She doesn’t close her eyes when she does it.
It’s weird.
It makes him uncomfortable, the thousand-yard stare she’s got going.
“Dude,” he says. “Close your eyes when you do that. It sells the bit.”
“I’m not trying to sell a bit,” she snaps, concentration broken.
“What magazines were on the table?”
“Time, Newsweek, People, Vogue, Consumer Reports and a rag hidden under all of them, probably the Star,” she rattles off.
“Detective Lassiter’s plate?”
“Personal vehicle?’
“What do you think?”
“YAB 32H.”
“The Chief’s desk?”
“World’s Best Mom mug with—six pens, three pencils—no, four, but one is a souvenir pencil from Disneyland that’s not sharpened. Blown glass shark and a two level file tray, phone that’s—three years old? Yeah, three—two pictures of her kids, one of her whole family, word-a-day calendar that she hasn’t changed in three weeks, nameplate, and a flocked pineapple on the corner where she can’t see it.”
“What’s flocked?”
“Means it’s fuzzy. You put it there, how do you not know that?”
“What makes you think I put it there?”
“Because you have a pineapple light catcher hanging in your office.”
“You really need to close your eyes when you do that, though.”
“No. What if someone tries to attack me while I’m remembering stuff? I don’t want to get stabbed in the face just because I’m ‘trying to sell a bit’,” she rolls her eyes at him.
“Okay, first of all: you’re not remembering, you’re seeing. And second of all, who’s going to stab you in the face? What did you do in New York, anyway?”
“I killed a man,” she snaps. “I’m about to kill another.”
“Aww, that’s an empty threat and we both know it.”
Her actually quite formidable glare is broken by Gus barging through the door with several bags of Mexican food.
“Did you get the quatro quesos dos fritos?”
“Two orders, you know that’s right,” Gus does his cool-guy head bob before catching sight of the woman. “Oh, I’m sorry, miss, I wasn’t aware we had a client meeting.”
“Oh, I’m not a client,” she shakes her head and gives Gus a smile, which is more than Shawn’s gotten all afternoon.
“She’s a psychic,” Shawn announces. “Our new psychic partner.”
“I’m not a psychic,” she snaps.
“Neither is Shawn,” Gus shrugs.
Shawn gasps in literal outrage. “Man, you just met her! Why would you undermine me like that?”
“Well, you aren’t,” she helps herself to some queso and chips. “You’ve got photographic memory and a flair for the dramatic. These things do not a psychic make.”
“I try to tell him that all the time. He doesn’t listen.” Gus slides the quatro quesos dos fritos towards her, how is that fair? Gus never shares food.
“It’s just a good thing you guys aren’t full-on scamming people,” she pops some potato into her mouth. “I know a team that takes that sort of thing personally, and they would run you into the ground. Let that be a warning to stay on the straight and narrow.”
“A team?”
“Yeah. One of their guys has the last name Spencer, too, interestingly enough.”
“Oh, Eliot?” Shawn grins. “Yeah, no relation. Have he and Parker and Alec finally gotten together, or are they still acting like they aren’t just madly in love with one another?”
The woman sets down her cheesy potato and stares at Shawn for a minute.
“You have unexpected depths, Mr. Spencer.”
“I’m sorry,” Gus says. “I never caught your name?”
“Kate Bishop.”
Gus looks at Shawn, and then at Kate, then sighs. “It’s good to have you on the team, Miss Bishop.”