Note: This part is a little shorter than the first one, but I felt bad for leaving you all on a cliffhanger, and wanted to get this up as quick as possible. Thanks to all who read and reviewed!
Lassiter's expression went stony, and he took an unconscious step forward, his gun going up to aim just to the left of Shawn's head. It had gotten dark almost without his notice, and as he tried to track Cyril's movements he was having trouble making everything out, distinguishing between what parts belonged to Cyril, and what parts belonged to Shawn.
Cyril pulled Shawn back against him and started dragging him towards the gate. "Stay back, Lassiter," he yelled hoarsely. "You want me to kill him? I said stay back!"
Lassiter stopped moving, but kept his gun aimed straight ahead. "Let him go."
"Not until we talk," Cyril said. "I've finally got you in a position where you have to listen to me, so you're sure as hell going to listen."
"Soon as you let him go, you can say whatever you want," Lassiter said.
"I didn't kill that guard," Cyril said. "I told you that. Someone else killed him, I've never killed anyone in my life. At least, I haven't yet."
Shawn looked down at the concrete, tilting his head at the muddy footprints that Cyril had left behind. The muzzle of the gun was pressing in on his throat, so he lifted his head back and closed his eyes for a moment, recalling the crime scene photo of the pair of bloody footprints that had been discovered beside the body. The picture had shown them with a ruler laid beside them for perspective--they had been a size thirteen, huge, Cyril was a size ten, if that.
"Wait!" Shawn shouted, throwing his arms out and stopping Cyril's slow progress of moving them towards the gate. "Wait, Lassie, I think he might be telling the truth. The shoe prints! The prints, at the crime scene, they weren't his."
Lassiter didn't lower his gun, and he kept his eyes on Cyril. "Yeah, Spencer, we know that, but tons of people walked through there. It could have been a paramedic, or even a rookie," he said. "We were able to convict him just fine without having a pair of shoe prints."
"It was James," Cyril protested. "I've been keeping track of your career, Lassiter, and if you're such a good cop, then you'll take another look at my case."
Shawn listened to the sound of Cyril's voice. It was edgy and slightly frantic, had the kind of paranoid edge a man on the run should, but he didn't sound like he was lying. Anyway, Shawn's seen The Fugitive about a million times, and the wrongly convicted men always stuck around to clear the names—the guilty ones, they just ran.
"You want the truth?" Lassiter asked. "Right now, I don't care if you killed that guard or not. What I care about is that you're holding a gun to his head. You want to talk? Fine, we'll talk. But first you let him go."
"I've been trying to get you to talk to me for two years," Cyril said. "I've lodged more than a dozen appeals. No one's paid any attention. I'm not going to give up any advantage I can get."
"You're not doing anything for your case," Lassiter said. "Innocent men don't take hostages."
"I said I didn't kill that guard, I never said I was innocent," Cyril said, and moved the gun from Shawn's neck, holding it ahead of him to take aim and fire.
The single security light went out in a shower of sparks as the bullet shattered it to pieces, and Shawn felt the gun jam into his back to push him forward. Lassiter was shouting behind them, but the spooky atmosphere that Shawn had noted when he arrived had gone from the mild levels of Scary Movie to something closer resembling Halloween, and it was too dark to see hardly anything at all.
Cyril dragged them to a beat-up Chevy truck parked half on the curb, and took him around to the driver's side, shoving Shawn up and in, forcing him to slide across to the passenger seat. Shawn reached for the handle on the door, but Cyril was already pulling away with a speed of acceleration even Mario Andretti could envy.
Cyril was leaving his headlights off, and spinning them off onto some kind of back road. He was still holding the gun in one hand while he drove, turning the wheel deftly with his left hand, while he kept the revolver aimed just inches from Shawn's side with his right.
Cyril glanced over at Shawn for a moment, before looking back towards the road. "You're that guy, right, from TV?"
"I think you're probably thinking of John Cusack, but don't feel bad, you're not the first to note the resemblance," Shawn said.
Cyril looked confused. "What? No. I mean that psychic guy, right? You solved all those cases."
"Oh," Shawn said. "You must be thinking of Shawn Spencer, am I right? Gee, I really wish I were, I hear he's a handsome devil."
"That's what Lassiter called you, he called you Spencer," Cyril said.
"Spenstar, Shawn Spenstar," Shawn corrected. "You might recognize me from my brief success on American Duos, but Hollywood's so fickle. Now I can't even get an interview and Nigel St. Nigel won't take my calls."
"Let's make this simple," Cyril said, "I know you're Shawn Spencer, and you're going to prove me innocent, or I'm going to kill you."
"In that case, Shawn Spencer, at your service," Shawn said.
Cyril turned on the headlights as they spun out onto a main road. Shawn winced as he noticed the welcome sign, announcing their arrival in Summerland. Shawn thought this was actually a pretty good place to come if you were on the run, who would ever think to look here?
"If I'm going to clear your good name," Shawn said, "I'm going to need some basic essentials."
Cyril seemed suspicious. "Like what?"
"A notepad, a pencil, a yellow number 2 one, the number is very important, and about three cases of Red Bull," Shawn said.
"Three cases of Red Bull?" Cyril reported. He looked at Shawn doubtfully, like he was starting to believe that he really had just picked up some crazy Duos reject and not Santa Barbara's most renowned psychic.
"I'm boycotting sleep," Shawn explained. "If you'd like me to remain conscious whilst I investigate your case, then that's a must."
"You're not right in the head, are you?" Cyril asked.
"It's weird how often people ask me that," Shawn said, but didn't dwell on it. "I'm also going to need to call Lassiter."
Cyril pulled into a Seven Eleven and looked at him strangely. "No," he snapped. "He's never going to help me. I thought I could get him to listen, but it's obviously not going to happen. I was lucky you were there."
"One man's luck is another man's hostage experience," Shawn said. "But seriously. I'm going to need to call him. It's in your own best interests, if you really are innocent. You want them to reopen your case, right?"
"Yes, but right now, all they're going to be doing is looking for you," Cyril snapped.
"That's because you abducted me at gunpoint instead of making an appointment like everyone else," Shawn said. "Let me talk to Lassiter, for exactly the reason you just pointed out. I've got to make them understand that the best way to get me out of this situation is the same best way to get you out of yours, prove you didn't kill anyone."
"Fine," Cyril said.
"Good," Shawn said. "But first you have to explain to me who really did kill that guard."
Cyril nodded, glancing around in all directions rather shiftily, as though he expected a police armada to move out of the darkness and surround them. "I admit that I was there to rob the place, but I wasn't alone. I had a partner. James Clavor. He's the guy that set the whole thing up, I didn't even know what we were there to take. It happened almost exactly like they say, except it was Clavor that shot that guard, and not me."
"But you're the one that Dah-Ling found standing over the body," Shawn said.
"Yeah, bad timing," Cyril said. "She came running out of the office after Clavor was already gone. I'd stayed to see if the poor guard was still alive, so there I was, kneeling beside him, Clavor's gun on the ground right beside me."
"What about fingerprints?" Shawn asked.
"They didn't have mine on the weapon, but they didn't have his, either," Cyril said. "We were both wearing gloves."
"Why didn't you tell the police any of this?" Shawn asked.
"You think I didn't?" he asked. "They tell me James Clavor doesn't exist. They think I made him up."
"Hmm," Shawn said. "Okay, give me your phone."
"You don't have a phone?" Cyril asked incredulously.
"It got repossessed," Shawn explained.
"They repossess telephones?" Cyril asked.
"Sure," Shawn said. "On those Verizon commercials they make it look really cool to have all those people following you around, but they turn on you if you forget to pay your bill."
Cyril sighed and handed over a phone. It was one of those disposable types, and looked to be almost out of minutes. Shawn kept track of Cyril out of the corner of his eye, as the other man seemed to forget he was supposed to be holding him at gunpoint, and then he started dialing the phone.
"Lassiter." Lassiter sounded tense, and dare Shawn think it—worried.
"Hey, Lassie," he said, and then, without preamble, "I think you need to start looking through your suspects again."
"Spencer?" Lassiter's voice went strange, kind of disbelieving and startled, breathless with something like relief. "Where are you?"
"I don't want you to let anyone worry about me, okay? I'm fine. And in the name of all that's holy, don't call my dad," Shawn said.
"Tell me where you are!" Lassiter snapped. "I'm going to come get you."
"He's not going to let me tell you that," Shawn said. "You need to listen to me. He didn't do it. I mean, he did totally try to rob the place, but he didn't kill anyone."
"Give me a hint, Spencer," Lassiter said. "Come on. Something to help us find you."
"I think you need to start with Clavor," Shawn said. "But he might not be easy to find."
"Because he doesn't exist!" Lassiter shouted.
"I said it wouldn't be easy," Shawn told him, and then Cyril grabbed the phone back and hung up.
"You really think he's going to pay any attention to what you said?" Cyril asked.
"Well, I have to be honest, if he does, it'll be a first," Shawn said.
"Wonderful," Cyril said.
"I need more Red Bull," Shawn said. "If we're on our own, my mind's gotta be at its best, and there's nothing like nearly lethal does of taurine and caffeine to get the ole' grey matter at 100%."
"Fine, whatever," Cyril said, "but we're going in together, and if you try anything, I'm going to shoot the cashier, and probably you, too."
"Understood," Shawn said. "However, I feel obligated to point out that committing a double homicide kind of defeats the purpose of trying to clear yourself of a single murder charge."
"You're my last shot at proving I'm innocent," Cyril said. "If I don't have your help, I don't have anything left to lose, so I might as well take you with me."
Shawn nodded. "Okay," he said. "I'll be on my best behavior."
Cyril looked anything but trusting, but Shawn slid out of the car and stuck his hands in his pockets. His diet of no sleep and all Red Bull had been working really well the last few days, but his last few days had consisted mostly of hanging around the Psych office trying to save Princess Peach from Bowser, and he had to admit he probably wasn't at his best for solving crime.
But that didn't really matter, because Shawn wasn't really getting a choice. This wasn't a job he could turn down, and anyway, even if his body was getting twitchy, Shawn's mind was as sharp as ever. He could solve crime in his sleep. Probably.
He led the way into the Seven Eleven and made a beeline for the refrigerators at the back, pulling out Red Bull and stacking it up in his arms. Cyril was behind him, the protrusion in the side pocket of his jacket standing out prominently. He was being pretty obvious about being armed, and Shawn hoped that the cashier didn't notice.
Shawn didn't bother to try and explain it to him, but Cyril really didn't have any reason to be so worried.
Shawn had no intentions of making a break for it. It may not have happened exactly the way Shawn had planned, but he'd gotten that case he'd been looking for.