A/N: Much as I wished I owned any part of Psych, alas, I do not. The characters, plot sequence, belong to Steve Franks and other Psych-affiliates.

Juliet O'Hara was not going to lose it today.

Although, she had to admit, things were not off to a good start. She was an early riser, but it was four-thirty in the morning, way too early for even the biggest morning person, and besides, she'd accidentally stayed up too late last night catching up on The Bachelor, her guilty pleasure, so she wasn't exactly awake when Gus called, and she wasn't exactly thrilled to have been pulled out of her warm, comfy bed to come down to a darkened truck yard in the middle of the night—well, morning. But it felt like the middle of the night.

She and Carlton got out of the car and jogged toward Gus, who was standing alone in the middle of the yard. Alone, that was odd. Although, knowing Shawn, he'd be just as game to pop out from some ridiculous hiding spot and startle them all when they were barely awake as he would be at any other hour.

"Gus!" Juliet called as she and Carlton approached him, "We got down here as soon as we could, are you alright?"

Still no Shawn, Juliet noticed, which was still odd, but for all she knew, he could be doing a silent "wait for iiiiit" just out of sight before he made his surprise appearance.

"You two better have a very good reason for dragging me out of my bed and down here to nowheresville at four-thirty in the morning," growled Carlton, who had either not noticed Shawn's absence or was annoyed in advance at his inevitable grand entrance. He paused, and confusion played on his face for a half second. "Where the hell is Spencer?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," replied Gus, with a little shake of his head. Now that she was close to him, Juliet could see the worry etched in his forehead. That, combined with the fact that he was clearly still in his pajamas, alarmed her a little.

"If I wanted to make guesses," Carlton said testily, "I would go on a game show. What the hell is going on?"

"Look, all I know is he left me this message about an hour ago," Gus said, holding up his phone to playback his voicemail.

Shawn's voice rang out from the phone, sounding delighted as he always did when he'd had some kind of psychic episode or epiphany. "Buddy!" Voicemail Shawn exclaimed, "I figured it out! It's sweet! The whole thing was just a rehearsal. I'm leaving my place. Meet me down at the storage yard now. Come in your fireman pjs if you have to. Just be there."

Almost before the message ended, Juliet couldn't contain herself anymore. "What does that mean, rehearsal?" she asked, wishing more than ever that Shawn really was just waiting to jump out and explain himself.

"I have no idea." Gus answered, and the alarm bells began to ring a little more loudly in Juliet's head. She didn't understand; there were way too many missing pieces in Shawn's voicemail, and even if there weren't, every second that passed in his absence made her somehow even more sure that something was amiss. If Shawn was still close by, he'd missed his cue, which was unlike him, and if he wasn't, there was no doubt that he was in some kind of trouble. First, because nothing good ever happened at this hour, and second, it was Shawn, and whatever he'd gotten himself into was more than likely bigger than him.

Juliet took a deep breath and began to look around at her surroundings. The storage yard was shadowy in the early morning, and it was hard to tell if something had transpired here recently. Just as she was about to step away, Gus's phone sounded. "Wait," he said. "This just came in from Shawn."

"Read it." Juliet commanded instantly. She could hear the desperation in her own voice, but couldn't bring herself to care.

"I have no idea what this means." Gus said, frowning in confusion at his phone. "Trunk yelrfx ocone pol peac sig."

"What is that?" Juliet asked softly, more to herself than to anyone else.

"It's gibberish." Carlton chimed in from next to her. He was right, of course. None of the words Gus had said made any sense. Had Shawn suffered a head injury or something? It was unlike him to leave them without a clue. Well, Juliet supposed he hadn't exactly left them without a clue, as the gibberish was clearly meant to tell them something, but how could he expect them to interpret it when the words weren't even words? Juliet sighed, wracking her brain for any direction these words could point in.

"Wait," said Gus suddenly, "there's more." It momentarily occurred to Juliet that if Shawn were here, he would've taken that moment to make a Billy Mays joke. It was a half-second reprieve for her brain to think about the joke Shawn would have made, but it was also disturbing how quickly her mind had gone there. Shawn was clearly rubbing off on her; perhaps she'd tell him so if they ever figured out where the heck he was.

Gus's voice jolted her back to reality as he read the next message, "binshot not lol."

"What is he talking about?" Juliet mused, shaking her head. The messages from Shawn were making her feel worse, not better, and there was a knot beginning to form in her stomach. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, really wrong.

"Binshot…binshot…binshot…binshot," Gus repeated to himself, clearly as unnerved as Juliet felt.

A few feet behind him, Juliet watched her partner crouch down, his eyes catching something on the ground. Carlton dipped his finger into a tiny pool of something in the dirt. "What are you playing with over there?" she asked, praying silently that he'd just somehow uncovered their first lead.

Gus, for his part, was continuing to repeat "binshot" over and over to himself, but Juliet tuned him out as she focused on Carlton. The moment before he turned to look at her felt like an eternity, but when he made eye contact, she found no comfort in his eyes. "It's blood." He said gravely.

"Bin…shot," Gus repeated again, stretching out the words this time. Juliet wasn't sure whether he'd even heard Carlton speak.

Suddenly, a look of pure terror flashed across Gus's face. "Oh my God," he said, and Juliet looked at him, already horrified by whatever conclusion he must have just reached. "Shawn's been shot."

Immediately, Juliet felt her stomach drop and her heart begin to race. Shawn couldn't have been shot, Shawn was Shawn. But then again, Shawn was Shawn, which was exactly how she knew Gus was right. She didn't speak immediately—she was fighting for breath as it was, she couldn't even attempt to fight for words yet—but her head was racing. Images of Shawn bleeding, dying somewhere as he'd sent that message to Gus flashed through her mind, even as she struggled against them. Of course his previous text message hadn't made any sense, how much effort must it have taken to muster the strength for sending a message when he was laying there dying?

Oh, God. What if Shawn was really dying? There were so many things she had never said to him, even though she wanted to. There were so many moments they'd gotten so close to having, that she'd hoped they one day would. Shawn's visits were the highlights of her days at the station. Even though he'd been a little more distant lately since he started dating Abigail, he was still one of her best friends in the world, and even just being around him with his jokes and his teasing made her feel somehow safe. How could the world ever feel right again if he wasn't in it?

"Pull yourself together, O'Hara," Juliet commanded herself silently, trying to shake off the moment of panic. Shawn was not dying; he couldn't be dying. They were going to find him, and he was going to be okay.

Lassiter cleared his throat. "There's not much blood here," he said, "that's a good sign for Spencer." Even Carlton's voice sounded a little uneven, Juliet noticed. Of course, he'd never admit being truly concerned about Shawn, but he was clearly shaken too.

A moment passed in silence, each of them in their own world. Then Carlton sprang into action, which Juliet had never been more grateful for, as her own head was spinning so fast she couldn't think straight. "O'Hara, get the chief on the phone and call for more backup." Carlton commanded her. "I'll start taking a look at the blood patterns and see what I can come up with. Guster, you—" he trailed off. Gus was still looking at his phone, clearly still shell-shocked. "You take the time you need," Carlton finished lamely. It was a small kindness, a sign of his unwitting concern for Shawn, and it would've made Juliet smile if she hadn't been so petrified.

"We're going to find him, Gus. He's going to be okay." She said, doing her best to sound like she believed it as she patted Gus on the shoulder.

The next fifteen minutes were a blur. After Juliet called Chief Vick and explained the situation to her, doing her best to sound calm, and rational, and professional, though perhaps those were the three most opposite words to how she was actually feeling, she'd tried to talk to Gus a little more, to help convince him—and herself—of Shawn's safety and maybe get a little more information out of him, but Gus wasn't any help. She couldn't blame him. She still felt dizzy, and she couldn't stop the frantic thoughts swirling in her mind, conjuring up images of Shawn, bloody and wasting away somewhere, while simultaneously the things she'd never gotten to express to him taunted her. Finally, the chief arrived on the scene, along with several officers in black-and-whites, and Juliet turned away from Gus, reminding herself that she was a cop, and even if Shawn weren't, well, whatever he was to her, she had a duty to do her best work to solve this case.

Carlton called out to her and Gus, motioning them towards where he was standing with another officer, next to another small pool on the ground. "Alright, based on the blood patterns and marks on the ground, he was shot here and dragged this way," Carlton explained, leading Juliet and Gus along the marks in the dirt he'd finished laying out only a moment before. Juliet felt sick to her stomach looking at it, but forced herself to pay attention. It might be the only way to figure out where Shawn had gone.

"The blood trail ends here," Carlton continued, pausing a short distance away. "We couldn't get any usable tread marks, but these swirls in the gravel indicate kickback from a car pulling out of here at a high rate of speed."

Juliet didn't say anything as he spoke, trying to process it. "We recovered a single shell casing." He said. "Shooter used a .45 auto." Juliet nodded slowly. One shell casing was a good sign, he'd probably only been shot once. Well, it wasn't actually a good sign, getting shot at all was pretty clearly not a good sign, but it did make his chances better than if the shooter had fired at him multiple times.

Suddenly a car door slammed, and Juliet turned to see Shawn's father walking towards them, his face set in a determined grimace. "Who the hell called him down here?" Carlton demanded.

"I did." Gus said defensively. "It's his father."

"Which is exactly why I don't want him here!" Carlton exclaimed darkly, turning on Gus. "If Shawn really is shot, there'll be no room for family in the investigation."

"If Shawn has been shot, there's no room I'm not going to bust open to find my son," Henry interjected firmly, anger flashing in his eyes. "You got it?"

"Henry, please." Lassiter said.

"Carlton," Juliet warned. "This thing may get personal, we might need him." She stared at her partner, willing him to look away first. It was already personal for her. They needed all the help they could get, and despite the sometimes-deeply-strained relationship between Shawn and his father, few people knew how to read Shawn even half as clearly as his father did. Maybe Henry could find the key to this whole thing.

Carlton sighed, giving in. "We do this, we do this my way, no questions." He said pointedly. Henry shrugged in response. Carlton turned back to Juliet and Gus. "Spencer will ride with me, we'll chase the breadcrumbs to find Shawn. O'Hara, you take Guster, retrace Shawn's steps in whatever ridiculous investigation he got himself into."

Juliet nodded. A task was good. She could focus on a task, take things one step at a time. This was how she could help Shawn. This was how she could keep her head clear.

"We've got a lot of ground to cover; let's go." Carlton said, already stalking away, Henry following closely behind. "Move out!" He called over his shoulder as he and Henry got into the car.

Juliet took a deep breath. It was time to begin. She turned to Gus. "Okay Gus, think hard," she said, trying not to allow her voice to convey any of the panic she was feeling. "What brought Shawn down here?" This was how they would do it, she reassured herself, as she waited for Gus to answer. Gus had to know something, after all. It just needed to be triggered. She would find it, and then they would find him.

Gus looked at her, shaking his head, his mind still clearly clouded by worry and confusion. "Uh, all I know is this whole thing started a few days ago." He said. "With the ice cream truck on the highway."