In his time as a detective Lassiter had read plenty of cases of people who hadn't realized they'd been shot. Given how intense the pain in his chest was, he assumed those people must have been out of their mind on drugs or adrenaline.
Moments after the impact Lassiter had reached for his gun to return fire, but his hand encountered nothing but shirt. He swore, and vowed he would never be unarmed again if only he could live to keep the promise. His nails dug into the wood of the doorframe as he tried to remain upright. His assailant turned and walked quickly out of sight. He knew he should try to follow her, to get a licence plate, but his knees buckled beneath him and he collapsed to the floor. Blackness crept in from the side of his vision. He fought against it, blinking in and out of consciousness, waves of panic being replaced by periods of oblivion. He was vaguely aware that Shawn was pulling at his clothes and rummaging around in the kitchen.
"Lassie! Where's your first aid kit?" Shawn must have been shouting, but his voice seemed to come from a long way away.
"Lower right cabinet." Lassiter yelled it, but the effort sent a stabbing pain through the right side of his chest and started a coughing fit which sprayed a fine bloody mist into the air. He couldn't seem to catch his breath. He tilted his head up and looked at his chest. Blood bubbled up through the holes in his shirt.
That's not good, he thought, and the understatement of it made him laugh, sending him into another pain-wracked coughing fit. Great, he thought, I'm becoming delirious.
He tried to focus his mind on details. He'd been struck by something low calibre, probably a .22 or a .32. If his lung was hit he might drown in his own blood. Or his blood pressure might plummet and he could die of shock. He was already feeling weak and dizzy. He needed to be in the hospital within the golden hour, while he might still live. He struggled to reach his cell phone, but his fingers felt weak and clumsy.
Shawn returned from the kitchen with the first aid kit, a box of plastic wrap and a roll of duct tape. He dropped down beside Lassiter, carefully removed the bloody shirt, and examined the bullet wounds. He noticed Lassiter fumbling with his pocket.
"What are you trying to do?" Shawn asked.
"Call this in," Lassiter said through gritted teeth. Moving hurt, but not as much as trying to breathe did.
"Relax Lassie," Shawn said. "I've already called Jules. A bus is on the way. Hang in there."
Lassister let his arm and head rest back against the floor. Shawn was here. Shawn liked him. Shawn wouldn't let him die.
The psychic's hands were a flurry, cutting up pieces of plastic wrap, placing them over the bullet holes, and securing them on three of their four sides with duct tape.
"What's all this?" Lassiter looked down at the bloody squares of plastic. They looked ridiculous, but there was no denying that it was now easier to breathe.
"Flutter valves," Shawn said. "You've got a punctured lung."
Shit, Lassiter thought. A busted lung is bad. He wondered briefly how Shawn had learned to make flutter valves. He was probably a noted thorasic surgeon for two weeks, he thought absently. Before he got bored and moved on to selling ice-cream or saving the whales. But even with the best first aid, a shot in the chest was deadly serious. Lassiter thought about all the police funerals he'd attended over the years and he wondered if they'd be presenting the flag from his casket to Victoria, or if she'd even attend. He wondered if Shawn would buy a black suit, and how long it would be before he made out with a man again.
Lassiter remembered that Theodore Roosevelt once gave a speech immediately after being shot in the chest. Of course in Roosevelt's case the bullet had been slowed by the steel case for his eyeglasses and the fifty pages of speech he'd had doubled up in his breast pocket. In his own case the only resistance the bullet had encountered was his shirt.
But if Roosevelt could deliver an entire speech, he thought, surely I can stay conscious long enough to report on my own murder.
Lassiter grabbed Shawn's hand and held it in a firm grip. When he spoke his voice was shallow and strained. "Write this down, Spencer. Our perp is female, 5'9", early 20s, blonde, wearing a black trench coat." His brow creased and he frowned as it suddenly occurred to him where he'd seen her before. She had been staring at him disapprovingly while he talked to Keith. "Oh for the love of Pete! She was at the fire. She's probably our arsonist."
At least I won't die with an open case on my desk, he thought grimly.
Shawn's memory flashed back to the blonde who'd been at the station when Keith Mclaughlin had arrived for his meeting with Lassiter. The description was a perfect match. She'd been there again at Natalino's, reading the menu. He wondered if she had been stalking Lassiter, or Keith Mclaughlin.
"She was at the restaurant today too," Shawn said, "pretending to read the menu."
Lassiter thought for a moment. "Her name might be Claire. Keith knows her."
In the distance the approaching sound of an ambulance siren could be heard.
"Give me my holster," Lassiter said, looking up toward the kitchen island.
"Lassie, the ambulance is almost here. You're going to the hospital."
Lassiter wanted to ask if Shawn knew how many people had been shot in hospitals in California in the past five years. He wanted to explain that if the assailant heard that he'd been taken to the hospital instead of to the morgue that she might come back for a second try. But he didn't have the energy or the air to argue any of his points. Instead he just uttered, "Shawn. Holster. Now."
Shawn sprang up and returned with the holster. He looped one strap over Lassiter's shoulder, furthest from the bullet wounds, and then held his hand again, afraid to let go. The high pitched shriek of the ambulance was getting very close now.
"Listen, Lassie," Shawn said. "I know this is going to sound weird, but I need to ask you something before these guys burst in here like Randolph Mantooth and go all Emergency on you."
"I'm not dying." Lassiter felt exactly like he might be dying, but there was no reason to panic Shawn.
"Is this a thing?" Shawn looked down at their joined hands and then back to Lassiter's face. "Do you and I…do we have a thing?"
"Yeah. This was a thing." He couldn't help putting it in the past tense.
"I thought so too," Shawn said as he watched the paramedics running up the walk toward them.
The paramedics had strapped Lassiter in the back of the ambulance and were moving toward Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. Shawn had assured Lassiter that he would be following right behind, but that had been a lie. All Shawn could think about was catching the woman who had shot Lassie. The moment the ambulance was gone he plunged his hand into the bowl of peanuts on Lassiter's counter, and pulled the Colt Mustang from its hiding place. He shoved the snub-nosed silver gun into his shirt and grabbed the keys to Lassiter's car from their dish on his way out the door.
One of the first things he'd learned during his Google-stalking of Keith Mclaughlin was that the fireman lived in a detached bungalow on Laguna street. According to Google street view, the house had a lovely lilac bush on the front lawn. Shawn drove Lassiter's car to Laguna and parked two houses down. He pulled the gun and crouching low, did a quick check of the perimeter of the house. All the lights were off and the building was silent. There was no sign of Keith's car, a grey Toyota Prius for which Shawn had been disappointed to learn he had no outstanding tickets. Abandoning all attempt at concealment, Shawn peered into windows, desperately hoping to see Keith or the blonde assailant. When he saw no sign of movement he knocked loudly on the door.
"Are you looking for Keith?" the high voice came from a tiny white-haired woman on the porch of the neighbouring house. "He's at work tonight."
"At the fire station?" Shawn asked, tucking the gun into the rear waistband of his pants and pulling his shirt down over it.
The elderly woman nodded enthusiastically. "Yes. He got called in just as we were settling down to watch the Law and Order SVU. He could be gone for hours."
Shawn thanked her and turned to leave.
"Are you a boyfriend, dearie?" the woman asked.
"Me? No. I'm just a friend."
"Oh. Well that's too bad." The lady waved goodbye to him as he ran back to Lassiter's car.
Shawn called Gus on his iphone and launched into a breathless recap of events as soon as he heard his friend's calm voice say, "Burton Guster."
"Dude, you were right about this being Fatal Attraction, only I'm not Glenn Close. That blonde from the restaurant is. She shot Lassie and he's on his way to the hospital."
"Is Lassiter okay?" Shawn could hear the concern in Gus' voice and knew that at least some of that was sympathy for Shawn.
"I don't know, Gus." Shawn bit his lip and tried to focus on the task ahead. "I need you to meet me at the fire station on North Ontare with Jules and backup. I think Lassie's shooter is going after Keith Mclaughlin."
"Why Keith?"
"He's her Michael Douglas. Lassie was just the pet bunny to her."
"Maybe you should leave this to the police, Shawn. You're too close to the situation. You might do something you'll regret."
"Oh right! And the police are notorious for their even-tempered treatment of people who shoot cops."
"I'm just saying. You should be at the hospital with Lassiter, not running around town after some lunatic."
"I'm going to the fire station to save Keith and arrest the woman who ruined me losing my manginity. If you want to join me with backup, that's up to you."
"Manginity? Please tell me you just made that up."
"It's a term. It's all over the internet, Gus. If you did more online than read The Huffington Post and play Farmville you'd know that."
"Fine. I'll be there."
Shawn approached the Spanish colonial firehouse where Keith worked and parked Lassiter's car on the street. Now that his first adrenaline rush was wearing off his fear and anxieties were welling up like a geyser, threatening to burst. He tried not to think about Lassiter—to wonder if he was in surgery now, or if he was dying frightened and surrounded by strangers. Shawn ran silently up the curving staircase that led to the offices, crouched low, and gun in hand, slowly opened the door. Four men sat inside playing cards. They all turned to look at him. Shawn stood up and smiled.
"Hey there!" He slipped the gun back into his waistband. I'm Shawn Spencer. I work with the Santa Barbara Police. Is Keith around?" he asked, trying not to sound panicked.
"He's down in the garage," A heavy-set man with short grey hair told him.
"Thanks. Is there a way there from inside?"
The big man jabbed a thumb toward a door. "Through there, second left, back stairs."
"Thanks big guy." Shawn leaned in close and spoke quickly in a hushed tone. "The dude with the glasses over there is bluffing. You can totally take him. The guy with the Magnum 'stache is holding, but it's likely a pair of tens. The guy with the sandwich has no idea what his cards mean. He's just happy he's being included. Good luck." Shawn slapped an arm on the man's shoulder and headed through the door.
He followed the directions and soon found the garage. Through a thin window he could make out Claire and Keith standing near one of the pumper trucks. Keith looked anxious and Claire looked like she was about to cry. Or about to shoot someone, and then cry. It was hard to tell. Shawn crouched low, turned the handle, and opened the door as silently as he could.
"Who's there?" Claire yelled, panic in her voice.
Shawn used the truck as cover and got Claire in his sights.
"Step away from her, Keith" Shawn shouted, his throat feeling raw. "She shot Lassie and she's probably going to shoot you."
"I didn't!" Claire lied, gripping Keith firmly by the arm. "You can't prove I shot anybody." Shawn could see that she still had the gun, which was now pointed at Keith's ribs.
"I'm not a cop," Shawn said. "I don't have to prove anything. I'm a psychic. I know you shot Detective Lassiter and I know you started the fire in the warehouse that killed that woman."
"Claire wouldn't hurt anyone on purpose and she's not going to hurt me." Keith turned his brown eyes on his assailant. "We're friends, aren't we?"
"I always wanted us to be," Claire said.
Shawn spotted a framed picture of a 1950s fire prevention poster on the wall.
"Oh!" he shouted. "I've getting a vision. The spirit of Smokey the Bear. He says only you can prevent forest fires, and only you started the fire at the warehouse. He says you didn't mean to kill that homeless woman. That was an accident. Is that right?" Shawn asked. Claire nodded. He thought back to the case file he'd seen on lassiter's desk. "I see it all. You meant to burn the building down. It was abandoned, and the company that owned it didn't even care enough to insure it."
"Right," Claire affirmed. "They didn't want it. And Keith said the number of arsons was down this year. I was worried he might lose his job, so I burned the warehouse."
"I can see it all," Shawn said. "And the gas burned quicker than you expected. By the time you realized someone was there, it was too late." Claire was nodding, her face wet with tears, but her hand still gripped the gun. Shawn's sharp eyes spotted that the safety was off, and it was pushed firmly against Keith's ribs. The firefighter looked scared, but he watched Shawn, waiting for a signal of some kind.
"It was just an accident." Claire pulled Keith further in front of her, like a shield. "You can't blame me for an accident."
"Of course not. You did it for Keith. To make sure he kept his job." Shawn wasn't sure that playing good cop was working with Claire. Through the window in the far door he could make out Gus's anxious face, peering through the glass. In a few minutes SWAT was probably going to shut off the power, toss in a smoke grenade and rush in like angry bees after the Honeycomb bear. Shawn tried a different tactic.
"But you were wasting your time, Claire. Forget about Keith. Keith doesn't like you." He saw the look of panic flash across Keith's face. "That's not his fault," Shawn added quickly. "How could he like you? Even your name is terrible."
"What's wrong with my name?" Claire asked, anger quickly displacing her tears.
"Uh, it's a fat girl's name." Shawn said.
"I'm not fat." Claire turned and pointed the gun toward him. Shawn almost smiled. At least now Keith wasn't directly in the line of fire.
Gus, seeing that Shawn was in danger, opened the door and crept inside, crouching behind a stack of sandbags in the corner.
"Well not at present, but I can see you really pushing maximum density," Shawn continued, speaking loudly, to cover any sound Gus might be making. "See I'm not sure if you know this, but there are two kinds of fat people. There's fat people that were born to be fat, and there's fat people that were once thin but became fat..."
Gus grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall and slowly advanced toward Claire. Shawn wasn't sure if he intended to spray her with foam or smack her in the head. At this point he felt good about either plan.
"…so when you look at them you can sorta see that thin person inside." Shawn wasn't sure what he would do when he got to the end of Bender's lines. He wondered if he should switch to the poisoned wine monologue from Princess Bride, but wasn't sure how to introduce it.
Claire's eyes looked like they were trying to burn holes through Shawn's head. "Stop saying that!" She shouted, shaking the gun at him.
Gus pulled the pin on the extinguisher, which must have made a noise, because suddenly Claire swivelled and swung the gun toward Gus. Keith dropped to the floor in anticipation of gunfire. Without even taking a breath Shawn squeezed the trigger on the Colt Mustang. Claire dropped her gun and doubled over, clutching her shoulder with both hands as blood soaked through her coat. At almost the same time, Gus sprayed her with fire retardant foam. Then the door behind Gus opened and Juliet O'Hara and Buzz McNabb hurried in, Glocks at the ready.
"You jerk!" Claire shouted at Shawn as she was handcuffed, clumps of foam sliding off her hair and clothing to the floor around her. "You shot me. That's not fair."
"Tell that to Detective Lassiter," Shawn said. He turned to Gus. "Dude! That was awesome the way you came at her with the fire extinguisher." He mimicked Gus's attack. "You were like the fourth Ghostbuster fighting that Pat Benatar chick on the roof. We should see if Jules can get us a copy of Claire's mugshot for the office."
"You're thinking of Winston Zeddmore fighting Gozer the Gozerian," Gus said, breathing heavily as he tried to relax. "But I was thinking more about the Chinese janitor who rescued the school children by attacking a knife-wielding assailant with a fire extinguisher." Shawn raised his eyebrows and Gis added, "If you read the Huffington Post you'd learn these things."
Keith stood and looked at Shawn with recognition in his eyes. "You're Shawn Spencer, the Santa Barbara Police Psychic, aren't you? Carlton talked about you."
"He did?" Shawn smiled. "What'd he say?"
"I don't think I want to know," Gus said.
Juliet O'Hara took Lassiter's gun from Shawn and slipped it into an evidence bag. She pointed an accusatory finger at Gus.
"You," she said, "should never have put yourself in harm's way. You should have left this to us." She looked at Shawn and smiled sympathetically. "But I get why you didn't."
Shawn tilted his head at her. "Do I need to have a talk with Gus about letting people into the Vault of Secrets?"
"Oh please, Shawn. I am a detective. Carlton's been mooning around the station all week. He changed the subject every time I mentioned your name. And when you're there he looks at you like you're a pepper turkey sandwich. Then there was that weird fake date at the pub and that transparent thing with Keith. There's no way Carlton would have hooked up with anyone that fast." She turned to Keith. "No offense meant, of course."
"None taken," Keith said.
Shawn headed for Lassiter's Crown Vic. Gus fell into step beside him.
"This…relationship with Lassiter," Gus asked. "Is it serious?"
Shawn thought over all the problems that dating Lassiter would entail. They'd have to keep it secret from everyone at the station. Everyone other than Juliet, that is. That would mean no hand-holding, kissing or anniversary parties. Of course he'd have to tell Henry, who would freak out about the gay thing and the breaking SBPD policy thing. It was a teetering Jenga tower of a relationship that would inevitably come crashing down on top of them, possibly taking their jobs with it. And he still wanted to do it. Either he was serious about Lassiter or he'd discovered his masochistic side and it was seriously self-destructive.
"As serious as rear-ending Danny Trejo's convertible," Shawn said.
Gus raised his eyebrows. "That's pretty serious."
"Yeah. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to go to the hospital and see if I've still got a relationship."
Lassiter wiggled the batteries in the remote control and then pointed it at the television hanging from the ceiling in the corner of his pale green hospital room. The channels changed, but each station seemed more boring than the last.
The surgeon had removed two bullets from his chest cavity. Now he lay in bed attached to a ventilator, a suction machine and an IV drip. Despite the constant visits from doctors and nurses, he felt abandoned. Shawn had not been right behind the ambulance as he'd promised he would be. In fact, Lassiter had been awake for an hour now, wondering if Shawn was going to show at all. The most obvious answer was that seeing what dating a police office might entail had sent him running for the hills. It was certainly been too much for his wife, so he didn't see why it would be any different with a boyfriend. If Shawn had ever been his boyfriend.
He has just decided to suffer through an episode of Undercover Boss when Shawn entered, looking even more disheveled than usual. Shawn set a stack of magazines on a table and looked down at him with anxiety in his hazel eyes. Lassiter tried to rein in his happiness at seeing Shawn again. A late visit was better than no visit, but a late visit probably wasn't a good sign.
"If you're here to let me down easy then let's just get it over with," Lassiter said, trying to keep his voice steady. "My insurance doesn't cover having my heart stomped into the linoleum."
"Sorry I'm late, Lassie. I had to save your man Keith and give your assailant a taste of her own medicine. So to speak. You may need a new gun for your peanuts. Jules took your Colt Mustang as evidence."
"You shot her?" Lassiter wasn't sure whether to be impressed or horrified. When Shawn hadn't shown he'd imagined him hunched over a Playstation or flirting with yoga instructors. He hadn't pictured him chasing down the suspect.
"She'll live. Although it may be a while before she can do a descent backhand swing without wincing. Do they play tennis in women's prison? I don't remember that in Caged Heat. Or in Chained Heat for that matter. Any of the heat movies, really."
"I'm just glad you got her." Lassiter had been arguing with the head nurse over getting access to a phone so he could track Claire down on his own, but she had refused and handed him the television remote instead. Lying in bed, unable to even follow the investigation into his own attempted murder had been driving him crazy. Given that he was still wearing a holster and firearm, he'd have expected more cooperation.
Shawn looked down at Lassiter's long frame in the hospital bed. "I really hate this whole you-being-shot thing," he said. "Especially just when things were getting so interesting. It's like my feelings are an American tourist who gets drugged on vacation and wakes up strapped to a chair by a man wearing a leather apron. This so isn't where I was hoping our evening would end."
"I thought you didn't have feelings anymore. You said you had them removed. remember?" Lassiter savoured the memory of running his hands over Shawn's bare chest and wondered if that would ever happen again.
"Oh that," Shawn looked at the floor. "Let's just say that I'm the reason they don't let you use cell phone or microwaves in the hospital. Coincidentally, I'm also the reason hairdryers have that 'do not use while sleeping' warning. But that's a longer story."
Shawn leaned forward and kissed Lassiter on the forehead, over the points of his eyebrows. Lassiter felt his hopes plummet. That wasn't a sexual kiss.
"I brought you some magazines." Shawn grabbed the stack from the table.
Lassiter sighed. "What is it about being shot in the chest that makes people think I want to read about which reality show celebrity is getting back with her loser boyfriend?" Shawn spotted a few pristine copies of US Weekly and People on Lassiter's bedside table.
"These aren't those kind of magazines," Shawn passed over the stack. Lassiter accepted it hesitantly, wondering if Shawn had brought him gay porn. His face lit up when he saw copies of Guns & Weapons, Law Enforcement Technology and Police Magazine.
"Sweet!" he exclaimed. "Thanks, Spencer."
"Given where your mouth has been, it better start calling me Shawn."
"Thanks, Shawn."
" No problem. Now hurry up and get better so you can go home and I can live out my fantasy of nursing you back to health. It'll be like Arnold Schwarzenegger and that FBI dude at the end of Raw Deal. I'll teach you how to walk again and you'll shag me out of gratitude."
Lassiter ignored the fact that he didn't need to learn to walk again or that Shawn's recollection of the ending of Raw Deal has a lot more sex in it than the film had. He was just relieved that Shawn didn't appear to be scared off or dumping him.
"You fantasized about that?" he asked. "Seriously?"
"More times than Ewan McGregor's played gay."
Lassiter's doctor entered, picked up the chart at the end of the bed and smiled at them.
"You're coming along nicely, Detective," he said. "The chest tube comes out in a couple of days, and as soon as you don't need the ventilator you'll be sitting up." He turned to Shawn. "Sitting helps prevent pneumonia and other complications. He'll have some deep breathing exercises to help that lung stay inflated and heal more readily." He smiled at Lassiter. "You should be out of here in a week or so."
"At which point I can go back on duty?" Lassiter asked it as a question, but it sounded like a decision.
"At which point I recommend you go home and stay there for a couple of weeks. Then you can do desk duty on a part time basis for a few weeks." The doctor chuckled. "You'll be back running down criminals in about four months."
"And what if I'm already sick of being here and I sign myself out?" Lassiter asked, ignoring the looks of disapproval directed at him.
"In that case we'd give you a script for antibiotics and pain meds and have you see your usual doctor every few days for the first week or so."
"And then I can go back to work?"
"Or die peacefully at home, which seems to be your plan." The doctor pulled a business card from the pocket of his white labcoat. "I spoke with a Chief Karen Vick and she told me to call if I had any problems with you." He put the card back into his pocket and looked down at Lassiter. "I'm not going to have to call Chief Vick, am I?" Lassiter shook his head, defeated, and the doctor left to continue his rounds.
"Relax, Lassie," Shawn said. "I'll bring all your paperwork here. You can do it in between watching episodes of Homicide: Life On The Street."
"That show hasn't been on the air in over a decade."
"Really?" Shawn tilted his head thoughtfully. "Then what have I been watching?"
"I suppose I could read copies of the Courier and you could just tell me who did it," Lassiter muttered.
"That sounds fun too," Shawn said. "Dibs on the Sudoku." Lassiter thought back to the newspapers he'd found in Shawn's desk. Could it be that his discomfort with Shawn's psychic shenanigans was actually rooted in something else—namely the fact that he found Shawn's solve rate kind of hot? Lassiter sighed his frustration.
"Damn, it, Spencer. Why couldn't you have just been a cop?"
"I'm a Lieutenant in the Dream Police, if that helps." Shawn sat heavily into the chair beside the bed and grabbed lassiter's untouched copy of People. "Oooh! Bathing suit photos of celebrities. Let's see who got all lumpy in their off season."