Gus was just settling onto the Psych couch with a bowl of Rice Krispies to watch the latest episode of America's Got Talent. Gus often dreamed of winning the prize, but what exactly he had done to get it was always slightly fuzzy. The one time he could remember the competition portion, he had been standing center stage spelling out the word aggiornamento to momentous applause.

Gus leaned forward, watching as the first person took the stage. He was bringing the first spoonful of Rice Krispie goodness up to his mouth when the stage disappeared in a wash of red and white, "Breaking News!" scrolling urgently across the screen. Gus dropped the spoon back into the bowl in irritation. Now he was never going to know if that guy in the orange cowboy boots could sing.

He was just reaching for the remote when a photo of Shawn appeared in the corner of the screen. Gus dropped the bowl of Rice Krispies and jumped to his feet.

Mary Merryweather clasped her hands on the news desk and stared out at the world solemnly. "SBPD consultant Shawn Spencer was apparently abducted by the fugitive Cyril Riner earlier this evening at the Dah-Ling Store-It-Yourself, who some of you may remember was the scene of the original crime."

"It's just awful, isn't it, Mary?" co-anchor Mark Bender asked, shaking his head sadly for a moment before giving everyone a bright grin. "More details as they come in."

"Oh my god!" Gus shouted. He grabbed his phone and dialed Shawn's number in a moment of frantic confusion. "This caller is not available to take your call right now," a cheery female voice informed him. "The voicemail box is currently full. Please try again later. Goodbye!"

There was a click as his call was ended, and Gus tried to remember when he had last seen Shawn. He'd been claiming to go talk to Buzz, safe and sound in the police department. What could have happened in the three hours since he left him there? Gus shook his head in resignation and made a beeline to his car.

Who was he kidding? Three hours was more than enough time for Shawn to get himself kidnapped. Two weeks ago he'd managed it in less than ten minutes, and that time he'd been right out front.

Gus didn't bother to follow the posted speed limits as he drove to the police station. He didn't care if he got a ticket. Shawn had gotten enough of them in this car that he didn't have a spotless record anymore anyway, and this was life and death.

He ran into the police station, and came to a stop just inside the doors, placing his hands on his knees to catch his breath before looking up urgently for help. "Have you seen the news?" he shouted. "Shawn's been kidnapped!"

Everyone stopped what they were doing to turn and look at him. Henry was standing off to the side with his arms crossed, facing off with Vick. Lassiter was on the other side of the room beside Juliet, frantically writing something on the chalkboard that had been dragged into the center of the bullpen.

Juliet ran over and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "We know, Gus," she said reassuringly. "We're the ones that told them."

Gus was overcome with an unreasonable rage, though he recognized most it as misrepresented fear. "Then why didn't anyone call me?" he demanded.

Henry cleared his throat. "I tried," he said. "You weren't answering your phone."

Gus's rage disappeared as quickly as it had come, and he was suddenly taken over by a debilitating sense of guilt in its place. He'd turned his phone on silent. He'd done it because Shawn always called to bother him just when America's Got Talent was coming on and Gus hadn't wanted to deal with him tonight. "We've got to find him!" Gus said.

"Gus, we're doing everything we can," Juliet said. "We're going to find him."

"You don't know that," Gus said, pulling away. "He could be dead somewhere! I never should have left him here alone. He hasn't been himself lately. I should have stayed with him."

"He's not dead," Lassiter said quietly, and nodded towards the chalkboard.

Gus approached it carefully. It was a timetable. Shawn went missing at 8:05 PM. He managed to get a call through to Lassiter at 8:57 PM. He'd sent him a few text-messages at 9:22 PM before cutting the conversation off abruptly. Gus scanned the messages that Lassiter had faithfully transcribed. LMAO. That's what Shawn had sent them. Shawn was with some murderer and he was laughing his ass off.

Gus glanced at the clock. It was almost 10:00 PM. That was more than enough time for Shawn to have gotten himself killed. He felt sick again. Gus didn't exactly enjoy being in mortal danger, but as long as Shawn was there, he could handle it. He couldn't handle this not knowing, and he couldn't stand the thought of Shawn out there alone without Gus to keep him in check. Shawn was not going to do as he was told, and this time he was going to get himself killed the same way he'd gotten himself a concussion from Drimmer.

Lassiter was standing beside him, fidgeting with the information on the board, moving a few things around, putting them back. "We have an APB out on Spencer and Riner," he said. "We're going to get about 30 phone tips an hour. Once we sort through them to the ones that might be the truth, we'll find him."

"How did this even happen?" Gus asked.

Lassiter pursed his lips. "It's my fault," he said. "Spencer was following me."

Gus thought it would be easy to blame Lassiter, but he knew Shawn too well to do it. "If he was following you, then it's not your fault," he said.

"It's Shawn's," Henry said roughly, coming up behind them to glance dismissively at the board. "He had no business going out there in the first place."

"He was trying to help me," Lassiter said softly. He didn't know where this sudden urge to defend Spencer had come from, and he valiantly fought it back down. "Not that it would excuse it."

"No, it doesn't," Henry said. "And it doesn't entirely clear you of guilt, either. You've all let Shawn get away with this little agency business of his for too long. I think it's time you put a stop to it, don't you? When we get Shawn back, I want him off your cases."

Lassiter didn't bother to mention he'd been trying to make that happen all along. Vick stepped in to try and appease him. "Henry," she started.

"Don't give me another speech about how damn valuable the kid is," he snapped. "He's not going to do you any good if he's dead. This is the last one, the last time, you're going to get him killed, Karen."

"Let's worry about that later," she said calmly. "We're all very upset right now. We don't want to say anything that we can't take back."

Henry watched her speculatively. He knew what she was referring to. Henry could end Shawn's career as a psychic private eye with just a few words. All he had to do was tell them that Shawn's been lying to them for years. The way Karen was looking at him, though, he was pretty sure she knew it too.

Karen had always been a little ruthless. Henry had liked that about her right away. She didn't care how the job got done so long as it got done. He was counting on the fact that hadn't changed. "Fine," he said. "First, you find him. We'll talk about the rest after you do."

He glanced back at the chalkboard, reading over Shawn's messages quickly. "Is he talking in code?" he asked. "H n K? LMAO? What do these mean?"

Everyone looked at the ground. No one wanted to tell Henry Spencer what they meant. Gus decided it was up to him. "It's just text-speak," he explained. "They just mean goodbye. It doesn't help us find him."

"Goodbye?" Henry repeated, and snorted. "I just don't get that text-ing thing. What about the phone call? What did he tell you?"

"Spencer told me that Riner was innocent," Lassiter said. "He wants us to look at the other suspects. He said Riner wasn't going to let him tell me anything else."

"We know who has Shawn, that's who you need to be looking for," Henry snapped.

"You think I don't know that?" Lassiter asked tersely.

Karen moved back between them. "I think we can all acknowledge that his messages aren't going to help us. Does anyone want to venture a guess as to why that is?"

"What do you mean?" Juliet asked.

"Mr. Spencer is a very clever young man," Karen said. "If he wanted to give us a hint about where to find him, he would have found a way to do it."

"You don't think he's trying to," Gus said.

"No, I don't," Karen said.

"God damn it," Henry snapped, as he realized what she meant. "It's because he's working the damn case. He's curious, and if he gets away, he won't get to question the star suspect anymore."

"So how are we going to find him if he doesn't want to be found?" Juliet asked.

Henry pursed his lips. "That's easy," he said. "You're not going to."

x x x x x x

Cyril took one look at the broadcasts on the televisions and ran right through the red light, driving them out to a secluded area out of range of the shops. Shawn glanced back behind them nervously. "Is this one of those, 'let's go for a little drive' moments?" he asked.

"This is awful!" Cyril snapped. "I've already got everyone looking for me, and now they're going to be looking for you, too."

He pulled off the road into an empty lot, and the tore out of the truck, slamming the door behind him. Shawn followed him out, glancing around. "Just calm down. We can still do this."

Cyril shook his head. "No, this is way above my head, okay? I'm not a hostage taking kind of guy." He sighed heavily and then met Shawn's eyes. "I think I'm going to have to let you go."

Shawn was crushed. "You're firing me?"

"As a hostage you've become a liability," Cyril said. "Your face is all over the news. You're going to be recognized."

"Don't be ridiculous, so are you! Though admittedly, mug shot is not your best look," Shawn said. "You need me. I'll be a better hostage, okay? I'll stop text-messaging the cops and everything."

"It's not that, you've been great, really," he protested. "I couldn't have asked for a better captive."

"I think that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me," Shawn said, and grinned brightly. "That's settled then."

"What's settled?" Cyril asked with a frown.

"We'll go to the Hottie Tottie Tavern together," Shawn explained.

"Why would we go there?" Cyril asked.

"Because that's where we're going to find James Clavor," he said. "That's the thing about career criminals, it's exactly that, a career. They go out for the day, commit crime, and then return back home to all the same places. It's why they keep getting arrested, everyone knows where to find them."

"If that were true, then they would have been able to find him before this," Cyril said.

"But they weren't looking in the right place," Shawn said. "How would you describe James Clavor? Tall, right? Close shaved hair. Big, though it's mostly muscle, and most of it covered with tattoos—the snake you remember, the rest you forgot. Am I close?"

Cyril was excited. "Yes, that's him, you know him?"

"Have you seen the inside of a police station recently?" Shawn asked. "I just described half the suspects there. Your buddy Clavor's a generic grunt, and that's served him well. Put him in a lineup and the victim will be hard pressed to tell him apart from the guy standing next to him. That's why we need to get a name."

"It's been two years, you really think he's going to be going to the same old places?" Cyril asked. "I'm not sure what he got away with when we robbed that place, for all I know he could be rich."

"All that would mean is that he's sticking twenties in the g-strings of his favorite ladies instead of lucky old George," Shawn said. "Trust me. The guy's a lifetime loser. He'll be there."

"I still think it would be best for you to go back," Cyril said. "This manhunt for me is getting out of hand."

"Lassie's not going to stop hunting you just because you let me go, he's not going to stop until he finds you," Shawn said. "Which means we've got to prove you innocent before he does."

"Okay, okay," Cyril said. "You really want to go to the Hottie Tottie Taven?"

"I thought you'd never ask," Shawn said brightly.

x x x x x x

The Hottie Tottie Tavern didn't really know what it wanted to be. From what Shawn could tell, it was part Tiki Hut and part Vegas showroom. They only got away with the blaring neon sign because the location was far enough from civilization that the oblivious suburban families of Summerland probably just thought it was the Venus star.

There were as many Harleys out front as there were cars, and a few Hell's Angel wannabes were smoking around their bikes. Shawn tried not to make eye contact with them as they went inside.

The clientele ran the gamut from the wannabes outside to the balding, middle-age suburban dads, who had followed that Venus star and found out where girls are from. None of them looked like very appealing conversationalists to Shawn. "How about you talk to those guys?" he asked.

"Yeah, okay," Cyril said. "I'll start with them. But what about you?"

"I'm going to talk with the dancers," Shawn explained.

"The dancers aren't supposed to talk much, unless it's dirty," Cyril said. "Sheesh, haven't you ever been to one of these places before?"

"Not really," Shawn said. "Well, like once, when I turned eighteen."

"What's wrong with you?" Cyril demanded. "Are you seriously dating Lassiter?"

"I just don't find this kind of tableau interesting because it's one-sided, this is their 9-to-5, it's just that it's 9:00 PM to 5:00 AM instead of the other way around," Shawn said. "Like, see, that girl there—"

He pointed to a girl slipping down a pole. She was wearing a fringe bikini top and a cowboy hat and not much else. "She's trying to cover the dark circles under her eyes with make-up but it's not really working. If you look closely enough you can see she's trying to do the same thing with the varicose veins. She's got a new baby at home, probably only a few weeks old."

"Jesus," Cyril said. "I don't want to ogle a new mom."

"You see my dilemma," Shawn said. "It isn't easy being prescient."

"Okay, fine," Cyril said. "You talk to the dancers, I'll talk to the gawkers, and then we'll meet up to see if we learned anything."

"Sounds like a plan," Shawn said. He wandered around to the other side of the stage, and one of the dancers spotted him right away. She started to approach, grinning sweetly, and grabbed him by the sides of his hoodie, before superfluously straightening them out.

"Hey gorgeous," she said. "You want a lap dance?"

Shawn had no illusions that he was walking around looking like the Hunchback from Notre Dame or something, but he figured that considering the usual clientele at this place, right now he was probably registering as movie-star good looking by comparison.

"I don't really do lap dances in public," Shawn explained, trying to disentangle himself. "I'm shy."

"Really?" she asked, sliding a hand towards the waistband of his pants. "I find that hard to believe."

Shawn caught her hand before it could reach its destination and glanced at her costume. It was a gold, Leia-inspired bikini, with little tassels hanging off the top. "I love the little tassels," he said, gesturing to her chest area. "Are they the kind that spin?"

"No, they're just regular old tassels, the kind that spin are special order," she said, and gave a mock-sigh. "The boss never wants to shell out the dough for the luxuries. Well, you know how men are."

"Do I ever," Shawn said.

She smiled at him. "You're a doll, you know that?"

"I have been told," he said. "My Aunt Ruth used to dress me up and try to get me to live in the miniature house she kept in her backyard."

"You're funny," she said. "What are you doing in a place like this?"

"I'm here to audition, actually," Shawn said. "But I don't think any of these uniforms are going to fit me."

She laughed. "Yeah," she said. "Your height could be a problem. Also, certain other things."

Shawn grinned at her. If people ever bothered to speak with them, they would find that exotic dancers almost always made for fun, interesting people. "Shawn Spencer," he said, holding out his hand.

"They call me Houston here, but you can call me Amelia, if you want. We're not actually supposed to give out real names, but you seem pretty harmless," she said, grinning.

"Nice to meet you, Amelia," Shawn said. "That's pretty common, huh? Using false names?"

"In a place like this?" she asked. "Honey, what do you think? You think all those strippers were really christened Bambi?"

"You're messing with my world view, here," Shawn said. "I'm starting to think this is why I could never find that nice girl I met at Nudes, Nudes, Nudes in the phone book."

Amelia laughed, but stopped herself and bit her lip when she noticed her boss watching from behind the bar, obviously wondering why she was standing there laughing instead of shaking her groove thing. She pushed Shawn back into a chair and then got up on his lap. "Don't worry," she said. "This is a freebie."

"That's good, because all I've got is a $2.00 bill and some M&Ms," Shawn said. "I'm actually just here looking for someone. He's got a habit of giving out a lot of false names, too. You might know him as Jimmy, Daniel, or Dave? He'd have a cobra tattoo, probably a bad attitude."

Amelia froze in her undulating to think about it. "There's this guy, Dave, he's got a cobra tattoo and he's definitely got a bad attitude. He's a regular. In fact, I think I saw him lurking around just a few minutes ago."

"Do you think you could point him out?" Shawn asked.

Amelia glanced around but shook her head. "I don't see him now. He must have left. He's always hitting on us, you know. Talking about his big score. Saying someday he's going to buy an island and whisk us away."

"I hope you told him that kidnapping was a felony," Shawn said, before carefully extracting himself from her. He reached into his pockets and placed the $2.00 bill in her hands. "He's still watching," Shawn explained, when she tried to give it back. "Keep it. They're rare, you know."

She grinned and stuck it down her top. "Thanks," she said.

Cyril came up to them. "Well?" he asked.

"Cyril!" Shawn said brightly. "Cyril, this is Amelia. Amelia, this is Cyril."

"Nice to meet you," Amelia said. "I've got to head out. I'm next up on stage."

"Break a leg," Shawn called after her.

"Well?" Cyril asked again. "Did you learn anything?"

"I learned all kinds of things," Shawn said. "For instance, did you know that strippers don't use their real names?"

Cyril sighed. "About Clavor," he said.

"Oh, right," Shawn said. "Amelia says she knows a Dave with a tattoo. She thinks she saw him earlier. How about you?"

"I didn't see him," Cyril said, before giving Shawn a push towards the doors.

Shawn came to a stop jut outside, causing Cyril to slam into him. He stared at a man standing a few feet away. He kept getting caught in the flare of pink light from the neon 'Hottie' sign right above his head, and he was lighting up a cigarette. Shawn noticed there was a winding cobra crawling up his right arm. "What about that guy?" Shawn asked, and pointed over at him.

Cyril's eyes widened. "Clavor!" he shouted, taking off running.

Clavor's eyes widened as he caught sight of Cyril, and he pulled out a gun, throwing off a wild shot before taking off for his car. Cyril dropped down to the ground to avoid the bullet and Shawn threw himself against the side of the Hottie Tottie Tavern. They heard the sound of an engine powering up before either of them could get back on their feet.

Cyril ran for his truck, and Shawn took off following him, jumping into the passenger seat just as Cyril was driving off. "What are you doing?" Cyril demanded. "Don't you have any sense at all? You don't follow your kidnapper willingly into a car chase."

"My last car chase was disappointing, we hardly broke twenty miles per hour," Shawn said. "I thrive on new experience."

Cyril pulled the truck onto the road after Clavor's convertible in a wide swerve. "Nice car for a deadbeat," Shawn said, and then ducked when Clavor turned to look back at them and fire off another shot.

When Shawn sat back up, there was a wide bullet hole in the windshield in the general vicinity of his head. He swallowed heavily.

Cyril slowed down and glanced at him. "Get out," he said.

"What?" Shawn asked, confused.

Clavor fired shot off another shot and Cyril swerved again, but Shawn heard the bullet take out a headlight. "Get out of the car, Shawn, or you're going to get killed. This isn't your fight."

"We're going like eighty miles per hour," Shawn protested. "I'm pretty sure jumping out of the car is only going to kill me faster."

Cyril slammed on the brakes, slowing to a little under twenty miles per hour. "Now, Shawn, or I'm going to stop this car to throw you out and probably lose Clavor's trail in the process."

"But I can't leave now," Shawn protested, and then glanced at the glove box with a frown.

"You can, and you're going to," Cyril said.

Shawn glanced out the widow at the road. "You have to promise me something, you have to promise you're going to look in your glove box."

"What? What the hell are you talking about? Just jump!" Cyril slowed them almost to a stop. He leaned across to open the door, and before Shawn knew it he was tumbling along the highway like a weed.

"But you've got all my Red Bull!" Shawn shouted after him.

He had asphalt burns on the palms of his hand and the left knee of his jeans had ripped wide open, but he was mostly unharmed. No bullet holes. He checked.

Shawn slowly pulled himself to his feet, watching as the cars continued to speed along the road, disappearing as they outdistanced the neon lights. Shawn kicked at a rock in frustration.

With both Cyril and Clavor gone he had no choice but to go back home, and the thought of facing his father scared him a hell of a lot more than high-speed car chases or shoot-outs.