"Mr. Spencer…" I started, barely noticing I had dropped the first name terms.

His sharp glare cut me off right there.

"Gus," he growled, his eyes flashing spitefully. "I told you you weren't going to stop me. Drop the damn phone."

I pulled my hand away, breaking free of his grasp. "No!" I told him firmly as I took a few steps back, knowing even as I said it that I was taking my life in my hands. "I'm not going to let you--"

"Yes, you are."

"No," I shook my head solemnly, not flinching at his anger for perhaps only the second time in my entire life. "I'm not."

Our eyes locked, and I could tell that the defiant glint on my own glare was matching his.

I also knew that neither of us were backing down this time.

I sighed, taking a cautious step towards him again, making sure I was still out of his reach. "We don't know anything about this guy. We don't know if he's involved or not. We don't even know he burned down the minimart!"

"Give me five minutes alone with him," Henry returned. "And I'll find out. Everything."

I stared at him in complete disbelief, suddenly doubting my ability to talk him out of murder.

What on earth had ever made me think I could talk Henry Spencer out of anything?

I sighed, shaking my head in defeat.

He was right. I couldn't stop him.

"We're still looking for Shawn, aren't we?" I snapped, reaching the limit of my skills as the Spencer's personal Jiminy Cricket. "If he's still alive and if this guy really did it, do you really think two random civilians turning up on his doorstep are going to get anything out of him? All you can do it threaten to kill him, and if he did it he'll take death over telling you anything. I promise. And we'll never know what happened to Shawn, or if we could have saved him."

Henry's fists started to tighten subtly, but it was enough to let me know I was beginning to crack through the hard skull.

"Or he'll just call the cops and get you tossed in jail for assault," I pressed on, playing the only card I had left. "And if you kill him before he does that, you'll spend the rest of your life in jail. If you're really willing to do that, you'd better be sure it's for killing the right guy. Let me call Jules. Give her a few hours to look into it, see what she turns up. You know how the police department works. Even if he's the guy, they won't be able to arrest him for at least a few days. You have time to do whatever you have to do. Just let me make sure he's the guy first."

For a moment, I wasn't sure if it worked.

For a moment, I could see him calculating what it would take for him to take me out and get the phone away from me.

We both knew it wouldn't be much.

Finally, he nodded stiffly. "You're not calling her," he announced, pushing ahead of me towards the apartment door. "We're going to the station. They'll have the whole file, including his prior arrest. I want every damn detail on him you can find on this bastard."

I quickly followed him, shutting the door behind me and heaving a huge sigh of relief.

For the moment, there wouldn't be another murder.

It wasn't much, but it was a small victory.

At that point, I was taking every victory I could get.

I parked a block away from the station so no one would see Henry in my car.

He still insisted he wasn't going to talk to Chief Vick, so I left him there while I went in to snoop for information.

The first person I saw upon entering was Buzz. He saw me across the precinct and smiled and waved.

"Hi, Gus," he greeted happily, his face then growing sincere and somber as he figured out why I was there. "Are you here about Shawn?"

"Yeah," I nodded, holding up the file I had brought with me. "I think I have a lead for Juliet. Where is she?"

"In Interrogation Room A," he told me, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb.

He looked around to make sure no one else was in earshot, then leaned in close. "I think she has a suspect."

"Already?" I asked, my eyebrows arching in surprise.

"Yeah," he nodded. "At least, I think she does. She's been in there for a while."

"McNab!" Lassiter bellowed from the other side of the station. "Where the hell is that report?"

Buzz jumped, quickly sprinting towards the fuming detective before I could ask him who this suspect was.

I glanced around, crouching down low as I activated Stealth Mode.

Who needed Buzz? It's not like Shawn was the only one who knew how to sneak around the precinct.

I ducked behind a desk and made my way towards the interrogation room. I expected to find Juliet behind the glass, going head-to-head with some hardened criminal.

Someone who might have actually wanted Shawn dead.

Someone that could divert Henry's attention, if only for a little while…

But that's not what I found. She was sitting at the table, looking relaxed as she talked with a meek-looking man in his mid-forties and bored looking teenager.

The man was short, scrawny and anything but intimidating.

The kid wasn't barely five feet tall and as far as I could tell no more dangerous than his My Chemical Romance t-shirt.

They definitely weren't suspects.

Juliet was even smiling at them as she passed the paper she was holding across the table to the man.

I stared at her, the anger welling up in my stomach again.

How could she be smiling when Shawn was still missing?

I glanced around to make sure no one was around, then hit the speaker button so I could hear what was being said.

"Well, I guess that's it…" Juliet was saying as she stood up, shaking hands with the man. "I'll file a copy of the report. Thank you so much for coming down."

It sounded so casual…so friendly.

Like she had nothing better in the world to do but sit around and chat.

Like she wasn't supposed to be investigating the disappearance of my best friend.

The man and the kid stood up, too, and all three of them walked to the door. When they stepped back out in the precinct, the man and the kid both pushed past me without so much as looking at me, but Juliet stopped short, looking surprised to see me.

"Gus!" she exclaimed, her smile quickly fading. "What are you doing here?"

At first, I didn't answer.

For some reason I couldn't explain, I was still angry about seeing that smile.

She shouldn't have been smiling.

"Nothing," I snapped, throwing the file down on the floor. "I had a lead, but apparently you have better things to do than find Shawn!"

I spun on my heel to march away, too angry to even look at her.

Was I the only one who cared that Shawn was running out of time?

She grabbed my shoulder, almost gently, and turned me back around.

She wasn't smiling any more.

"Gus, do you have any idea who those people were?" she asked me, her voice hushed.

"No, but they sure didn't look like suspects in an attempted homicide!" I shot back. "You told me you were working on it, Jules! You're supposed to be trying to find Shawn!"
"I am!" she insisted, handing me the report she had in her hands. "That's Bill Donovan and his son, Mike. Mike took his dad's car to go study at a friend's house last night a few miles up the road from where Shawn was hit. When he came out, the car was gone. His dad reported it stolen this morning. Whoever stole it might have used it to hit Shawn. It's the only lead I have, Gus." She told me, her normally gentle voice suddenly getting an icy edge. "I had to start somewhere. I'm doing everything I can. I promise."

"You were smiling!" I shouted, as if that smile had killed Shawn.

She blinked in surprise. "I was conducting an investigation," she informed me, almost coldly. "They're victims, too, Gus. What did you want me to do? Beat their statement out of them? Would that find Shawn any faster?"

"It'd be something!" I shouted, this time really storming away. "At least you wouldn't be wasting time!"

She called something after me, but I didn't listen.

I couldn't listen.

Henry was right. The police weren't going to find Shawn.

Not like that.

It was up to me.

As I slammed the precinct door behind me, I suddenly realized I didn't want to stop Henry anymore.

Now I wanted to be the one to take the shot.