This fanfiction takes place between the episodes Mystery Spot and Jus In Bello. I don't own any part of Supernatural or our boys.

Chapter 1: The Assassin

Sam closed his eyes and rolled his head around his neck for the third time in two hours. Dean glanced over from the driver's side, curious about his brother's restlessness. He'd become increasingly fidgety as he researched the current case.

It was midday and the sun seemed overly bright. Both brothers had found a pair of sunglasses in the glove compartment. Dean's were relatively normal, as he had declared that the driver not only picks the music, but also the sunglasses. Sam was wearing a very old pair of aviators that Dean had expected to look goofy, but had been disappointed when he found that Sam was actually pulling off the 'state trooper' look.

"Well?" Dean finally spoke, annoyed that he couldn't read the computer screen and drive at the same time, "What's it say?"

Sam continued to read to himself for another moment, then spoke, "The first victim was killed about a month ago. It wasn't solved, but it wasn't all that unusual either—not in our way—just three gunshots: one to the left shoulder, one to the right shoulder and one to the heart."

Dean raised an eyebrow and nodded. It sounded like an execution.

"The next victim was last week and that murder had a witness who claims that the killer was an apparition."

"An apparition?" Dean scoffed.

"A ghost—"

"I know what an apparition is," Dean said indignantly.

Sam ignored Dean and continued, "The witness said that a woman appeared out of nowhere and shot the guy three times," Sam paused for a moment as he read, "And he said that the shots didn't make any sound." Sam paused and frowned as he glanced towards Dean, "Three rounds into the victim and the witness didn't hear a sound."

"And?"

"Then she disappeared."

"How do we know we're not dealin' with an overexcited witness who convinced himself that he saw a ghost?"

Sam clicked on a tab at the bottom of the screen and another page popped into view. It was a surveilliance still of a woman who would have been beautiful if not for the fact that hatred seemed to radiate from her violet eyes and her face was set in a glare of rage. Dean found himself thinking that he would not have been surprised to see smoke coming from her flared nostrils.

Dean raised his eyebrows, "Who's that?"

"That was Adeline Seville and she was one of the most infamous assassins in U.S. history. She grew up in Kearney, Nebraska, but ran away when she was 16. After a few years of run-of-the-mill crime, she must have gotten bored and eventually started killing for money. She was good at it. After a few years she made quite a name for herself."

Dean had a vague smile on his face as he slightly nodded his head and raised an impressed eyebrow, "That is badass," he said, just loud enough for Sam to hear.

"She became one of the highest paid and most reliable assassins in history. For a long time she was a ghost—"

Dean snorted at the irony.

"You know what I mean," Sam also smiled, "But eventually the FBI was able to figure out who she was. After they knew, they kept constant surveillance on her mom's house. Eventually, she made the mistake of coming home."

Dean glanced at Sam, correctly assuming that the punch line was near.

"They cornered her there. She wouldn't go with 'em alive, so they took her out dead."

"Where's she buried? This might be a quick one if we can just find the body and take care of it," Dean said.

"Doesn't say," Sam sighed, "Her mother had her buried privately and never told anyone where it was because she didn't want any of the victim's relatives or anyone else to desecrate her grave. So her mom's the only one who knew where she was buried," Sam paused as he read farther, "And her mom's dead."

"Damn," Dean bit the inside of his lip, "I guess we gotta start with the humans then. That's interesting. And you're sure it's her?"

"It's her signature: a shot to each shoulder and one to the heart."

"Copy cat?"

"Not if the witness isn't a lunatic."

"Motive?" Dean again glanced at Sam.

Sam squirmed a bit before saying, "If she hasn't changed her ways, she has no motive against the victims, themselves."

Dean again arched his eyebrows. This was getting more interesting by the second, "A human controlling her—paying her?"

Sam's brows furrowed as if he was thinking carefully before answering, "Someone must be paying her."

"What do you pay a friggin' ghost?"

"I dunno," Sam glanced out the window, "But I bet we'll find out."

"Okay." The explanation was good enough for Dean. He gave his baby a little more gas in order to fast-forward the ever-boring sand hills, "Kearney, it is."

o o o o o

Dean shook Sam's shoulder, "We're here, man."

Sam blinked his eyes open and looked around dazedly. They were sitting in front of a smallish house with white paint and blue trim. Sam yawned and turned towards Dean, "Is this David Schmidt's house?"

Dean nodded as he surveyed the house for a moment.

"Alright, let's go," Sam said as he yawned and shook his head to wake himself up.

The brothers got out of the car and stretched for a moment, "Anybody home?" Sam asked Dean.

"Nope. The guy lived with a dog and two cats. I think we're good to go."

They ducked under the crime scene tape and entered the house as nonchalantly as they could manage. The more comfortable they looked with entering the house, the more likely anyone who saw them would think that they belonged there. It was about 4:30 in the afternoon and although the cozy neighborhood was void of much traffic or people for the time being, neighbors would likely be coming home after 5:00 p.m. and they couldn't afford to get caught investigating a dead man's house.

As they entered, Sam immediately saw a spatter of blood on the opposite wall. There was the outline of where David's body had fallen, but no other evidence that anyone—or anything—had been there.

"EMF?" Sam asked.

Dean looked down at the EMF detector and nodded, "Oh, yeah."

"That's probably about all we need to know," Sam said, glancing around the small home, "Let's give it a once over anyway, and then get outta here."

Dean nodded and moved towards the west side of the house. Sam went the other direction. After about 20 minutes, Sam found Dean in the office, flipping through the pages of a day planner, "Come on, we should take off before suburbia picks up out there."

Dean looked up and nodded as he pocketed the planner and followed Sam out the door. Sam led the way as they walked back out of the house, trying to appear natural about it in case there were anyone already home from work, or nosey housewives who had nothing better to do than spy on their dead neighbor's house.

As they climbed back into the car, Dean spoke, "We could go to Wayne Ferret's house. He lives in the country—no neighbors to worry about."

"He wasn't killed there," Sam said, hoping to avoid a fruitless investigation of an empty house in which nothing had happened.

"We can't go to his crime scene," Dean answered thoughtfully, "He was killed downtown and it's rush hour. We'd have to wait til the middle of the night to check that out. And if it's anything like this crime scene, we're not gonna find anything."

Sam saw Dean's point and realized they probably wouldn't need to go there at all unless every other lead was a dead end, "Alright, let's go."

Dean removed David's day planner from his jacket and tossed it on the dash. After a few minutes of riding, Sam snatched David's pocket planner and thumbed through six months' worth of plans, some that had already happened; some that never would.

Wayne's house was about ten miles out of town. The impala purred to a stop in the gravel driveway and the boys climbed out, glancing around for any signs of life. There was a garage full of scrap metal, old car parts and an ancient truck that didn't look like it had been driven anywhere during this decade.

They relaxed slightly as they walked up the porch steps and into the house, which was unlocked. Once again, they split up to cover the house in less time. Seeing as how there were two floors, Sam took the upstairs, Dean the downstairs.

At the top of the stairs was a hallway that was about 20 feet long. Sam opened the first door on the right to find that it was a well-furnished office. Sam had skimmed the articles and he now remembered that Wayne had sold a large amount of supplies—mostly DVDs, CDs and books—over the internet.

Sam walked to the desk and scanned over the computer, desktop appliances and the desk calendar. As his eyes quickly took in the events on Wayne's calendar, he saw "Jake Cord Trucking" written on March 13, which was the next day. Sam hastily reached into his jacket pocket to pull out David's day planner. He thumbed the pages until he found March and shook his head as he saw that David's planner also referred to the trucking service, except that it was scribbled out as "Jake's Truck" instead of the full name and it was on March 18.

Sam quickly covered the rest of the rooms upstairs before heading back downstairs to tell Dean about the connection he had discovered. Dean was idly studying the family pictures that hung on the wall and sat atop the piano. He hadn't heard Sam approach and his face was set in a bitter smile, admiring a life that he had never had and probably never would.

Sam cleared his throat as he approached, which caused Dean to do the same and turn to face his younger brother.

"Got a connection between the victims," Sam hurried into the conversation, wanting to skip an awkward moment, "They both had appointments with a private trucking service—some guy named Jake Cord."

"Get a number?"

"Yeah."

Dean pulled out his phone and glanced at his watch, "What is it? They might still be open."

Sam rattled off the number as Dean dialed. When a man answered the phone, Dean asked when they closed, listened for a moment, then offered a polite, "Thank you," and hung up.

"They close at six," Dean said, already headed for the door, "We can make it back to town in time if we hustle." As he neared the door, he turned slightly back to Sam, "You got the address right?"

Sam just smiled in reply.

"Thatta boy," Dean said as he opened the door to find himself suddenly face-to-face with the barrel of a 12-gauge shotgun.