Neal started work the next morning. It was just him and the owner there; the gallery was too small to require any more staff. It was one rectangular room, painted plain white, with artful lighting around the walls. The paintings were spaced too closely for Neal's taste, but then even the most careful arrangement of the works could not turn them into what Neal would classify as art. His tastes were varied and he could appreciate the beauty in all types of art, but most of these were not only ugly but also purposeless. None of them were worth much. The most valuable item was Rivers in Flood, which was for sale at $3500. Neal could only assume the price had been pushed up because of the history of the piece, because closer examination did not improve it.

There was no spectacular opening. The owner, Melinda Cartwright, had spent all her savings putting the collection together; she could not afford advertising, and was relying on word of mouth to gain business. Personally, Neal thought it was a terrible business strategy, particularly with paintings this bad, but it did work in the FBI's favour. Without a large number of visitors, it would be much easier to identify and question suspects while maintaining his cover and background noise on the bug would be reduced.

The first customers came in shortly after the doors opened. Neal pasted on his 'selling things' smile and moved to speak to them. They were an elderly couple and unimpressed by the artwork. Neal discounted them as suspects in the murders and thefts because they would be physically incapable of pulling off an escape of that kind. They were just tourists, who didn't particularly like modern art. Neal spent twenty minutes chatting to them about the city and they walked away with one of the smaller pieces and slightly confused expressions.

Melinda beamed.

Nothing notable occurred until mid-morning. They had a few more customers, most of whom spent less than five minutes skirting the edges of the room looking faintly disgusted and left quickly. Even Neal's superior selling skills weren't enough to get people to buy.

Neal was in the middle of presenting his sales pitch to a middle-aged woman in a business suit when the man walked in. He was enormous, wearing a decent suit - not as bad as Peter's, not as nice as Neal's – and he was definitely not an FBI agent. There was no time to intercept him before he flashed his badge at Melinda and began asking questions. Neal got rid of his customer as quickly as he could, and lurked close enough to listen in without being too obvious about it.

Neal pretended to scratch his ear and spoke into his watch: "Peter, there's a guy asking about the painting. He's got a badge but he's definitely not a fed."

"We're recording from the bug. Let it play out, I want to see where it goes. We'll put a tail on him when he leaves."

Neal watched the conman work. He was good. Despite his size, he was making Melinda comfortable. He was firm, but not intimidating. None of the questions he asked would make anyone suspect he was not who he said he was. He was very interested in Rivers in Flood.

"We're attempting to contact the artist for questioning in an investigation. Have you ever met or been in contact with him?"

That was interesting. Not the usual questions a thief would ask. Maybe this wasn't about the painting after all; maybe it was about the artist. It would make sense if someone was stealing the painting as some kind of revenge against the artist, rather than for the money.

"Alright, well could you give me the name of the person who sold it to you?"

Neal missed Melinda's reply because at that moment, a customer approached him. Two customers, in fact.

His radar pinged immediately: firstly, nobody would voluntarily buy one of these paintings, and secondly, because they looked wrong. It was no surprise that two men would be looking for a painting together; this was New York, after all. But these didn't look like New Yorkers, and they didn't look like they were interested in art. The man who approached him was a big guy. He was wearing work boots, and not ironically. As he followed him to the painting, Neal caught the outline of a gun tucked into the back of his jeans. The second guy was wearing a trench coat in mid-summer, and was staring at Rivers in Flood like he didn't quite get the point.

The man in the trench coat said: "We are interested in purchasing this painting." He turned and focussed his stare on Neal. It made him intensely uncomfortable.

"I'm happy to help you with that," Neal smiled at him, "Was there anything you wanted to know before I ring it up?"

"Does it move?" The guy asked.

Neal was starting to think they were just routine crazies.

The big guy clapped his friend on the shoulder and laughed nervously. "He means can we move it easily when we buy it. Don't you Eddie." The last bit was said with gritted teeth.

Eddie turned his head to look at Work-boots. "My name is n- oh. Yes, that's what I meant."

"It's very portable," Neal told them. From the corner of his eye, he saw the not-an-agent leaving.

Peter spoke in his ear. "We've got a tail on him, stay where you are."

Neal pretended to scratch his ear again. "It's nice to see some people so interested in Rivers in Flood. Is there anything about it that really sparked your interest?" he said, hoping Peter would get the hint.

"Why are you speaking into your watch?" Not-Eddie asked curiously.

Work-boots laughed again and leaned in close to his friend to whisper something that sounded suspiciously like: "Stop talking, he's about to call the crazy farm."

"We were really interested in its history. Is there anything you can tell us about that? I read an article that said it was cursed?"

"I can assure you this painting is not cursed."

"Good. Not that we believe in curses."

"Not at all."

"We definitely don't believe in curses."

"Is there anything else you want to ask?" Neal worked to keep his face pleasantly blank.

"How do you explain the deaths around it?" Work-boots continued.

"A string of unfortunate coincidences. If your security is up to standard, you should have no problem."

"Do you have a list of previous owners, like... provenances?" Work-boots didn't seem like he used the word often. Not a collector, then, and not a professional art thief who lulled people into a false sense of security by giving off an air of eccentricity.

"What is the painting of?" The man in the trench coat turned back to stare at the painting again.

Neal began his sales spiel. It was all completely invented, of course. He had no idea what the painting was meant to be of. Nothing in it was recognisable as an object, person or landscape. "It's an abstract representation of the inner landscape of the artist during a time of conflict and turmoil in his life, see the heavy presence of red and black-"

"Inner landscape of the artist?" Work-boots looked incredulous. Ok, so it wasn't his best arty bull speech, but it had been enough to sell the painting that morning.

"What was the turmoil related to?" The trench coated man did not turn around.

"Er... he prefers to keep that private." Neal kicked himself for not anticipating the question, but smiled widely. Good recovery.

"So he's alive, then? Is there a way we can contact him? We'd really like more... insight... into this delightful painting." Work-boots said, completely failing to convince Neal he was actually interested in the meaning behind the painting.

"I'm afraid he cannot be contacted. He works under a pseudonym. Nobody knows his true identity."

"Oh. What is it painted with?" Work-boots changed tack.

His friend leaned very close to the painting, almost touching it. He frowned. "This looks like real blood."

Work-boots leaned in to look. "Wow, that's really realistic. And not super-disturbing at all."

"I can assure you, it's not real blood," Neal said firmly, making a mental note to bring Peter in to look during his lunch break. He had noticed that morning that some of the red was not a paint he could recognise by eye, but he was not exactly familiar with dried blood used in artwork. Peter would be more likely to know if it was.

"Are you interested in purchasing the painting, sir?" He asked, trying to draw their attention away from the piece.

"How much?"

"For a painting with such vigour and such a history, $3500 is an excellent price, sir."

"I don't have that kind of cash on me... when do you close?"

Neal told him. As they left, he saw Work-boots taking note of the security cameras. Definitely casing the place.

XXXX

When Neal's lunch break came around, he went out to the surveillance van to talk to Peter. Peter was alone in the van. He'd set Jones tailing the fake FBI agent, while Diana was following the two men Neal had been talking to.

"Do you think they're after it?" Peter asked.

"Maybe," Neal said. "The bigger guy was casing the place. I'm not sure they're responsible for the previous thefts and murders, though. They were asking lots of questions about it. Work-boots seemed genuinely disturbed by the possibility that it was painted in blood."

"And the other one?"

"He was hard to read. I'm about ninety percent sure he's an alien."

Peter went in to inspect the painting. It really was beyond him how anyone could actually want a picture like this hanging in their living room. Give him a nice landscape any day. Or even a portrait. Anything that needed an explanation by the artist wasn't art in his book. The jagged lines and violent swirls of black and greys and reds gave him the creeps. And the guys Neal had been talking to were right. The red looked a lot like real blood.

When he got back to the van, one of the radios was crackling into life, and Diana's voice came through. "The two guys I've been tailing are just hanging around outside the gallery. I think they might be watching the van."

"Diana, we need you to distract them while we drive somewhere and let Neal out without breaking his cover."

Peter crawled inelegantly into the front seat just as Jones radioed in. He crawled back over. "What have you got, Jones?"

"Godzilla checked into a hotel under the name Samuel Angus. He was with two other men, both shorter than him. One was wearing a trench coat. Angus used a credit card. I'm having it run now, but I think it's a false identity."

Peter smiled to himself. It wasn't often the crooks made it easy for them.

XXXX

After leaving the gallery, Dean and Cas took a detour through the park. Dean didn't want to go back to the hotel so soon. It was too hot, and there were too many people. He could feel the buildings closing in on him. But this was turning into exactly what he'd wanted it to be. A simple case, just like the old days, before everything went bad. The blood in the painting meant it was probably a spirit attached to the painting – possibly the artist himself. Even if it was some sort of curse or spell, burning it would probably solve the problem. He'd even thought Cas kind of seemed to be enjoying himself, which hadn't happened much since he'd been made human.

Dean bought them both ice-creams from a stand. "Take your coat off, Cas. You must be boiling."

Cas didn't take his coat off, but he did half-heartedly lick his plain vanilla ice-cream, so Dean put that down as a win. "The man in the gallery was very shiny," Cas said.

It was rather an odd way of putting it, but Dean knew what he meant. Not literally shiny, but kind of overly smooth. A bit like Dean was when he was trying to convince people he was law enforcement. And too nicely dressed. The guy had a freakin' diamond-studded tie-pin. Dean hadn't been able to take his eyes off it the whole time they were interviewing him. But then, maybe all arty people were like that. Dean was first to admit he knew nothing about art. Except that he preferred his without so much blood in it.

"Do you think he's involved?" Dean asked.

"Possibly. I think we should watch him."

They finished their ice-cream before retracing their steps and loitering inconspicuously at an outside table of an outrageously overpriced cafe across the road and two doors down from the gallery. Cas watched the door of the gallery, while Dean kept his eye on the suspiciously non-descript van parked down the street.

"Hey Cas," Dean said awkwardly, turning to look at him, "I know I don't really say it, but I'm really glad you're back."

Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Cas' lips twitch into a tiny smile.

"Dean," said Cas.

"Yeah?"

"The van is leaving."

XXXXX