Psych:Mind-Altering Murder (28 page)

"The only thing I've gotten better at in the last few months is being a corporate executive," Gus said. "Which is why D-Bob named me to be the president."

"You're really serious," Shawn said.

"Of course I am," Gus said. "I have been all along."

Shawn took a step back, then collapsed onto the couch. "Then I've made a terrible mistake."

Gus could see the reality crashing down all around his friend. He knew how this must feel. It had been the same for him in seventh grade when he finally realized that Tanja Traber hadn't been joking when she'd told him she was only going to hold hands with him after school until he finished writing her term paper on Ecuador, and that they really didn't have a future together unless at some point in the far future she decided to become a Latin American scholar and didn't feel like doing the work.

Gus sat next to Shawn on the couch. "It's okay, Shawn," he said. "This transition has been tough on everybody."

"No, I mean I made a terrible mistake," Shawn said again.

"You followed your heart," Gus said. "That's never a mistake." Except, of course, if that heart led you to Tanja Traber's birthday party, even though you hadn't been invited and she had specifically told you to stay away.

"You're really not listening very well," Shawn said. "When I said I made a terrible mistake, I didn't mean I misunderstood your motives. If you're not able to express yourself clearly, that's really your problem, not mine."

"How much clearer could I have been?" Gus said. "I did everything but ask the San Francisco Police Department to have you arrested if you crossed into the city."

"That would have been a start," Shawn said. "But we're not talking about you now. I'm the one who made the big mistake. And I don't know how to fix it."

"You could start by telling me what it was," Gus said.

"I made you president," Shawn said.

Gus jumped up off the couch, outrage propelling him like a jet pack. "You did no such thing," he said. "I earned this. Me. On my own. You had nothing to do with it."

"I wish that were true," Shawn said. "Then whatever happened next would be your fault instead of mine."

"You are just trying to steal my moment," Gus said. "You can't stand that I've been so successful here, so you're going to do whatever you can to make it seem less important."

"That's pretty good," Shawn said. "And I appreciate your effort to make me feel less guilty. But I did it, and I've got to take the blame."

"Okay, then," Gus said. "How did you do it?"

"I told Dem Bones that it was the only way to turn the auras from red to blue," Shawn said. "Or blue to red. Either way, it's amazing how easy it is to talk that man into anything," Shawn said. "Can you believe some clown proposed a new business plan for the company that would drive the whole place into bankruptcy in about six weeks, and because it was delivered with passion, Dil Bert was ready to sign off on it? You can thank me for talking him out of that particular bit of madness."

This couldn't be happening. First Shawn had taken credit for Gus' promotion; now he was proudly announcing he'd just destroyed Gus' key policy initiative. Shawn had to leave, to leave and never come back. It didn't matter if Gus was going to be lonely without him. There was simply no way that President Gus and Shawn could coexist in the same universe, let alone the same company.

"First of all, I don't believe that," Gus said. "I realize that in the world you've created in your mind, you have complete control over everything and everyone, but this is reality. This is business. And it's a lot bigger than whatever scheme you've cooked up. Billions of dollars are at stake and the man who owns this company isn't going to risk them just because you tell him to."

"You think so?" Shawn said.

"It doesn't matter what I think. It's a fact," Gus said.

Shawn didn't respond directly. Instead he pulled out his cell phone and hit two keys. Even from where he was standing, Gus could hear the ringing on the other end of the line, then a voice answering. "Are you at the Krab Shack, D-Bob?" Shawn said, then waited for the answer to come over the line. "I just wanted to warn you, I'm getting a very negative vibe from one of the oysters there. I can't tell you which one it is, so I'm going to warn you off eating anything in a shell."

Shawn held the phone out to Gus in time for him to hear D-Bob thanking Shawn profusely, then ordering a waiter to remove something from his plate. Shawn disconnected the call and put the phone back in his pocket.

"Okay, so you've convinced him you're some kind of psychic dining guru," Gus said. "That doesn't mean he's going to take your orders when it comes to running his company."

"No, but he does," Shawn said. "And you know it as well as I do."

Gus did. This was San Francisco, after all, where the question of what to have for dinner was considered far more crucial than little issues like life and death.

"Okay, fine," Gus said. "For the sake of argument, let's say it was your idea that D-Bob make me president. It's done. So thank you. What's the big deal?"

"The big deal is that the president thing was part of the plan when I thought we were working together undercover."

"Again, I say, what's the big deal?" Gus said.

Shawn looked at him gravely. "The big deal," he said, "is that the president is going to be killed next week."

Chapter Thirty-five

G
us took a deep breath and held it in his lungs. He'd only been gone for a few months but he'd forgotten how sweet the Santa Barbara air tasted. Funny how you could spend an entire lifetime in one place and never notice how special it was until you went away.

It wasn't just the soft breeze from the ocean or the light scent of jasmine that made this air smell so good to Gus. There was another scent. The aroma of triumph.

Gus had left Santa Barbara as a failed detective, a parttime salesman, and an all-around loser. He'd spent close to thirty years on the earth and what had he accomplished in all that time? He'd lived in a crummy one-bedroom apartment, driven a company car that was barely one step above a skateboard, and spent all his free time hanging out with the one close friend he'd ever made, arguing about nonsense and doing nothing.

Now look at me,
he thought as he walked along the edge of the cliff that marked the western edge of the fabulous Zahara Resort and Spa. In a few minutes he would be striding to the stage of the resort's conference center to be named president of the world's largest privately owned pharmaceuticals company. He had a penthouse apartment in San Francisco, thousands of devoted employees, and a mandate to make a real difference in the world. Best of all, he wasn't afraid anymore. Now that he knew where his future was taking him he could look back on his days at Psych without even a tremor. There was only one thing that could make his life even better, and that was the love of a beautiful, intelligent woman who would be his partner in the future.

And maybe he was about to have that, too.

He was still having a little trouble believing it. It had just happened a little more than an hour before. He'd put on his best suit for the occasion of his swearing-in, giving himself plenty of time to make sure the end of his tie just kissed the top of his belt buckle, a process that could take anywhere from one minute to an entire workday, when there had been a knock on the door.

"Come on in," he called, assuming it was the roomservice waiter come to take his tray away. He'd been too nervous to do more than pick at the food, and normally he would have made sure he was out of the room before letting the tray go, so as not to have to answer questions about whether or not he'd liked his breakfast. But he'd left it out on his ocean-view balcony, and a couple of seagulls had eaten everything except the rind of the decorative melon slice.

The door didn't open, but the knock came again. Gus gave the Windsor knot in his tie a quick tug into position, then walked over and threw open the door.

It took Gus a moment to recognize the woman standing in his doorway, even though he'd seen her every workday since he started at Benson. It must have been because she was wearing a long coat that came down nearly to her ankles. Until this moment Gus had never known Chanterelle to cover any part of her body lower than midthigh.

"I'd like to talk to you for a moment, Gus," she said shyly. "That is, if you're not too busy for me."

"I can't imagine being too busy for you," Gus said.

At least those were the words his brain sent down to his tongue. What actually came out of his mouth sounded more like the distress call of a geriatric harp seal, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Maybe we could walk along the bluff," she said.

Gus glanced out the sliding door to his balcony and saw the palm trees on the terrace bent nearly double in the wind. If it blew any harder Gus would not have been surprised to see one or more of his elementary school teachers fly by, pedaling on bicycles with stolen dogs in the basket.

"I'd love to," he said, and if his tongue couldn't make his meaning clear, he managed to convey his intention by grabbing his room key, stepping into the hallway, and closing the door behind him.

"Not now," she said, looking around as if to see if she'd been followed. "Meet me there in twenty minutes."

Gus passed the requested time span watching an enormous seagull lift the breakfast plate in its beak, then smash it down on the table like a mussel it was trying to shell. Then, with two minutes to spare, he walked quickly through the broad avenues that wound around the resort's whitewashed haciendas. Finally he reached a metal gate, elegantly dusted with rust to show that it dated back to the area's agricultural roots even though it had only stood here since the resort's construction three years ago, and passed through onto a long meadow that ran to the cliffs overlooking the ocean.

Chanterelle was waiting for him on the edge of the cliff, staring out to sea as if waiting for her French soldier to come back and make an honest woman of her. As Gus came up to her she started, then gave him a warm smile.

"You came," she said.

"Of course," he said. "How could I refuse? I'd never get another phone message."

He winced at the stupidity of his joke. The most beautiful woman he'd ever met had asked him to meet her at this, the most romantic place in the world. And what did he do? Act like she was the receptionist and he the boss.

She didn't seem to notice. She took his hand and led him to the edge, although once he had felt the touch of her skin against his he had stopped noticing where he was going.

They stood together and watched the waves pounding against the rock far below. After a moment that Gus would happily have let stretch into eternity, Chanterelle dropped his hand and turned to face him.

"May I ask you a question?" she said shyly, her face cast down to the ground but her eyes peering up at him.

"Anything," Gus said.

"They say," she said, then broke off. "This is stupid. Maybe I should just go back. ..."

"No, go ahead," he said. If the question was so personal or so difficult she was this hesitant to ask, there was no way he could let the moment slip away. "Anything at all."

She smiled up at him and his heart fluttered.
It's amazing how much prettier her face is when you're not distracted by those legs,
he thought.

"They say that you've got just about no experience in the pharmaceuticals field," she said. "That before you took this job you were some kind of security guard."

If anyone else had said this he would have bristled. From her it was an adorable misunderstanding. "I was a partner in a private-detective firm," he said. "But I was also a salesman for a local pharmaceuticals company."

"I see," she said. "But still it's such a huge thing, to go from that to being president of Benson. It's so impressive."

Gus was even happier he hadn't become defensive at her first question. "I guess I was in the right place at the right time," he said, assuming as much modesty as he could.

"It's got to be more than that," Chanterelle said. "It has to be."

"I hope I bring some fresh perspective to the position," Gus said.

"The very freshest, I'm sure," she said. She turned her eyes back to the ground as if she were searching the ground for a particular blade of grass.

"What's this all about?" Gus said. "I'm sure we didn't come all the way out here just so I could recite my resume."

"It doesn't seem like it would take all that much time, does it?" she said, then colored. "Oh, no, that came out all wrong."

"It's all right," Gus said. "Please go ahead."

"I wanted to talk to you about a job," she said. "Something in the executive suite."

Gus felt mixed feelings flood through him. On the one hand he had hoped that whatever it was she wanted to talk to him about would turn out to be a little more personal than a request for a job. On the other hand, though, if she were an executive, they'd be working closely together every day. She might even get the office next door to his, which wouldn't be too much of a problem since no one had moved into Ecclesine's former space. And a relationship between two highly placed executives would cause far fewer problems than one between the company president and its receptionist.

"It's funny you should mention that," Gus said. "One of my first priorities is to establish an executive-training program for our employees so that we can more easily promote from within when we spot someone with great potential. You'd make an ideal first participant."

None of that was entirely untrue. Although he had never thought of such a thing until this very moment, the trainee program had become Gus' first priority as soon as Chanterelle suggested she might want an executive position. And since the entire program was designed to bring her into greater proximity to Gus, it would be hard to argue that she was anything but ideal for it.

Gus studied her closely, waiting to see if she'd give him one of those heartbreaking smiles. But she was still studying the greenery at her feet.