Chapter 22

Dean's scouting mission had been much more successful than Sam's. "Oh, don't beat yourself up too much there, Sammy. It's just a further tribute to my superior hunting skills..." Dean smirked. Sam had been unusually quiet since Dean had shown him what he had found.

Sam rolled his eyes, "It's not all about you, Dean."

Dean scoffed, "You wish."

Sam rode silently in the passenger seat, thinking about Nadia's phone call and what Dean had, found. "So it's looking more and more like we missed something at Rebecca's house..." Dean shrugged, so Sam remembered something and continued, "Hey, you acted weird after we left her place... Did you find something?"

Dean thought back to the nursery, "They had a nursery."

"Oh," he wasn't sure what else to say. "That sucks..."

Dean gave him an odd look and a humorless chuckle, "You could say that."

"She didn't look pregnant," Sam said more to himself than Dean.

"Don't think she ever was...yet." They were quiet for awhile, "You know, I've been thinking..."

"Uh, oh."

"Ha, ha. What if this is a demon. I mean we ruled it out mostly for the lack of electrical storms and other signs. We've been dealing with so many high level demons that produce things like that; but what if this is just some lowly, non-supercharged piece of crap?"

Sam nodded, "Maybe we're getting a little too full of ourselves? Everyone wants our heads on a platter, but maybe we just stumbled across a demon minding his own...business..." he gave himself a confused look.

Dean gave his brother a "what" look and shook his head. "Question is, what do we do about it?"

"Stop it."

Dean rolled his eyes, "You think? I meant about proving it."

"Right, we can't just barge into her house and trap her..."

"Why not? That's what we usually do and I say, if it's not broke; don't fix it."

The abandoned building Dean had checked out had finally provided the missing link they needed. In a room to the back of the building, he found a duffle bag with all the necessities of the standard kill-without-getting-caught kit. Inside was a black hoodie, knife, leather gloves, and a manila folder. Sam had grabbed the folder and threw the bag in a dumpster a few buildings down the street. There was also a gallon of bleach, a bucket, and a box of blue booties. You couldn't say she wasn't prepared, Sam thought to himself. They had stopped back at the hotel to gather up some more weapons and look through the folder they had taken from the old building.

Dean grabbed a beer from the mini fridge and sat on the bed across from his brother, "Found anything yet?"

Sam glared back at him over the papers in his hand, "I could give you half, you know..."

Dean smirked, "Ah but, Sammy, you're so much better at all this research stuff than I am."

Sam rolled his eyes, "Oh, that again, huh?" Dean just shrugged and took another swallow while Sam went back to scanning the papers. "There's all kinds of stuff here... A transcript of Emmett's 911 call; complete with the names of the EMTs on call that day, Patterson and Arnold. A copy of the police report and witness statements, where Weston, Donovan, and Carlisle are all named." He shuffled more papers, "And of course, Jasper Morris' names, is all over these."

"Looks like we found our hit list," Dean got up and looked over Sam's shoulder. "Any clue as to who's next? Of even if there is going to be a next?"

Sam handed Dean some of the papers, "Look these over and write down any name you see..." He grabbed a notepad off the desk in the corner, ripped off a blank sheet, and handed it to Dean. They both carefully read and looked over their respective papers and wrote down any name that came up. When they were done they merged the two lists into one that listed ten names. They crossed off the six victims and were left with four new names. "Sheehan...why does that seem so familiar?"

"Because you just read it on a piece of paper..." Dean replied.

Sam ignored him and found the paper where he had seen the name. "You know, medical records aren't easy to get," he held up the paper, "unless you're family. Say a spouse..."

"I told you it was Rebecca from day one," Dean sighed.

Not quite day one, Sam corrected. "If this is Rebecca than we shouldn't still be here. We should have called the cops and let them do their job a long time ago."

Dean held up a hand, signaling Sam to stop talking, "If it is Rebecca." Sam started to snap back at him about his contradicting his previous statement; but Dean wouldn't let him. "I know, I know... I just find it hard to believe that Rebecca, a just simple, human, Rebecca, could have done all this. I mean it was all pretty gruesome and I still can't see her getting the jump on all those guys..."

"So you think she's possessed?" Sam asked.

Dean looked thoughfully toward the window, "I do."

"Why?" Sam asked bluntly.

"Why?"

"Yes. Why would a demon be so hell-bent on this...mission...? What is was so special about Emmett Hale?"

Dean looked annoyed at Sam's logic, "I don't know!" He paced across the room, "Maybe we're sort of looking at the wrong person here? I mean...maybe we should be looking into Emmett's life a bit more..."

"Maybe. But for right now, let's try and shrink this list a bit more," Sam bent back down over the list of names. "Okay so, we still have Mark Sheehan, Clair Waldrop, Jonathan Bellan, and Grayson Garrett."

Dean picked through the papers until he found what he was looking for, "Grayson Garrett is only on the list because he typed up the witness statements; I doubt he had a big enough part in this to make our guy's or chick's list."

Sam had to smirk at Dean's gender distinction, "Clair Waldrop was Emmett's nurse. Since all the victim's so far have been men and she was only one of many nurses, I'm sure; I don't think she's top of the list either."

"But Mark Sheehan was his doctor. Some might believe he was resposible for Emmett's death..."

"Right, and Jonathan Bellan was the 911 dispatcher; also someone that a loved one might blame for Emmett's death..."

"Alright, so we have...4 days until who ever this is strikes next..." Dean said.

"Split up? I watch Johnathan Bellan and you watch the doc?" Sam thought for a bit, "But if this is a demon who has some wierd vandetta against those around Emmett Hale; we should check him out a bit more. And what if Rebecca doesn't have anything to do with any of this? She could be next too..."

Dean let his head fall backwards and he looked frustratedly up at the ceiling, "Why is it the everytime we make some headway on this case, something happens to make us take three steps back?"

"Well, if this is a demon thing, than they don't care about making it easy on us. And if this is a human thing than they don't want to take it easy on us."

"Sometimes I really hate this job," Dean growled.

Sam smirked, "Only sometimes?"

"Yeah only sometimes. Give me something I can; shoot with rock salt, or burn, or...cut the head off already! Give me some excitment!"

After more discussion, Sam went to the police station to find out anything he could about Emmett Hale's past while Dean went to watch Rebecca. Sam believed he, once again, got the raw end of the deal. After a few hours; Dean had followed her to the grocery store, a gas station, and Jasper Morris' house, where she and Leah talked for a long time. Sam found out that Emmett Hale had gotten one drunk driving ticket in his entire life, lost his father when he was six and was raised by a single mother, and his that killer was still very much at large.

"What was she doing at Leah Morris' house?" Sam asked after Dean got back to the hotel a 10 that night.

"How am I supposed to know, Sammy? Which flowers were annuals and which preferred the shade? They talked on the porch so I couldn't exactly sneak up on them to eavesdrop without them seeing me." Sam bristled at his brother's attitude, but Dean wouldn't stop talking long enough for him to say anything. "Rebecca seemed to do a lot of comforting and whispering and Leah didn't slap her of anything so I'm pretty sure she wasn't tell her that she blamed Jasper for her husband's death." He got up from the chair and kicked his shoes out of the way as he headed into the bathroom, "I'm exhausted."

While Dean cleaned up and got ready for bed, Sam watched tv. Dean crawled in bed without a word and Sam leaned back on his pillows and watched the news. One story caught his eye right away; apparently a fire had broke out at the San Quinten prison in California. Over 600 inmates had died in the inferno, most from what was being explained as smoke inhalation. A prison guard was in custody after being spotted in the area before the aledged act of arson. Something about the story irked Sam's senses and he immediately thought there was more to the story than what was being told. A demon attack? A spirit? He turned the power off and slid under the covers with a nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something was obvious, he just didn't know what it was.