Chapter 21
After Jessie had finished the stew for Bobby, she caught a couple of hours of sleep, before preparing to leave the house. She was downstairs in the kitchen, double checking she had everything she needed, when Bobby walked in quietly, almost startling her.
"So what's the case?" he asked as he walked in.
She raised an eyebrow in question at first, but caught herself before reacting. She knew he was just curious and concerned.
"Well, there's been some mysterious deaths at an animal pound. In the past month, 3 vets, 4 helpers and a security guard have all been killed, apparently by dogs," she paused for a moment to think. "However, all the cages were closed and locked and all of the dogs were accounted for."
"So what're you thinkin?" he asked, more to test her than to question. He already had an idea of what it might be.
"I'm thinking skinwalker."
"You could be right," he said, then paused as if he was going to say more, but he didn't.
"What is it, Bobby?" she asked. "I know you wanna say something."
He eyed her warily. "I was just gonna ask you if you need assistance with this."
Her first reaction was to laugh—she felt this was going to be an easy case—but she kept her laughter to herself.
"I'll be fine, Bobby," she said, then smiled. "Unless you want to come with me."
"Yeah, now you're just humoring this old man."
"I'll be fine, Bobby," she replied as she patted him on the shoulder, then hoisted her dufflebag onto her shoulder. "I swear I'll call you if I need anything."
"Call me anyway, kid," he said with a note of finality.
She nodded her head in agreement, then moved towards him, wrapping her free arm around him in an awkward one-armed hug, before leaving the house.
Once she'd thrown her dufflebag in the back seat of her car, she double checked to make sure she still had more than enough silver bullets stored in her trunk. She knew she had more than enough from the years of hunting werewolves, but she could never just rely on what she thought she knew, she always had to check.
It was early morning when she got into her car and began to drive away from Bobby's. It was still dark and chilly, making her shiver while she was waiting for the engine of the car to heat up. She had a relatively long drive ahead of her, all depending on whether she decided to drive the speed limit, or well over it. But while she should have been in a hurry to get to where she was going, she wasn't.
Driving had never been one of Jessie's favorite things to do before she became a hunter, she had done as little of it as possible for as long as she could. When she went out with friends or her boyfriend, she would insist that they drive. But things were different since she'd begun hunting. Driving was the only time she could find peace from her thoughts—except for when she was drinking—so she actually looked forward to it. She would crank up the radio–or play a favorite CD–and just sing. The hours just seemed to fly by that way, without once ever having to think about anything other than the road in front of her. It was the closest thing to meditation she had.
She was more than halfway to her destination, when her phone rang; it was Sam. She debated whether she was going to answer it for a few moments, then allowed it to go to voicemail. She wanted–and needed–time to herself.
The more distance she put between herself and the Winchesters, the more she felt it would be better to keep that distance there. She had real feelings for Sam, and cared a great deal for Dean, but much time had passed since she'd swore to keep to herself and Bobby had reminded her exactly why. She didn't deserve to have people in her life.
It was shortly before noon when she arrived at her destination. She was going to head straight to the animal shelter, but she stopped to check into a motel first so she could change into some more professional looking clothes. A simple pair of black dress pants and a dark blue, button up dress shirt.
When Jessie walked into the shelter, she was greeted at the front desk by a plump, middle-aged woman, wearing stained track pants and a fuzzy sweater with little red dogs. Her long dark hair, marked with white, was thin and miskempt, making her look crazy or eccentric, but her eyes were marked with wisdom. She made a mental note of this as she thought over her cover story.
"Good afternoon," Jessie said to the woman while reaching out her hand in greeting. "My name is, Jessie Edwards. I believe we spoke on the phone earlier."
"Ah, you must be here for the security guard job," the woman said as she shook her hand.
"Yes, that's me," she replied with a confident look.
"Come with me," the woman said as she opened the small gate that went from the side of the desk to the wall. "I'll show you around."
She smiled and followed behind the woman, glancing around as she did.
The facility was much bigger than she would have imagined. As the woman explained, their facility services the immediate area and some of the smaller nearby communities. She followed her through several areas with cats, dogs, rabbits and a few more exotic pets, as well as the veterinarian offices and the security guards area.
"I'm rather surprised you're interested in this job after the strange things that have been happening around here lately," the woman said after she was finished the tour.
"Well, like I explained. I just moved to town and I need a fresh start," she replied.
"Can you start immediately?"
She looked at her with surprise. "How immediate?"
"I'm short someone for the night shift," she replied quickly. "All I need to do is contact your last work reference and we should be good."
She shook the woman's hand in agreement, then headed back to her motel to get ready. She gave Bobby a quick call to warn him about the 'job', but the woman had already called.
It was a brief call, where she had to remind Bobby she was more than capable of looking after herself. He was concerned at the eagerness of the woman to give her a job, but she wasn't worried. She assumed the woman was just desperate to find someone who would be willing to work under the strange circumstances.
Her first shift began at six p.m. that night. There was one guard to show her around and how things worked. He showed her everything he could, then expected her to be able to take things from there.
She spent the night walking around, while the other guard watched the cameras in the office. He would pop his head out every once in awhile to see if she needed help, but otherwise it was only her walking around.
In the beginning, the smell of animals was strong and overpowering, but by the end of the night she barely noticed it. But what she did notice was that there was nothing strange going on, at least not that night. Her shift ended at 6 a.m. that morning.
She went back to her motel, intending on going right to sleep. But even though she'd hardly slept in the past two days, she wasn't able to fall asleep. So she grabbed a bagel and fruit cup from a coffee shop nearby, then did some additional research on the animal shelter, until she was tired enough to sleep.
She was asleep for only a couple of hours before her phone rang. She sighed with annoyance when she noticed it was Sam again. She was going to let it go to voicemail again, but she figured he would just call again if she didn't answer it.
"Hello?" she mumbled sleepily.
"Hey, Jessie," he said. "I'm sorry, did I wake you?"
"Yeah, you did," she replied, trying not to sound annoyed.
"Once again, I'm sorry. I didn't know you'd still be sleeping at noon."
She sighed loudly. "I'm on a case, Sam. I was up all damn night."
"Uh, oh, okay," he replied awkwardly. "I was just calling to see how you were, cause you didn't return my call."
"I'm fine. I'm just busy. I'll call you later," she said dismissively.
"Okay. Sorry for bothering you. I'll talk to you soon."
"Bye, Sam."
"Bye."
She ended the call then stared at her phone for a moment, feeling badly for being so harsh with Sam. It wasn't his fault she'd been sleeping. He had no idea. She was sleepy enough she didn't dwell on it. Instead she laid her head back down on the bed and fell asleep almost instantly.
When she woke up next, it was almost four in the afternoon. She barely had time to shower and get ready before she had to be at the shelter. But even though she showed up almost ten minutes late, she wasn't even reprimanded.
She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she could feel that something strange was going on inside the shelter. Most of the people she met were friendly, but they seemed slightly reserved.
That night was as uneventful as the first, however, she was able to learn routines of many of the employees, which would help figure things out if something went amiss.
After work she went straight to bed, waking up around noon. After showering and eating, she called Bobby to update him. If she hadn't, she knew someone would check in on her. She wondered—sarcastically—how she ever got along without being checked on constantly.
Later in the afternoon, she was busy on her computer checking things at home and doing research on employees of the shelter, when Sam called her on Skype. They didn't talk long, but she got the distinct feeling he needed visual proof that she was physically fine. She was slightly annoyed, but she tried her best not to show it. She knew he meant well.
Her third shift at the shelter was much like the previous two, but this time, she was able to manage some snooping while she was working. She snooped through records of all sorts, trying to find any clue as to what might be going on. She found nothing that struck her as important, but she wasn't going to give up.
After she'd slept that day, she woke up in time to watch the noon hour news, which she watched while she was on her laptop researching. Nothing on the news struck her as odd, until a story about a rich woman whose house had been ransacked, valuables stolen and her newly adopted dog was missing.
At first she only thought it seemed odd, but that was until she remembered seeing the rich woman's name on a cheque to the animal shelter while she'd been snooping during her last shift. It seemed unlikely, but she didn't think it was a coincidence. She didn't believe in coincidences.
She began to research about the rich woman and found something very interesting. She'd recently attended an event to give shelter dogs homes, donating $50,000 to the shelter and adopted a dog; the missing dog. There was no way it was a coincidence.
She researched the adopt a shelter dog event and found that more than one wealthy investor had donated to the shelter, as well as adopt a dog. She knew this was the lead she was looking for.
She drove to the house of the most recent victim, posing as an FBI agent.
"Good afternoon, Ms. Covington," Jessie greeted her with her hand out. "My name is Agent Wells."
"Good afternoon, agent," the woman said as she shook her hand.
"I just have a few questions for you, if you don't mind."
"Haven't I answered enough questions already?" she replied with irritation.
"The police aren't quite as forward thinking as I am, ma'am. This won't take long, I assure you."
The woman sighed quietly, shrugged her shoulders, gazing at her impatiently.
"I wanted to ask you about the dog you adopted from the shelter." The woman looked at her with surprise. "How was it acting when you brought it home?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"Please, ma'am. I'm trying to look at things from a different perspective than the police."
She rolled her eyes haughtily. "He acted like a dog. Eating, drinking, playing."
"Was there anything that you found unusual about his behavior?"
"Well, no, not exactly. Everything was normal, except for eating. He wouldn't eat out of the beautiful silver dog dish I bought especially for him."
"Made from real silver?" she asked the woman in surprise.
"Of course," the woman replied. "You don't expect me to feed him from a plastic dish, do you?"
Jessie resisted the urge to roll her eyes, instead she thanked her for her time and left quickly. She hated dealing with snotty, rich people.
The information she gathered confirmed what she believed, that it was the work of a skinwalker. She assumed they were trying to adopt dogs out to wealthy people so the skinwalker could rob them blind. It seemed a bit strange and far fetched, but it seemed the most likely answer. Now the only thing she needed to figure out was who in the shelter was involved in the plot, before they killed anyone else.
She managed to find time to stop at the motel to change before her next shift, as well as send Bobby a quick email explaining what she'd found, before grabbing one of her flash drives and leaving for the shelter.
When she arrived, the woman who'd hired her seemed to be agitated and short tempered. She was snapping at almost everyone who crossed her path, including Jessie. She only shrugged it off and continued to the guard's room.
The guard who was usually in the room seemed to be absent. She checked the monitors and found him elsewhere in the building. It gave her the chance she needed.
She pulled her flash drive from her pocket and inserted it into the USB port of the computers that ran the security cameras, bringing up a program she used to hack into computer systems. It took her almost no time at all to get control of the system, making her laugh at whomever had installed it. Once she'd put her flash drive away, she left the room to pace the hallways.
The hallways were quieter than they had been since she'd first starting working. There was something in the air that seemed almost tangible, like she could touch or smell it, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.
When she passed the vets offices, there was no one there. She walked into one office to search for clues, finding nothing of interest, so she headed into the second office.
As soon as she took a step into the room, she saw a few drops of blood on the floor. She stepped around the blood, walking further into the room, where she found more blood in the form of splatter. It was splattered on the floor, the exam table, the desk and the wall. She immediately reached into the back of her pants and pulled out her gun; the one loaded with silver bullets.
When she left the room, she continued down the hall heading towards the kennels. She noticed a trail of blood droplets still leading towards the kennels. As she approached the metal door that separated the hallway from the kennels, there was a much larger amount of blood in front of it, which looked like it had been smeared as someone had opened the door. She stopped to listen, before carefully opening the door, slowly peeking around, her gun tightly held with both hands in front of her.
She noticed more blood leading down the walkway between the cages of dogs, which were mostly empty now. A few of the cages still housed dogs, but more than half of the twenty in this part of the kennels were empty. The remaining dogs were barking loudly, obviously agitated by something.
As she was walking towards the other end of the kennels, to the door that lead to the next section of kennels, the door she had just entered through opened and the woman who hired her appeared, gazing at her angrily.
"What are you doing in here?"
"I could ask you the same thing," Jessie replied, lowering the gun to her side.
The woman glared at her. "I want you to leave, right now!"
"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me why there's blood everywhere," she replied standing her ground.
The woman smirked evilly. "You don't know who you're messing with, bitch!"
Jessie smiled. "Actually I do. And if anyone's a bitch, it's you."
The woman's face twisted into a sneer, before she instantly changing into the form of a large dalmatian.
Jessie had been prepared. She was able to kill the dog with one bullet to the hulking chest of the beast, which fell to the ground never to move again, but changing back into it's naked human form.
The noise of the gunshot had been loud and echoed in the open area of the kennels. She knew she'd given herself away, but she also knew couldn't just run and allow these people to continue hurting others. She had to find them all.
She ran towards the door she'd been heading to before being interrupting, opening it quickly. This kennel was also for dogs, which to her relief was full of dogs. She ran down that hallway to the one at the end, which she knew led to a storage area. As she was about to open the door, she heard several loud voices on the other side.
She barely had a chance to react as the door flew open and four angry men were standing in front of her. She turned to run, but as she turned around, she noticed another man standing behind her..
"Shit!" she cursed quietly.
"What are we going to do about you?" the man behind her said with a sneer.
"I told you she looked like trouble," one of the men in the group of four yelled.
"You don't know how right you are," she taunted.
The man behind her snorted in amusement, then glared at the group of men. "What are you doing just standing there? Get her!"
Jessie was able to grab the knife from her ankle sheath and throw it at the man behind her, while she shot blindly behind her. Her shot did hit it's mark, dropping one of the men right after he turned into a dog. The knife, hit the man behind her, but missed any vital organs.
She turned her back to the injured man, shooting towards the other three men who had also turned to dogs. She managed to take down two of them, but the third dodged each bullet that was meant for him. He lunged at her, but she was able to move aside just in time to kick him hard. He flew sideways, smacking into one of the cages, falling hard to the ground.
She was about to shoot him, but the man she'd thrown the knife into dashed at her, changing into a large doberman in midair. He struck her as she turned around to shoot at him, knocking her backwards while his momentum carried him past her. Her gun had flown from her hand, but it landed not far away. She quickly scrambled to grab it, but the doberman was quicker. He jumped on her while snapping his jaws at her face, trying to bite her. She was able to grab a hold of the side of his head and push him off of her with her legs. He flew backwards, hitting a cage with a loud yelp.
The dog was on its legs in an instant, but so was Jessie. She grabbed her gun off of the ground and shot at the doberman twice. The first bullet only glanced off its head, but the second found its heart, dropping it to the ground instantly.
She took a second to breathe, glancing over at the dog that had smacked into the cage. He was lying on the ground whimpering, one of his legs bent at a strange angle. She walked towards him, shooting him in the heart without a second thought, killing him instantly.
She couldn't take time to reflect on what had happened, she didn't know if there were anymore skinwalkers around. So she ran through the building looking for anyone. An extensive search found nothing, except for the missing vet who was dead. She locked every outside door, before heading back to the security room.
She hacked into the security system, stealing the entire camera footage; beginning from the day before she'd ever stepped foot into the facility, until now, copying it onto her flash drive. Once that was complete, she disabled the cameras completely, before going into the personnel files and removed anything that proved she'd ever been there.
While she knew she shouldn't be worried because of using an alias, it was always better to remove all traces of her possible involvement. She'd never been questioned by the police or FBI concerning a case, and she wasn't about to now. With her criminal record, she knew she'd never get a fair shake.
While she waited for information to finish copying and deleting, she dug through the bag she'd had her change of clothes in, changing out of her uniform. She was pleased she'd remembered to bring a hoodie with her this time.
As she was worrying about being seen by cameras from surrounding buildings, she'd had a thought. If any other cameras were outside of the building, she'd have been seen entering and leaving. She couldn't allow that.
She double checked the computers, making sure all traces of her–and her work–were out of the system, then left the building, locking the door behind her.
She walked slowly and carefully around the outside of the building, looking for which buildings had cameras. She was pleased to see that there was only one, and it belonged to an apartment building. She was relieved when she noticed it wasn't even pointed anywhere near the shelter.
It was already dark when she'd left the shelter, so she kept to the shadows as she walked to her car and drove off. She was going to go straight to the motel, but she stopped to have something to eat first before heading back there.
Although she'd slept decently the night before, the battle with the skinwalkers and all the work to cover her tracks had left her exhausted. She locked her laptop and flash drive in the safe, before climbing into bed, falling asleep quickly and effortlessly.
A/N: Well, she managed to handle things all on her own and avoid dealing with her problems. Nothing new for her. I know this was mostly about her, but there will be more of the boys to come soon.
Thanks for reading!