William Rabkin - Psych - A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read

Except it wasn’t something Shawn had said-Gus had said it. That sound traveled between the front seat and backseat of a car.

Devon Shepler knew all about Tara, because they’d talked about her on the way up to Eagle’s View. And he knew about the disastrous investments because he’d been waiting to lead them up to the tower when Dallas revealed the truth. If he’d caught Tara breaking in to the house looking for them, it would have been easy to manipulate her into ingesting some of the drug-and even easier to slip it into Steele’s late-night beverage.

But why would Shepler kill the man to whom he seemed so devoted? To whom he had dedicated every minute of his waking day? Who relied on him for everything?

Gus tried to put himself in Shepler’s mind-and discovered it was frighteningly easy. He could feel the man’s resentment at being constantly needed and never rewarded, or even acknowledged. At being taken advantage of.

How blind Gus had been not to see this all along. The way Shepler would freeze before answering a question or following an order-it wasn’t the pause of a methodical brain searching for the correct response. It was the moment he needed to get his rage in check before acting like the proper gentleman’s gentleman.

Maybe Shepler tried to build a little something for himself. When Dallas told him that he’d hired a psychic genius to invest his money, it would have seemed like a perfect chance to get some for himself. How much of his life savings did he pour into their ridiculous investments? How much of Steele’s had he borrowed without permission? And then when he found out the truth that Dallas had casually destroyed him as collateral damage in a cruel scheme to humiliate Shawn, how great would his rage have been?

And then Gus realized something else. Shawn had stopped him from drinking the Blak. Stopped him by drinking it himself. At the time, Gus attributed it to his typical self-centeredness. Now he realized that Shawn had sacrificed himself for his friend. He was giving Gus the chance to get away-or to save the day.

Gus patted Shawn on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, buddy,” he said. “I won’t let you down.”

The door the waiters had come through swung open. Gus froze in position as Shepler led Tara in. Her eyes were blank, her steps unsteady. Gus suspected he knew how she’d disappeared after trying to kill him. Shepler found her and started feeding her small doses of the drug, not enough to paralyze, but sufficient to keep her extremely pliable.

“Here we are, Tara,” Shepler said cheerfully. “All your friends are in one place.” He turned to the paralyzed crowd. “No, just stay where you are. No need to bother yourself for me.”

Chuckling, he reached into his pocket and came out with the ugliest handgun Gus had ever seen. It had a wooden handle and black steel barrel, and when Shepler unfolded the front grip down, it looked like some kind of evil alien insect. Gus didn’t know enough about guns to identify the make or model, but he was pretty sure it would be able to take out everyone in the room.

Shepler walked through the room, studying his victims like they were statues in a gallery. He stepped up to Veronica and leered in her face.

“All this time you’ve thought I was just that useless little servant. You thought-” Shepler broke off. He raised the gun and pressed it to her temple. “Why am I making a speech? You’ll all be dead in thirty seconds.”

“No!” The word was out of Gus’ mouth before he could stop it.

Shepler wheeled around. “Who said that?”

Gus tried to stay absolutely still. Shepler watched them all carefully for a moment, then shrugged. He turned back to Veronica, raising the gun to her head.

Gus dived for the ground and grabbed the only weapon he could find. Before Shepler could aim the gun, Gus hurled the glass directly at his head. The throw was perfectly aimed, the force was enough to take his head off his shoulders. Unfortunately, before it connected with its target Shepler stepped out of the way, and the glass sailed past him, shattering against the far wall.

“That was a special Baccarat pattern made solely for Mr. Steele,” Shepler said as he aimed the gun at Gus. “Now I can only have two hundred forty-nine people over for dinner.”

Shepler’s finger tightened on the trigger. Gus rolled along the floor until he could scramble to his feet. He bolted for the door, but the handle wouldn’t turn.

“Don’t you remember? Shawn asked me to lock you all in.” Shepler leveled the gun at Gus.

“Don’t you want to explain your master plan?” Gus said, still trying to make the door work. “Or maybe make me watch you execute all my friends before you lock me in the dungeon to suffer for hours with the memory burning in my brain?”

“Because I care so much about what you think? Are you always this arrogant?”

Shepler was moving closer. Not so close that Gus had any hope of grabbing the gun, just near enough there was no chance of missing.

Gus only had one prayer. Shawn. Maybe he was coming out of his trance. Maybe he’d been faking all along. Maybe he could be sneaking up on Shepler as they spoke.

Gus risked a glance in his direction. He wasn’t. He hadn’t. He couldn’t.

But one part of him was moving. Shawn’s eyes were shifting back and forth urgently. Gus followed his gaze and let it lead him to the harpist.

“He doesn’t even want to give a speech. He’s not going to go for a flashback,” Gus said.

Shawn’s eyes widened slightly and shifted quickly back toward the harpist. Now Gus saw what he was indicating. The harp case stood open behind her.

Shepler took another step toward Gus. There was no chance he could miss from this distance. “I’ve seen that movie, too. You pretend to talk to someone, I turn around to see who it is, blah blah blah.”

“Shawn?” It was Tara’s voice. She was blinking slowly, as if trying to focus.

This time Shepler did turn his head, and Gus took advantage of the moment. He dived to the ground, sliding across the slick marble like a puck on an air-hockey table, crashing into the harp and toppling it with a musical crash. As bullets smashed into the wall behind him, Gus rolled over and pulled himself behind the open case. He crouched down, wishing that Shawn had brought someone who played an even bigger instrument.

“Do you really think they make harp cases bulletproof?” Shepler said. “It’s not like there’s a big demand for them in war zones.”

There were three shots, and three holes appeared in the top of the case. “Nope, not bulletproof,” Shepler said. “Let’s see if you are.”

There was nowhere to run. There was nowhere to hide. There was only one chance, and it was as slight as they come.

“Tara!”

“Gus,” Shepler said wearily, “when a drugged-out zombie is your only hope, you might as well pack it in.”

“Tara, Mr. Shepler put pickles on Shawn’s burger!”

Gus pulled his head down to his knees and waited for the impact of the bullet into his body. And waited.

There was no gunshot, just a muffled crack, and then a thump. And after a moment, Tara’s pleading voice.

“Gus, I think Mr. Shepler fell down the stairs.”

Santa Barbara chilled under a blanket of fog. Across the city, smoke was pouring out of fireplace chimneys, furnaces were roaring for the first time in months, and the homeless who had moved here for the weather were bundled in multiple copies of the Times.

Somehow, however, the impound office was as hot as ever. It seemed to be made out of a miraculous new kind of tin that would let heat in but never allow it out.

Of course that could be partly due to the fact that it was crammed full of people. The day after the Eagle’s View affair, when the hallucinogen’s twelve-hour effectiveness had worn off and all its victims had been released from the hospital, Bert Coules demanded that Shawn be arrested for his outrageous accusation. Chief Vick wouldn’t accede to that, since there was no law against maligning public officials. But she did strongly urge Shawn to either prove what he’d said or take it back before Coules found some statute to hold him on.