Chapter 3: Secrets and Lies

It was Jessica.

With all he knew, with all he'd seen, Sam should have been thinking what, rather than whom he was seeing, spirit, demon, shape shifter, illusion, delusion, one of these was responsible for what he saw. That should have been his thought process, but it wasn't. As far as Sam was concerned, Jessica was there, had never died. She was there for him, and yet there was still the pain, the emptiness and loss of grief that stabbed through his insides, coiled his intestines and brought tears to his eyes. It was so totally illogical and irrational that he should have noticed. It was an impossible dichotomy, but to Sam it somehow made perfect sense. She was there to share his grief at her loss, to share in his pain so that she would know how much he loved her in a way that he had never expressed fully when she was alive, when he should have, when he needed her to know that she had stolen a part of his soul. He could get that back now because she was here.

"Sam!"

Sam's attention snapped back to his brother as the sharp use of his name finally registered, along with the fact that Dean had been talking to him for longer than the last word.

"Sorry," Sam muttered the apology as Dean's eyes scanned his face, concern creating an almost v-shaped furrow across his brow. Sam's eyes drifted back to where Jessica had been standing, but she was gone.

Dean followed his brother's gaze but there was nothing other than empty sidewalk. He returned to his scrutiny of Sam, knowing that it had taken him a couple of minutes to notice his brother's distraction, he'd been so damned focussed on shovelling food into his mouth to fill that empty place in his gut, he really needed to pay more attention when there was so clearly something going on with Sam and. . . "So what's so darned interesting out there?" Dean asked. Was that disappointment on his brother's face? Had he expected to see something that wasn't there any more? He followed Sam's still distracted gaze once more but there was nothing. He looked back in time to see his brother visibly shake himself back to the present conversation from wherever he had been, from whatever he had seen. "You see somethin'?"

"No, sorry."

Lie!

Dean knew it was a lie, not that he could have explained how he knew.

"Just a little distracted I guess," Sam shifted forward in his seat leaning one elbow on the table as he stirred his coffee. "So, you were saying?"

There was the slightest of hesitations before Dean allowed himself to continue, an acknowledgement that he would have to watch his brother even more closely from now on. Sam clearly wasn't going to tell him what was going on, probably didn't want to worry him. Bang up job he was doing on that. "I said we should probably start with Matt's mother."

SUPERNATURALSUPERNATURAL

The hour they spent with Matt's mother was a complete bust. They had gone for the 'school friends of his who had been out of town and had only just heard, wanting to pay their condolences and find out what had happened to their friend' line, which had worked just fine up to a point, but it was hard to come up with feasible questions that would get loved ones to go into the grisly details.

Still, it had all happened too long ago to use cops or reporters as a cover, at least not without also letting others in on the parallels this had with Simon Taylor's murder. As far as they knew they were the only ones investigating both cases at the moment and they wanted to keep it that way.

Not that a different cover would've helped, for the simple reason that she didn't know anything, at least not anything that would help them. She had comforted her son through the loss of his fiancée, she had died in a car crash, well, more accurately the fire that followed when her gas tank ignited, she had survived the initial impact and that had made it all the harder for him to come to terms with. If there had been someone there to get her out she would have survived. After six months Matt was just about getting his life back together when he had stopped seeing his mother. He'd stopped calling, stopped coming round, and she could only get his answer phone when she called. Three days later he was dead, the victim of a random and brutal attack.

Dean looked up at his brother as they headed back to the car, noticing the dark circles under his eyes, the drawn pinched skin that spoke of lack of sleep, and, for that matter lack of nutrition. since Sam hadn't been eating well either, and he knew that he didn't look or feel much better. They needed to get this one solved, while they were still capable, not to mention the new imperative that suggested that whatever it was would be coming after Sam next. Damn his brother looked wiped.

"So, we go see Tiffany next?" Dean asked, attempting to push some enthusiasm into the comment. "From what I remember of the pictures she was hot."

"No."

The reply was softly spoken so it took a moment for it to register. Dean stopped for a pace letting Sam get slightly ahead of him. He wasn't quite sure why the reply shocked him so much, aside from the fact that Sam usually just agreed with him, but it did and it took him a moment to get his head to a place where he could acknowledge that there was nothing wrong with that. If Sam had a better idea. . . He hustled to catch up. "Why you got a better idea?" he asked.

"No," Sam replied again.

"No," Dean repeated, "then what. . .?"

This time Sam stopped and his brother stopped with him, waiting for him to explain.

"Truth is I'm so tired I can barely see straight," Sam confessed quietly. "I was hoping that I could go back to the motel. . ." he let the sentence trail off. It was laced with just enough guilt. "Could you take this one on your own?" He gave a slight smile. "I mean if she's hot you don't want me cramping your style anyway right?"

Dean studied his brother for a moment, the tiredness couldn't be denied, and on face value the comments were perfectly normal, but there was something. . . "That's OK," I could do with getting some rest too why don't we both. . ."

Sam shook his head, "No, we need to get this done, If you don't feel like taking it on your own then," he gave a heavy sigh. "I suppose I can rest later, it's not like I'm sleeping well anyway so. . ."

He'd started walking again, and Dean stood for a moment, trying to run through both sides of the argument in his head. He really didn't want to leave Sam on his own, not with what had happened this morning. Then again, if his brother had got to the point where he was asking to go lie down in the middle of the day, then the exhaustion really must be catching up on him and if he wouldn't take the rest unless Dean kept up with the investigation. . . besides he was right they did need to get this solved before anything happened to. . .They just needed to get this done.

Dean was moving after his brother again, upping his pace a little to catch the taller sibling up. They drew level as they reached the car. "OK," Dean said, looking over the roof at his brother. "I'll drop you at the motel and go interview the lovely Tiffany on my own."

Sam gave a grateful smile. "So long as you remember what you're there to talk to her about," he said teasingly, apparently ignoring the fact that it was his idea that Dean should go alone.

They both climbed into the Impala. "I don't know what you're talking about," Dean grinned innocently.

Anyone watching who knew the boys would have seen this as their usual banter, but they both knew that there was the undercurrent of something else going on here and neither of them was in a position to do anything about it.

SUPERNATUALSUPERNATURAL

Dean laughed along with her and it was an easy task, to share laughter with someone as cute and sexy as Tiffany Mahers, blond, curvy and exceptionally well proportioned, Dean would have hit on her instantly in any bar, if he'd been lucky enough to catch her in one that was. She didn't seem like the type who would need to hang around in one to get a date. No, Tiffany was the sort of girl he'd only get if he bumped into her as she came out of the grocery store or at the gas station. She was the sort of girl who wouldn't be found anywhere he would hang out and he was beginning to reappraise the places he should hang out in the future.

They were laughing at a shared memory of one of Matt's little quirks, at least Tiffany thought it was a shared memory, her story about Matt's inability to admit when he needed to look at a map was real, Dean's anecdote, equally amusing and real sounding was entirely made up. They had been talking like this for the last half hour, trading stories about their friend, and Dean knew that he had her totally trusting him and totally relaxed. It was time to change the mood, time to ask the questions that he'd come here for. He gave a last laugh and took a swig of his drink, his expression sobering. "So what happened?" he asked. "I mean I heard about Emma and everything; that must have been terrible for him."

Tiffany's own expression sobered and she put her glass down on the table, spinning it slowly between her hands as she remembered the pain her friend had gone through. "He was a wreck for months afterwards," she said quietly, "I mean, he fell apart at the funeral and after that for a while he was just going through the motions. On the surface everything seemed OK. He'd say and do all of the right things, but. . ." she stared into her drink.

"But. . ." Dean prompted.

"But," she looked up met Dean's gaze. "It was like you could still see the pain inside him, when you looked into his eyes. You could see how much it was still hurting him. You know what I mean."

Dean held her eyes steady, as a knife dropped straight down from his throat through his gut. "Yes," he said quietly, he had seen that pain.

Tiffany took another sip of her drink, blinking back the tears that were on the edge of forming. "I mean he didn't ever say anything, not after that first few weeks, but it was always there between us." Her drink hit the table again and now both hands were gripping it. "But it was easing, he was getting better ya know? I was starting to think that maybe. . ."

And that was when it hit Dean that Tiffany had been in love with Matt. He wasn't sure if it was before, during or after Emma, but somewhere along the line her feelings had turned to more than just friendship and she had been hoping. . . He swallowed, feeling slightly guilty that he had made her relive all of this, but he needed answers. "You thought he might go out with you?" he asked gently.

She nodded. "I did at least until. . ."

"Until what?"

"Those last few days," Tiffany looked up at him and Dean could clearly see the formed tears now although they did not fall. "We were getting closer, much closer and then he changed. It was something. . ." she struggled to express herself. "He kept disappearing, saying he was tired, that he wanted to be alone, even told me that he thought maybe he had some kind of virus and that I'd better stay away but. . ." she shifted in her seat. "He wasn't resting when he said he was resting. He was out somewhere, going somewhere."

"Do you know where?"

"No I caught him coming back a couple of times when he'd told me he was going to stay in. He just told me that he'd been for a walk, to clear his head."

"And you didn't believe him?"

Tiffany shook her head, staring at the table again. "Then on that last day," she sniffed, "the day he. . .the day he died." She looked up, studied Dean for a moment before continuing. "I mean I never told this to anyone, not even to the police, because it's crazy."

Dean took one of her hands in his, gripped it, steadied it. "It's ok you can tell me," he reassured.

She gave a slight nod. "He said he'd seen her, seen Emma, said that's who he'd been spending time with." She pinned his gaze again. "But that's crazy right because she was dead?"

"Crazy," Dean agreed.

"And then later that day he was dead and I never got chance to. . .." Tiffany grabbed her purse and pulled out a wad of tissues using one to wipe the tears that were now most definitely falling. Under normal circumstances Dean might have taken advantage of the opportunity to comfort her but too much of what she had said was ringing alarm bells in his head and he had to get out of here and go check on Sam.

"Look," he said, thinking fast, "I'm sure that what he was going through was just a delayed effect of the grief that he would've gotten over. It's just a shame that he never got the chance to." He looked at his watch doing a fake double take. "Hey I. . er. .gotta be going." He pushed his chair back. "Is there somewhere I can drop you off? I mean I don't want to leave you. . ."

Dean was making it look for all the world like he was some heartless pig who just couldn't deal with a crying girl and couldn't wait to escape, and Tiffany bought it. "No," she said wiping at the tears; her tone becoming a little frosty. "I'll make it home just fine thank you."

"Good, I'm glad," Dean stated standing and inching away as he spoke "See you around sometime." As he hurried for the door and a rapid exit the irony that he really did need to hurry wasn't lost on him.

SUPERNATURALSUPERNATURAL.

Dean went through the motions when he arrived back at the motel, checking the room first, then the motel itself, maybe his brother had gone for ice or a soda or a coffee at the nearby diner? It took about five minutes of adrenaline pumping, heavy breathing running around, and neither the adrenaline nor the heavy breathing were a by-product of the running, for him to establish that Sam wasn't there. Another few minutes of questioning the desk clerk established that Sam had left about five minutes after he had and then all he could do was return to the room. He had no clue which direction his brother had gone in; he'd exhausted the chances that his cell was on on the way back from the interview with Tiffany. So there was nothing left to do but wait for Sam to come back.

He dropped heavily onto the bed in the middle of the room, a room that seemed almost as empty as his insides.

TO BE CONTINUED. . .