So, I'm trying to be a little more "Shawn and Gus" centric in this chapter. This story needs more silliness, something that Lassie, although I love his character very much, unfortunately cannot give without being completely out of character.

Chapter 5

As Shawn and Gus were driving towards the hospital, they got a nervous call from Juliet.

"Shawn, Gus, I need you to come to the Jamba Juice on Main Street, as soon as possible." came the anxious voice of Juliet.

"But we were just on our way to investigate the last murder." said Shawn.

"I know, Shawn, but you have to come NOW, it's really important."

Shawn quickly replied when he heard how hysterical she was becoming, "Ok, ok, calm down, Juliet, we'll be there."

"Gus, turn around, we're going to the Jamba Juice on Main Street." ordered Shawn.

"But Shawn" complained Gus, "We're nearly at the hospital. I told you, this isn't a taxi that you can use whenever you want.

"Go, Gus," demanded Shawn. "It's Juliet and she sounded really nervous about something. We can't just ignore her. I've never heard her so scared."

"Fine, Shawn, we can go, but only because it's Juliet."Gus replied.

"What's that supposed to mean? 'because it's Juliet'?" said Shawn indignantly. "Are you saying that you wouldn't respond to a frantic text or call if it was me?"

"No Shawn, I wouldn't." Gus steadfastly replied. "First of all, it I did get some sort of message like that from you, it would be you either trying to mess with me or trying to get me to help you out on a case. Secondly, if you sent me a text, I would automatically assume that whatever your problem was, that it wasn't serious enough that you would need to call me."

Shawn looked at Gus with dismay. "Seriously, dude, SERIOUSLY? What if I was hiding out from a band of international smugglers and I needed you, buddy? What if they were in the same room as me and the only way I could contact you was by text? What then?"

Gus sighed, "Shawn, we need to drop the subject. Also, it is highly unlikely that will ever happen to you."

"Don't be too sure Gus," pouted Shawn. "International smugglers are a dime a dozen here in Santa Barbara."

"Just drop it!" exclaimed Gus. "We're here at the Jamba Juice."

"Sweet!" exclaimed the faux-psychic. "Just what I need, a pineapple delight smoothie to take my mind off the fact that my best friend just admitted he would ignore my cry of help."

Gus just sighed and got out of the car. "Come on, let's go find out what Juliet was so worried about."

Juliet sat at one of the plastic tables inside the Jamba Juice Shop. She paid no attention to the strawberry-rasberry smoothie sitting in front her, and instead she tapped her pencil nervously on the case file that she was holding. When she saw Shawn and Gus walk into the store, she let out a sigh of relief and ran up to greet them.

"Thank goodness you guys are hear." said Juliet "Come on over to the table, we have to talk. It's about the case."

"First of all, Juliet, of course we came. I heard your sweet voice on the phone and was instantly drawn here." Shawn kept talking as Juliet tried to interrupt him. "I would further more like to say that if you are going to berate or warn us about staying away from the case, we so far have not been involved. Lastly, if we are going to talk, I will first need a pineapple smoothie. My feelings were recently hurt by a dear friend of mine, and I feel that the only way this grief will not overwhelm me is if I indulge myself in pineapple smoothie heaven."

"I appreciate your need for a pineapple smoothie" replied Juliet. "But this issue is time-sensitive so I took the liberty of ordering it before you came. Gus, there's one for you too. Now, come on, it is essential that we talk."

Gus nodded his thanks to Juliet as they approached the table she had been sitting at before, and Shawn looked at her, then at the smoothies, and said happily, "Oh, Juliet, you know me so well. Like I know the back of my hand. Or perhaps that's not a good metaphor. I actually don't know the back of my hand very well. For instance there are several moles..."

He was cut off by Juliet in mid-sentence. "Look Shawn, I know you like to talk and all, but right now you just have to listen. It's about Lassiter. I'm really worried about him because he's undercover. You know about the case, you've "divined" enough about it, I'm sure. That means you know how good this killer is. He always kidnaps his victims just when he knows the guard shift is changing, and he can get in and out unnoticed. He's so good that he can make it look like they checked out on their own, so that no one suspects they are missing until a day or two after the kidnapping, which is when the bodies are usually found. No one hears anything from the people he kidnaps, no demands, ransom notes or phone calls, until the body is found. Since he is escalating, we don't know how long we have till he takes another victim, and for all we know he could be targeting someone else, and that someone could be Lassiter. Shawn, Gus, I know that technically you are not on the case, but I really would like you to look in to it. You guys wouldn't be very noticeable at any of the crime scenes, so it wouldn't cause too much suspicion. I know Carlton explicitly told you not to work on the case, but I am really worried about him. I just feel he's going out of his way to prove himself after he failed to stop that last serial killer from killing that 3rd woman."

Shawn remembered that gruesome case, where the killer was using the victim's hair to spell out messages which he then sent to the SPBD right before he killed the girls. These killings took place over a series of months and by the time they had figured out who the killer was, thanks to Shawn and Gus, they arrived at his home to save the last girl, only to find that they were too late. Since Lassiter had taken lead on that case, he felt guilty about that last death, and how he could have stopped it if he had been there half an hour earlier.

"Of course we will help." replied Shawn. "How could we refuse to help our dashing Head Detective, even if he wasn't asking for the help."

As Shawn got up to leave, Juliet stopped him. "Wait, here's a copy of the case file. I thought you might need it. Just do what you can with it. I'm really counting on you Shawn to make sure that Lassiter gets through this alright. He may be the best detective I know, but he is currently trying to catch the killer while simultaneously playing a cancer patient. I just want to make sure we get all the help we can, even if it's from someone who he really doesn't like."

"That's surprising." said Shawn. "I really thought that we had grown on Lassie these past years."

"From how he treats us, it seems we're more of a parasite growing on him that he can't get rid of" replied the ever-insightful Gus. "Now let's go back to that hospital and see if we can find anything new on our bad guy."

"Fine, but we need to make a short stop first." said Shawn, as he climbed into Gus's blueberry with his pineapple smoothie in hand.

I realize that these chapters are kind of short, in the future I will make them longer. Please, read, comment and review. What needs work, what sort of things should happen and of course, compliments are GOLD. Thanks very much. I'll try to be, at the very least, weekly in my updates. After all, I want this to be good.