I don't own Supernatural or any of it's characters. I only own Isabeau and my own original characters.
People chatter in the background as a man is led down a dim police-station hallway in cuffs. An officer, Peter Sheridan is on his cell phone, a mug of coffee in hand, "Under what name? Oh, yeah, that's my favorite so far. Possible ID's in three states that we know of."
He pulls a paper from the fax machine and stares at it, "I gotta call you back."
A SWAT team approaches a motel room from the outside. The team breaks open a 2nd-floor door with a battering ram. Inside, Sam and Isabeau stop, holding their hands up.
A police officer, Diana Ballard, advances on Sam and Isabeau, her gun forward, "Going somewhere, you two?"
Isabeau and Sam glance at each other.
Sheridan enters an interrogation room, sitting down across from the prisoner, "Well, first I thought you were just stepping up your game. Credit card fraud, breaking and entering, and this one... puzzled me."
He lifts up a sheet of paper to the prisoner, "Grave desecration. But still these are a long way from murder. Then we get a fax from St. Louis. Where you're suspected of torturing and murdering a young woman. However, no one could prove anything, of course, because supposedly you died there."
Sheridan shakes his head, "But I gotta tell you something. You look pretty healthy to me."
"So now we know Karen Giles wasn't the first person you murdered. But I guarantee you she's the last." He stands and walks out.
The prisoner, Dean, watches as he leaves.
Isabeau bites her lip, playing with her rosary, leaning against the far corner of the interrogation room.
"Don't they usually separate people when they interrogate, Beau?" Sam asks by his spot next to the window.
Isabeau shrugs, "Yeah, usually they do. No clue why they put us together… I don't like it." Her hands slightly shake as she continues to fiddle with her rosary.
"Hey…" Sam walks over to her, taking her hand in his unbroken one, "You need to calm down."
She nods, taking a few deep breaths, "I know… I know." Isabeau smiles weakly at him.
The two look over as the policewoman from earlier enters the interrogation room. She places two coffee cups on the table, "Thought you might be thirsty."
Sam lets go of Isabeau's hand and walks over to the table, "Okay, so you're the good cop. Where's the bad cop?"
"Oh, he's with your brother." Diana says.
Isabeau crosses her arms and moves to stand next to Sam, "Okay. And you're holding us why?"
"Well, he's being held on suspicion of murder. And Sam, we'll see. But, you Isabeau, you can walk right out that door after I ask you a few questions." Diana tells them.
Sam leans forward, shocked, "Murder?!" Him and Isabeau say in unison.
Diana tilts her head at the two, "You sound genuinely surprised. Or are you that good of an actor?"
Isabeau furrows her brow, "Who was he supposed to have murdered?!"
Diana nods, "We'll get around to that."
"Well, you can't just hold us here without formal charges!" Sam exclaims.
"Well actually, we can, for forty eight hours, but you being a pre-law student, would know that. I know all about you, Sam." She reads from one of two of the files in her hands, "You're twenty three years old, no job, no home address. Your mother died when you were a baby, your father's whereabouts are unknown. And then there's the case of your brother Dean. Whose demise was, well, just a little bit exaggerated. Feel free to jump in whenever you like."
Sam leans against the wall, folding his arms.
"Shy?" Diana asks, "No problem. I'll keep going. Your family moved around a lot when you were a kid. Despite that, you were a straight-A student. Got into Stanford with a full ride." She closes the file, placing it on the table, "Then about a year ago there was a fire in your apartment. One fatality. Jessica Moore, your girlfriend. After she died, you fell off the grid. Left behind everything."
"I needed some time off. To deal. So I'm taking a road trip with my brother and my girlfriend." Sam grunts out.
Diana tilts her head at Sam, "Girlfriend?" Sam's eyes glance at Isabeau and Isabeau shifts in her spot. Diana nods, "Oh, Isabeau is your new girlfriend? Interesting."
Diana opens the other folder she has, this time looking directly at Isabeau, "I know all about you too. Isabeau Fitzgerald MacLeod, though you just go by Isabeau Fitzgerald. You're twenty-four years old, graduated from Bakersfield College with a bachelors in art history, and almost started a job as an Assistant Art Director, pretty big deal."
Isabeau just shrugs, letting Diana continue, "You and your family live in Bakersfield, California and it looks like you own some property separate from your family. You bought an over 25,000 square foot mansion on July 15th, 2000. Big investment for an 18-year-old."
Sam furrows his brow at this new snippet of information. Isabeau never told him that.
Isabeau blinks, "I'm not the only one who owns it."
Diana nods, "Yes, but you're the first one who signed the papers to own it. Let's see…" She flips through a couple of papers, "During college you spent your freshman year away from home, other than you going to college in Bakersfield, there's no paper trail for you from that entire year. In your sophomore year, you go back home, but then at some point spend some time in Sioux Falls, becoming an honorary officer."
Diana closes the folder, "Pretty impressive. Though, about a year ago, you joined Sam and Dean. Dropping a chance at a stable career and leaving your family behind."
Isabeau's eye twitches at her statement of 'leaving her family behind'. She never did that, and she would never do that.
Diana places the folder on the table with the other one and points at the two of them, "My guess is just from the multiple times that Sam and Dean visited your home town, is that all three of you are childhood friends. Not to mention, your families used to live across from each other in Lawrence, Kansas."
Diana leans against the table, "And you two fell in love on this little roadtrip of yours."
Isabeau raises her brow, "Yeah you could say that." Everything was right except for Isabeau dating Dean as well as Sam.
"How's that going for you?" Diana asks.
Isabeau shrugs, "Great. I mean... we saw the second largest ball of twine in the continental US. Awesome." Isabeau pulls up a chair, sitting down and crosses her legs. Sam comes up next to her, pulls a chair up to the table and straddles it.
Diana comes around to Sam's side of the table, "We ran Dean's fingerprints through AFIS."
Sam nods, "Okay."
"Got over a dozen possible hits."
Sam points at her, "'Possible' hits. Which makes them worthless."
"But it makes you wonder. What are we gonna find when we run your prints?" Diana asks.
Sam chuckles, "Yeah, well." He pounds his fist on the table sarcastically with his broken arm, "You be sure to let me know, all right." Isabeau rubs her temple at his action, not the best idea to slam your broken hand into the table.
Sam points at the cups, "May we?"
Diana nods, "Please."
"Great." He sniffs the cup and sips it.
Isabeau picks up hers, sniffing it as well and frowns, placing it back on the table.
Diana tilts her head at Isabeau, "Something wrong, Isabeau?"
Sam chuckles, "She's not a coffee person."
Isabeau nods, "Despise it actually. Tea is my coffee."
Diana leans over Sam, intently, "Sam, you seem like a good kid. It's not your fault Dean's your brother. We can't pick our family. Right now detectives in St. Louis are exhuming a corpse. They're trying to figure out how your brother faked his own death. After torturing all those young women. Dean's a bad guy. His life is over. Yours doesn't have to be."
She looks over at Isabeau, "Neither of your's have to be. Isabeau, you've done so much. You have a degree and you're an honorary officer. You can walk away from this with Sam, go live in that mansion that you own and start a happy new life. Don't let Dean prevent you from doing so."
Isabeau looks at her, incredulous, "You want me to turn against one of my best friends. The older brother to my boyfriend?" She played along with Diana's idea that Isabeau was only dating Sam. Saying that she was dating both brothers could possibly make things worse than they already are.
Diana shakes her head, "No. We already caught him cold. Red-handed at the Karen Giles murder scene." She moves around to the other side of the table to face both of them, "We just need you two to fill in some missing pieces."
"Why would we do that?" Sam asks.
Diana sits down smiling at both of them, "Because I can talk to the DA. Make a deal for you. You can get on with your life together. Dean's as good as gone."
Sam thinks for a moment, looking distraught. He looks over at Isabeau and she sighs, nodding.
Sam then begins speaking quietly, "My dad and Tony Giles were old friends. They were in the service together. We've known him since we were kids, you know? So we came as soon as we heard about his death."
Dean is sitting at a cafe table reading a newspaper. The headline reads: 'Man's Throat Slit Without A Trace.'
Sam approaches with two cups of coffee with Isabeau who holds a cup of her go to tea in her hand. Sam sets the other cup of coffee in his hand down, "There you go."
As he sits across from Dean and Isabeau sits in between them, Dean hands over the paper, "Anthony Giles."
Isabeau shakes her head after taking a sip of her tea, "Who's Anthony Giles?"
"The Baltimore lawyer. Working late in his office, check it out." Dean tells them.
Sam reads the paper as Isabeau leans over to look, "Uh…" He mutters, "His throat was slit, room was clean. Huh. No DNA, no prints."
Dean takes a sip of his own coffee, "Keep reading, it gets better."
Isabeau places her cup down, reading from the paper this time, "Security cameras failed to capture footage of the assailant."
Dean raises his brows, "So I'm thinking either somebody tampered with the tapes-"
Sam smiles, "Or it's an invisible killer."
Dean raises his cup to her, "My favorite kind." He clicks his tongue, "What do you think, Scully? You wanna check it out?"
"I'm not Scully, you're Scully." Sam tosses the paper at him.
"No, I'm Mulder. You're a red-headed woman." Dean grins.
Isabeau rolls her eyes with a fond smile, "Morons."
Isabeau is continuing their story, both her and Sam going back and forth, "So," She chuckles, "Woulda been kinda hard for Dean to kill Tony, considering we weren't in town at the time."
"So tell me what happened next." Diana asks them.
Isabeau sighs, shaking her head, "Okay, uh, that's when we went to see Karen. She was barely holding it together. We just wanted to be there for her. You know?"
In the Giles' house, Karen, a young woman with dark hair and dark-framed glasses, is sitting in her home, on the verge of tears. She's looking at some forms that Sam, Isabeau and Dean, dressed as insurance company employees, have given her.
"Insurance." Karen shakes her head, "I totally forgot about the insurance."
Isabeau pushes up her own fake thick, dark-framed glasses, giving Karen a comforting smile, "We're very sorry to bother you right now, but the company is required to conduct its own investigation. You understand."
Karen wipes away a few tears, nodding, "Sure."
Isabeau nods, "Okay. Um. If you could just tell us anything you remember about the night your husband died."
"Uh, Tony and I were just supposed to have dinner. He called and said he was having computer troubles and that, that he had to work late. That was it." Karen tells them.
Sam sighs, "Do you have any idea who could have done this to him?"
Karen shakes her head, "No. No. It's like I told the police, I, I have no idea."
"Did Tony mention anything, you know, unusual to you? In the days before his death?" Dean asks.
"Unusual…" Karen trails off, confused.
"Yeah, like strange?"
Karen shakes her head again, "Strange?"
"You know, Karen, weird?" Dean smiles a little, "Weird noises, uh, visions, anything like that?"
Sam clears his throat and gives Dean a look. Karen turns to Sam, who turns on his concerned-face again, then shoots Dean another look as she glances down.
"He had a nightmare the day before he died."
Isabeau tilts her head, "What kind of a nightmare?"
Karen thinks for a moment, "Uh, he said that he woke up in the middle of the night and there was a woman standing at the foot of the bed, he blinked and she was gone, I mean, it was just a nightmare."
Dean nods, "Did he say what she looked like?"
Karen looks back and forth at all of them and addresses Dean, "What the hell difference does it make what she looked like?"
Dean glances at his brother and girlfriend, "Uh, it's just, our, our company's very thorough."
Karen stares at him, "He said she was pale, and she had dark red eyes."
"So I gave Karen a hug, told her to call me if she needed anything…" Isabeau shakes her head, "...And that was it. End of story."
Diana taps her fingers on the table, "Isabeau, I am trying to help you two here. But you have got to be honest with me."
Diana stands up as Isabeau rubs a hand over her face, "Now we have an eyewitness. Someone who saw two men and a woman fitting yours and Sam and Dean's description breaking into Giles' office."
Sam sighs, "Okay, look, Karen called us later, said that there was some stuff that she wanted from Tony's office, but the police weren't letting her in. Like, a picture of the two of them in Paris, and some other stuff. Look, it was wrong to enter a crime scene, but she gave us the key!"
Sam picks the lock on Giles' office and he, Isabeau and Dean enter, ducking under the police tape. Sam shines his flashlight on a pool of blood on the floor, "Hey. Anthony Giles' body was found right about here."
He reads from a paper copy of the newspaper from earlier, "'Throat slit so deep part of his spinal cord was visible.'"
Dean whistles, "What do you think? Vengeful spirit? Underlining vengeful?"
"Yeah, maybe. I mean he did see that woman at the foot of his bed." Sam says as he takes a seat at the desk.
Isabeau picks up a sheet of paper lying on the desk, "Hey, take a look at this."
Sam takes the paper and Dean leans over, taking a look as well. It contains small-font printing of the word 'danashulps' repeated over and over to fill the page.
"Dana Shulps. What's that, a name?" Sam asks.
Isabeau finds another paper, "I dunno, but it's everywhere." She shows them another piece of paper just like the other one. Dean comes over to her, looking over her shoulder.
She grins up at Dean who returns it, "Well, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
Sam shines his flashlight down on the glass table in front of him, pausing. Dean and Isabeau notice, walking over.
He breathes on the glass, revealing the same letters, 'DANASHULPS', impressed in the surface. Sam scoffs, "Wow. I'd say we've officially crossed over into weird."
"Maybe Giles knew her." Dean suggests.
"Or maybe it's the name of our pale red-eyed mystery girl." Sam says.
"Well." Dean drops a pile of folders on another table nearby, "Let's see what we can see."
Isabeau slams a pile of papers into a filing cabinet, frustrated and having found nothing after searching through all accessible paper and computer files in the office. Sam is at the desktop computer and Dean stands a little ways away from her, just as frustrated.
She starts walking over with Dean right behind her, "There's not a single mention of a Dana Shulps anywhere. There's not a D. Shulps. Or any other kind of friggin' Shulps."
"Great." Sam groans.
Isabeau leans against the archway in the office with Dean behind her. One of his hands massage the back of her neck, "What have you got?" Dean asks.
"Nothing." Sam sighs, "No Dana Shulps has ever lived or died in Baltimore in the last fifty years at least."
"So what now?"
"Well, I think I'm pretty close to cracking Giles' password. Maybe there's something in his personal files, you know?"
Isabeau purses her lips, "By close you mean…"
Sam shrugs, "Thirty minutes, maybe?"
Dean glances at his watch, "Awesome. So I guess we just get to, uh, hang out." Dean takes a seat in one of the chairs in front of the desk, "That's awesome." He mutters.
Isabeau shakes her head, walking over to take the other chair, but let's out a small yelp as Dean pulls her backwards and into his lap. She lands sideways, her legs draping over one arm of the chair and leans back against the other. One of Dean's hands lays in her lap and the other rests on the arm of the chair that Isabeau's back was against.
Isabeau playfully glares at Dean and all he does in return is grin up at her, content with their position.
Sam glances up at them before going back to typing, concentrating.
Some time passes and even though Dean was enjoying Isabeau being in his lap as she absentmindedly plays with his fingers, he starts to become annoyed at waiting. He starts making clicking and mouth-fart noises.
Isabeau raises a brow at him and Sam looks at him annoyed by his noises, "Dude, seriously." Sam asks.
Dean sighs, "All right, I'm gonna go talk to Karen again, see if she knows anything about this Dana Shulps, huh?"
Sam nods, "Great."
Dean pats Isabeau's thigh, signalling her to get up. She does so, letting out another yelp as Dean smacks her ass with a smirk.
Isabeau glares at him, but can't help but smile at his actions.
Dean starts walking toward the office door, flashing his flashlight at Sam, "Keep going, Sparky."
"Then Dean went back to Karen's place to check up on her. I mean, you know, she had been pretty upset earlier." Sam explains.
Diana shakes her head, "So why didn't you go with him?"
Sam frowns, "We just went back to the motel." Sam shakes his head, "How'd you know we were there, by the way?
Diana steps forward from the wall she was leaning on, "We found the motel matchbook on your brother when we arrested him."
She shows them a plastic bag with the very matchbook she was talking about, "Let's quit fooling around. Now you and Isabeau were with your brother the whole time you were in Baltimore. Why separate now? Because your brother left you two. To go murder Karen."
"He didn't kill anyone." Isabeau says, calmly.
Diana hits the table, "I heard the 9-1-1 call! Karen was terrified. She said someone was in the house."
Karen is sitting on the sofa in pajamas, crying, with the TV on, low. As she blows her nose, she hears a figure pass by.
She takes off her glasses to rub her eyes and she pauses, then puts them back on. Across the room in a mirror she sees a ghostly figure and she yelps. She turns on the light and the figure is gone.
Karen gets up, panicked, and goes into the hallway, then into the bedroom and shuts the door. She calls 9-1-1. "Hello, emergency services." The operator answers.
"Hello? I think I saw someone in my house." Karen whispers.
"What is your address, ma'am?" The operator asks.
"It's 421 Clinton Avenue. Please, can you-" There is a click, and the call is disconnected, "Hello?"
The printer on her desk flicks on and starts printing out the same repeated pattern as before: 'danashulpsdanashulpsdanashulps'.
Karen fumbles for a flashlight inside her closet, turns, and sees the ghost behind her; it's a young blond woman with dripping red eyes. Karen screams.
Dean arrives at Karen's and knocks on the door, "Karen, you in there?"
Dean looks around, then picks the lock and enters. He tries the light by the door, but it doesn't work.
He goes further into the house, up the stairs and into the bedroom. He pushes open the door and sees Karen lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood with her throat slit deeply.
Dean sees the pages from the printer and frowns, "Seriously, what the hell?"
Dean kneels down by Karen's body, noticing bruises on her wrists. He takes one wrist in his hand.
"Freeze." Behind Dean, two cops have their guns trained on him.
"Stay on your knees. Hands where I can see them. Now!" The police officer demands and Dean complies. "Cuff him."
Sheridan is sitting in an observation room from which he can see Dean, handcuffed to a table. Diana enters, "You getting anywhere with him?"
Sheridan shakes his head, "No. Just a lot of wise-ass remarks. You?"
"Sam and Isabeau's story matches Dean's to the last detail." Diana tells him.
Sheridan hums, "Hmm. Yeah, well, these guys are good. I'll give 'em that. Though I'm surprised that the honorary officer in with Sam isn't letting up."
The two leave the room, "She's dating the younger brother, and all of them grew up together. She might be in denial that one of her best friends is a murderer." She pauses, "If we don't get Sam and Isabeau to flip we have nothing but a lot of circumstantial evidence."
"Hey. We've got Dean at the crime scene with blood on his hands. Juries have convicted for less." Sheridan tells her.
"Yeah, but, I mean, where's the murder weapon? What's the motive?" Diana asks, "You talk about reasonable doubt." The two of them stop in one of the hallways of the station.
"Diana." Sheridan touches her face, "Do you have reasonable doubt? We keep leaning on these guys, one of them will tumble. And don't forget about St. Louis. I'm telling you. This Dean guy is our guy."
They start walking again, "I know Tony Giles was a friend of yours." Diana says.
Sheridan nods, "Yeah. He was, he was a good friend."
Diana sighs, "Look, and I know you want to clean this mess up quick. But come on, Tony knew a lot of criminal types. I mean, maybe we just…"
Sheridan smiles, "'Criminal types'? He was a defense lawyer, for godsakes, of course he knew criminal types."
Diana shakes her head, "Okay. All right, let's get back at 'em."
Sheridan stops, leaning against a soda vending machine, "No, you know what? Let 'em stew in their juices for a bit. Come here."
Diana smiles, stepping toward him and the two kiss. Diana cups his cheek with a smile before walking away from him.
Dean, still handcuffed to the table, is muttering to himself, thinking, "Dana Shulps, Dana Shulps, Dana Shulps Dana, Dana Shulps…"
Isabeau pulls a piece of paper from the files in front of her, flipping it over to a blank side. She grabs a pen and writes 'DANA SHULPS' in block letters, frowning in thought.
Sam, who was pacing, leans over her shoulder, placing his hands on either side of her on the table, "You read my mind."
Isabeau scoffs, "Great minds think alike."
"Maybe it's not a name. Maybe it's not a name." Dean thinks out loud.
Sam frowns, "Anagram, maybe?"
Isabeau hums and writes underneath the first line, then continues.
Head down, Dean continues to mutter to himself. There's a knock on the door and he looks up. A smiling middle-aged man pokes his head in.
"Mr. Winchester?" The man asks.
"Yeah." Dean confirms.
The man steps in, closing the door behind him, "I'm Jeffrey Kraus. I'm with the public defender's office. I'm your lawyer."
Dean smiles, "Oh. Thank god. I'm saved." He says deadpan.
"Hey, could I, uh, steal a pen from you? Some paper?" Dean asks as Kraus sits down.
"Sure." Kraus hands over the items and Dean starts scribbling.
"Uh, well, the police haven't found a weapon yet. So that's good. But, uh, they got your prints. And literally blood on your hands. And with your police record, uh…" Kraus sees that Dean is ignoring him, "Mr. Winchester? What are you doing?"
"I think it's an anagram." Dean grunts out.
"A what?" Kraus asks.
"An anagram. Same letters, different words." Dean explains.
The pad of paper now reads:
DANA SHULPS
DAN SHULPAS
LAND PUSHAS
SUPASH LAND
PUSH LANDAS
PLUSH DANAS
"Uh, do me a favor? See if you recognize any of these words, you know, local names, places, anything like that?" Dean asks, flicking over the pad of paper to Kraus.
"Do you understand how serious these charges are?" Kraus asks.
Dean chuckles, "I'm handcuffed to a table. Yeah, I get it. Humor me. Take a quick look."
Kraus pulls the pad over to him, "Well, S-U-P, I don't know about that, but Ashland is a street name. Not far from here."
"A street." Dean takes the pad back, tears off a sheet of paper and starts writing again.
"Let's start with where you were the night Anthony Giles died." Kraus says.
"Can you get in to see my brother and girlfriend?" Dean asks, not looking up.
Kraus leans forward, "Mr. Winchester, you could be facing the death penalty here."
Dean looks up, "Hey, thanks for the law review, Matlock. But. If you want to help me…" He holds up the folded note he's just finished, "I need you to see my brother and girlfriend."