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"I'm not going any farther until you tell me where we're going, Randy," said Cody.

Randy paused, stopping in front of a big black van near the entrance of the garage. "It's my car, Cody," he said, as if it were the most obvious thing ever. "I'm just going to take you to the hotel I'm staying at. You can hang out with me until your dad gets here. I'm sure the cops will call when he shows up looking for you. By now, I'm sure they've figured out that you're with me."

That answer reassured Cody for a second, until Randy slid open the van's huge door. The interior was black leather and it looked immense. Glancing inside, Cody realized that the windows were darkly tinted, and there was a crowbar lying in the back seat.

"Go ahead, Codes," Randy said. "Get in." His surreal blue eyes glinted in the dim evening light filtering into the parking garage.

Cody's instinct told him that something was wrong. "I don't think so." He took a step back, shoes scraping the rough concrete.

Randy's brow furrowed and his lip twisted in frustration. "Come on, Cody! Don't back out on me now." His eyes went wide suddenly and he lunged forward in a predatory leap. Then something hit the side of Cody's head, the impact making his vision swim as the thud echoed in his own muffled, ringing ears before everything went black.

He woke up cold and for a moment, he feared he was back on the beach, but he soon realized that the ground beneath his back was hard and not soft like sand.

He got up and immediately wished he hadn't. His head was splitting, a white-hot pain behind his eyes, and a wave of dizziness overtook his senses. He leaned forward, squeezing his eyes shut and willing the pain to go away. When he felt well enough to open his eyes, he saw concrete and an empty parking space with chipped yellow lines. He was still in the parking garage, but Randy and his van were gone.

And suddenly, like a sunburst exploding in his mind, Cody Rhodes realized two things: one was that he actually did have a concussion this time, and the other was that he remembered everything.

He knew exactly who had attacked him, and it wasn't Randy Orton. He got to his feet, bracing himself on the concrete walls of the parking garage, and made his way out as fast as he could. He didn't know how long he'd been knocked out, but he did know that he had to stop someone from making a terrible mistake.

A fatal mistake.

*********************

When Shawn and Gus bolted outside the police station, tripping over each other and half-falling down the steps in their haste to get to the street, Shawn spotted the big blond businessman right away. He could see Triple H stepping out of the gas station across the road from the police department, holding a bottle of water and looking at his surroundings with a wrinkled nose.

Ignoring the busy traffic lining the street, Shawn charged across the road, dodging taxis and dancing past a couple of tattooed motorcyclists who gave him the finger as he went by. As soon as his feet hit the sidewalk on the other side, he flew at Triple H and shoved the wrestler in the chest as hard as he could.

Triple H didn’t budge.

“What are you doing?” Triple H asked, the disdainful nose-wrinkling morphing into a look of outright disgust as he pushed Shawn back with one muscled arm and looked at the psychic like he was being forced to touch a flea-bitten rat.

“Where’s Cody?” shouted Shawn. “I know you attacked him!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you don’t! But it couldn’t have been Randy and you’re the only other person who would do such a dastardly deed!”

“I always knew Randy would turn out to be a babyface,” said Gus, who had somehow managed to follow Shawn across the road in his haze of solving sliding block puzzles.

Triple H squinted at the crime-solving duo like he was examining a piece of roadkill on the street. “I still don’t know what you mean. Why would I beat up one of my cash cows? Cody hasn’t bothered me since Shawn and I taught him a lesson back in our DX reunion, and this rage that he has against Orton and Rey Mysterio? That’s what’s putting butts in seats these days! You never know when Cody’s going to show up and paper-bag somebody. That’s what’s making tickets sell like hotcakes. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t like the guy, but even I have to admit that for the moment, he’s what’s best for business. I’d have to be an idiot to take him out right now.”

“I don’t believe you!” the psychic shouted again. “I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you! And considering that I couldn’t even shove you just a second ago, I don’t think I could throw you very far!”

“Would you stop shouting everything?” said Triple H. “You’re blowing out my eardrums. If you want proof, fine, I’ll give you proof.” He reached into the pocket of his still-immaculate gray suit and produced a ticket stub. “This is my airline ticket. Vince made me come out here to the Santa Barbara show because he couldn’t make it, and he’s been a huge pain in my neck lately, so I didn’t bother asking to use the private jet. I just flew commercial. You can look at the date and time. I don’t know when Cody showed up here, but since it takes five hours to get from Connecticut to Santa Barbara, I wouldn’t be surprised if he got here first.”

Shawn looked at the ticket and frowned. “Oh. I guess you were still in the air when Cody woke up. Well…” He frowned. “Okay. I guess you really are innocent after all. …Hey, what are the odds of me getting free tickets to the Santa Barbara show? It’s tomorrow, right? We’ll have the case solved by then.”

Triple H responded with a menacing growl.

“I don’t think he’s giving us tickets, Shawn,” whispered Gus.
“You’re right, buddy,” Shawn whispered back. “I think we should just back away slowly…”
As the two started backing away, Triple H watched in amusement. “You know you’re about to step off the curb, right?”

Gus caught himself and Shawn just a split second before they stumbled into the road, but the Game Boy that slipped from his hand and landed on the pavement wasn’t so lucky. A speeding taxi plowed right over the tiny computer, smashing it into chunks of silver casing and thin green motherboard. Gus fell to his knees. “Nooooooooo!!!”
Shawn patted Gus on the back gently as he bowed his head. The two friends shared a moment of silence for the game before he said, “It’s okay, buddy. It’ll be missed.”

Triple H rolled his eyes. “You guys are so stupid. I can’t wait to tell Shawn what you morons just did.”

Then the psychic looked up sharply. “What did you just say?”

As he unscrewed the cap of his water bottle, Triple H shrugged and repeated, “I said I can’t wait to tell Shawn how dumb you are.”

The psychic glanced at the Cerebral Assassin out of the side of his eye. “I thought HBK was with you.”

“No,” Triple H said. He paused to take a drink before continuing, “He didn’t want anything, so he stayed behind.”

With the aid of a nearby light-pole, Gus got to his feet and said, “Uh, the Heartbreak Kid wasn’t at the police station. We don’t know where he is.”

“So that means that Cody, Randy, and Shawn Michaels are all missing,” said Shawn Spencer. “What are the odds of that being a coincidence?”

“Uhhh…” said Gus.

Shawn nodded. “I was afraid you’d say that. I’m afraid I’ve got some more bad news: I think our hero might have just turned heel.”

Triple H coughed on his water and sprayed both psychic and sidekick with a fine mist of H2O and spit before he took off running, one hand already raising his cell phone to his ear.

“Huh,” Shawn said, jumping into the backseat of the police car that Lassiter and Juliet had conveniently just pulled up in. “I guess it’s time to play The Game.”

*********************

“Wait, so…Shawn Michaels is the bad guy, and we’re following Triple H?” said Juliet, listening as her psychic boyfriend filled her in on their encounter with the Game and their epiphany about the attacker.

In the driver’s seat, Lassiter was following the taxi that Triple H had jumped into, trailing it through every turn and intersection, scowling all the way. “You’d better be certain about this, Spencer, because if you’re wrong and I catch any kind of backlash over harassing one of the most powerful business leaders in the country, you’re going to regret it.”

“No, I’m positive, Lassie,” said Shawn. “It’s got to be the other Shawn. The only other Shawn in the entire world—nay, the entire Universe—with better hair than me.”

Lassiter muttered some choice words under his breath.

“But where is Triple H even going?” said Juliet.
“I don’t know,” said Shawn, “but you can bet that wherever it is, he’s leading us to HBK. It had to have been him that Triple H was on the phone with.”
“What if he’s just leading us away from Michaels? After all, it’s his best friend we’re talking about,” said Juliet.
Shawn blinked. “Huh. I guess that’s possible.”

“Wait!” cried Gus suddenly, rolling down his car window. “Look! There’s Cody!”

“Quick, Lassie! Pull off the road for a second!” Shawn said.

Lassiter pulled his blue Crown Victoria into the emergency lane, and Cody, seeing his friends, squeezed into the back seat alongside Shawn and Gus.

“I have a concussion,” Cody said as he buckled his seat belt.

“We should get you to a doctor,” said Juliet as Lassiter pulled back onto the road.

“No time,” Cody replied breathlessly, “Randy’s in trouble, and I’ve gotta save him.” He paused for a second as he realized, “He would do the same for me.”

Shawn grinned. “I think Cody just turned babyface.”

Cody’s blue eyes glared sharply at Shawn, almost Lassiter-esque in their intensity. “You realize that using those kinds of slang words around real wrestlers is not a way to make friends, right?”

Shawn coughed. “Sorry, Buttercup.”

Cody shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.” He looked up to see where Lassiter was driving. “I’m not exactly sure where we need to be headed, but if I had my guess, I’d say that we need to head for the arena where the show’s going to be.” He glanced over at Juliet. “Detective, I finally remembered who attacked me.”

“Was it Shawn Michaels?” Juliet asked softly.
Surprised registered on Cody’s battered face. “You know?”
“We finally figured it out,” said Gus.
Cody nodded and looked back over at Lassiter. “Step on it.”





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