The next two days consisted of long drives and teaching Roy the basics. We had a lot of ground to cover to prep him so Sam rode with him until we got into Carbondale. I didn't really mind the alone time, the weeks at Oliver's had been about Sam and I figuring out where we stood after getting rid of the Mark. As much as we needed to talk, air out all our hidden crap it wasn't something that I was all that comfortable with. Sam being Sam, once I opened up a little he stuck a crowbar into the inch I gave him and ripped things wide open. I guess I could have left and avoided all of it but he'd been inside my head, it's not like he didn't already know. There wasn't any real point in keeping shit from him now.

Once we pulled into town Sam and I changed into our Fed threads and were getting ready to get Roy when he walked in. It was pretty evident who had picked out his suit and it wasn't him. The cut was trendy, it reeked of money and was definitely designed to attract attention, "Uh Roy, FBI agents usually don't get name brands."

"Sorry, I told Thea I had to get a suit and she wouldn't let it drop. You didn't specify cheap suit."

I made a mental note to be very specific with all future instructions to Roy. "It's all right, you can distract the secretaries while Sam and I work."

"Thanks," Roy grumbled, "I think."

"Poor Thea, she's going to end up with a Deanclone if you stay with us much longer."

"Enough." I was getting a bit tired of being the butt of both of their jokes. "We have vamps to hunt." I took another look at Roy. "Sam you hit up the ME, Roy and I will chat up the grieving family."

Sammy didn't look too thrilled at that and it wasn't because he had to look at corpses, "You sure? Those are pretty tricky conversations."

"Some of the hikers were early twenties." I reminded him, "The traumatized girlfriends should have no problem opening up to him. Trust me." Roy didn't seem to appreciate my vote of confidence.

"Really? People aren't that shallow Dean."

"Never said they were. What I am saying is that people are more likely to pour their grief and secrets out to someone they can relate to. Sam usually does his puppy dog eye sympathy look and gets people to spill in less than five seconds but we need to cover a lot of ground fast. You don't know what to ask at the ME's office, he does and I gave my word to Oliver that I would keep an eye on you. So Sam goes to the morgue and you and I talk to people. You follow my lead and push them when they start clamming up. Trust me Roy, I'm playing to your strengths here."

"Fine. Whatever. Who are we talking to first?" He'd obviously gotten used to not knowing all the reasons why he was doing something, even if it pissed him the hell off.

"Ms. Rebecca Chase, twenty three and recently engaged to Simon Harris, deceased. Ride with us, I'll drop Sam off at the morgue then we'll head to her place."

"Got it."

It was only a ten minute drive to the morgue. Sam got out, Roy switched from the back seat to shotgun and we headed for the outskirts of town.

"Remember, you're Agent Henderson right now and I'm Agent Ragsdale."

"I know. What did Sam mean when he said you picked horrible aliases?"

"No idea." He was too young to appreciate the classics so I just put a random name on his ID. No point wasting a good name on someone who wouldn't get the reference.

Ms. Chase lived in a duplex that looked somewhere between freshman at college and starving artist. The outside was a nondescript brown color but she'd added several colored wind chimes and potted plants around the door that cluttered up the small yard she had. We pulled up and he started to get out. "Wait. Tell me what you think of her. What do you see?"

"She likes color and really likes to make a place her own."

"Not bad, check out the door when we walk up. Locks, anything on it, all that."

"Okay."

As soon as the door came into view I was pretty sure the type of person she was. A wooden sign with "Namaste" hung on the door, she had the security door propped wide open and the narrow window by the door was covered with purple fabric which was decorated with white and gold stars and moons. Hippie, new ager and probably a yoga addict.

"You talk to her once I tell her who we are and why we're here. I'll ask the main questions, you follow up off what she says." I told him, "Be relaxed, open and don't lean to heavy on the FBI thing. Ask her for tea."

"What?"

"Do it." I knocked on the door and ignored the quick glare he shot at me.

The door opened and the scent of incense just about choked me. She was wearing black yoga pants, a white tank top, her green eyes should have been filled with tears to match the grief on her face. No matter how many of these I do it still hits me. How much pain these people go through because of what we hunt. I guess as long as that happens I know I'm still sane, still me, still have a soul. She had jet black hair which was up in a ragged bun and had one of those Celtic puzzle rings on her ring finger. I took a closer look and saw the small diamond on top, must of been a custom job. Damn.

"Yes?"

"Hi, Ms. Chase?"

"Yes."

Funny how when you use people's last names they instantly know you have bad news, "I'm Agent Ragsdale, this is Agent Henderson, we're with the FBI." I flashed my badge, Roy followed suit and unlike Cas, managed to make sure it was right side up.

"FBI?"

"Yes, we have some questions about Simon, if you have a minute."

She went from confused and scared to grateful, "I knew if I kept putting it out there, trying to manifest help, someone would show up! I'm so glad you're here! Come in, please."

Roy was still trying to catch up with the fact that someone bought the fake ids so I gave him a quick shove when she wasn't looking to get him moving.

"Thank you," I said once we stepped inside. It had to be a one bedroom, the hall off the living room was too short for anything else. The living room looked like an Ikea designed yoga studio, simple furniture all low to the ground was scattered around and there more carpets on the floor than any reasonable person should have. In the center of each wall was one of those chintzy bamboo scrolls that had Japanese symbols for "Peace," "Harmony," "Love" and "Courage" on them, at least that was what the English translation said. I always figured they said crap like "Stupid American," and "Easy Target" on them but who knows.

Once I got past the Namaste Ikea furniture explosion I saw she had wedding planning stuff sitting on the coffee table, the invites were dated for two months from now. Then I saw the photos of her and Simon, they were either kissing, laughing or smiling huge grins in every single one. None of them were staged, most of them looked like printed out selfies. Another happy couple destroyed by monsters.

She sat down on this weird kneeling chair thing, I took the tiny couch and Roy sat on this oversized pillow on the ground. There was another chair he could have taken so I was a bit surprised he'd taken the pillow. He was learning fast, putting himself a little below her head height, making himself unimposing and blending into her world instead of standing out as an authority figure. He was making the most of the opportunity to learn something new, I had to give him that. He looked up at me, waiting for me to start.

"We're sorry for your loss."

"Thank you," she said with a slight sniff, "But you have to do something, investigate what's going on. What they're saying, about a mountain lion, it's completely wrong and I don't want an innocent creature to lose it's life."

"What do you mean?" Roy asked while pulling off a pretty damn good impression of Sam's puppy dog "I understand you" look, wrinkled forehead and everything. I never could get that look down, no matter how many times I practiced it in the mirror. I always look like I'm begging for something, not empathizing.

And, as usual, once someone sees that look I'm pretty much invisible. She laser focused on Roy and probably forgot I was even in the room. Between being ignored at the bar and this it was starting to be pretty obvious if I ever wanted to have any luck with a chick in the future, Roy would need to be somewhere else, preferably in another state.

"He wasn't even going hiking that day! He was supposed to be meeting me at the florists!" She stopped, closed her eyes and did some weird breathing thing then kept going, "Where they found him was miles away from any of the trails we usually go on. He didn't have any water and wasn't even in hiking boots. He'd never, ever do that. The police tried to brush it off as maybe he was getting cold feet about the wedding or some idiocy. We've been planning this for months and have been together for three years." That's when she finally looked at me again, for a hippie chick she looked pretty damn scary. I got the feeling I could hand her the machete and let her take care of the vamps herself. She didn't look very namaste filled, "Someone or some...thing did this to him and it wasn't a mountain lion."

Roy shot me a quick look, not quite sure what he was supposed to say next I guess.

"Did he live here?"

"Yes, he left early that day. He had to go to work before I did and that was the last time I saw him alive."

She was keeping things pretty under control. I needed to go snooping. "Do you mind if I take a look around?"

"Help yourself, not that you'll find anything."

"Just routine ma'am."

I caught Roy's eye and glanced at her mug on the table, he got it immediately. "Do you have anything to drink? We had a long ride up."

She nodded, "Of course. What would you like?"

I left them discussing types of tea and headed into the bedroom. It was small but cozy. The comforter was one of the few things in the room that wasn't multicolored and filled with random Sanskrit sayings or drawings of chakras or whatever the spiraly things were supposed to be. The walls had several framed landscape photos that looked like they were taken in the hills around town, there were a few books and boxes of things on shelves and a small desk. Nothing caught my eye or screamed "Vamp kill", unfortunately. The photos of him I did see when they were out in the woods he was always dressed for hiking and had a bag, the photos of the scene Sam had managed to hack into he'd been in slacks and what was left of a dress shirt. The vamps must be snagging people from town, dragging them out into the woods and leaving the bodies, which wasn't a bad way to cover their tracks. I knew what we had to do next, we hadn't had time to do it before but I was hoping if we figured out where each body had been dumped we could figure out where their killing ground was and take them out in the woods. It's never good to massacre vamps in town, gets noisy.

Since the bedroom had been a bust I headed back into the living room, just before I cleared the hallway I decided to hang back and see how Roy was handling things on his own.

"When did he disappear?"

"A week ago,"

I risked a quick glance into the kitchen, they were sitting across from each other at her barely two seater wood dining room table. Roy was leaning slightly forward, completely intent on what she was saying and it was pretty obvious she trusted him. It was like watching a younger version of Sam except with better hair and fashion sense.

"I called the police that day when he didn't show, they made me wait a whole day before declaring him missing which was ridiculous. His car was still at work, he hadn't made it back after lunch why would they think he wasn't missing!" She did that breathing thing again as soon as she noticed that her hands had curled up into fists. Rebecca must have had a temper at some point in her life that she was using yoga to control. Maybe I should check that out since my temper manages to keep getting my ass into trouble.

"Unfortunately that's standard procedure but I agree, they should have taken you more seriously."

He's smooth, have to give him that.

"They sent out some search parties after that but I didn't feel like they were that intent on finding him. They wanted to give up after the third day! Who does that?"

She had a point, usually they wait a week before thinking of quitting.

"Especially after the other bodies that they've found in the hills over the last few months. I don't know why they didn't look there first. Simon and I were thinking about moving after we got married because of those reports."

"Did you know any of the other people?"

Apparently I wasn't really needed.

"No, but not all of them lived in town. Only two of them lived here, the other's were from some of the surrounding towns." She took another sip from her mug and stared out the kitchen window towards the mountains in the distance. That was all she knew, it was time to move on. I walked in and they both turned to look at me.

"Thank you for your time ma'am. Here's my card, if you remember anything else call us."

She took it and then wrenched my heart out just like all the people who get left behind do. It's that daring to hope look they always give us, when they don't want to expect miracles but deep down they hope Sam and I can pull off the impossible and make sense of something senseless. What sucks is that the truth is usually senseless, their loved ones died because something was hungry, there's no sense to be had. Well, at least no sense that they want to or can understand. I never have figured out how to tell a grieving mom, kid or husband that the person they lost was just part of the supernatural food chain; and that would be the easier thing to explain. Ghosts and demon possessions, those are even worse.

"Thank you, I will."

Roy reached across the table and lightly touched her hand, "We'll do everything we can, I promise."

And now I knew the real reason he came along and it wasn't just Oliver sucking at being a leader.