I blame the title of this chapter on centipede too, btw. Srsly. The grossness is all her. Speaking of grossness, I really did try to make this episodic, I swear. I think I got most of the elements. It's just slightly more...graphic and violent than the actual show. Which brings me to the warning.

WARNING: There is some gore in this chapter, just FYI. :D

Hope you guys enjoy!

"Okay. Clarice, Clarice, take a deep breath and why don't you take me, and the nice police officers here—" Shawn said, gesturing at Lassiter and Juliet, "—to wherever Robbie is."

They arrived at the Tornado Twister three minutes later. The Twister was an enormous blue tube that spiraled upward for five stories. It was the tallest attraction in the park by far and usually the most popular, but for the last week and a half, the ride had been shut down for repairs, cordoned off by eight foot high chain link fences covered in blue tarps. Clarice led them through a small gap in the fencing and pointed to the area just behind the end of the tube. The water in the pool at the bottom was tinged pink, and a puddle of diluted blood was dripping into it, trailing drunkenly from the body lying at the poolside. Shawn pried the weeping girl from his figure and started toward him. Lassiter immediately caught hold of his arm.

"Spencer, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

Shawn shot him an exasperated look. "Dude, I'm a lifeguard. This is my job, remember? You guys are the cavalry. Just give me a sec—"

"Dude," Lassiter said derisively, "if that man is dead, this is a crime scene and you therefore have no business going anywhere near him."

Shawn pursed his lips irritably, but gestured magnanimously for Lassiter to go ahead. He followed on the detective's heels.

Pronouncing the man dead was easy. The bloody slice dissecting Robbie Grinsley's throat made it obvious that no amount of rescue work was going to bring him back. More disturbing than that even was the fact that an entire thin slice of the man's skin had been completely removed from his chest, leaving exposed fatty tissue and muscle. Lassiter stepped back, pushing a slightly pale, grimacing Shawn along with him, and said in a tight voice, "I'll call the chief. Spencer, take that girl and go stand over there. This is now a crime scene and she's our primary suspect."

"What?" Shawn said, his disbelief evident. "You think it was Clarice? So she just slit the guy's throat, who, by the way, she has been sleeping with for the last five years and has this whacked out idea that he's going to divorce his wife and marry her, and then thought, 'Gee, I should go screaming through the park to get the psychic detective so he can see this'? Lassie, seriously."

Lassiter glared. "First on the scene, first suspect. Just take her aside and watch her, will you?"

"Um, excuse me, officers?" a meek voice called from the gate.

Both Lassiter and Shawn turned to see a fair-skinned, dark-haired girl, probably in her mid-twenties looking at them wide-eyed from the gate. She too was drenched. "What is it?" Lassiter snapped, voice a little harder than necessary.

She quailed slightly, and Shawn took note of the white-knuckled hands clutching the gate. "I—I just, um—I saw what happened here."

Much to his displeasure, the witness, a girl named Josie, was added to what was rapidly becoming "Shawn's Babysitting Service".

His face contorted as Clarice, who was still crying hysterically and had somehow managed to find her way back into his arms, buried her nose into his shoulder, smearing wetness along the skin. Oh gross. Okay, that was enough of that. He didn't care if the girl turned and pulled Josie to pieces with her fingernails, he wasn't going to let her drip tears, snot, or God-knew what else onto his flesh.

"Hey, uh, hey, Clarice? Why don't you—" His face contorted as she wiped her wet cheek on his shoulder as she lifted her face to look at him and he continued, trying to quash the expression, "—Why don't you take a deep breath and tell me what happened?"

"I—I was back there, on the other end of the pool. Robbie was testing the Twister—it just got fixed this morning—and he had plans to meet some detectives here, because he thought Bobbie was taking money out of the park." She swallowed, her eyes welling up with tears and Shawn squeezed her shoulder, trying to be reassuring. "I was talking on my cell phone when…when he came down, because, you know, it was Robbie and—" She sobbed and continued in a choked voice, "I turned around when he screamed. The first thing I saw was all the blood and he just stopped screaming all of a sudden, and slid into the pool. Everything turned red…" She choked and said, "I'm sorry—" She buried her face in Shawn's shoulder again and sobbed, shaking and clinging tightly to him. He grimaced, patting her shoulder awkwardly.

"What was it you said you saw—Josie, right?" he asked over her shoulder.

The dark haired girl nodded, arms wrapped around herself, and said softly, "I—I was sneaking in to go on the ride and I heard the scream. I helped her get him out but...he was dead."

Shawn nodded, absently patting Clarice's back as he stared at the tube opening imagining what the girls had described. He made a face. Nasty. And they had even dragged the guy, gushing blood, and already dead, from the pool, attempting to save him.

And that thought brought to mind that Clarice had essentially been swimming in his boss' blood. "Clarice—Clarice, you gotta let go of me. I—the spirits are calling me, I have to—"

She sniffled loudly, but nodded and mumbled, voice thick, "O—okay, if you have to."

"I do," he said fervently, and the second she had released him, moved quickly out of reach.

Unfortunately, he was stopped by Detective Lassiter.

"Where do you think you're going, Spencer?"

Shawn grimaced. "Lassie! The spirits were summoning me to go—"

"I don't think so. I told you to stay here. In fact, while we're waiting for CSU to arrive, why don't you give me your statement?" Lassiter suggested, and his hand fastened, pincer-like around Shawn's bicep, dragging him away from the crime scene.

Shawn sighed dramatically.

"Lassie, is there a reason you like touching me so much?"

Juliet glanced over her shoulder at Shawn casually from the head of the pool where she stood waiting for CSU and the backup officers they had requested. He was standing with Lassiter, an amused smile on his face as the detective questioned him about his whereabouts, sunglasses perched jauntily on his nose. She really, really hated to admit it, but Shawn had a body that was far from unpleasant. She could admire his figure without crossing any boundaries, right? She bit her lip and shook her head, turning back to the task at hand.

After another five minutes of half-listening to Shawn making Lassiter's life difficult, she spotted their backup, two plainclothes officers tailed by two members of CSU, one dressed head to toe in a wet suit, dive mask hanging around his neck and an air tank strapped to his back. A few people managed to spare a glance for the strangely attired procession, but otherwise, their attempt to keep this low-key was working. They hadn't yet located the co-owner of the park and they didn't want to cause a panic by spreading a rumor that a man had been killed on one of the rides. The fact that this particular ride was already closed down and cordoned off for repairs was proving extremely helpful.

"Lassiter," she called, "They're here."