Chapter 6

Mrs. Avala's back yard was very different from Keith Roberts'. While they were both framed with old chain-link fences, his had been brown and bare, with nothing more then an old wooden picnic table and a charcoal grill; hers was lush and green. She had several rose bushes, all of them perfectly trimmed, growing up lattices on the back of her house. The left side of the yard had a beautiful flower garden while the right side was dominated by an orange and a lemon tree. In the back right corner was a large, orderly vegetable garden. In the back left corner there was a small shed, only about 4 feet by 4 feet, made of gray cinder block. It had a heavy metal door with a modern, combination lock built into it.

"You must really be afraid of people stealing your trowels," Shawn said as he approached the fortified shed.

"Oh, no, I don't use that," Mrs. Avala said with a chuckle. "That's the old bomb shelter."

"Really, a bomb shelter?" Shawn asked. "I've always wanted to see the inside of a bomb shelter."

"Shawn, we just saw . . ." Gus started, but Shawn quickly cut him off.

"You know, the whole nuclear scare always fascinated me," Shawn continued. "Living in Alaska, we never had the drills where we climbed under our desk in case of nuclear fallout. We were trained to fight with ice picks and moose guns, assuming there'd be a land invasion. The Governor can see Russia from her house—so there would be plenty of warning."

"Well, I haven't been down there in years," Mrs. Avala said. "In fact, Keith, bless his heart, is the one who got the new door. He said it was dangerous to have it open, without a lock, you know. Vagrants could get in."

"Vagrants?" Lassiter asked. "In this neighborhood? Living in your bomb shelter?"

"He's so thoughtful," Mrs. Avala continued. "He's filling it up with cement. That way no one could sneak in."

"Filling it with cement?" Gus asked. "How big is this shelter?"

"Oh, my Martin was very cautious. It's rather large."

"How large?" Shawn asked. "Could a person live down there—say, kidnap a woman and keep her down there a secret wife?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Mrs. Avala said, her voice reinforcing her confusion. "But, there were several rooms. When the kids were young, sometimes they would throw parties down there."

"That sounds like a big area to fill with cement," Gus said.

"He does it a little at a time," Mrs. Avala explained. "It's very important to him. In fact, the first thing he did after we got home from our cruise was check to make sure the cement he'd pored before we left set properly."

"Oh, Lassie!" Shawn yelled, holding his hand to his head "I'm getting something. . . "

"Don't bother, Spencer," Lassiter said, pulling out his badge. "Mrs. Avala, my name is really Carlton Lassiter and I'm head detective for the SBPD. We have reason to believe that someone is being held against her will in this bomb shelter. We would like your permission to conduct a search."

"What?" Mrs. Avala asked. "Mr. Snape, that's absurd."

"My name is not Snape," Lassiter spat. "It's Lassiter. Do you grant permission or do I need a warrant?"

"Of course you have permission," Mrs. Avala said, she was starting to look very frightened. Finally, Shawn thought, she realized that she'd been played—and not by them, but by Roberts. "But I don't know the combination."

"Not a problem," Gus said, rolling up his sleeves as he approached the door. "I've cracked better locks then this. Time me."

"I'm not going to time you," Lassiter said with disgust.

Gus turned to look at Shawn. "I don't have a watch, buddy," Shawn said with a shrug.

With a frustrated huff, Gus turned his attention to the lock. A minute later, the door swung open and Shawn's heart sank. Unlike Roberts' bomb shelter, which was accessible through concrete stairs, Mrs. Avala's shelter was accessible only through a long, vertical ladder.

"I can't go," Shawn said softly.

"No worries, Spencer," Lassiter said dramatically as he pushed past Gus. "If she's in there, I'll find her."

"I'm going too," Gus said, following Lassiter down the ladder. "We'll be right back."

Shawn watched his friends descend into the dark hole that may, or may not have swallowed Juliet. All he could do was wait, and he hated waiting.

* * *

"Call 911," Shawn told his father as he moved to the edge of the shaft leading to the shelter. "Last time I saw Jules I couldn't get her to wake up. She could be in a coma."

"There's a woman down there?" Mrs. Avala asked. She was clearly shaken by the realization that her benefactor had lied to her. Shawn let her stew with that information. The longer she fretted over it, the more talkative she'd be when the police started asking questions.

"Gus, buddy," Shawn yelled down the hole. "What's down there?"

"Freaky stuff, Shawn," Gus's voice came back. "It's a living room—full of Ikea furniture."

"Uh," Shawn said. "How Blast from the Past. Anything else?"

"Lassiter found a duffel bag down here," Gus yelled. "It's got a Nixon mask in it."

"That's it," Shawn yelled. "We've got him!"

"Oh, Keith!" Mrs. Avala gasped.

"Shawn," Henry said. "Come over here."

"In a sec, Dad," Shawn said dismissively.

"There's more," Gus continued. "The wall is covered with news paper clippings about Juliet's cases. Only, all our names are backed out."

"Our names are blacked out?" Shawn asked. He remembered the box of newspapers in Roberts' bomb shelter. He'd noticed a few of the dates; July 16, 2006—the day after they had unraveled the mystery at the spelling bee, August 26, 2006—the day after they saved the Malcontent and comic book executives from a fiery death at Tri-con, March 4, 2007—the day after Juliet's undercover case at the Sorority House ended. Suddenly, the timing of the kidnapping fell into place. Shawn understood everything.

"Shawn," Henry said soberly. "We need to talk."

"No," Shawn said, not bothering to look back at his father. "You need to call the hospital. She's down there."

"Why," Mrs. Avala moaned pathetically. "Keith . . . I don't understand."

"There's a hallway leading to more rooms," Gus yelled up.

"Go," Shawn yelled. "Get her!"

"Back away from the shaft, Shawn," Henry said. Now he was using his 'angry-father' voice.

Shawn rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to fall down there. I'm perfectly balanced."

"You won't be once I shoot you," Keith Roberts' dark voice said. The statement was accentuated with the unmistakable click of a handgun being cocked.

Shawn took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He'd been so focused on Juliet that he'd forgotten his surroundings – a child's mistake. Mrs. Avala had not been asking hypothetical questions, and his father had not been over protective. They were reacting to a deranged man with a gun.

"You going to shoot me in the back of the head, Keith?" Shawn asked as he carefully scooted around, so that his back was to the shaft and he was facing his kidnapper. "That's not very clever. That's not very foresight-full. That's not you at all."

"I should have killed you in the van," Keith said. He was standing on the other side of the fence behind the flower garden, pointing his gun at Henry and Shawn alternatively. He looked terrified.

"You probably should have," Shawn admitted casually as he slowly and awkwardly approached his kidnapper. "But what would Jules say?"

"She thinks I did kill you," Keith said, turning to focus his gun entirely on Shawn. "I told her you were dead. It doesn't matter."

"Really?" Shawn asked, glancing at his father, hoping the old cop could see the plan that was perfectly obvious to Shawn. "Did she cry?"

"Not for you," Keith said.

"But she did cry," Shawn insisted taking another small step forward and locking his eyes with Keith's. "I can sense it. There was a letter—a letter you sent to Juliet right after she left the mountains. You told her everything. You bared your soul."

"She didn't care!" Keith shouted angrily.

"Tears!" Shawn shouted back. "I see tears flowing down her pretty face—tears of anger and fear. She was seventeen. She couldn't handle the intensity of your emotion—the depth of your love. She didn't answer."

"I tried to explain," Keith said. There were tears in his eyes now, but he still kept the gun level, and pointed at Shawn.

"Letters, letters, so many letters," Shawn continued, inching just a little closer. "Hundreds of letters you wrote but she didn't read any of them. I . . . I see her mother throwing them away. Her mother trying to protect her from you."

"I would never hurt her," Keith said. "I love her more then anything!"

"If only she could know," Shawn continued. "You had to figure out a way to show her. But the letters hadn't worked and life had moved on. She went to college, studied abroad, lived on the other side of the country. You couldn't possibly reach her.

"But then it changed." Shawn said, changing the tenor of his voice from a pounding intensity to softer, methodical, reasoned tone. "Her name started appearing in the newspaper. Fate had brought her back to you."

"Yes," Keith said. "It was fate."

"The problem was you knew she would still be afraid of you. You couldn't risk scaring her off. Her home number and address are unlisted, so the only place you ever knew she would be was in the police station. You couldn't possibly approach her there. You had to get her alone—alone for a long time—long enough that she would realize that you were made for each other. That's when you hatched a very devious plan.

"You knew if Juliet ever went missing eventually someone would come and question you. But no one would think to question your sweet, simple, next door neighbor. Mrs. Avala was losing her house—a house had an extensive bomb shelter—the kind of shelter you could hide a person in for a long time, maybe even years. You bought the house for Mrs. Avala, making her deeply indebted to you. You told her, to protect her, you'd fill the old bomb shelter with cement. But you weren't filling it with cement. You were filling it with furniture, and clothes, and food—with everything you would need to play your twisted little game of house with Juliet."

"Keith, is that true?" Mrs. Avala asked.

Roberts hesitated, Shawn took a step closer and changed his voice again, this time to sound as excited as he knew Roberts must have felt as the events unfolded. "Then you got it. The invitation to Gina O'Hara's wedding. Gina and Juliet had been close as girls—you knew Juliet would come. You booked a trip to Alaska with your neighbor. She owes you everything, so you knew she would lie for you, claim you came back a day later then you did. You tricked the airports, too . . ."

"He traded tickets with another man on our cruise," Mrs. Avala said, very helpfully. "He said his sister was having a baby. I lied. I said it was true."

"Your alibi firmly established, you called the family from Alaska and asked to be told everything about the wedding. You seemed like a caring friend but in fact you just wanted to know when and where Juliet would be and who she'd be with. You couldn't believe how lucky you were when you realized I was her date. You could buy time by blaming the kidnapping on my enemies. You sent the police on a wild goose chase, while patiently waiting for the right time to take Juliet to her new home."

"You told me you were embezzling money from the bank," Mrs. Avala said. The poor old woman sounded heartbroken. "You told me no one would ever get hurt."

"No one got hurt!" Roberts shouted. His eyes were panicked and his gun shook. Shawn knew he'd nailed every detail of Roberts' plan. Now all he had to do was convince the kidnapper to put the gun down. "I just needed to sweep her off her feet!"

"The throbbing pain in my leg begs to differ," Shawn said. "As does Juliet's concussion. If you really loved her, you would have taken her to a hospital."

"You know I love her!" Roberts said. "You're psychic, right. You know those things!"

"I know you're in love with the idea of being with Juliet," Shawn said softly. "But you don't know her. Maybe you never did."

"I thought you understood," Keith said.

"Let me tell you what I understand," Shawn said. "While you were listening to me rattle off your story, my father snuck out of this yard and into yours. He's right behind you now and about to take you out with a Judo chop."

"Wha?" Roberts said, foolishly turning to look behind him, where Henry Spencer was not. During the moment that his attention was diverted, Shawn lunged at Robert's gun-hand, putting his full weight on the man's fist, slamming it onto the top of the fence, and forcing him to drop the gun into a bed of tiger lilies. Shawn fell, too, unable to catch himself with his useless right leg, crushing the delicate orange flowers, but also catching the gun.

Roberts realized instantly that everything changed. Grabbing his wrist, which was almost certainly broken, he turned and started running across his yard, towards his driveway.

"Stop!" Shawn yelled as he pointed the gun in the air and let off a round before aiming it at Roberts' back. "I worked for three weeks at a pheasant farm and I'm a really, really good shot."

Roberts froze in his tracks.

"Dad," Shawn said. Suddenly, he felt out of breath and light-headed. He hoped his father had fulfilled his part of their unspoken plan. "Did you make the call?"

"Ambulance is on its way," Henry said kindly. "Cops too."

"Good," Shawn said. "Now, do you think you could . . . ."

"Make a citizen's arrest?" Henry asked. "No problem."

* * *

Juliet had heard muffled voices through the vent. She was fairly sure there were two of them and she did not want to know any of Keith's friends.

She climbed on top of the old chair, to have a more advantageous position from which to attack and grabbed the vicious club she'd constructed out of the wire hangers in the red wardrobe. Thankfully, Keith, like most men, hadn't concerned himself with proper clothing care. If Juliet were going to buy someone a perverted wardrobe, she would have hung all the clothes on huggable hangers, coated in velvet, which neither damaged the clothing nor became tangled. Also, huggable hangers could not be twisted into a weapon.

The latch on her door clicked, and it was pushed open quickly. "O'Hara," a very familiar voice called—but not before Juliet swung her club at the man's head. She couldn't stop the arch of her swing. Nor could she keep him from stumbling out of the room, hitting the wall behind him, and falling to the ground.

"Carlton!" Juliet screamed, jumping off her chair and rushing to her injured partner. "I am so so so sorry!"

"Juliet!" Gus yelled from down the hall. He ran towards her and suddenly she found herself in a strong, affectionate hug. "We're so glad to see you."

The hug was comforting but quickly turned painful and he exerted pressure on her fractured ribs. "Gus, let go, let go!" she screamed, far more shrilly then she meant to. Gus quickly stepped away from the embrace as she stepped backwards, leaned against the wall, and wrapped her arms around her throbbing torso.

"O'Hara, are you okay?" Lassiter asked seriously. He'd gotten over the shock of being clubbed and was pushing himself up off the ground. Blood was streaming down his face from a cut on his forehead. Still, she could tell that he was overjoyed to have found her.

"I'm ok," Juliet managed to say, smiling at both of them through her pain. "Just a little worse for wear. Carlton, I am so sorry, I thought . . ."

"You thought I was Roberts," Lassiter said. "Understandable. In fact, I'm very impressed with your improvising, Detective. I'll be sure to mention that to the Chief before your next review."

"Thank you," Juliet said, looking around to see if anyone else had come to her rescue. There didn't appear to be any SWAT or paramedics, for which she was grateful. But, she had expected Shawn. She had felt, with unshakable certainty, that if anyone was going to find her, it would be him. The only reason she could possibly imagine that Gus and Carlton would save her, and Shawn would not was . . . was something she didn't want to dwell on. "Now," she said curtly. "If you don't mind, I would really, really like to get out of here."

"No problem," Gus said. "Follow me."

Gus led Juliet through a maze of horrible rooms. Each one was filled with furniture and accessories—the place was set up like a real house. Keith was prepared. He'd had no intention of ever letting her go.

She was so relived to come to the ladder leading to freedom that she almost cried when she saw it. The dizziness that had been crippling when she was in the van with Shawn flared up as she tried to pull herself out of the pit Keith had thrown her in. She had to pause several times and wait for the world to stop spinning. But eventually she made it. Gus, who'd climbed up before her, grabbed her hands and pulled her out. The warm sunlight touched her skin and the cool breeze flowed through her hair. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, savoring the feeling of freedom. But her moment didn't last long, because almost immediately, Shawn's voice broke the peace.

"Jules!" he screamed.

Juliet's eyes snapped open and she turned to his voice. He was hopping towards her on one leg, smiling like a fool. The tears bust out of Juliet's eyes—tears she had been holding back since his voice had awakened her in the dark van. Keith had said Shawn was dead. She hadn't wanted to believe it, but when he was absent from the rescue party, she assumed that was the reason. She hadn't asked because she didn't want to have her deepest fears confirmed. But here he was, goofily hopping towards her, so relived—no, thrilled to see her safe and sound. Juliet rushed towards him and they met in the middle of the garden. He wrapped his arms around her but didn't squeeze, the way Gus had. He just held, and she felt safe.

"I am so sorry, Shawn," she said. "I never imagined . . ."

"That going to your cousin's wedding would get us kidnapped?" Shawn asked with a light chuckle. In the distance, Juliet heard sirens. "It's not your fault. I'm the psychic. I should have seen it coming."

"He told me you were dead," Juliet said. She wanted to stop crying, but she couldn't.

"That was wishful thinking on his part," Shawn told her. They sirens were closer now. "He knew he couldn't stand the competition."

Juliet laughed and pulled away. The sirens were very close and Juliet could see the flashing lights out of the corners of her eyes.

"But, Jules, honestly," Shawn said. "How relived were you when you woke up and discovered you'd only been kidnapped by a crazy stalker, and not sold as underground model?"

As the paramedics ran into the back yard, Juliet laughed again.

The End