The parking lot Theresa pulled into stood in the shadow of a large sign announcing "The Redbrick Inn" in bright red and green florescence. The motel wasn't the cheapest one she had ever stayed at, but she was still eager to get out of there and on to a new town as soon as possible after staying there for the past week.

She swung into an available parking space only two doors down from where she was staying and switched off the engine. She grabbed her bag and stepped out of her car just as Sam and Dean did the same in the parking space beside her. There was only a handful or so of other vehicles, many of which looked to be rusting off their wheels.

"Home, sweet home," her tone was slightly rueful as she pulled the motel room key from the front pocket of her jeans and lead the two Winchester boys to the door of her temporary home.

As she slid the key into the lock loud, unmistakeable sounds of ecstasy came from the room next door where the window was cracked slightly open, probably more due to a maintenance issue than a careless choice by the couple inside. "Nothing says welcome home like a little nooky next door," Dean smirked, showing perfectly white teeth.

Sam just rolled his eyes skyward at his brother's immaturity. Theresa laughed half-heartedly, "Tell me about it. Same woman every day I've been here. Different guy every day though," she cast a look over her shoulder at Sam and Dean, giving them a 'what-can-you-do' look and shrugging before turning back and pushing open the now unlocked door. "She's getting an awfully early start today though." Seedy activity was just a hazard of staying at cheap motels.

Inside the three of them were greeted by red brick wall papering and other equally tacky looking decorating and furnishing choices. The table in the kitchenette was covered with newspapers and a laptop with a large spiral bound notebook laying open beside it. On one of the beds lay a large duffel bag, opened to expose clothes and a cold glint of silver inside. Theresa tossed the bag she carried beside the duffel, making a dull clanking sound as it settled.

"So, now that Big Brother isn't watching, why the hell were you following us?" Dean asked.

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call it following," she replied sheepishly. Both of the boys gave her a look showing just how clearly they disagreed. "More like, you know, waiting?"

"Oh, well if that's all it was," Dean scoffed.

Sam gave a chuckle and a small smile before shaking his head and getting back to business, "You said something about the job here? What'd you find?"

"I can't pinpoint the damn thing. I know something's going on here, but what the hell it is - I just don't know," Theresa glowered down. No matter how many ways she looked at what was happening, or how many locals she talked to, nothing served as a hard clue to what she had been hunting for the last week.

"Can't find enough on it?" Dean asked, sobering up when there was a job in front of him.

"No, that's the weird thing. There's too much."

"What?" Sam looked at her, confused. "But wouldn't that just make it easier to find?"

"Not necessarily," it was clear Dean had seen this before, "mixed symbols, erratic behaviour. Sometimes it just makes these damn things harder to pin down."

"Exactly," she nodded as she walked over to the table and began to leaf through the papers until she pulled a small stack out from among the scattered mess. "What drew me to this place at first was a few recent inexplicable deaths-"

"First the Winslow murder, and then the Loren suicide," Sam cut in.

Theresa looked up from the pages to smile at Sam, "Done your research I see." She looked back at the papers in her hand and leaned back against the table top, "But I dug in further just to be safe. These deaths have been happening for a few months now - suicides, murders, deadly accidents, a fire - you name it."

Same and Dean walked over to either side of her to see the information she had managed to dig up. Dean leaned heavily on his hand to get a better look. "If there's been all these people dropping dead, why has no one else noticed yet?" he reached over and slid the top paper from between her fingers to study the picture of the middle aged man whose information was listed directly below.

"Honestly, I'm not sure. But if you looked at the deaths you'll see the time between is pretty long. And there's no real pattern to it. Everything about them is, as far as I can tell, random. None of the victims had any connections that I could find - different jobs, different lifestyles, even the M.O.'s of the deaths themselves are different."

"If it's all so random," Sam thought looking between his brother and Theresa, "maybe they aren't connected at all. Maybe this isn't out kind of problem."

"I think Sam might be right. What makes you think something supernatural's happening here?" Dean asked, his own scepticism apparent, "Sometimes weird things just happen."

"How many times has a case turned out to be just 'weird things happening?'" She asked, giving first Sam and then Dean a long look. "It's just-" she huffed, "I don't know! These deaths, they're happening too often in such a small area. And always in some strange way. Like," she shuffled through the papers until she pulled one out, "Alyssa Gamble; captain of her college swim team, drowns in her bathtub. Or-" she flicked through the stack again, "Ted Johnson; killed his wife two hours after marrying her then bit the bullet himself."

"Honeymoon's over, sweetheart" Dean said thoughtfully as he looked at the papers over her shoulder again.

"That's what I thought," she half smiled, relieved to hear he sounded a little intrigued again. "Here's another - Philip Shiban crashes his car on an empty back country road, into a tree twenty feet away from the road, in broad daylight. One of the homeowners on that stretch of road said there hadn't been any traffic all day." She let the hand holding the information she had collected lower to her thigh. "It's happening way too often to be coincidental."

A short silence stretched over them, broken only by the sounds of scuffling and a door closing forcefully in the room next door.

"What do you guys think?" This certainly felt like a case to her and whether they agreed or not she'd continue on with it, but if they did agree to help her she felt that they could clear it up much faster.

Dean looked over her at Sam, "Could be worth looking into." From the look Sam gave him, he was a little more reluctant to jump into this.

"Something doesn't make sense though," Sam looked at Theresa in a way that reminded her she was a complete stranger to them, "Why were you so terrified to talk about this back at the diner? You said something might overhear? Is there any reason why you think something would be listening?"

She looked away from Sam's intense gaze, "I talked to two of the victim's spouses, one in a public park and the other while they were alone at home."

There was a beat of silence. "And?" Dean asked.

"And, the one I spoke to in the park died less than twenty four hours later."

"What?" a look of disbelief crossed Sam's face, "But we haven't heard anything about another death lately."

"Of course not. The newspapers didn't print anything about it. The remaining family doesn't want any more press after the first incident," she explained

"Maybe talking to you had nothing to do with it," Sam suggested sensibly.

"Maybe." The way Sam spoke made her feel as though it really was very unlikely and she was being completely foolish. "But I couldn't take the risk. I'm sure you guys can appreciate that." The snort from Dean and the slight shrug of Sam's shoulders showed that they could. "After all, if we're going on the assumption that not all of these incidents are coincidences then I'm not really willing to chance anything."

Looking between the two of them once more she felt she had done all she could to explain the situation to them. "Well, what do you say? Will you help me out? We'll all be working on the same thing regardless if you guys stay in town, so why not work together?"

"Working with strange hunters we know next to nothing about hasn't really worked all that well for us in the past." She looked at Dean curiously, not understanding what he meant, but by the bitterness in his tone she could guess. "Sorry."

"She's got a point, Dean," Same pushed away from the table to stand further out in the room so he didn't have to look over Theresa to see his brother.

"About?"

"We're all after the same thing here. What could it hurt?" Theresa gave Sam a grateful smile.

"Famous last words," Dean heaved a sigh, "But I guess you two have a point. Plus you've done some of the leg work already," handing back the paper he still held to her he smiled. She smiled back in response as she took the paper. They may not fully trust her, but she didn't need them to.

"Thanks," she looked away from him to shuffle the papers back in order. "You can take it if you want," she suggested. "Maybe you guys will see something I didn't."

Sam looked a little surprised at the free share of information, "That'd be great, thanks."

"Not a problem." Facing the table she grabbed a small collection of newspaper cuttings help together in a paperclip and handed these and the papers she still held to Dean since he was the closest.

Dean looked down at the stack for a moment before folding them and carefully stowing them in his inside jacket pocket. "You know, if we're all going to be working together on this, you should probably give us your cell number. In case we have any questions or anything," he said smoothly with a cocky look in his green eyes.

Pretending to think about it for a moment she made a popping noise with her mouth, "Yeah, I guess you're right." When she turned to the table to scribble her name and number onto a blank sheet of paper in the notebook she saw Dean look at his brother from the corner of her eye and could have sworn she head a quiet, long suffering sigh from Sam's direction.

She ripped the paper from the book quickly and folded it neatly in half. Turning back to Dean she held the paper out. But not to Dean; she held it out for Sam who had moved to his brother's other side, but her eyes stayed on Dean's as Sam took it. She smiled toothily at Dean, a laugh in her eyes.

"Thanks," Sam smiled as she flicked her eyes over to him.

"Welcome. Thanks for agreeing to help guys."

"Right. Well we'll call you when we find something," Dean cleared his throat as he pushed away from the table.

"Okay. Call me as soon as you figure something out, no matter the time," she said once again serious.

"Will do," Dean said as he and Sam went to the door, her following right behind.

"Hopefully we can put this all behind us as quickly as possible," she said.

"Yeah, hopefully," he agreed.