When Gus stepped back into his own office he was feeling so good he didn't even notice that the duct tape had been peeled from the carpet and the curtains were now open. If the window had fallen out, Gus felt he could have floated down to the ground and landed like a feather.

He also didn't notice that he had a visitor.

"I think they bought it," Shawn said, popping up from the couch he'd been lying on.

Until this moment Gus hadn't realized what was missing about this day. He'd had no one to share it with.

"You will not believe what happened today," Gus said, delighted that the afternoon's deficiency had been addressed. And then he felt that delight dissolve into confusion as he realized what Shawn had said. "Bought what?"

"But you realize this was only the first step," Shawn said.

"The first step toward what?" Gus said. "What are you talking about?"

"I think you know," Shawn said.

"If I knew I wouldn't be asking," Gus said.

"I think you would," Shawn said.

"I've had enough of this," Gus said.

"I think you haven't," Shawn said.

"Stop that!" Gus shouted.

"I think you--" Shawn said, then broke off. "You're seriously interfering with my rhythm here, you know."

"And you're seriously interfering with my life," Gus said. "Here I was all excited to tell you my big news, and you start talking like Darth Vader."

"Vader, really?" Shawn said. "At least you mean the Darth Vader from the first films, right? Because if you're comparing my silk-smooth delivery to that whining little punk from the sequels, we are going to have serious issues."

"We can deal with your issues later," Gus said. "I want to know what was bought and who bought it and what you're doing here when you're supposed to be in Santa Barbara."

"Can I take the second part of that question first?" Shawn said.

"Whatever," Gus said.

"Okay," Shawn said. "What was the second part again?"

Gus tried to reconstruct his thought: Although he'd only uttered it seconds before, the sequence was completely jumbled in his mind. "Just tell me what you're talking about."

"They did," Shawn said.

"Who did what?"

"I remembered the second part of your question," Shawn said. "It was 'Who bought what?' and the answer is, 'They did.' "

"That's not an answer," Gus said. "It's not even a hint. It's completely meaningless. 'They' only has any value if there's a precedent in the sentence."

"There is a precedent," Shawn said. "That's you."

"What?"

"Precedent Gus," Shawn said. "Didn't Damp Blouse make the announcement?"

"That's president," Gus said, then broke off. "Wait a minute. How did you know about that?"

"What do you mean how did I know about that?"

"If you study my question I think you'll find that there's absolutely no ambiguity about what it means," Gus said tightly. "It is simple, straightforward, and without any possibility of misunderstanding. So the fact that you are stalling and refusing to answer it is telling me that you are up to something."

"We're up to something," Shawn corrected.

The thought occurred to Gus that what they were up to was 160 feet above the sidewalk, and if there were a way to get the window open he could count how long it took Shawn to hit the ground. But that brought images of the late Steve Ecclesine to mind. He took a step away from the window.

"How can we be up to anything?" Gus said. "We don't work together anymore. You're a private detective and I'm the incoming president of a multinational pharmaceuticals company."

"It's great, isn't it?" Shawn said. "No one's ever going to suspect a thing."

"Because there's nothing to suspect," Gus said.

"That's exactly the right tone of outrage," Shawn said. "Keep that up."

Keeping the level of outrage high enough was not going to be Gus' problem. He took a deep breath and then another before he spoke again. "I need to know what's going on," he said. And then before Shawn could answer he started over. "I take that back. I know what's going on. What I need to know is what you think is going on."

"Nothing big," Shawn said. "Just your undercover a.s.signment."

"My what?" Gus said. "We've already had this conversation. I'm not undercover."

"I realize that the phrase doesn't really do your mission justice," Shawn said. "The way you've burrowed into this company is really inspiring. All I can say is wow."

"Why?"

"Why what?" Shawn said. "Why wow?"

"Yes, fine," Gus said. "What are you talking about?"

"The way you were willing to walk away from your old life so completely," Shawn said. "Giving up your apartment, quitting your job, pretending that the Echo had been stolen so the company wouldn't insist on taking it back."

"What about the Echo?" Gus said.

"Just part of your master plan," Shawn said. "And what a plan it was. I've got to say, if I hadn't known better, there were times when you would have fooled even me."

"I wasn't trying to fool you," Gus said.

"Why would you?" Shawn said. "We've been in this together all along, haven't we?"

"We have not." Gus felt a familiar throbbing at his temples, the special kind of headache that only a particular type of conversation with Shawn could bring on. Although in the privacy of his own skull, he had to admit that now that he was feeling the pain he had missed it a little bit.

Shawn gave a chuckle of wry amus.e.m.e.nt, or what he imagined wry amus.e.m.e.nt would sound like if you were able to experience such a sensation without wearing a smoking jacket. "There is such a thing as going too far undercover," he said.

"There's also such a thing as getting to the point," Gus said.

"See, that's what I mean," Shawn said. "You sound exactly like a busy corporate executive when you say things like that. You don't have to keep up the cover when we're alone together. Although if we're together we can't really be alone. Which is either kind of a deep thought or something I read on a Hallmark card."

"Shawn!"

"Don't use my name," Shawn said. "They might be listening."

"Who might be listening?" Gus said, now hopelessly lost. "And why does it matter if I use your name?"

"Good point," Shawn said. "Since you're the one who's undercover here."

"You have to listen, Shawn," he said with as much patience as he could muster. "I am not now and have never been undercover here. I'm not on a secret mission. I didn't just pretend to leave Psych and take up a new life as an executive here. This is all true. This is all me."

Even as he was speaking the words the true meaning of them hit him with a force he hadn't antic.i.p.ated. It wasn't the restatement of his current reality; he'd more than come to peace with the fact that he'd joined the grown-up world and left childish things behind. But why was he saying them? If Shawn was playing games, trying to get him to come back to Psych, that was okay. But Shawn seemed really convinced that he and Gus were still working together and that all the changes Gus had made in his life had been nothing more than a gambit to solve a case. And if that were true, then something was seriously wrong with Shawn.

Because Shawn had always been one of those miraculous people who had the ability to shape reality to his own desire. It was a matter of will over the world. Gus saw how things were and he adjusted. But Shawn simply refused to. If things weren't going the way he wanted them to, he acted as if they were. And more often than not, reality got tired of trying to force itself on him and twisted itself into whatever shape he had wanted.

But this wasn't one of those occasions. No matter how much Shawn wanted to be working on an investigation at Benson Pharmaceuticals with Gus, that simply wasn't the case. And if Shawn was unable to accept that he was leaving behind the territory of will and moving into psychosis.

Shawn, who had been pacing the carpet while Gus talked, now stopped. He peered closely at Gus. Took a step forward so their noses were nearly touching, then squinted. He stepped back. "I don't mean any disrespect," Shawn said, "but you're not this good an actor."

"I'm not acting," Gus said.

Shawn squinted at him again. "You've either gotten a lot better at this kind of thing, or you're really telling the truth," Shawn said.

"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 pa.s.sion, 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 sh.e.l.l."

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.