AUTHOR'S NOTES: I put in a bit of fluff between Henry and Shawn in this one... at least as fluffy as it gets with those two. :)

Chapter 6- Windows to the Soul

Shawn followed Henry to the empty room and plopped himself down in one of the faux leather chairs. Propping his feet up on one of the others he looked up at his dad expectantly. "Well?"

Glaring at Shawn, Henry grumbled, "Was that little display in the hallway really necessary?"

Shawn returned his father's glare. "Apparently so, for someone who expects me to remember everything, your memory isn't all that great." Shawn scoffed before putting his feet down and looking at his lap. "I don't want to fight dad. I honestly don't have the energy with all the hats I have to wear right now so if that is all you came for, sorry but I am busy." He moved to get up.

Seeing the weary look in his son's eyes reminded Henry of all that his kid had been through. Henry knew that he was one of the only people that Shawn could be his true self around and it was beginning to look like the façade that Shawn put up for the world to see was starting to crack badly under the stress. Henry held out his hands to slow Shawn down before pulling up a chair beside him. "Shawn, I came to talk to you about something you said at the house. That woman who was killed, she used the perfume to cover up her scent to hide it from other vampires right?"

Leaning back in the chair again Shawn nodded. "Her plan backfired though and that is what ended up killing her. She was unable to smell anything through the perfume and probably didn't realize that anything was wrong with her car. What is your point?"

"It gave me an idea. Instead of covering your scent, maybe you could change it." Henry pulled out a small glass bottle from his pocket.

Shawn was almost too scared to ask. He leaned forward and looked at the bottle's label. "Animal Scent- From Glands."

"If this woman was scared enough to be hiding from this other vampire, I figured it wouldn't be too bad of an idea for you to do the same thing, but smarter."

Shawn smiled. Animal scents were used in hunting to lure or deter animals from an area. Depending on the type, it changed the scent, not simply covering it up. He would stink, but he would still be able to smell. Shawn didn't know what to say. It was a good plan but he was still too miffed at his father to admit that.

Deciding sarcasm was the answer, Shawn raised his eyebrows nonchalantly and took the bottle. "Oh, what kid did you get me? Deer? Skunk?" Putting a sultry edge to his voice he said, "How about fox… Jules would love that one."

Henry got up and looked down at him. "I got you something more fitting." He started to walk away as Shawn gave him a confused look from the chair. Once Henry got to the door he stated, "I got you raccoon Shawn." Henry gave him a smug grin before closing the door as shock and horror replaced the confusion on his son's features.

Shawn resisted the urge to smash the bottle in a childlike tantrum. No matter what it was, his dad always got the last jab. Shawn hated raccoons as much as Carlton hated squirrels. Mussing over their shared hatred of rodentia, Shawn put the scent in his pocket and walked out of the station to head back to Psych. He got to the parking lot before realizing Gus had taken the Blueberry already to meet the glass guys and there was no way he was going to be able to walk in the sun for that far.

Groaning he rushed over and caught his dad before his truck pulled out of his parking spot. He was a grown man and a vampire but still had to ask his dad to drive him places. Choking back the embarrassment Shawn managed to say, "Hey dad, could you give me a ride?"

Shawn and Gus pulled up to the burned out mansion on the outskirts of LA around 5pm each in their own vehicle. They had planned to leave right after the new window was put in but were delayed when Shawn had told Gus what happened with his dad before going into the bathroom and putting on the scent. Gus then spent another half hour yelling at Shawn for putting that stuff on inside the office rather than outside.

Crime scene tape was wrapped around only the front of the property due to the fact that the one lane private drive was the only entrance to the house. Shawn bounced out of his car first and super sped up the concrete steps to stop in the shade of the burned out doorway. He took off his sunglasses and looked around at the ruined building.

"Shawn wait up!" Gus called from the Blueberry. "You shouldn't do that! What if someone saw you?"

Rolling his eyes Shawn deadpanned, "Gus, don't be the gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe. I didn't want to stand in the sun waiting."

"Well I still don't know why we had to bring both cars. With the economy and price of fuel one would have been just fine." Gus complained.

"Gus, I would pay for Rob Lowe's private jet fuel for a year if I never had to ask my dad for a ride ever again." Shawn turned towards the empty doorway covered by tape that read, "Danger Do Not Enter." "Do you think we should knock?" Shawn asked sarcastically with raised eyebrows.

"Stop playing Shawn. Let's just get this over with. I want to get back to the office and relax." Gus whined. It had been a really long day and all Gus wanted to do was spend some down time with his friend. He had barely seen for the last week and wanted to be able to sit down and talk which was the actual reason why he was angry about taking both cars and not just sharing one.

Giving an over dramatic sigh, Shawn relented. "Fine…" Stepping through the doorway into what used to be a pretty elaborate foyer, Shawn was able to see the second floor had completely collapsed into what had to have been a dining area.

"Are you sure this is safe?" Gus wondered out loud. The floor beneath them was black from ash and debris and squishy from the water used to put it out.

"Of course it is safe!" Shawn said confidently noticing other footprints in the rubble. "Look, other people have been through here already." Shawn cocked his head and bent down to look closer at the footprints. "Gus, this print isn't from a firemen's boot. Looks more like a dress shoe." Chuckling Shawn continued, "Who would be dumb enough to ruin a dress shoe by walking through this stuff…why aren't you laughing?" Shawn stood up and looked into Gus' angry face. Glancing at his friend's footwear he noticed Gus was wearing the dress shoes he usually wore to work at the pharmaceutical company.

Pointing at Shawn dramatically Gus exclaimed, "You are buying me another pair Shawn!"

"Oh look! A greenhouse!" Shawn stood and pointed, changing the subject and heading over to the outbuilding.

Resigned to the fact that his shoes were already ruined, Gus followed Shawn to the broken remains of the greenhouse. He noticed Shawn's eyes were closed and he was sniffing deeply. "Dude that is just creepy when you do that."

Wrinkling his brow in confusion Shawn declared, "Gus, I think other vampires have been here recently. I am definitely getting two scents." Looking down Shawn noticed the other footprints also went through this area. "The dress shoe guys were vampires."

Joining Shawn at the greenhouse entrance Gus asked, "Why do you think they were here? Do you think they worked with Cynthia?"

"It would make sense that she had some help, even from other vampires. I wonder what they were looking for…" Shawn's attention shifted and he trailed off again. Gus was used to this and was unconcerned until he saw Shawn kneeling on the floor whipping off a small metallic item in the floor.

"What is it?" Gus asked walking up to Shawn.

Holding up a finger while opening the small latch with one hand Shawn said, "Wait for iiiiiiit….." before lifting the cover to reveal a hidden safe. "Man, I am good." Shawn gave Gus a smug smirk before wiping away a few ashes and trying the safe to see if it was open. It was which disappointed Gus. He had been hoping to try out some of his new safe cracking techniques.

"Aw man!" Shawn exclaimed as he realized the safe was empty. "That would have been so cool to find a secret something."

Gus raised his eyebrows at Shawn. "And you wonder why your dad got you the raccoon scent."

"Psssh, shut up." Shawn knew it was a weak comeback but he didn't have much to argue with. Shawn raised his arm for a help up.

Gus helped Shawn to his feet and looked at the empty safe. "Looks like whoever was poking around here found it first."

Shawn shook his head. "No, that doesn't add up. The rubble was on top of the safe so it had to have been opened before the greenhouse collapsed." Remembering another detail Shawn tried to piece what happened together, "But, there were some ashes in between the cover and the safe, meaning that whoever opened the safe opened it while things were burning but before the collapse."

Gus was starting to get it. "So you are saying that someone…"

"Probably Cynthia" Shawn interrupted.

Giving Shawn an annoyed look, Gus continued. "Cynthia... a vampire, ran into a burning building to get whatever was in that safe? It had to have been pretty important if she was risking that."

Nodding in agreement, Shawn still had a thoughtful expression on his face. "Something is missing though, literally this time Gus. If there was anything suspicious on her person or in the car, it would have been in the forensics report or Woody would have mentioned something." An excited twinkle entered Shawn's eyes. "Unless, she didn't have it on her when she blew up!"

"So, she must have given it to someone before she died." Gus didn't see why that would make Shawn so excited.

"Exactly! But not just someone Gus… US! She gave it to us!"

Sometimes, Gus wished he could understand his friend's way of thinking. He got tired of feeling so lost when Shawn got excited. "I'm not following you Shawn. Her house burned down two days ago. She could have given it to anyone in that amount of time."

"If the fires are all connected, maybe she had nowhere left to go! Or maybe Lance was watching for her and she had to hide. Either way do you think she would have come to a psychic detective if she had any other options? Vampires are natural skeptics, believe me."

Finally catching up to his friend's logic Gus stated excitedly, "We have to get back to the office!" Both men did a bit of a victory dance.

Shawn stopped dancing and yelled, "Race you!" before speeding down to his car.

"Shawn! No fair! You pulled in behind me!" Gus shouted before grumbling and making his way to his own, less speedy car.

Shawn pulled into the Psych parking lot first. He made sure to text Gus so he could savor the victory. He had sped only a little bit during the hour and a half drive back so technically it wasn't cheating.

Entering the office, Shawn started searching immediately. He had not noticed anything out of place at first glance so he figured the object had to have been placed out of sight. Groaning, Shawn ended up looking on his hands and knees, checking into every nook and cranny but still coming up short. Growling in frustration he thought, "Maybe I was wrong."

Shawn closed his eyes to concentrate. He was trying to remember what she had done while she was there, where she could have placed it. Shawn's eyes snapped open and looked at the place where Cynthia was sitting the entire time. "The couch! Duh!" Shawn chastised himself for not looking there earlier but he thought it would have been a bit cliché hiding something in a couch.

Carefully lifting the cushions out of the way Shawn dug around the spot she had sat. After finding a bunch of change and Gus' lost name tag, he spotted the top of a vial sticking out of the couch. Holding his breath Shawn pulled the vial out and found it contained a hypodermic needle about the size of an insulin syringe. The needle contained a small amount of red liquid. "Oh, my God." Shawn whispered and looked again at the object in his hand. Who knows how many people had died for this. "The cure…"

Shawn heard the door to psych open. While turning around Shawn exclaimed, "Gus! Come here I…" before realizing that it wasn't Gus. Two men had entered the office. Both were well dressed in casual black suits. One was almost as tall as Buzz, with brown short cut straight hair, another heavier set man was just shorter than Shawn, also brown hair. Both were wearing sunglasses. Shawn as able to smell right away these two men were vampires. Their scents practically screamed it. He quickly hid the cure in his back pocket, hoping neither had seen it, just in case.

Both men wrinkled their noses as they came closer to him obviously catching the raccoon scent that still lingered on Shawn. "Thank you dad…" Shawn thought gratefully before greeting the two men.

"Welcome to Psych! I am Shawn Spencer, psychic detective." Shawn put his hand to his temple. "I am sensing you two are needing help with something." While playing up the psychic shtick he noticed the two men's shoes. Dress shoes and they had bits of black on them. These were the two from the house.

The taller man was the one who ended up speaking. He didn't exactly have an accent but his voice was incredibly cultured. "Yes, I have a question about the woman who met her unfortunate end in the parking lot today."

Shawn nodded sympathetically. "Yes yes, terrible tragedy. I am sorry though, I am unable to share information about my clients, confidentiality agreements ya know."

"Well you see," The man continued as if Shawn had not just told him no, "this woman had stolen something from me." The man took off his sunglasses and started to clean them with a handkerchief from his pocket. Looking down at his chore he continued, "I need you to tell me if she mentioned anything about it before she died." Shawn had to use all of his training to stop himself from screaming as the man looked up. His left eye was a soft honey brown, a complete contrast to his personality, but his right eye was like a dark pit into his soul. Completely jet black.