Ten past nine in the morning, the diner had emptied of all customers but the old and sad. "The Wanderer" piped in fuzzy tones over its sound system. The hick was late. From her seat at a corner booth, Kate sipped her coffee, watched the entrance, and stewed. Too many men had passed through her station pretending to be things they weren't. That rap sheet. Jesus Christ. Any officer worth her badge would arrest him and his creepy brother on sight, monster hunters or not.

There was a fair chance, she knew, that they weren't the good Samaritans they claimed to be. Some non-vampire, maybe even a couple of fake Feds, had to be involved in the murder. It struck her as a pretty big coincidence that they'd found out about Angel's lady friend, Drusilla, in less than a day. Strangely enough, she didn't know if she trusted them less or more now that it looked like Wolfram and Hart had no interest in them. The law firm was evil, but also pragmatic, and signs pointed to its innocence in this case. It wouldn't send in consultants to determine Angel's guilt if it had masterminded the crime in the first place.

Her eyes turned back to the clock. A twinge of nervousness shot through her, and she pushed it down. She'd done pretty well with her share of interrogations in the past. Better to be angry than scared.

But when Dean Winchester finally sat down at her table, she couldn't quite see him as a master manipulator. It was all too clear that he was going through his own shit. Nice Fed and his apologetic chuckle had disappeared. Even in the same clothes, the man across from her looked about five years older and several rough nights more tired than he'd let show at the station. Under the bright lights she noticed a fresh scar on his neck, something wider and coarser than a vampire bite.

He must have seen the question in her glance. "Werewolf," he said. "I got better."

"Huh." File that away under bad things that weren't a current threat. It wasn't like they had time for small talk. She took out Angel's note and pushed it across the table. "This came with the flowers."

Dean picked it up. "'Your loving Angel,'" he read aloud. "Cute nickname. So why's he stalking you? Revenge?"

"What?"

"For killing his kid or whatever. Penn."

Maybe his cluelessness hadn't all been an act. She grimaced, wondering how to break the news. "Funny thing. I didn't kill Penn alone. Angel helped. Saved my life, actually."

He squinted at her. "On purpose?"

"I'd say so. Seeing as he'd done the same at least twice before." She'd never been good at easing people into things. "He had this unlicensed private detective gig. We kept meeting over cases. Talked sometimes. He didn't mention that he was an undead monster. "

She filled in the details up to the point she had shut Angel out of her world. Some things she left out—Angel's office staff, for one. No use getting them involved with an unknown criminal element. To his credit, Dean took it all pretty well. No disbelieving looks, no interruptions. When the waitress stopped by, he ordered fried eggs and bacon.

"So you think he had a soul, or something like that," he said, after Kate finished talking.

"I guess." She shook her head. It was the same question she kept asking herself. Was Angel ever really something more than a monster, or had he fooled her the whole time? "I don't know. He did some good work, but maybe he was just bored and wanted to play Marlowe for a while. Whatever the case, he's definitely off the wagon now. The cross in the cheek is his trademark. It's about mocking God." She couldn't suppress a shudder as she remembered Angel standing calmly beside her, explaining it.

He looked down at the card on the table. "And you're next on his list."

"Looks that way," she said. "The weird part is, he didn't deliver the flowers himself. That's not his handwriting. I checked my building's security footage from last night, and sure enough, he sent some delivery boy to do his threatening for him." Her second time manipulating her way into viewing surveillance footage in one day. It was a good thing the building super liked her. She felt pretty confident that the delivery boy was a florist's employee and not an evil minion. For one thing, he had wasted five minutes texting in the building's lobby.

"He's playing it safe."

"Angelus doesn't play it safe. He likes to get up close and personal." She gave him a tight smile. "But maybe I'm just not as special to him as I thought."

"Don't worry, we'll get the bastard." The conversation paused as the waitress swung by and set down Dean's plate. He took a bite of his eggs and waited for her to step out of earshot before continuing. "Thanks for filling me in. I know Sam and I didn't exactly make a great first impression."

This was her chance to press him a bit, see if any part of his story rang false. "Yeah, you really didn't. Where's your charming little brother, anyway? Out hunting?"

A strange expression crossed his face. Something between concern and guilt. In that instant, he looked lost. "That's a long story," he said. "Short answer, chained to a chair back at our hotel. Not in a kinky way."

Kate blinked. "Really." She hadn't expected that. Whatever it meant, the response couldn't have been calculated to make her any less suspicious. Dean Winchester might just be a complete psycho. Then again, she'd spent the last ten minutes explaining how a vampire used to help her kill demons.

"Nothing to do with vamps. Let's say it's a personal problem." His grim tone made the words fall flat. "Just tell me how I can help out here. I've got all my best fake I.D.s with me."

Exactly what every good police officer wanted to hear. She took a long sip of coffee, wishing it were something stronger, and made herself push forward. "Right. The captain's taken me off the case. If I go around flashing my badge without the right paperwork, somebody's going to call the station and get me in shit too deep to crawl out of."

"I love flashing my badge."

"Thought you might. I need you to reach out to all the florists in the area. Figure out who sent the roses to my address. Tell them you're investigating a deadly stalker. Get the name, payment info, and a picture from the security cam if he entered the store. I'm guessing you have some practice with this." She pulled a pen out of her purse and wrote her address down on the back of the card. When she looked up, she saw Dean's brows drawn in confusion. Of course, she hadn't told him about the victim's daylight abduction. She didn't want to reveal she had cause to suspect a human like him, but he deserved to hear some of her reasoning. "The delivery flowers aren't Angel's M.O., that's all. Or Drusilla's. I think they might be working with someone else, or even recruiting new vampires." She sighed. "I know, it's a weak lead, but it's all I've got right now."

Dean nodded and speared the last piece of bacon on his fork. "Then it's worth a shot."

. . .

Kate watched Dean leave the diner a few minutes later. He might or might not find anything out from the florists, and he might or might not tell the truth about it. Some part of her wished she could trust him, chained-up brother and all. Shit, talk about a red flag. That was her problem. Despite everything, she kept looking for some well-muscled shoulder to lean on. She was scared and lonely as hell, and the world was growing more alien by the day.

At least she'd made it through the night. At least the sun was shining. But that hadn't saved the woman in the morgue.