Disclaimer: I own nothing from the TV show, Psych. Its characters belong to the cast and crew as do the producers of Fear Itself. Any copyright infringement is unintended and may be reported to me.
.
6. Psychosis
Shawn's body did not appreciate the sudden and stark contrasts in temperature. First, it had been in an inferno. Then, it was cool like a cucumber. Now, he was in a stuffy closed off place, his hands duct taped behind him and a blindfold over his eyes. There was no gag. He was grateful for that. He couldn't breathe properly and the loud and embarrassing sounds made from him sucking in the air through his mouth were cringe worthy.
But he was sure he was alone. He didn't know how long he had been left in the darkness but Shawn knew for sure that the fog that had been in his mind had disappeared.
It had taken a while though. His fight with Juliet had made him boil like the weather outside the car. He didn't know why, but now, looking back on it, he was sure that the pair had been drugged. Juliet would never have suspected Shawn like that. She would never have doubted him.
The person marrying you is a serial killer.
He shuddered remembering those words. He had never killed anyone. He was quite sure Juliet's track record included only Julien Drake. What kind of sicko would send a disturbing message like that to her? Someone who wanted to break up the engagement, obviously. But it hadn't explained Juliet's behaviour.
Shawn twisted his fingers inside to keep moving the duct tape. Hopefully, he'd be able to break the tape before he broke his wrists.
He didn't know why everything happened. He had been fighting with Juliet. And not a simple argument – a full blown, hands down fight which involved a gun.
He had been so close to shooting her. He must have been high. There was no other explanation as to the way he had hurt her. There was definitely a logical reason for why they acted in such an irrational way. There also had to be a reason why someone would take the pains to abduct him and then leave him in a deserted spot for hours.
Shawn couldn't hear the sounds of city life. It smelt cold and damp. His overheated skin welcomed that but he couldn't help but fret about Juliet. She had been moving even less than he after the car had hit them. Lying underneath the sun on the hot road could damage her internal organs and suffocate her mind.
He swallowed. His throat was parched. He tried to move again when he heard the creak of a door with rusty hinges swinging. There were sounds made by the scuffing of footsteps. It felt like a man with a light tread.
Shawn cursed the blindfold, wishing he could see his captor. His mouth felt useless. He was too dehydrated to make any legible noise for conversation.
The unknown assailant stopped right next to Shawn. He heard the click of a gun.
"Shh." The man said. He reached down to grab Shawn under the arms. With a heave, he started to drag him across the floor. Shawn tried to move away, but he seemed to have lost all strength. It felt like he had blacked out, but he could faintly remember being lifted away from the ground. In a few minutes, he was sitting awkwardly on a chair and groaning. There were some other sounds that echoed around the room.
Okay, Shawn thought. Echoes meant a large area. No city noises. He was somewhere on the outskirts of any urbanisation in what he guessed as an abandoned place.
Suddenly, there was a sharp metallic sound. Shawn held his breath. It sounded like a pocket knife. Before he could even try to think of a way out, his abductor cut the ropes binding Shawn's hands. Then he took off the blindfold.
A flashlight was immediately held to his face. Shawn whimpered. The light blinded his strained eyes and overtired mind.
There were some other sounds of something large opened. The last thing Shawn felt was him being lifted again and pushed inside a small space. He heard the flap shut and felt a cold breeze flit through his body. He shuddered, losing consciousness.
When Juliet came to, she could hear an electrical beeping noise that coincided with her pulse. She was lying on a soft bed. Her skin felt partially numb. Her throat ached for water.
She was in a hospital. That much was clear. She blinked a few times to clear the spots in her vision. The room came into clarity.
The skin on her arms had the look of a harsh tan. They seemed to hurt too, but she couldn't be sure of that. Her fingers and toes felt stiff. Her eyelids were heavy, urging her to go back to sleep.
"Julie? Honey?" A soft voice called from beside her. She turned her head slowly and saw her mother stand to her right, an expression of worry and relief on her face.
"..." She couldn't make a sound. Maryanne's hand flew to a paper cup sitting on a tray beside the cot and she held a straw between her lips.
The cold water was incredibly blissful for her insides. She sighed happily, sucking in as slowly as she could. The water seemed to clear her head and increase her awareness. She looked up at her mother, more awake.
"Do you want some more?"
She shook her head. Her mother smiled and set down the cup, placing her hand on Juliet's cheek very carefully. It was sensitive to touch but she leaned in feeling much better.
Then a thought came to her. "Shawn?"
Maryanne's face fell. Juliet looked up in alarm. What was wrong? Why did her mother...?
Oh... oh god.
She remembered what had happened. It came back to her. The fighting. The shouting. The gun. The note.
The car.
"Mom." She whispered. "They took Shawn!"
"I know, sweety. It's going to be okay. Chief Lassiter already has a search team to pick up on the trail. But you need your rest."
"He's hurt."
"So are you. And you won't be helping him if you strain yourself. You've been here for only ten hours. The doctor said you need a full day's rest before you can start walking around."
Juliet closed her eyes and leaned back. Everything had gone wrong. She couldn't believe she had pulled a gun on her husband. What had she been thinking? Why did she act like that?
"A couple of teenagers found you on the road. They got you to the hospital. The doctor said that you have mild hyperthermia. They had to put you in a cold water tub for a few hours."
Mild hyperthermia? "Heat stroke?" She asked.
Her mother nodded. "Are you feeling better now? Does it hurt anywhere? I can call a nurse."
Juliet's head spun. "Water."
After draining two more cups of cold mountain H2O, she heard a commotion outside. It sounded like two someones were in a heated discussion. Her mother sighed. "I think that's the Chief."
It was. Lassiter stormed in the room looking majorly ticked off, but it turned into a look of surprise when he saw his detective awake.
"O'Hara! Good to see you! Can you talk?"
"Chief." Maryanne complained.
"A little." She whispered. "Shawn?"
"We're doing everything we can to find him. But we need to –"
The door opened and a man in a doctor's coat rushed in. "I'm sorry, Detective –"
"It's Chief of Police." Lassiter half-snarled.
"Yes, but the patient needs her rest. At least a few hours of sleep will show a marked improvement."
"It's okay, Doctor." Juliet said, her voice cracking. She nodded at Lassiter to continue.
He gave the doctor a smug smile and said, "We'll need a statement, O'Hara. Of everything that happened after you left the party."
She looked up at him, troubled. She had to come clean. Her mother held her hand tightly as she said, "Actually, Carlton, it started before that. It began with the hit and run case of Father Chris."
Before she could continue they heard sounds of another altercation outside. A few people argued but the loudest voice was that of Henry Spencer saying, "Sorry, godammit! But this is important. Move!"
The door to her ward opened and Gus ran in followed by Henry, both looking as though they had raced for miles.
"Lassiter! Forensics were just finished... Juliet! You're awake!" Gus surged forwards as though to hug her. Instead he just caught her arm. "How's your vision? What about your irrationality? How does it feel to be here?"
She stared at Gus who was half way to a state of panic. Her mother got up from her chair and guided Gus into it, patting his shoulder as he took deep breaths.
"What?" She asked looking from him to Henry. The man was stone-faced and he said stiffly, "CSU just finished processing your car and your house, Juliet. It matches what the doctors found in your blood."
She stared, still not understanding. Her mother gasped. Lassiter swore and Gus groaned, dropping his head into his palms.
"I don't understand."
Henry handed her the file he had been holding. She took the thin manila and flipped through the papers. It had a record of everything found that should not have been found in her house and car. LSD.
"There were fading traces of a hallucinogen in your blood. CSU found the same substance in the vents of your house and in the air freshener in your car." Henry explained.
"How potent is it?" Lassiter asked, scowling at the file.
"Lysergic acid diethylamide." Gus elaborated. "LSD is very compelling. If inhaled for more than an hour or so, it can cause serious delusions, hallucinations and heightened sensual awareness."
Well, that explained how Shawn and Juliet made out solidly after a heavy argument, twice – once in her house and the second time in her car. She sat up slowly and carefully, holding on to one of the metal rungs of the hospital bed.
"I haven't been entirely truthful..." Juliet said.
She told them everything. Starting from the Prius, the note, her strange behaviour and ending with the fight and the Prius again. The more she talked, the more it helped her to make sense of things.
Someone had taken the Father out and slipped her the note to ruin the wedding. That same someone had to be the kidnapper.
"Juliet!" Her mother sounded shocked. "Why didn't you tell anyone about the message?"
"That's a legitimate threat to a detective. We can register it. I think we have that note from the crime scene. We'll check up on that. Any hope to see you up on your feet by tomorrow, O'Hara?"
"Chief..." Juliet's mother looked angry. Lassiter backed down. "Right, two days will be enough."
"I'm sure your department can work, for once without my daughter, in finding her husband." Maryanne threatened.
Juliet almost smiled. Her mother could put forward her word if wanted to. Though she preferred to be mild mannered, when the time called for it, Maryanne was a force of nature.
"I... yes, of course. On your time, O'Hara." Lassiter nodded.
"Wait! Any other leads?"
"None, but I'll check up on the Father's hit and run case and connect it to this. It's been nearly eleven hours since Spencer's missing, we have to hurry up."
Henry stopped him. He had a frown and his fist clenched as he thought hard. "Just a second. I think I remember something about a cold case from a few years ago. It sounds like the same M.O. There was a wedding where the bride received a threatening note. I don't remember the details though. Definitely out of our jurisdiction."
"I'll get right on it."
.
Juliet signed out AFFMA. As in, Against Family, Friend and Medical Advice. Her body smarted with every step and she knew she was a walking poster for terrible tanning booth advertisements. Her hair was pulled back away from the skin of her face and neck, she wore lose cotton clothes and her mind was set. She had to find Shawn.
And if she had to kill someone on the way, so be it. Her gun, it was assumed, had been taken by the culprit. No worries, she could simply strangle him.
When she entered the familiar building of the police department, several officers stood, stunned, watching her. She shot them a glare and they hurried back to work. She walked straight into the Chief's office.
The moment she entered the room, Lassiter said, "O'Hara, you're too close to this case."
"Save it, Carlton. Nobody wants to catch the S.O.B. who took my husband more than I do." She snapped.
"You may want to wait in line." Henry called from the other side of the room. He gave her an unhappy look. "Your mother called, by the way. She kept complaining."
"I told her..." she trailed off and sighed. Shawn was her priority. Her mother knew that. As dangerous as the case was, Juliet wasn't going to back out.
Gus, who had been sitting quietly in the corner, looked up from a file he was reading. There had been times when he looked deadly serious before and all of those situations involved someone close getting into a perilous case, it was usually Shawn.
Lassiter, Henry and Gus shared a solemn look before latter got up and gave her the file he had been looking through. She frowned at the wariness in his face and looked down at the papers.
It was a 2008 Missing Persons report. Unsolved. Juliet went through the synopsis. Samantha and Carlos Vasquez mysteriously disappeared during their honeymoon. Last people to have seen them were some of the hotel staff where they had stayed a few nights. The newlywed couple had never checked out. The window had been opened, the room was left trashed and one of the key pieces of evidence had been a piece of paper left behind.
The bride, Samantha, had two friends who confirmed that Sam had received a note which made her fear her husband, Carlos, for some reason. They never knew what the note had said.
Juliet stared at the photo of the note found in Vasquezes' hotel room.
The person you
are marrying is
a serial killer.
Juliet inhaled sharply. She went over the words again and again.
"It's different." She whispered.
"Yeah. We're not sure why this note is different from the one sent to you, but it's definitely connected." Lassiter muttered.
She looked up the three men were looking at everything in the room except for her. They seemed to be avoiding her. They weren't doing a very good job of it.
"What?" She asked, feeling angry again.
Gus made a choking sound like he was holding back a sob. "Turn the page, Juliet."
She didn't want to. Whatever Gus was afraid of in the file, she wasn't sure she wanted to know about it. But she had to. They had to find Shawn.
She went on to the next page in the file and stared. A shock went through her system.
There were two photographs. One of the bride and one of the groom. And they looked exactly like Juliet and Shawn.
Aside for the hair, Sam and Juliet seemed as indistinguishable as Carlos and Shawn. Sam had longer, straighter brown hair while Juliet was a blonde. Carlos had neat and wavy tufts whereas Shawn had the spiked up careless do.
Leaving the hair, the couples were practically identical.
"What the hell?" She said, looking up.
Lassiter stood up, as agitated as the others, "We don't know. We checked all case files from the surrounding counties for similar modus operandi as the note and this was the only one registered in the database. The couple are very real. But nobody knows where they are, or if they're dead or if Carlos killed his wife."
"But why do they look like us?!"
Lassiter seemed to be at a loss for words. Henry spoke up. "We called up the police department from LA to verify the couple. They are real people, no plastic surgery, no voodoo black magic. We don't know why they resemble you and Shawn, but they do. We have to track them down if we can't find any other leads to our case."
Juliet sat on one of the chairs beside Gus, "What about the Prius?"
Lassiter shook his head. "Dead end. No one knows anything about a black Prius leaving town. You were attacked on the Highway. If the kidnapper left, then it'll be harder for us to track them down."
"Shawn's phone?"
"It was lying on the road next to you."
Juliet swallowed. His phone must have fallen out of his pocket when they had fought.
The desk phone rang. Lassiter snatched it up, "SBPD Chief speaking."
Juliet read the details of the missing couple. Sam and Carlos. Whirlwind romance. Shot gun wedding. Suspected pregnancy – not confirmed. The note. Carlos' guarded behaviour during the after party. The guests had remembered seeing them fight. The bridesmaids – Kelli and Ruthie – had given evidence of how Sam had called her brother and left a voice message indicating her suspicion of Carlos.
The strangest thing had happened when the couple had left for their vacation. They had seemed absolutely normal. No trace of fighting. It had confused Sam's friends.
Juliet bit her lip, trying to put the pieces together. To her, it seemed like Carlos had found the note in the hotel room and had gone into a frenzy, kidnapping his wife and somehow, escaping the place without anyone knowing.
Carlos' background information backed her up. He had lost his parents at the age of sixteen and had never really recovered from that. His uncles had sent him to a rehabilitation centre to help him hold onto reality. It had taken him years.
She stared at the photos. It was scary. It was uncanny how Carlos looked like Shawn, yet at the same time, she could see the minor distinctions. The way he smiled, the locks over his head – it was all different.
"What is it?" Henry asked. Juliet started. She thought he was speaking to her.
Lassiter set down the phone slowly, "Father Chris woke up. That was the hospital. The doctor said that he was ready to talk about the car that hit him."
.
The hospital room was even quieter and seemed darker than how her ward had looked like. The Father looked old and weary and Juliet felt guilty for keeping him awake, but he was the one who had called them.
"Father?" She called out carefully.
He blinked up at her and said, "Eh?"
"Father." She said in a loud voice. "What can you tell us about the car?"
At first he looked confused, "What car?"
The four of them stared at him. Gus leaned in. "The car that landed you in the hospital. Do you remember, Father?"
Juliet waited on tenterhooks. Could he have forgotten already? Could they be that unlucky?
"That black car! Oh, yes. I remember bits and pieces." He nodded, suddenly looking energetic even though he was in a thin dress and attached to wires.
Juliet stood up straight and groaned silently at the pain that coursed briefly through her back. "Do you remember the driver?"
"No."
"The license plate?"
"No."
Henry frowned. "Then what do you know?"
The patient exhaled leisurely and then looked up at the window. "It looked new."
He fell silent after those three words. They waited for a few minutes before Lassiter started to lose his patience.
"Father, do you remember anything more useful to help us with the case?"
The old man closed his eyes as though he were exhausted.
"Father, please." Juliet begged. She couldn't take it anymore. "Please tell us what you know. A man is missing. We need th –"
"Rented."
Juliet stopped. "What?"
"It was a rented car. I saw a sticker with the logo from Santiago's."
Gus stood at attention. "Santiago Rentals? That's just a few blocks from here."
.
Almost thirty hours ago, she was getting married. Now, Juliet was standing inside the showroom for four-wheeler rentals. Alfred Santiago, the owner, looked surprised at the interrogation.
"Most of my vehicles are second-hand, but I assure you, they're first rate in condition." Santiago spoke with a hint of an Australian accent in his tongue. He was a slightly portly man, in a crisp business suit. He waved his arm a lot as he talked. "Are you trying to tell me that someone is using my car to knock down people?"
"And for kidnapping." Henry replied, un-amused. "We need a log of all your black Priuses, right now."
"Look, they have a Cranberry for rent." Gus murmured checking out a gleaming dark red Echo, much like Gus' Blueberry.
"Oho! You interested, fella?"
"The log book." Lassiter sneered.
Santiago heaved a sigh and called in one of his employees. A younger man rushed into the large showroom with an iPad. He scrolled down the lists and stopped at a page.
"There's just one black Prius rented out at the moment."
Juliet had a grim smile. "Perfect."
.
It took them a while, but the company was able to remotely switch on the transponder in the Prius. The moment they got a signal, Lassiter assigned the officers into two teams. The signal led them into an abandoned (figures) warehouse at the periphery of Santa Barbara.
The territory was long own by a family named Austen, but was shut down years ago. The car could be seen from a distance. It was parked next to the building, half concealed in the shadows of the warehouse. The sun was setting and their time was running out.
The rusted gate was open and several officers trickled in, wearing their Kevlar vests over their uniforms. Juliet gripped her borrowed gun as she donned on her vest. It pulled at her tender skin and muscles, but she gritted her teeth and latched it on anyway. For Shawn.
"Alright, listen up. I want express mobility and clean check-ups in all rooms. Alternative routes, team by team. Go in pairs, have each other's backs and let's hope we get our guy." Lassiter commanded, holding up his gun. He then glared at Henry and Gus to stay put.
Everyone knew that they wouldn't.
Juliet followed one of the officers into the deserted grounds. It was open lands and nobody could hide there. Everyone stopped as Lassiter checked out the Prius. He made a waving motion with his left hand – continue with the search. The car was empty.
She held her weapon tightly. Nothing would catch her by surprise this time. If she saw the captor, he would have bullets in his body.
They searched every inch of the halls. Though the warehouse was definitely for long time storage space, there was nothing stored. The officers started to climb up the stairs to check the empty place. Three floors in total.
Juliet turned back to see Gus and Henry following the others. Henry seemed to be scanning every surface available to him. He didn't have Shawn's gift, but was not lacking in the deductive department.
"O'Hara!" One of the officers hissed. Juliet raised her gun automatically. Officer Leary pointed at a miniature box mounted on the wall. It was an electric meter. The needle was twitching.
"There's electricity here." Juliet whispered. She signalled to Lassiter, who was on the ground floor to reach the second landing.
"I have your back." Juliet told the officer. The latter nodded and took a deep breath. Both women stalked into the small room. It was desolate except for a large container pushed to the wall. Juliet watched the faint lights below the container and advanced towards it.
"I think it's an ice chest." Leary mumbled. Juliet clutched the gun tightly. The warning bells rang out in her head. Cold sweat gathered over her sun burnt skin. She grabbed the lid of the container and tugged. It was heavy and clearly hadn't been used in a while. She exerted a little more pressure and was able to pull it up and swing it over.
And then she looked inside. Her hand let go of the top. It fell against the wall with a resounding thud.
Amidst the white cold mist was a body underneath the thick ice. It was Shawn.