CHAPTER THREE

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A/N: allow me to plug some recent new Lassiter/Juliet-centric stories: please check out pothangfanfic's ongoing offering "How Far Would You Go" and also and a new tale by jdschmidtwriter, "Steady As She Goes." Both authors were kind enough to respond to my nagging them for stories, and deserve your eyes upon them! Now back to the forest…

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Rico was studying him as if he were forensic evidence under a microscope.

After a long time, he said heavily, "I don't have a lotta reasons to trust anybody, Lassiter."

"I can relate to that," he muttered.

"So this conversation is over, got it? Just go in the damn woods and find the damn creek and get to the damn campground." He pointed with the gun. "I got work to do."

Patience.

Still not really his strong suit.

Nonetheless… he was a cop. He had to see this through, even if he didn't know why the hell he was doing it this way. Was it because of the bad-seed cousin? Rico's family? Rico himself? Justice?

He stood his ground. "It's the wrong kind of work to try to do alone."

"Let it go, man. Move out."

Carlton persisted, "You only get one chance to do this right. To get what you need from your cousin. To save your family."

"Move out!" he repeated angrily. "This is not for you!"

"Hey, you brought me here! You could have put me down back at P-Bar but you didn't. Because you didn't want to make things worse, right? Because you're not a killer, right? Because you love your family and you want them safe, right?"

"I don't. Need. You. Now get out of here!"

Carlton clenched his fists, feeling as if he were up against a diabolical combination of Shawn Spencer and every single person who ever tried to be perky around him when he was out of coffee.

Or awake.

"You go in alone, you end up dead, and then they've got nobody. Why the hell would you turn down backup?"

Rico was equally frustrated. "Why the hell would you tell a woman you loved her if you knew she didn't love you back?"

Carlton was flabbergasted. "Dammit, what's that got to do with anything?"

"Just tell me!"

Of all the smackworthy time-wasters… he yelled, "Focus! Who's waiting? Your wife? A kid? People hoping and praying to be rescued and find you on the other side?"

Rico nearly threw the gun at him. "Don't start that crap with me! Don't you play like you're some kinda shrink!"

Despite his police training to function in just that capacity in exactly this kind of situation, Carlton was still pissed off at the ludicrousness of it all.

He roared, "Time's running out! The longer we stand here arguing because you're too butt-headed to accept my help, the less time there is for you to save the people you love!"

"They're nothing to you! I'm nothing to you! I punched you in the head and stole your car, man! Now get out of here before I shoot you right between the eyes!"

"They're more important than any of that crap. Let me help!"

"Maybe you just want the drugs yourself," Rico yelled. "Or maybe you just got some death wish because you couldn't get anywhere with that woman!"

He instantly wanted to slug him, twice for each insult, never mind that little voice saying he might have you on the death wish thing.

"I don't want any damned drugs, and would you shut up about her? I'm an idiot, okay? That what you want to hear? That I'm a stupid-ass hopeless moron? While your flesh and blood—something which really matters, dammit—is locked up somewhere crying for you to save them?"

They stared at each other in matched fury, silence gradually settling down around them again.

"No," Rico said flatly. "I wanna know, and the reason I wanna know is because you don't wanna say. Why'd you tell her you loved her if she doesn't feel the same way? Is that the real death wish? Why'd you tell her?"

It was almost the same tone of disbelief and anger he'd used on himself in the trunk during that first hour.

And there was no good answer, and this was all so maddeningly insane, and Carlton was tired and his head hurt and the damn blood on the side of his head felt annoyingly sticky. This idiot was making it impossible to help him and at this point was just as likely to shoot him for staying put as he would for hearing the truth.

So he said it.

The hell with it all: he said it.

"I told her I loved her because I thought you were about to kill me."

Rico stared at him.

Crickets chirped.

A scant ten seconds passed.

Maybe only eight, but definitely no more than ten.

By the sudden coldness Carlton saw in Rico's eyes, ten seconds was all it took for him to do the math.

Rico let out a long, slow breath, and his eyes glittered in the red glow from the taillights.

He raised the gun and pointed it straight at Carlton.

"Well, amigo, I am now."

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It had only been a little over an hour since Carlton's last text, but it felt like days. Juliet was as on edge as if she'd single-handedly drained every Starbucks dry within a ten-mile radius.

The Chief wouldn't let her do anything except sit with her phone and wait. You know the drill, O'Hara. Just be patient, O'Hara. Let us work, O'Hara. Dammit, go SIT DOWN, O'Hara!

Other than the buzz of activity near the conference room, the station was quiet. The Saturday night crew was reporting only the usual level of bar fights and drunk-and-disorderlies, and in a moment of utter melancholy Juliet picked up the phone and walked over to Carlton's desk.

She needed some sense of him—some comfort—from being in his space. Where he sat, where he glared, where he stabbed viciously at the laptop when it didn't cooperate. Where he leaned back and smiled triumphantly when he'd figured out a puzzle, or stood to high-five her when she did it herself.

She ran slightly shaky fingers through her hair and closed her eyes for a few seconds, then put her hands flat on the blotter, imagining his in the same place, leaving his imprint. Carlton. I know now how much I need you.

Damn everything.

IWALU.

The single word blazed in her brain as clearly as if she were looking at the screen itself.

I Will Always Love You…

A heavy sigh escaped, and she trembled despite her resolve to hold herself together.

Looking at the phone now, she did something she should have done—and yet shouldn't do at all—earlier. She took screen shots of their more personal texts, sent them to her private email account, deleted that message from her sentmail, and then deleted the personal texts from the phone. Going over to her private email account, she moved the message to a subfolder within a subfolder within a subfolder. If she were at home, she'd print it out and save only that.

If anyone wanted to see her phone, to see the full range of texts from Carlton, it was going to take a little work to get to the personal conversation they'd had, and particularly his final declaration. She wouldn't hand that to anyone on any platter, silver or otherwise, and it would take a court order to get her to give them up.

Anything about where he was or what was happening, fair game, no contest, and no interference from her. But how he felt about her? That wasn't police business, and she'd deck anyone who thought otherwise.

Juliet blinked back tears and straightened just as Dobson lowered himself into the chair beside the desk.

He nodded at her. "How you holding up?"

She shrugged. "I hate the not knowing. I guess that's a big duh."

He shrugged too. "You can still say it."

"Did you get called in to work on this?"

"Nah. My weekend shift." He sipped from his "World's Stealthiest Cop" mug and gave her a funny look.

"What is it?" Dobson didn't say much most of the time, so when something was on his mind, Juliet was one of those who paid attention.

"Ah… nothing."

"Dobson. Give me something else to think about." Because good Lord, she needed a distraction from the jagged edges of her mind.

He gave her a crooked smile. "You might hit me."

She shook her head. "Too tired."

Dobson seemed to judge that as true. "Hope so. I've seen you take down perps practically with one hand behind your back."

"Damn straight." But then a question unexpectedly popped into her head and she heard herself ask it out loud. "What did you know about Carlton's relationship with his last partner?"

It was hard to faze Dobson, who was preternaturally calm, but his eyes widened. "Uh, not much. No one knew much."

"Did they… were they…" She foundered. "How were they?"

He hesitated. "Barry wasn't here that long. Maybe a year. She kept to herself. She kept to Lassiter. And he…"

"He liked it?" She didn't like how the idea twisted her gut.

"No, I don't mean… I mean he was in a bad place personally then. He didn't have to say much of anything for everyone to know things were bad at home. That ex of his, she used to come down here sometimes just to bitch at him. Barry saw it and I think… well I don't want to say she felt sorry for him because he'd have kicked her to the curb if it was like that."

"But he needed some support," she suggested. "And Barry provided it?"

"Yeah. I guess. I mean that's just how it looked to me. She was ambitious. Not like she was using him but she wasn't stupid. I think she just…" he hesitated again. "Positioned herself strategically. You get me?"

"I get you." Her guts untwisted a little.

"Spencer busted 'em up pretty quick, but I dunno how long it would have lasted anyway. I think she'd have moved up and out of here."

Juliet tried to analyze his tone. "Did you like her? Was she likable?"

He took his time answering. "She was okay. She didn't try to be one of the guys or one of the girls. She was set on being independent. I think that's part of why Lassiter went for it. That someone who didn't need anyone wanted to be with him."

It occurred to her that this was the longest conversation she'd ever had with Dobson, and also that he was exceptionally observant about things no one would ever suspect him of all people to notice in the first place.

But those observational skills—and suddenly the truth of "World's Stealthiest Cop" shone through—could easily be turned on her as well.

"Thanks for the answers," she said. "They aren't questions I could ask him."

He grinned. "Guess not."

"So what were you going to ask that you thought I might hit you for?"

"Oh. Are you dating Spencer?"

Her eyebrows shot up. "What? No. What? Why?"

And why did he look relieved? Surely he wasn't… no of course he wasn't. He was happily married and there'd never been even a breath of scandal about him except that sometimes when he thought no one was looking, he'd skip out on making a fresh pot of coffee after pouring the last cup for himself.

"It's just he's always hanging around trying to put moves on you, and you don't exactly send him packing."

Juliet stared at him.

He said somewhat uneasily, "Forget I asked."

"No, let's clear this up. I'm not dating Shawn. Every now and then I hang out with him and Gus but that's all. Shawn's fun—they both are—but I want someone a little more focused."

Like Carlton.

No… not like Carlton. Carlton.

If anything, Dobson looked even more relieved than before.

It was sort of comical. "What made you ask me this now? Did someone say we were dating?" Then she scowled. "Did Shawn say we were dating?"

"No, but even if he did, I don't put much stock in what he says if it's not about an active investigation."

"Then why did you think it?"

Uneasy again, he shifted in the chair and finally said, "It was something I heard from Lassiter."

Juliet was dumbfounded. "He said I was dating—"

"No," he interrupted. "It wasn't like that. I just heard him… muttering to himself one day this week. It was right after Spencer had been in to chat you up. I heard him say something about you popping out little Spencer babies the way things were going."

She stared at him, open-mouthed. Of all things… of all ridiculous things… of all insurmountably indisputably ridiculous things…

Dobson was eyeing her speculatively. "Sounded like a man with regrets, is what I'm saying."

Still no words, but now goosebumps.

Regrets.

The words on her screen: Inaction. Silence. Me . . . . . About you.

"Dobson," she breathed.

"I know it's none of my business. I know I should butt out. I just thought… if you were dating Spencer, you might like to know to tread lightly around your partner."

She swallowed.

"And if you weren't, you might like to know…" He cleared his throat. "You might like to know he could stand to have his mind eased. Or…" Now he looked down into his mug and sighed. "Or his heart."

Hearing that, hers almost broke.

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