"Right here."

Dean jerked awake, the magazine slipping from his face. He sat up, rubbing the back of his head blearily. He had been lounging across his bed, sniggering at the magazine while Sam tapped away on his laptop. He must have fallen asleep… stretching, he pulled himself forwards and off the bed, habit forcing him to look quickly around the room before moving to stand behind Sam.

"Right where?"

Sam nodded at the screen of his laptop. "I found him," he replied, scrolling up to a picture of a man in his early sixties.

The man's hair was greying, and age had formed wrinkles over his worn face. His cold, wary eyes stared out from the picture as if he could see Dean. Dean suppressed a shiver and shifted his eyes to the caption beneath the picture.

'"Harold Hartford,"' he read aloud. '"Nineteen twenty one to nineteen eighty four.' So?"

"So, this Harry is the original owner of whatever that package was."

"So he could be the one cursing the object," Dean finished, catching on. "Okay. Where's he buried?"

Sam hesitated, clearly uncomfortable with the answer he was about to give. "It doesn't say, and I can't find any record of him."

"So… you don't know?"

"Of course!" Sam objected, his face reddening. "It'll just take me a bit longer, that's all. But we might not even need–"

"Cool, something Geek-boy doesn't know," Dean teased, his face breaking into a huge grin. "Why don't you let the experts take a look, huh?"

He picked up the laptop and sauntered back to his bed with it, ripping out its battery wire as he did so. Sam scowled but followed him, standing before him as Dean began to look through what Sam had pulled up.

"Harold Hartford… family of three: wife, two kids…" he frowned as a personal record flashed up on the screen. "Huh…"

"I know," Sam said. "His kid, Jason, had Arsonphobia."

"Translation? Fear of being kicked up the arse?"

Sam grinned. "Fear of fire."

"Huh." Dean paused. Then, "Is this right? Jason burned to death? How did that happen?"

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, the way he always did when he was thinking hard. "It's all there. Apparently his daddy wasn't happy with the phobia, and decided to get the kid used to it…"

He paused, but Dean hadn't found the file that explained the rest and so just looked up, waiting for Sam to continue. Sam rolled his eyes.

"He took Jason out to their back garden and lit up a huge bonfire, probably thinking that once he got Jason used to the flames there would be no problem. No such luck: Jason fainted and fell straight into the flames. Apparently Hartford didn't get him out in time."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Woah. Bright idea, huh?"

"Yeah. So, horrified at what he had done, Hartford decided to follow along. He went back into the house, called an ambulance – in case Jason was still alive, I guess – and slit his own throat. His wife found him a few hours later."

Dean wrinkled his nose. "Great. Where does the album come into this?"

Sam sat down beside him and took the laptop, clicking on different documents to bring up photos. In the backgrounds, ghostly figures hovered.

"Aw, come on, Sammy…"

"Legends of ghosts becoming trapped in photographs have been around for ages, Dean," Sam replied firmly. "Some people believed that photographs could trap your soul, keep you trapped forever."

"And you think that that's what happened to Hartford?"

Sam brought up another file, this time from a police station. It was a photograph of Hartford's corpse as it had been found, slumped over a kitchen table. Beneath him, Dean could see a large, thick book, the pages of which had been stained brown by Hartford's blood.

"What's with the book?"

Sam clicked on another photo, a close up of the front of the book. "I recognize it. I've seen that nameplate before – on the thing that was in the package."

"Hartford's haunting his family photo album?" Dean asked. "Jeez, could have chosen something cooler…"

"Dean, head in the game," Sam reminded him. "If I'm right, then we don't need to burn his bones. We can just burn the album: no cursed object, no curse."

Dean nodded. "Great, we can just walk in there and take it. No trouble at all."

"Exactly," Sam said, sitting back and closing his laptop. "Told you we wouldn't need the grave," he added.

"Whatever," Dean muttered, standing up. "Let's just go buy the book, get this over with. Maybe we could visit Bobby after this job…"

Sam shrugged. "Sure. Haven't seen him for a while. And he might have found out something more about the…"

The word deal hovered in the air between them, unspoken. Dean shrugged it off quickly, grabbing his jacket and heading for the door. Sam sighed and followed him.

"One more thing I don't get," Dean said as they moved through the door. "The victims are missing, not reported dead. Where's Hartford taking them?"

Sam just shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe he just hid the bodies in their garden or something, like his son."

"Maybe," Dean muttered.

He still felt as if they were missing something, but he tried to push the feeling away. If Sam was convinced, then Dean was too. He trusted Sam.

When they stepped into the shop, there was no one behind the till. Dean walked up to it and tapped the bell impatiently while Sam scoured the shelves, searching for any sign of the photo album. His efforts proved fruitless: it was nowhere on the shelves. Giving up, he returned to Dean's side and waited with his brother at the till. Dean rang the bell again.

"Oi! Hello?" he called, his voice echoing through the small shop. "Anyone home?"

There was no answer. Dean felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, and his hand automatically moved down to his gun.

"Hello?" he shouted again, his voice slightly more wary.

Sam, noticing the change, glanced at him. "What's up?"

"I dunno. Something feels wrong…"

Dean hesitated, and then strode around behind the till and ducked through the door leading to the back room of the shop. He heard Sam hiss his name, but he ignored him. Sam's footsteps followed him, slow but steady.

The back room of the shop was simple and small. Clearly, the family didn't live here. However, an armchair and a small tv were set up against the far wall among the piles boxes and brick-a-brack, the screen still crackling with life. Still, despite the vast amount of junk in the room, it was clear that there was no one around.

"Where are they?" Sam asked from behind him, and Dean turned to look at him. He shrugged.

"Dunno. Maybe they went out."

"They would have locked up out there."

Dean went to the back door near the other end of the room and tried it. It opened easily. As he turned, he caught sight of a crowded table in the centre of the room, a glint of metal resting on top of the piles of books on it. He strode over to the table, quickly recognizing the metal to be a set of keys. He held them up to show Sam.

"You'd think they'd have taken these with them, right?"

Sam walked over to the table, his brown furrowed. Then his face cleared and he picked up the book lying open on the top of the pile. It was huge and leather-bound, a bronze nameplate on the front. Dean's mind quickly matched it with the photograph they had seen earlier. He kicked himself for not noticing it before Sam, and then nodded at the book.

"That it?"

Sam nodded. He leafed through the book, frowning. "It was open…"

Dean's mind had already acknowledged that fact, and he already knew what it meant. The shop's owners wouldn't be coming back anytime soon. He sighed and headed for the back door.

"C'mon, Sam. At least now we don't have to pay for it."

Sam sighed heavily and followed him, tucking the book under his arm.

"She was just a teenager," he muttered.

Dean didn't have to be a mind reader to know what he was talking about. He winced internally and held the door open for Sam, pity rising up in him.

"Forget it, Sam. The sooner we burn this sonuvabitch, the better."

Sam nodded. "Yeah. I guess."

Ok, I know not much happened in this chapter but don't worry: it all comes out in the next one. Please review!