"I like that Sam guy," Kit said as Rachel unlocked the door to her apartment.

She glanced at him. "Oh? Any reason? You guys only talked for a minute."

Kit shrugged and followed her inside. "He's smart. More than that. Intelligent."

"There's a difference?" She tossed her purse on the futon bed. "Kit!" she squealed as he caught her up and whirled around.

He landed on the futon, laughing. "There's a difference between smarts and intelligence." Kit kissed her cheek. "Dean is smart. But not intelligent. He doesn't have that thirst for knowledge, that drive to understand the world." He sucked on her lower lip. "It's all top level consciousness, no depth." His lips grazed her jaw. "Now Sam--like you--has layers. Fathoms, even." He move up her jaw to her ear, where he sucked on the lobe.

"And you know all this from a few minutes of conversation." Rachel's breath kept catching in her throat. Her body felt as if there was an electric current running through it and although it felt nice, it frightened her. She'd never been in this position before, had never been in a relationship long enough, and it was just too new.

She put her hand on Kit's chest and pushed him gently off her.

"It's in the eyes," he said, holding himself over her. "You can see that desire to know, and that self-knowledge, right in a person's eyes." He kissed her, then climbed off. "You'd do well to pay attention to people's eyes. They..."

"What? The windows to the soul?" Rachel finished. She climbed off the futon, but her legs still felt shaky.

Kit shot her a smile. "I was going to say they can tell a lot about a person, but if you want to go for the cliche..."

Rachel laughed, feeling on firmer ground. "Heaven forbid. So sorry to have offended your delicate sensibilities."

He returned her laughed. Now in the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator and took out a soda. "You didn't mention your friends were of the male variety. Did you think I would mind?"

"The thought crossed my mind."

"We've just started seeing each other , so I hardly know all your friends or your past with them. For all I know, they come by every year and camp out in your living room. Plus, don't worry. I'm not the jealous type."

Rachel had always been a chronic truth-teller. It was one of her favorite qualities. She didn't lie, not about herself, not if she could help it. Sometimes she felt this was why people found her intimidating, even though she was soft spoken and fairly shy; people didn't know what to do with a person who knew who they were and weren't afraid to stick by it.

She didn't want to tell him the truth. She didn't want...

"There might... be a reason to. Be a little jealous," she said softly. She stuck her finger through the hole in her shirt and twisted it.

Kit put his soda down and crossed the room to her. "Rach," he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. "You don't stop being attracted to someone you've been attracted to just because you're in a relationship with someone. Feelings don't just go away, especially if they've never been resolved. But." He kissed her, softly, mouth open, tongue just touching at her lips. "But," Kit whispered, "I also know that you're attracted to me. And that we have more in common than any guy who drops into your life for a few days before taking off again."

That electric current feeling went through her again, stronger, more breath-stealing. "Oh," she whispered. She stood on her toes, arms wrapping around Kit's neck. And she couldn't say anything else for a long time after.

"Yeah, Katherine used to work here," a harried looking woman said as she checked something off on the clipboard she was carrying. After doing so, she walked to a painting and stopped in front of it, causing the Winchester boys to have to all but jog to keep up with her. "She hasn't been around for a few weeks, though. Family emergency or something." She snorted and rolled her eyes.

"Family emergency?" Sam repeated. "Did she say what happened?"

"Oh, she was real vague." The woman had her face practically against the little card stuck by the painting and she was frowning at it like it wasn't giving her the right information. "Something about an uncle or brother or father. It was a load of crap, whatever it was. Kitty just disappeared and no one knows where she went."

"Did you try calling her?" asked Dean.

The woman pulled a pen out of her hair--Dean had thought that Rachel had been pushing it with the pencil in her pocket earlier, but this woman had three pens in her hair, two in her pocket and one hanging off a string tied to her clipboard, so apparently Rachel'd just been playing the part---and marked something off on her board. "Calling, gee, why didn't I think of that?" she said sarcastically. She turned. "The number she gave us was disconnected. When she called to say she wasn't coming back we did Star 69; some guy answered, claiming he'd never heard of a woman named Katherine Colburn. We told him that we'd traced the call and he suggested that the wires got crossed. It was weird."

"Where'd she come from?" Sam crossed his arms. "If she brought this show, she must have brought it from somewhere, right?"

The woman sighed. She glanced over her shoulder, and stepped closer to the brothers. "Okay, we're trying to keep this quiet, because we were played pretty hard and don't want that getting around. We have a reputation to maintain, all right?"

"We won't tell anyone," said Sam. "Like we said before, we're just investigating some claims that were made about her. We're not dragging anyone through the mud."

"Okay. The show ran over at Dartmouth before it came here. When Kitty disappeared, we called them to see if they had any information. I mean, it's a great show, but we don't know as much about it as she did. There are all these questions, you know? Deep, academic ones, and we're looking like morons because all we know is what's on these cards, what Kitty told us, and what we can get from the net. It's embarrassing."

"Of course," Dean agreed, earning him a poisonous look from the woman.

"We called Dartmouth to get some information, but get this. No one had ever heard of her before. When it ran over there, a woman named Kirsten Sun was in charge. We tried to follow up and find her, only"

"Let me guess," said Dean. "No one knows who or where Kirsten Sun is now."

"Not one clue." The woman shrugged and scratched the back of her head with the pen. "Now we're in possession of all these rare pieces of Japanese folk art pieces. We don't know if we can keep them or not. Some are really expensive, especially that one." She pointed to a statue in the middle of the museum floor.

Dean crossed the room to the statue and looked at it. "That's expensive?" he asked, unimpressed by what looked like a green fox with too many tails. It wasn't anything he'd want to lug around.

"Yes, it is. Don't touch. You might break it."

"You don't touch," Dean muttered under his breath. But he moved away from the ugly-ass statue.

"What'd they say over at Dartmouth?" Sam asked. "I can't imagine that this happens often."

The woman sighed. "It doesn't, know. Generally art fraud involves stealing or trying to sell fakes proposed to be the originals. But these are all real."

"Who owns them?"

Again, she sighed, shrugging. "No one has any clue. We've been calling experts from all over trying to figure them out. I'm in the process of looking over everything--because I have so much time what with finals and classes to teach and all that. I mean, on the one hand, if we get to keep them, it'll be great for the university. Even if we end up sending them back to Japan or other museums or whatever, we'll be credited with the find and get some publicity. Not all of it will be good because, like I said, it's an odd situation. But, if they are all real--and I think they are--it's a boon."

"What about Dartmouth? Don't they get a share in any of it."

"No. They let it go. Not that anyone will, but there's a slight possibility that, should the owners of these pieces be found, Dartmouth could be penalized. I mean, we could too, but we're not the one that sent the show off with a nonexistent person." She frowned. "Just opened it."

"Did they tell you anything about Kirsten Sun?" asked Sam. "Did she exist outside of the museum?"

The woman was distracted now. She'd shoved the pen back into her hair and was walking away from the painting she'd been studying.

Dean rolled his eyes as he and Sam followed her; these artsy, intellectual types were starting to get on his nerves.

"Ma'am?" he prodded.

"Hmmm? Oh." She snapped out of it. "Right. Um, no, she existed. Had an active social life. Went to a bunch of events with professors and students in the art program. Dated some professor. I guess that was actually kind of serious, too. Supposedly, they're still looking for her in regards to him."

"Why?" asked Dean, exchanging a look with Sam.

"I don't know. I think he died and they had questions or the lawyer wanted to talk to her or something. I don't remember." She checked her watch and swore. "I've got a tour coming in her soon. Are we done?"

They looked at each other and Sam nodded. "Yeah, that's fine. We'll call if we have any more questions. And can you get us the number for Dartmouth? We'd like to talk to them, too."

"Ask Yvette in the back office. She should have it."

"Thanks."

I Yvette did not have it. Neither did Darren, Frankie, or Sara. It wasn't until some random student walking by suggested they Google to college that they were finally able to leave.

"Is it just me, or where they all flakes?" Dean asked, jogging down the stairs and away from the art gallery as quickly as he could.

Sam had his phone out and was punching in the number. "They were busy."

"There's busy and there's stupid."

"They wouldn't be going here if they were stupid," Sam said with a roll of his eyes. "This is an Ivy League college."

"What, you think I don't know that?" Dean stopped in front of Sam, causing his brother to bump into him. "You think I'm too slow to understand that this isn't like some community college? That this is like the cream of the crop and only fucking geniuses go here and they, like, breed more geniuses and..."

"He's just a boyfriend, Dean," Sam cut him off. "It's not even serious."

He blinked, thrown. "What?"

"Kit. He's just her boyfriend, they've only been seeing each other a few weeks."

"Why the hell should I care?" He kicked a clump of grass and watched it in satisfaction as it went flying.

Sam stopped. "Dean..."

"Dude, shut up." He stuffed his hands in his pockets. "So, did you think to bring Dad's list, or are we going to have to go back over to Rachel's?"

Sam pulled a sheaf of papers from his backpack and passed them to Dean. "I printed these out before we left." He led his brother to a waist high planter and sat. After producing a pad of paper, Sam started jotting down what they'd learned. "Any new patterns?" he said.

"Well, if this Kirsten Sun dated someone over at Dartmouth who died, I'd say we might have one." Dean flipped through the packet until he reached the last death before Wheaton. "Look at this. Last spring, Professor Justin Anderson, professor of art history at Dartmouth, died of congestive heart failure. According to Rachel's notes, until his death, he'd never had a history of heart problems before." He frowned. "Do I want to know how she found that out?"

"Don't you watch TV? Apparently, you can get some of that stuff off insurance sites," Sam said. He'd finished writing and was fishing for his phone. "I was watching a lawyer show awhile back. This one lawyer was going off how he'd found a bunch health info just from searching the site. They just stick a bunch of personal information right up there like that."

"Makes you glad we don't have insurance, doesn't it," Dean said dryly.

"Oh, yeah," answered Sam in the same tone. He punched the number they'd gotten at the gallery into his phone. "Hello? Hi, my name is Sam Winchester, I'm trying to find some information on Kirsten Sun. I was told that…. No, I'm not with the lawyer's office. I'm actually a private investigator. Would you mind answering a few questions?" He cocked an eyebrow at Dean. "Thanks. Let's start with why you were asking if I was a lawyer. Uh-huh. Right. Wow. That's a lot of money. And she hasn't claimed it? Uh-huh."

As Sam uh-huh-ed a few more times, Dean jotted the new information on Anderson's file. Next to Kirsten Sun's name, he wrote shapeshifter?

"Did the doctor or police ever say there was anything suspicious about Anderson's death?" Sam asked. He scratched out Dean's note with a shake of his head. "Oh, I see. Yeah, I understand. Right, people should go to the doctor more often. Yeah. Yeah, you never know." He rolled his eyes. "Anyway, about Kirsten Sun. Do you have any contact information? A number, a family members, anything?" He listened, then shook his head again at Dean. "When did she show up?" After a moment, he wrote, "6 mo before A.'s death" on the paper. "Did she say where she came from? What about a paper trail? If someone's looking... Oh. Oh, I see. Yeah, please." He wrote down a name and a number. "Okay, thank you for your help."

"Nothing?"

"Kirsten Sun apparently created herself out of thin air. All her records were faked, and they don't lead anywhere. Anderson left her money, but no one knows where she went. The family hired their own investigator," he tapped the name he'd written down, "but he hasn't been able to turn anything up."

"So the trail ends."

Sam sighed and rubbed his head. "That's what I'm thinking. Whatever this person was using to get at the professors, they gave it up after Wheaton."

"You think it's a person?" asked Dean.

"I don't know." Sam cocked his head, eyes narrowing. "I was thinking that maybe it was a person carrying around something from that exhibit."

"Like that ugly fox?"

Sam snorted. "I guess. But if the show's only been going for about two years, that throws that theory out the window."

"So what are we left with? You're sure it's not a shapeshifter."

"Shapeshifters assume the shape and personalities of other people, you know that. These people just show up then disappear."

"So, a demon?"

"Or some kind of spirit of some sort. Or something that pagan god that you were almost sacrificed to."

"What kind of weird god wants old men as their sacrifice."

"Are they all old? Are they all men?"

Dean riffled through the packet until he came to a graph that Rachel had made. "Looks like most are over age fifty-six. They used to be younger; back when this started, it looks like most were about our age. It's been getting older, though. And most are men, but there were... five women."

"Why so few?"

He shrugged, figuring that Sam wasn't really looking for an answer. He flipped the pages back to the list of names. "Why do some have stars?" he asked.

Sam looked over Dean's shoulder. "Uh, I think those are the ones that Rachel's family knows." He raised his eyebrows. "He knew the guy before Anderson. Professor Simon Watson over at MIT."

Dean checked his watch. "Maybe he could answer a few question. Like, whether or not Professor Watson was diddling something pretty on the side." He shoved the papers back at Sam and stood.

"Yes, Dean, I definitely think you should ask Rachel's father that question," Sam said, voice dry. "Use those words, too. In fact, feel free to make it more crass."

"What?" he asked, turning to face his brother. "It's a simple question."

"Phrased in the crassest way possible."

"Naw, I could go way crasser than that. Think I should tell Daddy about the dude diddling his daughter right now while I'm at it?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Yes, except we're going to take her with us, so..."

"Are you crazy? I want to close this case yesterday, Sam." Dean shook his head and started quickly off towards Rachel's. "This whole thing is weird enough. I want to figure out what it is, kill it, and go..."

"Somewhere Rachel isn't."

"Exactly." He frowned at his brother. "Don't smirk at me, dude. I just want to go where I can kill something and kill it hard. Or, at least, get away from all these flakey intellectual types. I feel like I'm going insane."

"Right. But, we gotta get Rachel."

Dean blinked at his brother. "Why? Ain't like we never do this sort of thing before. I think we know how to ask people questions."

Sam sighed and rubbed his forehead again. "It's Rachel's father," he said slowly, like Dean was a child. "We can't show up without her."

"Look, we stop to get her, first, we'll have to get rid of her boyfriend. Then, she's going to want to change--or put on clothes, whatever. And she'll probably want to cover up," he waved his hands at his neck. "Depending on how far they went, she might want to shower. By that time, it'll be too late to keep moving on the investigation tonight. Plus, we're starting to run low on cash, and I'm dying to dig into some of these rich punks' wallets, but not if we're still going to be here tomorrow. So we go without her."

"Dean," Sam started, but he broke off and shook his head. "Fine. We won't take her. But when she starts bitching, I am not sticking around to listen."

Dean snorted. "Yeah, well don't worry. Neither will I."

"Stop. Please, stop," Rachel gasped. She pushed Kit off her, panting heavily.

Kit rolled off and next to her. With a gentle hand, he ran his fingers through her hair. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah." She clutched at his shirt. Her entire body was trembling. "We just... I need..." She swallowed. "I need to slow down. I can't... You know I've never..."

"Shh," he soothed, kissing her gently on the forehead. "It's all right. We won't do anything you're not ready for." Kit pulled her into his arms and stroked her back. "Let's just lie here for a little. Talk. It'll be fine." He kissed her gently on her already kiss-swollen lips.

Stomach still twisted, but with that electric current-like sensation running through her that made it so hard for her to ask him to stop, Rachel nodded and relaxed.

She could still smell Dean on the sheets.