Thank-you to everyone who has taken the time to leave me a note. I pour over every word and read them several times. I hope to respond to each of you individually, but in the meantime, THANK-YOU!
Previously…
Shawn was left frowning after Mallow. What question? Who had 'studied' him? What had happened when he was five? He was pretty sure that other than his dad constantly testing him, no one had ever put him under a microscope like this.
And what would Mallow do when he realized there was no answer to his question?
o0o
"Shawn said he had an 'appointment…' I wonder if this is what he was talking about."
"Well, there's an address here. Let's check it out."
"When do we tell Lassiter?" Gus asked.
"When we have something to tell," Juliet shrugged as they left to check out the address on the card.
oO0Oo
Testing, Testing, One, Two, Ouch!
Chapter 3
oO0Oo
Gus and Juliet's next stop was the small office building listed on Dr. Mallow's business card.
"It's about time someone paid attention to my complaints!" the landlord of the small office building whined when Juliet and Gus asked him about Dr. Mallow.
"Excuse me?" Gus asked.
"This is the third time this year someone has skipped out on their lease. I've called the police every time and nothing ever comes of it," he complained loudly.
"Dr. Mallow ran out on his lease?"
"Yes, that's what I'm telling you! I try to check in on as many of my tenants as I can over the weekend, and when I got here this morning, Mallow was just gone. He'd only been here two weeks! Plus his deposit check bounced! This is criminal and it's going to put me out of business!"
"Sir, I'm going to ask you to calm down," Juliet soothed. "We will need to take a statement from you. Can you stop by the station this afternoon with any information you have on Dr. Mallow?"
"And can we look around at the office?" Gus asked timidly.
The landlord growled but let them in.
There was nothing to find, though. An hour later, they gave up and left. The small office had been meticulously cleaned.
Where was Shawn?
They decided to stop by the house on the way back to the station, just to be sure they had covered every possibility. As they suspected, Shawn wasn't there, but at the very least it gave Juliet the opportunity to pick up her car.
Walking through their house was making Juliet even more nervous. The Saturday paper was still on the front stoop and Friday's mail was still in the box. And while Shawn regularly forgot to bring in the mail, he never missed the newspaper. He still read every headline just to see if there was a case out there that needed his attention.
She joined Gus in the front room. "Okay, now I am worried. The last time you saw Shawn was what? Thursday?"
Gus nodded. "We talked on the phone about our plans for last night."
Juliet sighed and grimaced. "You know I can't do anything officially until it's been 48 hours."
Gus nodded sympathetically. He knew she wanted to work on this as much as he did.
"Look, I've already been away from the station for longer than I should, and I do have other cases that need my attention, especially after being away for two days. Carlton is not going to appreciate this."
Gus knew she was just trying to make herself feel better in her worry for Shawn. "It's okay. You go back to the station, and I'll see what I can find out on my own."
Juliet nodded, gathering up her things and locking the door behind them. "Let's meet at the station at five. That'll be close enough to forty-eight hours."
Gus nodded, wide-eyed at the thought that Shawn had gotten himself into who-knows-what kind of trouble.
oO0Oo
When Mallow returned again, he was grinning and humming, obviously very pleased with himself.
Every muscle in Shawn's body ached. He usually enjoyed having nothing to do, but actually sitting still had never been his strong suit, and sitting in the exact same position for over twenty-four hours was taking its toll on his muscles. He was exhausted. At least his nose and the cuts on his wrists had finally stopped bleeding. He groaned and squinted up at Mallow. "Feeling pretty pleased with yourself, I see. Did you steal candy from babies? Push an old lady under a bus? What?"
Mallow's grin faded for just a moment, but then it was back. "Shawn, that's no way to talk to your host. Especially when I spent the better part of the morning working on a present for you."
"Present?"
"Oh, yes. I think you'll like it very much."
"Look… can't you just tell me what this is all about? None of this makes any sense!" Shawn was too tired and ached too much to come up with something clever.
Mallow smiled, but it was an evil, predatory smile. He walked up to Shawn and leaned in close. "You think you're so smart." He tapped a finger against Shawn's temple while he spoke. "You've got allllll kinds of facts stuffed up in that brain, and you think that makes you better than everybody else. Solving crimes. Seeing things that other people miss, remembering what they forgot. Thinking you know what goes on in someone else's head. You're all alike, you eidetics. I hate every one of you. Well, maybe you're not as smart as you think you are. You can't even figure out what I want! Maybe I should just kill you now and get it over with… But you are so much more promising than the others!" He leaned in just a little more, staring into Shawn's eyes. "You know… You must! I know you do."
Shawn saw the hate, and the insanity, and he was afraid. Whatever info this guy was after - Shawn didn't have it. He had to do something. This guy was crazy. This guy was going to kill him.
Desperate, Shawn made his move.
The doc leaned in yet again to whisper something and Shawn took tight hold of the arm-rests of his chair and pressed his heels against the legs. He drew back as far as he could and then drove his forehead into Mallow's nose with all the strength he had.
With a yelp, Mallow fell back, his nose now mirroring Shawn's.
Unfortunately it didn't quite work as well as Shawn hoped. The doctor was only stunned for a moment, and when he regained his equilibrium, he was angry. Very, very angry.
He regained his feet, his eyes filled with an insane fury, and he punched Shawn in the face – again and again, until – and long after – his victim had lost consciousness.
oO0Oo
Juliet was driving back to the station, but she hardly saw the road. What could have happened to Shawn? They had finished a big case the week before, and as far as she knew, Psych had no new cases. Who was this Mallow?
A noise in her car brought her attention back to the present, and she swore. Her car was overheating badly. She pulled over. After opening the hood and waving futilely at the billowing steam, she grabbed her phone to call first roadside assistance and then Lassiter. Her partner, of course, offered to come and get her, but she'd neglected her duties long enough. No need to cause him to neglect his. "Help is already on the way. I'll probably be in the office in less than an hour. Don't worry about me."
After she put her phone back in her pocket, she looked up to see that another motorist had pulled over behind her to help. Nice to know there were still people in California who would do that. She smiled as he walked up, and tried to ignore the fact that the poor man had a badly swollen nose.
"Need any help?" he asked.
"Thanks, but I've already called roadside assistance. They're on their way."
He seemed like a kind person. "Cell phones are nice in emergencies, aren't they?" he asked, making conversation.
She nodded and looked down the road, watching for the tow truck and a little embarrassed that she wished the nice man would just go away.
"Well, I'll leave you then, if you're sure…"
She nodded and smiled again.
He started to walk back to his car but then turned and said, "Hey, I had this water bottle in the car." He held it out to her. His other hand stayed in his pocket so she wouldn't see the bruises across his knuckles. "You can have it. It's still pretty cold, and you'll probably be out in this sun for a bit."
She smiled and took it from him – mostly so he would leave but also because she realized she was thirsty.
He smiled and walked back to his car.
She glanced at the bottle and made sure the seal was intact – can't be too careful these days. The bottle looked perfectly normal, so after a cursory examination, she opened it and drank.
She glanced back at her good Samaritan and wondered why he hadn't driven off yet. He seemed to be watching her. That was a little creepy, but maybe he only saw her as a true damsel in distress. If he only knew. She frowned as his car seemed to wiggle.
She blinked. Why were her ears suddenly numb?
Why was the ground rushing up at her?
Suddenly realizing she'd been drugged, she used her last conscious thought to toss the bottle under the car and hope that her partner – that someone – would find it and understand its significance.
The last thing she saw was her 'rescuer' getting back out of his car.
oO0Oo
When Gus got back to the Psych office, he immediately went to work finding out everything he could on Dr. J.M. Mallow and on the bank that had issued the check.
First he called the bank. It took a little finagling, but he learned that the account had never held more than $100, and that it had been closed out on Friday morning. The customer had left no forwarding information, not that Gus had expected him to. Gus set that information aside for Juliet. The police might be able to get more there, but it was a dead end as far as he was concerned.
Next he went online and found out everything he could on Mallow. On the surface there was nothing unusual or concerning, he seemed to be a normal professor living a quiet life. However, Gus did notice one discrepancy: when he clicked on the faculty contact page, there was a different phone number listed on the University website than there was on the business card. There were many different reasons why Mallow might have more than one contact number, but it was the first clue Gus had found, so he followed up on it. He called the number from the website.
He had a very interesting conversation with Dr. Mallow. The Dr. Mallow to whom Gus spoke had lived in Kansas all his life and had never even visited California – and his middle name was, disappointingly, Michael.
Gus took as many notes as he could on what he learned from the doctor. He ended the call when Dr. Mallow began to be suspicious about someone asking so many strange questions.
As soon as he hung up, his phone rang again. "Shawn?" he asked without thinking.
"Guster!" Lassie's voice boomed, causing Gus to pull the phone away from his ear. "Where is O'Hara? She had some car trouble, but she should have been here over an hour ago! What nonsense has Spencer gotten her into now?"
Gus glanced at his watch and swallowed hard. Lassiter was right. Juliet should have been back at the station ages ago. "Did you call her?" he asked. He'd heard the expression 'his heart was in his throat' before, and Gus was pretty sure said organ had just transplanted itself.
Lassiter, oblivious to the fear in Gus's voice, responded sarcastically. "No, I always call the partner of the useless psychic consultant when I want to get a hold of a detective! Of course I called her! I got her voicemail every time. Now where did Spencer drag her off to?"
"Umm. I'll be right there," Gus answered, knowing his enigmatic response would send Lassiter into a frenzy. He gathered up all his notes and headed out to the Blueberry. Hopefully, by the time he got there, Lassiter, being the excellent detective he was, would have figured out that there was something else going on and would have exchanged his anger for concern. Gus really didn't want to get arrested… or hit… or shot…
oO0Oo
Waking from a drugged state is never a pleasant experience. It's disorienting, confusing, and usually painful. Juliet groaned.
She brought her hands up to rub her temples before she even considered trying to open her eyes. Her head was throbbing.
A strange noise stopped her, and she froze, listening. She tried opening her eyes, but as expected, everything was a blur. She put her hands to her head and heard the noise again.
She scrunched her eyes tight, then blinked a few times and her vision focused. She realized what the noise was: her wrists were cuffed to a chain that ran through a metal ring embedded in the wall above where she sat on the floor. It jingled whenever she moved.
Blinking purposefully now, she immediately went into cop mode and gathered all the information currently available to her.
She'd been drugged and subsequently kidnapped by her 'good Samaritan.' She quickly catalogued everything she could remember about him.
She was chained to a wall in a bare cement room but otherwise unharmed.
And she wasn't alone.
There was a chair in the center of the room near the drain. A chair that faced ninety degrees away from her. A chair with a man imprisoned in it. His head was tipped to the side and away from her, but she knew him immediately.
"Shawn?" Juliet asked tentatively.
He didn't respond.
She immediately tried to go to him, but the chain kept her from getting anywhere near him.
She desperately firmed her grip on her cop attitude as she assessed his condition. It was a good thing she knew him so well, because it was impossible to recognize his face. The side facing her was swollen and horribly bruised and bloodied. There was also nearly dried blood streaked down the arms of the chair, apparently from cuts on his wrists.
She studied his form. He was clearly unconscious, his chin was down on his chest, and while she could hear him breathing – something seemed slightly off about that, but she didn't concentrate on it at the moment – he gave no sign that he'd heard her.
Other than that, he seemed unharmed, but she knew there was a lot she couldn't see.
She needed to wake him up to find out what on earth was going on!
She couldn't physically reach him, but she spent considerable time calling to him, trying to wake him. With no success.
Finally his head jerked a fraction and he started moaning, slowly swinging his head from side to side.
"Shawn?" she said louder. "Shawn!"
At that, his head jerked up and he seemed to look around, but he couldn't find her. "Jules?" he asked tentatively. He sounded awful – frightened and in pain – and she realized that he didn't know if he'd really heard her.
"Shawn! I'm here," she said gently.
Then he turned his head toward her, craning his neck, and she gasped in sympathy. The reason he couldn't see her was because the side of his face was so damaged that his left eye was completely swollen shut.
He kept trying and finally managed to turn his head far enough to see her with his right eye, but it was clear that the movement pained him.
"Oh, that's nice, real nice," came the sarcasm. "Bring the most beautiful woman in the world into the room and put her in a spot I can't see… Hey, Jules, how ya doin'?"
She shook her head at his efforts to put her at ease when he was obviously in a great deal of pain.
What she didn't see was the fear that was squeezing the breath from his chest. 'Mallow brought Jules here.' Shawn still didn't understand what the doc wanted from him, but he was pretty sure Jules would be used as leverage to get it, and he knew he would be helpless in the face of Jules in any sort of pain.
But she was saying something. He couldn't keep his head turned far enough to see her – it hurt too much, and he didn't have the strength anyway – so he listened carefully, his head tilted attentively toward her.
"Shawn, what is going on? Who is this guy? What does he want?"
"Juliet, I am so, so sorry."
"Shawn?" She worried that he wasn't answering her question, but she should have expected that he was way ahead of her.
"I don't know who he is, pretty sure his name's not Mallow though. Or what he wants, but he's going to use you to get it. I can't stop him. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
His voice was filled with pain and sadness, and Juliet wished she could look him in the eyes. "Shawn, we'll get through this toge–"
The door opened before she could finish her thought, and Mallow strode in triumphantly.
His two prisoners braced themselves and determined to be strong for each other. At least they were together now.
TBC…