A/N: Hey, just wanted to say to all the people reading this, thanks so much for reading. Even without receiving reviews, I'm still grateful to know people are reading my story. I hope you're enjoying it as well. I also hope that you've already taken the time to read "Unfinished Business", the first story in this series as it seems like it'd be helpful in letting you all know who Emerson is exactly. Anyway, thanks again and enjoy the chapter/update!
St. Louis, Missouri
La Quinta Inn
Sam and Dean had found the cheapest room they could once they rolled into town. They were staying 5 miles from the airport, which was all right with them. The amenities were actually more than they were used to at most of the places that they'd stayed before. The place had high speed internet access, free parking, free breakfast and even had an on-site guest laundry. It was close to a Denny's and McDonald's so basically the place was perfect for the boys. It wasn't even a seedy little hole in the wall place for once. It was a two-star motel, which was a major step up from some of the places that they'd stayed before. The room was even nice: double beds, a nice sized closet, cable TV, radio, a desk, coffee pot, alarm clock and a nice bathroom. All in all, the boys couldn't complain.
Dean was flipping through a St. Louis visitor's guide that had been sitting on the bed when they'd arrived in the room while Sam grabbed a quick shower. He already spotted at least three attractions that he wanted to hit if they had time after finishing this job. If they could wrap this up quickly, Dean was thinking he might even be nice enough to let Sam have the car so he could drive to Mount Redding while Dean stayed behind. How could he resist checking out a casino or two after all?
"Check this out, Sammy," Dean said, sounding rather excited as his younger brother came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. Actually, he sounded more like he and Sam where in St. Louis for a vacation than for a job. "There's a couple of casinos here and this diner on old Route 66. There's even a classic car museum." He was grinning like a little kid but the look on Sam's face made Dean instantly frown. "Well, there a bunch of museums and historical spots for you to poke around at too but ..."
Sam was getting dressed as Dean spoke and was now standing there in his jeans, shaking his head a little bit at his older brother. "Other than this room, Tower Grove Park and the public library, dude, you're not checking any of this out," he said, taking the guidebook away from his brother and setting it on the night stand between their beds. He ignored the sulking that Dean already seemed to be doing while he pulled on a clean t-shirt and then sat on his bed to put on his socks and shoes.
"All right, so where to first then?" Dean finally asked, resigning himself to the fact that his little brother was a stick in the mud and that they wouldn't be having any fun while in St. Louis. It made him start to seriously consider that idea of letting Sam take the Impala back to Mount Redding while Dean got to do the tourist thing here in St. Louis.
Sam sighed a little, his hands on his thighs, and shrugged. "We should probably check out the park first," he finally said after a bit of thought on the matter. "I figure we can find where the girls went missing, poke around a little and see if anyone who might be hanging around right now knows anything. There's guided tours and volunteers there all the time, I guess, so someone might have seen something."
"So are we going in full on FBI or what?"
Sam scratched his head for a moment as he thought about it and then shook his head. "Maybe we should try to keep it low key this time, Dean," he said. "Go in as reporters for some small town paper here checking out the disappearance of the girls, that kind of thing. Then if we have to, we can try the FBI thing."
Dean shrugged at that, figuring he'd let Sam take the lead on this. It was his brother's job. Sam, after all, had been the one to find it. Dean was along for the ride because it sounded interesting and worth checking out. "Any theories yet?"
Sam shook his head as he pushed up off of the bed and moved to grab his jacket off the back of the chair by the desk. "Demon? Vengeful spirit maybe? It's hard to say," he said with a shrug. He didn't have enough information to have a theory yet so it could be just about anything. It even could be some pedophile for all they knew. There was just something about how the girls were all the same age, all looked kind of similar that made Sam think it was something more than some sick human pervert though.
Dean decided that if Sam was putting on his shoes and grabbing his jacket, then they were about to head out. He sighed a little at that and kind of rolled his eyes. "So you want to go now?" he asked, looking like he was a bit too comfortable where he was to move. Actually it was more like Dean was lounging on the bed, sprawled out and totally relaxed. He wanted to get a hold of that visitor's guide again to see what other fun stuff he might get to do if he could only talk Sam into it.
"Uh, yeah, Dean," Sam said, sounding like he might be a little confused. He figured that the two of them would kind of jump right into it. They'd spent the night in the motel and now it was mid-afternoon, the perfect time to visit a park if they wanted to run into some parents. Sam kicked the bed a little and nodded towards the door. "Come on, Dean. We're not going to get anything done if we just sit around here. It's still early enough in the afternoon that there should be kids at the park with their families. Maybe we'll run into someone who remembers seeing the last girl that was taken. Or maybe one of the little girl's friends."
He knew he couldn't just sit there. He felt like he'd already done enough looking into and digging around. Sam wanted to find more information and if Dean wasn't going to go with him, that was fine. Sam would just leave his brother behind.
"You're such a party pooper, Sammy," Dean said as he sat up and stuck his feet into his boots. He tied them up as he looked at Sam. "We can't take 5 minutes to maybe think this through a little more or something? Grab something to eat?"
Sam adamantly shook his head and tossed Dean's jacket onto the bed next to his brother. "We'll get something to eat on the way back, all right?" he said, trying to find a nice compromise that would get Dean moving. "I want to see if there's anyone at the park that might have more for us to go on. Right now all we have is that there's a bunch of blonde, 10-year-old girls that have been kidnapped. If someone saw something, it might help us figure out where the girls are being kept and who or what is doing this."
Dean heavily sighed, shrugging on his jacket before standing up. He grabbed his keys from the desk and jingled them in front of Sam. "Fine but I'm driving," he said with this big, almost goofy grin on his face.
