fought to escape. "It's okay. It's okay," he soothed holding him in place with little effort. "It's just your father. You're okay." And he wished his last words were true.

Shawn grabbed hold of his arm again. Wide, terrified eyes stared at a point somewhere past his shoulder as Shawn desperately tried to hang on—to Lassiter and to reality.

As long as it had been just the two of them, together inside Shawn's dark little bubble, he had been able to stay calm. Talking with Lassie, once he'd convinced himself Lassiter was real, he'd felt safe for the first time in ages. The noise—to Shawn's heightened hearing—had been a shocking reminder that there was a big, scary, unseen world out there. A world that had a killer in it—his killer. He wasn't safe after all. He felt exposed—utterly defenseless in a world he couldn't see.

"Lassiter!" came a shout from the top of the stairs.

Shawn gasped and tried to escape again, but Lassiter held him firmly, so instead he shrank into an even smaller ball, pushing his torn back into the bricks, still shaking.

"You got this?" Lassiter asked. "Can I let go?"

"No!" Shawn was screaming inside. "Don't let go! Don't leave me!"

But, on the outside, he managed the barest of nods, and Lassiter stood and made his way quickly to the stairs. He didn't want to leave Spencer in his condition, but he needed to meet the elder Spencer and give him some idea of what to expect.

oO0Oo

Henry had methodically cleared every inch of the shed. He'd been so sure. This had to be where Frey was keeping Shawn.

But it wasn't.

In fact, it didn't look like anyone had crossed the threshold in months.

Defeated, he made his way to the house, certain the detective was having no better luck. Maybe one of the other teams? But then, why hadn't they called? If they'd found Shawn alive, wouldn't his phone be practically jumping off his belt? If they hadn't…

He couldn't bear the thought, pushed it away along with the nausea that threatened to rise with it.

Stepping into the gloom of the old house his eyes immediately went to the open cellar door—especially the broken padlock hanging off a bent hinge.

He stared at it.

His gut was roiling from his desperation not to get his hopes up too high and at the same time wanting so fiercely for his son to be alive.

Could he be?

Lassiter was nowhere in sight. He must be in the cellar. What had he found?

Shawn had to be alive. He had to.

He might not be…

Even if he was alive, he might be permanently… damaged somehow... Physically, mentally, emotionally…

Henry forced his feet to carry him to the top of the stairs.

He shouted for Lassiter.

He was just about to start down the stairs when the man appeared at the bottom.

When Henry saw just how grim Lassiter looked, his legs gave out and he sat on the top step. Hard. Shawn couldn't be dead. Not after all this. Not after holding on to hope for so long…

"He's alive."

Tearful eyes looked down at Lassiter from a clearly overwhelmed mind.

"Shawn's alive," he repeated, letting it sink in. As he climbed a few steps closer, the detective realized Shawn was right. Neither of these men was prepared to handle the heartrending reunion that was about to take place. He also knew there was no stopping it. They both needed it.

He put out a hand.

Henry took it and was pulled to his feet.

"He's alive, and he's thinking pretty clearly, considering. But you gotta be prepared." Lassiter hoped his blunt reporting of the facts would ground the man and bring out some of that famous Spencer stoicism. "He's injured, and he's blind. He thinks it's temporary, but don't make any sudden moves. He's pretty skittish."

Henry stared at him for a long moment, processing. He blinked the moisture away and spoke. "Let me see my son."

Satisfied, Lassiter grimaced as he turned sideways on the steps. Henry pushed past.

Shawn had somehow managed to get himself semi-upright. He was leaning heavily against the wall, turned a bit sideways to avoid putting pressure on his back. All his weight was on his left leg, but he was standing. His head was cocked. He was listening intently.

Lassiter sat quietly and pointed his flashlight toward the whitewashed ceiling, thereby creating a soft glow that somewhat illuminated the small room.

Henry paused at the foot of the stairs and drank in the sight of his son, clearly injured and in pain but alive! Alive and standing on his own two feet—make that one foot, Henry corrected as he assessed what he could of Shawn's condition. He was careful to make noise so Shawn would hear his steady footfalls as he approached.

"Hey, Da-d," Shawn made a valiant attempt to sound normal, even casual, but his voice betrayed him, and the last word ended on a choked whimper. He'd imagined a sarcastic and hilarious sentence that was going to follow. His mouth tried to form the words, but the sound wouldn't come.

Henry clenched his jaw. He needed to be strong now.

He shuffled a final step so Shawn would know he was standing directly in front of him. He reached out and touched his son. "Hey, pal."

"Da-ad?"

Shawn wanted to repeat with his dad what he'd said to Lassiter, but, unfortunately, he was realizing he hadn't been upright in a very long time, and he lacked the strength to do anything other than stay that way. In fact, he wasn't even sure he could do that for much longer.

Thankfully, Henry saw that. Ever so gently, he put an arm around Shawn and helped him sit, carefully guiding the injured leg out in front of him. Once they were both on the ground, he didn't let go. Pulling Shawn to lean against him, he sat and simply held his son. He was horrified at Shawn's condition. Holding his son in his arms, he realized just how fragile he was. He was so thin, Henry was afraid he would break. He was constantly trembling, although whether from fear, exhaustion, pain, or all three, Henry couldn't tell.

He felt Shawn ever so slowly melt into him, the constant tremble building into a shudder that flowed into sobs. The sobs were mixed with garbled words. "Why? Why didn't you come? Where were you? I waited… I waited so long… I couldn't… He… It hurt… so… much…"

"It's okay… It's okay… You're safe now," Henry murmured to him, over and over and over again. He would hold his son and let him pour out his heart for as long as he needed. Nothing else mattered at the moment.

This was good. Lassiter had been worried that Spencer would keep the memories of this horrible experience bottled up under a layer of sarcasm and jokes so they would fester and burn him from the inside out. Crying into his father's shoulder was the healthiest thing Lassiter had seen him do yet. He could hear Spencer saying things to his father. He couldn't understand the words, although he could guess what they might be.

Then he barely made out, between choked sobs, words that sounded more purposeful than the others: "It's not"—hiccup—"your fault."

At that, Henry closed his eyes and just held his son tighter.

Lassiter laid his flashlight on the steps and went upstairs to make a phone call.