"I really appreciate you giving me this opportunity, Janet," Shawn said, following the tiny brunette woman down the hall. "I’m looking forward to working here."

"I’m glad to have you here at Salomé Salon," she said. "You seem like a very nice young man and you come with a lot of good recommendations, if not much experience. I’m surprised you’re still interested in the spa business, what with all the trouble we’ve been having around town. I was quite afraid we wouldn’t find anyone to take over Marguerite’s appointments, poor dear. Thank goodness no one else is sick."

He flashed a charming smile. "Let’s hope it stays that way. As much as I’d like to find a massage parlor of my own, I’d rather not get it in such a terrible way."

Janet smiled and pushed open the door to a room on their left. "I still can’t believe we found someone quite as sweet as you." Shawn gave her a smile equal parts sheepish embarrassment and pleasure. He stepped into the room, giving it a good once over, half-listening as Janet continued, "Now, all of the products you should need are on those shelves along the wall." She pointed at the bottles on the far end, nearest the head of the massage table. "That’s our newest lotion and it’s very popular with the guests, though many of them will still request their old favorites. In the corner, you have a CD player if the guests would like to hear some soothing music while they wait, CDs are in the cabinet beneath it, and the clean robes are kept in the closet. You can just deposit the used ones into the bins in the corner.

"Your first appointment is at twelve, so you should have plenty of time to get settled in."

"Oh, definitely, plenty of time."

"If you need anything, just let me, or one of the other masseurs know. We’ll be happy to help you with anything you need to help make you feel at home." She smiled one last time and he returned the gesture.

"Great, that sounds perfect, thanks. I’ll let you know if I think of anything." She closed the door behind her as she exited and he turned back to the room, rubbing his hands together. Now he was cooking with fire.

Since regular investigation hadn’t been paying off, this was the next best option. Where better to find the solution to the problem than in the midst of the spa currently falling victim? He was bound to see something. Then he could solve the case, please the Chief, and get back to his life.

He moved over to the shelf, picking up a bottle and sniffing. His eyes widened. No wonder the customers liked this new stuff, it smelled great. Squirting a big glob of it into his hands, he started rubbing it in, deciding now was as good a time as any to start working on his silky smooth masseur’s hands. He hissed as the still healing cut on his hand stung, rubbing his hand over it until it faded. He’d have to remember to wear gloves. Holding his hands out in front of him, he grinned. They already felt softer. He’d have to talk to Juliet after this was over and see what she thought of these babies.

He shook his head. Now wasn’t the time for that though. Now was the time for investigation. Moving to the door, he peeked out into the hallway.

First stop: the break room.

~ * * * ~

Gus kept his head down as he moved through the police station, eyes scouring back and forth as he walked. It probably looked ridiculously suspicious, but he didn’t really care as long as it meant he didn’t run into Shawn. Fortunately, Shawn didn’t appear to be at the station today. He made it to Juliet’s desk with no trouble.

She glanced up, probably catching his approach out of her peripheral and looked at him in surprise. "Gus, what are you doing here?" Looking around, he pulled up a nearby chair and sat down, leaning in.

"Has Shawn come to you about anymore of these make-it-up-to-you events?"

Juliet shook her head. "No, why? Did something happen?"

"No, no, it’s nothing like that. It’s just…well, I know he means well and I really appreciate what he’s trying to do, but on top of the whole thing with the Chief and the case, I think he’s pulling himself in too many directions," he explained, keeping his voice low.

Juliet nodded knowingly. "You’re worried about him."

Gus rolled his eyes. "When am I not worried about that idiot?"

She smiled. "He’s really set on making this up to you though."

Gus nodded, pursing his lips. "I know. That’s part of the problem. I mean, I appreciate all the gestures and things, but I told him we were even and I don’t think he really even heard me. He’s too focused on making it up to me now."

"For a man who seems to have so many trains of thought, he certainly has a one-track mind," Juliet said wryly.

"You’re telling me."

"So what can I do to help? You want me to chain him to a desk?" she joked.

"Tempting as that is, no, just, if he calls you, or comes by for more advice, just tell him I’ve forgiven him and that we’re good again. Anything that’ll get him to slow down. It’s only fun to see him killing himself for me for so long."

Juliet grinned and patted his arm. "Of course I will, Gus, no problem."

"Thanks, Juliet," he said gratefully. At that moment, Lassiter chose to make an entrance.

"Guster, what are you doing here?" He turned, looking around suspiciously. "And where’s Spencer?"

"It’s none of your business, Detective," Gus said loftily, getting to his feet. "And for your information, Shawn and I aren’t always together."

"Yeah, but one’s never far behind," he muttered darkly, eyes still scanning the hall for any sign of the fake psychic.

Gus ignored him and tipped his head at Juliet. "Thank you. I appreciate it."

She smiled. "My pleasure. See you later, Gus."

"See you." He waved and headed off down the hallway, Lassiter’s wary gaze pinned to his back. When he was gone, he looked to Juliet and said, "The hell, O’Hara? Did you recently change your name to Maury or what?"

Juliet rolled her eyes.

~ * * * ~

The break room had been a bust.

The worst things he’d discovered in there had been an expired box of Ritz Crackers in the cabinet, and a strange-smelling, but not wholly unappetizing-looking Tupperware of tuna fish salad.

What he really needed was something to connect to the other salons, some reason for them to be targeted that would scream the name of the perpetrator, or, even better, a common person who had access to all the salons and masseurs involved, and a nice neat motive for attacking them.  Unfortunately, he doubted that Tuna Salad Surprise was going to stand up in a court of law as corroborating evidence.  He'd have to keep looking.

His hands were feeling a little bit dry after his search, so he returned to his room to reapply, ignoring the sting. Ooh, yeah. Silky smooth. Now he could either sneak into the sick masseurs’ room, or he could go scavenging in the closet.

He staged a quick mental debate over the merits of both options, and then finally left it up to a good old-fashioned rock-paper-scissors duel. Paper won, which meant, off to the closet!

~ * * * ~

"Detectives!"

Both Juliet and Lassiter straightened sharply at Karen’s bark, Lassiter calling back crisply, "Yes, Chief?"

Karen’s face was set in a grim mask, eyes still ringed with dark circles and her usually well-kept hair mussed. "One of our sick masseurs just took a turn for the worst, I want you to get a hold of Mr. Spencer and get him over there as soon as possible for a reading."

Lassiter’s lips tightened, but if he had any reservations, he didn’t mention them. "Yes, Chief."

She nodded brusquely and disappeared back into the office.

Lassiter grimaced as he turned back to Juliet. "That woman needs to get some sleep

Juliet sighed, nodding her agreement. "I think we could all use some sleep. Let’s see if we can find Shawn."

"You should just call his cell phone first," Lassiter told her as she brought her phone to her ear. She rolled her eyes and waved her hand to shush him. He made a face at her. "Hi, Shawn, this is Juliet. The Chief needs you to come down to the hospital and do a reading as soon as you can, one of the masseurs took a turn for the worst. Give me a call as soon as you can. Thanks, bye."

"Told you," Lassiter muttered and she flashed an annoyed look in his direction before refocusing on the phone against her ear.

~ * * * ~

Shawn stood in the supply closet, his brain whirring as it tried to process what he was seeing.

The closet was full of shelves, floor to ceiling, lining three of the four walls of the room. Bottles of lotions, crèmes, body butters, and oils and other applications were to the right, neat little blocks of tubes and bottles stacked several layers deep, with printed labels on the shelf with information about the product. They seemed to be grouped first by recommended usage, then by type of substance, then by alphabetical order.

It was all very OCD, he thought with a tilt of his head, a smile, and a soft snort.

And about half of them were possible suspects for the poison by virtue of being used at the other spas. But nothing immediately jumped out at him here so he kept looking.

The back shelf was full of other disposable items that were not perishables like gloves, paper liners, eye masks, applicators, etc.  These were simply ordered by type and then alphabetical order by product name.  Nothing jumped out at him here, either, but then he hadn't expected to find his culprit on these shelves. All of the suspects here had been eliminated by the CSU geeks by virtue of also being used by hospitals and other health care facilities and then matching batches.  If any of these were at fault it wouldn't be just masseurs sick.

The left side of the room had some non-disposables, like the heating stones and the massage heads for some of the electronic helpers, and the non-salon usage perishables.  The rest of the shelves here were filled with tiny bottles that matched the ones across the room and organized in much the same way.  These were either given out in the goody bags that accompanied some of the packages, or purchased outright for home usage.

Since no clients had reported illness, or at least none that they knew of anyway, it was a pretty safe assumption that anything on this shelf was also not suspect.

All of which was already known and hadn't narrowed things down to a single product.

He rubbed his forehead, which was starting to ache from the strain, trying to fit the pieces together. He was so close. He had to be.

He turned back to the first shelf and began looking more closely at the labels.

Product name, usage, supplier, product code . . . Nothing really useful there.

He picked up a bottle and uncapped it, sniffing as he looked the bottle over more closely.  The usual warnings, directions, product claims were all there as well as-

He frowned.  There was a date stamped on the bottom of the bottle.  Production date?

He picked up another bottle from the back and saw it was much newer.

So they rotated their stock.  That was good.  Most of this stuff had to have a use by date.

Was that it?  Was someone using old stock and it had gone bad instead of losing effectiveness?  But these places had to go through most of this stuff fairly quickly.  Plus it would mean that every salon was doing the same thing and not tossing out their old stock.

Unless someone had mislabeled the bottles, someone who wanted old stock to be used.

Okay, that narrowed it down to a supplier if it was true.

And it might narrow down the potential killer product list too.  It had to be something produced before the first masseur got sick.

He started checking bottle dates, a few from each product.  It wasn't narrowing down the list that much since most of these apparently had a long shelf life or weren't that popular, but it was eliminating a few suspects.

A moment later he nearly dropped the two bottles he was checking, the phone in his pocket ringing loudly in the small space. "I have got to figure out how to put this thing on vibrate!" he hissed and yanked the phone out of his pocket, snapping it open. "Hello?"

"Shawn! Hi, it’s Juliet. I know you probably really don’t want to hear this, but one of the sick masseurs just took a turn for the worst and the Chief would like you to come down to the hospital and do a reading."

Shawn kneaded at his forehead with his fingers. "Uh—Jules, as much as I would love to do that—I’m kind of in the middle of something right now," he said, pulling another bottle down and checking the date.  He was on the right track, he knew it.  He didn't have all the answers, but this felt right.

Juliet sighed in exasperation. "Shawn, you know how the Chief has been the last few weeks," she said in a low voice. "If you just go and get it over with—"

"No, no, not like that Jules. I’m working an angle of the case. I can’t do it right now," he whispered, ducking into a corner as a pair of footsteps approached.

"What? You’re working an angle of the case? What does that mean?"

He heard Lassiter demanding furiously in the background, "’Working another angle’, what the hell does that mean?"

Shawn didn’t answer as the door had creaked open. A hand slipped inside, flipping off the light switch and then the door closed again, leaving him in darkness.

"Shawn?"

"Yeah, Jules," he whispered. "Just tell the Chief I’m working on it, and I’ll talk to you later."

"Wait, Shawn—what kind of angle?"

Absently, he flipped the phone shut and powered it off before slipping it back into his pocket. Rubbing his forehead again, he gazed through the darkness to where the bottles and tubes sat. Something…

~ * * * ~

A half an hour later he was sliding freshly relotioned hands into a pair of latex gloves. He smiled at the woman lying on the table in front of him and said apologetically, "I’m sorry about the gloves but I cut myself awhile back and you can never be too careful."

She smiled sleepily at him. "It’s no trouble. I’ll probably fall asleep and miss most of it anyway."

"Well, relaxation is exactly what we’re going for, so you do just that."

His client just smiled and nodded lazily, her eyes slipping closed again. The second he was sure they were closed, his smile dropped and he rubbed at his forehead with the back of his wrist. The might-be-a-headache was turning into definitely-a-headache-ow. Maybe Gus was right. He was working too hard. Which only made it more important that he finish the job ASAP.

He set to work, using the skills he’d learned that one summer in Vegas.

~ * * * ~

Waving, he watched with Janet as his first satisfied customer practically oozed her way out the door. "Very nicely handled, Mr. Spencer," Janet congratulated him, beaming.

He grinned, but his heart wasn’t really in it. His head was throbbing relentlessly now, with a sharp point of pain directly in between his eyes and it was driving him just about crazy. It was to the point where he was starting to think he was nauseous.

"Mr. Spencer?"

"Huh?" He looked up to see Janet eyeing him with concern. "Mr. Spencer, are you all right?"

"Yeah, sure, I’m fine," he said, waving off her concern. "I just need to take some Tylenol or something. I’ll be fine."

She nodded, though she didn’t look one-hundred percent convinced. "Well, your next appointment is in an hour, so you’d better go take care of yourself."

He nodded and flashed her a smile. "Yeah, thanks, Janet."

Unfortunately, Tylenol was not one of the things he carried in his wallet. He was persistent enough, however, to ignore it and slipped casually into Marguerite’s room as he headed back down the hallway.

It was identical to his own room.

Everything was set up in the exact same way, and if he hadn’t known better, he would have believed it was his own room. He checked through the few cabinets, but nothing looked out of the ordinary. Dammit. He’d really been hoping…

He was standing in the middle of the room, next to the massage table, kneading his temples with his fingers when the door swung open, and Mary, one of the other masseurs poked her head in. "Shawn? The door was open. Did you get lost?"

He blinked at her. "I—uh—no—I was just—" His eyes pinballed around the room, finally landing on the lotion sitting on the shelves. He pointed. "I just need another bottle of the new stuff."

Mary’s face broke into a smile. "Oh, well I can show you where to get that. Come on."

With one last glance around the room, he trailed after her into the hallway. She led him to the closet he’d been creeping around in earlier.

"I’m sure Janet mentioned it, but this is our supply closet, where we keep everything you’ll find in the massage rooms." She pulled open the door and pointed to the boxes he’d been contemplating earlier in the day. "That’s the lotion you’re looking for." She smiled.

His eyebrows rose. "That’s the new lotion? The Peach Pleasure Paradise stuff?"

"Yeah," she grinned. "We’ve some of it for about a month, but for awhile we weren’t using very much of it. Once we started, the clients fell in love with it, and we’ve been using a ton ever since. Hopefully Stefanie will be back with a new box soon, we’re running low."

Shawn pulled a bottle out of the box and stared at it, his head throbbing so fiercely he could feel it in his gut. "Stefanie," he echoed. "Red headed girl?"

Mary looked at him in surprise, "Yes, how did you know?"

"I just solved the case," he muttered and then put a hand over his mouth.

Mary frowned. "Shawn?"

Crap.

He wasn’t just feeling sick.

He was going to be sick.

~ * * * ~

Juliet huffed in frustration as she and Lassiter headed back to the car for the fifth time. "Not that spa either," she said. "Where on earth could he be?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know?" Lassiter demanded.

Shooting a glare over shoulder, she said irritably, "It was a rhetorical question, Carlton."

He rolled his eyes. "Why are we out here chasing that idiot down?"

Her glare turned even more scathing. "Because Carlton, whenever Shawn Spencer says he’s doing a little of his own investigating, there’s always trouble."

Lassiter’s mouth slanted in a grudging expression. "Fine. Where do you want to look next?"

Juliet sighed, her annoyance fading. "Well—"

She was interrupted by the ring of Lassiter’s cell phone. He whipped it out, snapping it to his ear. "This is Detective Lassiter." His already fierce expression darkened even further. "Who was just admitted?" he growled and then a moment later, "Of course he does. Yes, we’ll be right there." The phone shut with a sharp clap in his hand and he turned a long-suffering look on her.

"You were right. Spencer does attract trouble. He’s in the hospital."

Juliet gaped. "He’s what? Why are we still here?!"

~ * * * ~

When they finally reached the room at Santa Barbara Cottage where Shawn had been admitted, the first thing that greeted them was Shawn and Gus’ bickering.

"What is wrong with you, Shawn?" Gus was demanding.

"I was poisoned, that’s what’s wrong with me, Gus."

"That's not what I meant and you know it," Gus shot back, annoyed.

Both men turned when they walked in. Shawn was sitting in the bed, kneading at his forehead while Gus stood beside the bed, his arms crossed. Shawn looked more aggravated than he did ill, but that obviously wasn't helping ease Gus' worry.

"Shawn, what on earth happened?" Juliet demanded.

He smiled at her, settling back in the bed. "Jules, Lassie, how nice of you to drop by."

Juliet scowled. "This isn't funny, Shawn. First you tell me you're investigating, and now you show up in the hospital? What is going on?"

"I was investigating," Shawn said. "I went undercover at the latest spa."

"Are you insane?" Lassiter snapped. "You're a civilian, Spencer, you're not qualified to go undercover like that! You could have been killed!"

"But I wasn't," Shawn pointed out. "And I solved the case."

"That's not the point, Shawn!" Juliet exclaimed.

"Well, we weren't exactly making progress the other way. Now. Would you like to hear what's been making masseurs sick so you can let the doctors know what they're dealing with so they can fix it, or would you like to continue berating me?"

Three irritated gazes pinned him to the bed, but Lassiter, ever job oriented, said, "Fine, tell us what you've got."

Shawn hesitated and said, "Ah, well, actually we have to wait for one more to join our little party. Then we can get started." He grinned sheepishly. "So...how were your days?"

Juliet and Lassiter glowered and Gus merely looked unimpressed. "I can't believe you went and got yourself poisoned, Shawn."

Shawn rolled his eyes theatrically. "Oh, like I knew I was going to get poisoned."

"You are psychic, aren't you?" Lassiter said derisively.

"Yeah, well," Shawn waffled. "The spirits don't really take it too well when I shut them down."

"Of course they don't," Lassiter said. Behind him, the door opened and a red headed girl peeked inside. Gus frowned.

"Uh, miss, I think you have the wrong room."

She shook her head. "No, I'm here to see him," she said, pointing at the bed. "Shawn Spencer?"

Shawn beamed at her. "And here's our last party guest! Come on in Stefanie."

She moved into the room, glancing warily around at the others. "This is an interesting method of hitting on a girl that I've never seen before."

Shawn grinned. "I'm not above anything." Lassiter cleared his throat impatiently and Shawn nodded. "Okay, okay. Down to business." He glanced around at each of them and then said, "Okay, let's review what we know.

"One, it's something all of the salons are using.

"Two, it only affects the masseurs.

"Three, either the strength or concentration of our poison has increased since the first victims were exposed."

"Yeah, yeah, great, thanks for the recap, Spencer. Tell us something we don't know."

Shawn gestured to Stefanie. "I asked Stefanie here to help us with this part of the case."

Lassiter proceeded to look incredibly insulted, while Juliet took on a more thoughtful expression. Stefanie flushed."I don't think I'm really the one you want here—"

Shawn waved a hand. "Don't be ridiculous. The spirits insisted you were our girl. So Stefanie, based on these three things, what would you say our culprit is?"

"But I'm not a CSI, or a cop—"

"No, no, come on, you've seen CSI though. Law and Order? You don't have to be a detective anyway. Just based on those three things, what would you guess is a likely culprit?"

Stefanie was quiet for a moment, contemplating the possibilities. "Well, if only the masseurs are getting sick, then it's got to be something that only they're being exposed to."

"Well, that's just great," Lassiter griped. "That only eliminates everything on our possible cause list. We already eliminated all of the gloves and lotions and other crap that was being used on the clients. So, what, someone's poisoning the water cooler?"

Shawn blinked, his eyes unfocusing as though he hadn't considered that possibility before. A second later he shook his head. "No, no, that's not it, I don't think."

Lassiter's frowned. "I thought you knew."

Shawn suddenly jerked in the bed, throwing himself back against the pillows. "I'm—I'm seeing eucalyptus. And cucumbers. And oatmeal and peaches. Roses. Lilac. Lavender!"

Stefanie cut in, "Those are all ingredients commonly used in products regularly used in spas."

Shawn's eyes snapped open again. "Yes! And pastels! Oh, the pastels! All lined up like little toy soldiers in the war against stress and rough, scaly skin!"

The others exchanged a look and Juliet guessed, "A supply closet?"

"Yes! But wait...there is a code...a secret code...JASON!"

"Bourne?" Lassiter contributed, unimpressed. "You think Matt Damon is out to get revenge for his stolen memories?"

"No..." Shawn said, slowly shaking his head. "The numbers twenty-eight, thirty, and thirty-one come to mind..." He grimaced and put his head in his hands, kneading his temples with his knuckles, which got a frown out of the others.

A second later, an expression of realization flashed across Gus' face and he began scribbling on the folder in his hands. He spun it around to show the others and Shawn grinned at what he saw there. It read: JASONDJFMAMJJ.

Lassiter stared. "So now you've infected Guster?"

Shawn rolled his eyes, but it was Gus who explained. "It's the months of the year. JASON would be July, August, September, October, November. The months are all either twenty-eight, thirty, or thirty-one days long."

Juliet nodded slowly. "Okay...so what does this all have to do with the case?"

"MORSE CODE!" Shawn shouted, "I SEE MORSE CODE!" A second later he winced, his hands going to his temples, putting pressure. Gus' eager expression faded into worry.

"Shawn, are you sure—"

He was ignored, Shawn shaking his head and muttering, "No, sorry. More code. Twenty-eight-S, Zero-Three-O, Zero-Four-O, Zero-Seven-O."

Gus frowned but looked back down at the months he'd written out, writing down the codes as well. Looming over his shoulder, Lassiter snatched the folder away from him. "These correspond to days when people got sick. Well," he said, scanning over them, "give or take a few days in some cases."

Juliet shook her head. "What are these days, Shawn? Do we need to check the visitor's logs?"

But Shawn's attention was focused on Stefanie, a small smirk curving his lips. "No need. Well, okay, for court yeah, you'll probably need to verify it. But the spirits have already done the leg work for you on this one. When you do go check and see who visited the spas on those days you'll find they all have one name in common. Stefanie Winslow."

The others all turned to look at her.

"Those were the days she made her deliveries," Shawn explained. "You see, Stefanie makes her own special blend of soothing lotions and sells them to the salons and spas. But this time she put in a little extra."

A CSI stuck his head in through the doorway, pushing up a pair of black framed glasses. "Uh, actually it wasn't so much what she put in it as how she cooked it up."

"We'll need to look at her notes and procedures, but it looks like during the preparation of this lotion, there's a chemical reaction that creates a substance that's toxic to humans. And it's potency only grows the longer it has to set."

Again, the others turned to look at Stefanie.

She looked completely floored. "But—I didn't...I wasn't trying... It's just supposed to help them relax more!"

Lassiter pulled his cuffs off of his belt, ignoring Stefanie's near-hysterical babbling.

Juliet moved toward the CSI. "How did this happen? I don't understand why the spas didn't notice."

He shrugged. "She's been a supplier for awhile now. This was a new product for her, but it's considered a cosmetic, so it's not required to get FDA approval before going on the market as long as it doesn't contain certain color additives or prohibited substances. It doesn't. It looks like it was just the way the ingredients reacted together and the way she prepared them that created our poison. We'll know more after we get a hold of her materials."

"I don't get it though," Gus said. "Why did she do it?"

Shawn shook his head, sinking back into his pillows, rubbing at his forehead. "I don't think she meant to."

Lassiter stared at him incredulously. "You're buying this?" He pointed to the tears now crawling down Stefanie's face.

"I'm not getting any malicious vibes from her Lassie. I think it was just an accident."

"Well it's still manslaughter," Lassiter said and  Stefanie let out a choking sob. Making a face, Lassiter turned her toward the door. "Let's go."

Shawn closed his eyes, massaging his temple and Juliet, stepped closer, eyeing him worriedly. "Are you going to be okay, Shawn?"

"Yeah," Gus said, "you never answered me. You were exposed to whatever this toxin is--"

"I'll be fine," Shawn said. "I wasn't exposed very long and when I realized what it was, I came here and they scrubbed me clean." He held up his hands, showing them the inflamed cut on the side of the right. "I only threw up twice," he said brightly. "The doctor said the not-throwing-up was a good sign, since the rest of the victims kept throwing up and then got stomach pain." He shrugged. "Now that they know what it is, they'll be able to figure out how to deal with it, but I'll probably be out of here way before that. I wasn't exposed long enough to need treatment. They're just keeping me overnight for observation, but, seriously dude. I'll be fine."

"Yeah, sure," Gus said, obviously dubious. "I'll believe that when you're actually out of here. And you'd better listen to the doctor, or I'll kill you, Shawn."

He grinned, eyes closing again.

Juliet put a hand to Gus' elbow. "Maybe we should go and let him rest."

Gus sighed and nodded, "Yeah. He's acting stupid but he looks exhausted."

Juliet smiled reassuringly and drew him along with her. "Come on. We'll see you later, okay, Shawn?"

His eyes fluttered open, "Hey, wait a second, Jules. Come’re. Touch my hands." Juliet shot him a scathing look and he exclaimed, "No, seriously! If this stuff weren’t poison, it would sell like hotcakes! My hands are like silk! Like velvet! Like a baby’s bottom!" When the door closed firmly behind Juliet, he mused, "Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say."

~ * * * ~

"Spas make me squicky," Shawn said, pulling an enormous fluffy white robe more snugly around his figure.

Gus raised an eyebrow, his own robe comfortably and loosely wrapped around his body. "’Squicky’, Shawn? Really?"

"What? It’s accurate! This is totally creepy, dude," Shawn said, glancing around the room at the other robe-clad people around them. "We’re all naked under these things!"

"Then what are you doing here, Shawn? You didn’t have to come."

"Dude, after the last two months, naked or not, I need a massage. I think the muscles in my back are petrifying."

Gus elbowed him in the ribs. "I’m glad we finally got to do something together."

Shawn rolled his eyes, shifting uncomfortably. "Yeah, yeah, don’t get all girly on me."

"Hey," Gus said, smacking him in the arm. "I’m serious. And next time you intend to do something as stupid as going undercover as someone who’s supposed to get poisoned, you sure as hell better tell me. We’re partners, Shawn, and you’d better treat me like one. That means asking—not telling me—when you need help and keeping me informed. Deal?"

Shawn held out a hand. "Deal."

Gus made a fist and the two fist bumped, sharing a grin.

They heard a ruckus at the door and looked up to see Juliet and Lassiter come through the door, both sporting bright red blushes and fluffy white robes. Shawn groaned. "Oh, come on! No cases! How hard is this?"

Lassiter shot him a dirty look, the red on his cheeks only deepening. "We’re not here for you, Spencer. If we’d known you were going to be here, we would have requested somewhere else."

Juliet smiled, waving a little at Gus. "We’re actually here because the Chief said we needed to relax after that last case. The mayor was so grateful the case got solved that he arranged this for us."

Gus could no longer stifle a snort of laughter.

Shawn shot a dirty look at him and then shook his head. Smiling at Lassiter and Juliet, he waved at the empty seats beside them. "Would you like to join us, Detectives? I think we’re going to have a little party here."

Juliet grinned and flounced happily into the seat next to Gus, leaving Lassiter to sit stiffly beside Shawn. "No one will ever hear a word about this, Spencer," he grit.

Shawn snorted. "Not from me."