“I can see why you’d want to do that,” Shawn said. “The three-dollar ticket price does seem steep for a five-minute ride, and it’s not like they have a dining car. Although this pink popcorn they sell at the snack bar goes a long way towards making up for that.”

Shawn held out the remaining piece of pink brick to Gus, who broke off a chunk and nibbled at it sullenly.

“We’re on a case,” Gus said. “You were handling the officials. I wanted to speak to the denizens of the demimonde, to see if they had any insight on the subject.”

“So you thought you’d hop a freight, gain the confidence of the local hobo community, see if they’d open up to you?”

“Exactly,” Gus said, finally feeling the terror draining out of his muscles.

“That’s a good idea,” Shawn said. “Except, of course, for the fact that the boxcars on this train are so small the three-year-olds ride on top. But maybe there was a mouse inside who could have given you the inside squeak.”

“You can laugh if you want, but I was pursuing every possible lead to try to recover our client’s property. What were you doing?”

“Nothing as clever as riding the really, really little rails,” Shawn said. “I was checking out the lost-and-found department.”

“I’m sure that was useful,” Gus said.

“Compared to straddling a miniature railroad waiting to be struck down by some forest-dwelling monster, maybe not.”

Gus glared at him, then grabbed another chunk of the pink popcorn. “Fine. I took a wrong turn on the nature trail. The sun was too hot. I left my water bottle in the car. I guess I got a little dehydrated, and from there disorientation is only moments away. I didn’t want to take this stupid case to start with.”

That was true, but it didn’t have anything to do with Gus’ fear of the wilderness. It had to do with his fear of monsters.

In the years since they’d established Santa Barbara’s premier psychic-detective agency, Shawn and Gus had caught murderers, blackmailers, grave robbers, serial killers, oil well bandits, and seal slayers, and Gus had stared them all down with a quick grin and a clever retort-at least in his memory he did.