"Ghosts. Are real," said the young cop miserably. He was sitting cross-legged in the salt-circle, gun across his knees, keeping one eye out for Grace Fitchfield as he mournfully soliloquized to himself.
"Uh huh," Sam replied distractedly. He and Dean had taken one half of the room each, and were methodically working their way through the desks, sweeping aside piles of paper, calculators, and photos of smiling families. They had found no more safes so far, but picked every locked drawer. Cold static crackled and fizzled in the room with the proximity of the ghost, but Grace had yet to reappear. It was edging on 0400hrs, and Sam really wanted to get this hunt over with. Now they had a civilian at risk on their hands – if not exactly an innocent. Dean kept shooting the cop dark looks – whether due to his general ineptitude or the fact he was conducting an affair, Sam wasn't sure. Dean had slept with a lot of women, only one of whom he had cared about in serious way, but Sam knew that his brother had his own set of unorthodox sexual ethics, and cheating was definitely not part of it.
"Sam!"
The shout of his name had him ducking instinctively and covering his head, as something whizzed by his ear at great speed. The sting suggested it had taken a layer of skin off. A heavy metal photo frame crashed against the far wall. Then a paper shredder unplugged itself and went smashing into a window. Glass shattered and flew every which way.
"Under the desks!" Dean shouted: he grabbed one of the fallen cop's arms, and the younger cop grabbed the other. Objects continued to whizz around the room, computers fell from their terminals, as Sam and Dean each dragged one civilian under a desk beside them. Unfortunately for Sam, he got the noisy one.
"I'm gonna get fired," said the young cop.
"Yeah, but you'll be alive," Sam said. The cop started reciting Hail Mary. An entire glass wall forming one of the cubicles exploded, bright slivers shattering everywhere, spraying the whole office with deadly hail.
"Is there anyone else in this building?" Sam asked the cop grimly.
"N – no. the alarm is remote."
"Well that's something," Sam said, and reloaded his shotgun with salt.
Has been 1hr. No call, Abby texted, as though Lara hadn't been watching the clock herself.
Lara blew out her breath and dialled Abby's number.
"What do you want to do?" Abby said as soon as she picked up.
"I'm gonna call," Lara decided. "If they need to not be interrupted they should have their phones on silent."
"I dunno," Lara could practically see Abby's facial expression.
"They could be in trouble!" Lara said.
"We could get them in trouble," Abby returned.
"Look, you're the one who texted me saying you had a bad feeling. Now you've given me the bad feeling, so I' gonna have to do something about it!"
"Alright," Abby said. "Hang up and I'll text you the number."
Lara rang Sam's phone. And it rang. And rang. Eventually it clicked over to voicemail. She called Abby back, silently thanking Verizon for the pre-paid unlimited call plan. "No answer," she said grimly. "Okay, we got to do something. They went to the maid's nephew this afternoon right? I'm calling him."
"At 4 a.m.?"
"I'll pretend to be a cop! FBI or something. Say the bust is going down right now and we need urgent information!" It was exactly what Dean would do, and Lara felt a slow grin spreading over her face.
"Lara, you can't!" Abby practically wailed. "That's not skipping school, that's a federal offence! You're too young and pretty to go to jail! And I'm too young and pretty to bust you out of there!"
"Abby, it's all in the attitude," Lara said firmly. "People are gullible. They don't follow up on stuff they don't have to. If the Feds contact them about anything, they're just glad when they go and leave them alone." It was a shame that her parents would never know how much Supernatural had taught her.
"You sound like a teenager," Abby said doubtfully.
"That's just because you know what I look like. Look, we're wasting time. I'll call you back in fiteen." She hung up, and reached for the binder under her bed where they'd written down the Scotts' address and contact details. She sat upright in bed, cleared her throat, squared her shoulders, and willed her voice down the scale a little, remembering the time she'd been cast as the headmistress in the freshman production of Fame. After several rings, a groggy male voice answered the phone:
"Yeah?"
"Martin Scott?" Lara barked, "This is special agent Jennifer Hutchinson, FBI. Your country requires your immediate assistance." Was that too much? Too late, better press on: "I understand that two federal agents visited you this afternoon."
"That's right, they were here." Scott sounded marginally more awake. "I told them about the wife's jewelry. Like I said, it's in the safe of her office. Some problem?"
"Put your wife on the phone," commanded Lara, hardly able to believe her own daring. There was a pause, and Lara said, "Sir, this is a matter of national security. Time is crucial." Well, the second part was true. There was a muffled sound as someone dropped the phone, and the man's voice said something Lara couldn't work out, and then a confused woman's voice said,
"This is Laura Scott."
"Mrs. Scott, this afternoon your husband notified the FBI of your possession of an important item." Lara's heart was racing, but somehow she managed to keep her voice steady and authoritative. Her mind flashed back through her knowledge of Supernatural. Like the mirror in Bloody Mary or the painting in Providence, the jewelry had to be a cursed object.
"Why – yes, the locket – I had no idea, officer, it's a family heirloom." Naturally.
"Is it in the safe at your office?"
"Well not the actual office I work in," Mrs. Scott said, "That's for business only. It's in my employee lock box in the break room: that's for personals. Ought I to notify the company-"
"No!" Lara said. "I mean uh, we'll take care of it." As an afterthought: "Mrs. Scott, for your notice, the FBI will need to confiscate that item."
"Well now – wait just a minute," said Mrs. Scott. "We don't have many valuables and-"
"What's more important, your valuables or your life?" Lara snapped, which was probably more primetime drama than realistic cop-talk. But jeez, people were stupid. "You'll be reimbursed,"
she said for the hell of it, and hung up. It was clear what had happened. Sam and Dean were looking for the cursed object in the wrong place, and the ghost could be upon them right now. She would risk it. Silently apologizing to Abby for not calling her first, she scrolled to redial and selecting Sam's number.
The phone rang and rang.