Baltimore, Maryland
POLICE STATION
There was background chatter as a man was led down a dimly lit hallway in cuffs. In the bustling office, Peter Sheridan was on his cell, a mug of coffee in hand. "Under what names? Oh, yeah, those are my favorites so far. Possible IDs in three states that we know of."
He pulled a paper from the fax machine and stared at it. "I gotta call you back."
EXT. MOTEL
A SWAT team approached a motel room from the outside.
POLICE STATION
Sheridan entered an interrogation room and sat down. "Well, first I thought you were just stepping up your game. Credit card fraud, breaking and entering, and this one... puzzled me. Grave desecration. But still these are a long way from murder. Then we get fax from St. Louis. Where you're suspected of torturing and murdering a young woman. However, no one could probe anything, of course, because supposedly you died there."
EXT. MOTEL
The SWAT team broke open a second floor door with a battering ram. Inside, Sam stopped, holding his hands up. Lucie, who'd heard the commotion, hid with her daughters, trying to keep them quiet.
POLICE STATION - FIRST INTERROGATION ROOM
"But I gotta tell you something. You look pretty healthy to me."
MOTEL
Diana Ballard advanced on Sam, her gun drawn.
POLICE STATION - FIRST INTERROGATION ROOM
"So now we know Karen Giles wasn't the first person you murdered."
MOTEL
"Going somewhere, Sam?" Ballard asked.
POLICE STATION - FIRST INTERROGATION ROOM
"But I guarantee you she's the last." He stood and walked out of Dean's room.
POLICE STATION - SECOND INTERROGATION ROOM
The policewoman entered another interrogation room, where Sam was pacing by the window. She placed a coffee cup on the table. "Thought you might be thirsty."
"Okay, so you're the good cop," Sam said. "Where's the bad cop?"
"Oh, he's with your brother."
"Okay. And you're holding us why?"
"Well, he's being held on suspicion of murder. And you, we'll see."
Sam leaned forward, shocked. "Murder?!"
"You sound genuinely surprised. Or are you that good of an actor?"
"Who was he supposed to have murdered?!"
"We'll get around to that."
"Well, you can't just hold us here without formal charges!"
"Well actually, we can, for 48 hours, but you being a pre-law student, would know that. I know all about you, Sam." She read from a file. "You're 23 years old, no job, no home address. Your mother died when you were a baby, your father's whereabouts are unknown. And then there's the case of your brother Dean. Whose demise was, well, just a little bit exaggerated. Feel free to jump in whenever you like." Sam leaned against the wall, folding his arms. "Shy? No problem. I'll keep going. Your family moved around a lot when you were kids. Despite that, you were a straight-A student. Got into Stanford with a full ride."
"I needed some time off. To deal. So I'm taking a road trip with my brother, sister-in-law and nieces."
"How's that going for you?" Ballard asked. "Where were the girls?"
"Great. I mean... we saw the second largest ball of twine in the continental U.S. Awesome. Lucie probably hid with them." He pulled a chair up to the table and straddled it.
"We ran Dean's fingerprints through AFIS."
"Okay."
"Got over a dozen possible hits."
"Possible hits. Which makes them worthless."
"But it makes you wonder. What are we gonna find when we run your prints?"
"Yeah, well." Sam pounded his fist on the table sarcastically. "You be sure to let me know, all right." He pointed to the cup. "May I?"
"Please."
"Great." He lifted the cup and sipped it as she leaned over him intently.
Ballard looked at him. "Sam, you seem like a good kid. It's not your fault Dean's your brother. We can't pick our family. Right now, detectives in St. Louis are exhuming a corpse. They're trying to figure out how your brother faked his own death. After torturing all those young women. Dean's a bad guy. His life is over. Yours doesn't have to be."
Sam looked at her, incredulous and said, "You want me to turn against my own brother?"
"No. We already caught him cold. Red-handed at the Karen Giles murder scene. We just need you to fill in some pieces."
"Why would I do that?""
"Because I can talk to the DA. Make a deal for you. You can get on with your life. Dean's as good as gone."
Sam thought for a moment as a distraught look crossed his face and said quietly, "Our dad and Tony Giles were old friends. They were in the service together. We've known him since we were kids, you know? So we came as soon as we heard about his death."
Dean was sitting at a café table reading a newspaper. The headline read, 'Man's Throat Slit Without A Trace'. Lucie sat next to him, feeding Cadence and Harriet sat next to her mother with a plate of food.
Sam approached with three cups of coffee and set two down. As he sat, Dean handed over the paper.
"There you go," Sam said.
"Anthony Giles," Dean told him.
"Who's Anthony Giles?"
"He's a Baltimore lawyer. Working late in his office, check it out."
Sam read. "Uh..." he muttered, "throat was slit, room was clean. Huh. No DNA, no prints."
"Keep reading, it gets better."
"Security cameras failed to capture footage of the assailant."
"So I'm thinking either somebody tampered with the tapes-"
"Or it's an invisible killer," Lucie finished.
"My favorite kind." He looked at Sam. "What do you think, Scully?"
Sam frowned. "I'm not Scully, you're Scully."
"No, I'm Mulder. You're a red-headed woman."
Harriet laughed and said, "You're silly, Daddy. Mommy's Scully. She has red hair."
Dean smiled. "Yes I am, Hattie. Sure, Mommy can be Scully."
Sam continued the story. "Woulda been kinda hard for Dean to kill Tony, considering we weren't in town at the time."
Ballard looked at him. "So tell me what happened next."
"Okay, uh, that's when we went to see Karen. She was barely holding it together. We just wanted to be there for her. You know?"
Karen, a young woman with dark hair and dark-framed glasses, was sitting in her home, on the verge of tears. She was looking at some forms that Sam and Dean, dressed as insurance company employees, had given her. Lucie had taken the girls to a park.
"Insurance," Karen said. "I totally forgot about the insurance."
"We're very sorry to bother you right now, but the company is required to conduct its own investigation," Sam told her. "You understand."
"Sure."
"Okay. Um. If you could just tell us anything you remember about the night your husband died."
"Uh, Tony and I were just supposed to have dinner. He called and said he was having computer troubles and that, that he had to work late. That was it."
"Do you have any idea who could have done this to him?" Dean questioned.
"No. No, it's like I told the police. I, I have no idea."
"Did Tony mention anything, you know, unusual to you? In the days before his death?"
"Unusual..."
"Yeah, like strange?"
Karen shook her head. "Strange?"
"You know, Karen, weird? Weird noises, uh, visions, anything like that?"
Sam cleared his throat and gave Dean a look. Karen turned to Sam, who turned on his concerned face again, then shot Dean another look as she glanced down.
"He had a nightmare the day before he died," Karen told them.
"What kind of a nightmare?" Sam inquired.
"Uh, he said that he woke up in the middle of the night and there was a woman standing at the foot of the bed, he blinked and she was gone, I mean, it was just a nightmare."
"Did he say what she looked like?" Dean questioned.
"What the hell difference does it make what she looked like?"
"Uh, it's just, our, our company's very thorough."
"He said she was pale, and she had dark red eyes."
"So I gave Karen a hug and told her to call me if she needed anything," Sam explained, "...and that was it. End of story."
Ballard looked at him. "Sam, I am trying to help you here. But you have got to be honest with me. Now we have an eyewitness. Someone who saw two men fitting your and your brother's description breaking into Giles' office."
Sam let out sigh. "Okay, look, Karen called us later, said that there was some stuff that she wanted from Tony's office, but the police weren't letting her in. Like, a picture of the two of them in Paris. Look, it was wrong to enter a crime scene, but she gave us the key!"
Sam picked the lock on Giles' office and he and Dean entered, ducking under the police tape. Lucie and the girls had been dropped off per her request.
Sam shined his flashlight on a pool of blood on the floor. "Hey. Anthony Giles' body was found right about here." He read the report. ""Throat slit so deep part of his spinal cord was visible.""
Dean whistled. "What do you think? Vengeful spirit? Underlining vengeful?"
"Yeah, maybe. I mean, he did see that woman at the foot of his bed."
Dean picked up a sheet of paper lying on the desk. "Take a look at this."
Sam took the paper. It contained a small-font printing of the word "danashulps" repeated over and over to fill the page. "Dana Shulps. A name?"
Dean found another paper. "I dunno, but it's everywhere." He grinned. "Well, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
Sam shined his flashlight down on the glass table in front of him, pausing. He breathed on the glass, revealing the same letters - "DANASHULPS" - impressed in the surface.
"Wow," Sam said. "I'd say we've officially crossed over into weird."
"Maybe Giles knew her," Dean guessed.
"Or maybe it's the name of our pale red-eyed mystery girl."
"Well. Let's see what we can see."
They searched, but found nothing after searching through all accessible paper and computer files in the office. Sam was at the desktop computer.
"There's not a single mention of a Dana Shulps anywhere," Dean said. "There's not a D. Shulps. Or any other kind of friggin' Shulps."
"Great," Sam noted.
"What have you got?"
"Nothing. No Dana Shulps has ever lived or died in Baltimore in the last 50 years at least."
"So what now?"
"Well, I think I'm pretty close to cracking Giles' password. Maybe there's something in his personal files, you know?"
"By close you mean..."
"30 minutes, maybe?"
Dean glanced at his watch. "Awesome. So I guess I just get to, uh, hang out." His voice dropped to a mutter. "Awesome."
Sam typed, concentrating. Dean sat down, annoyed, and started making clicking and mouth-fart noises.
"Dude, seriously," Sam said.
After a moment, Dean decided, "All right, I'm gonna go talk to Karen again, see if she knows anything about this Dana Shulps, huh?"
"Great."
"Keep going, Sparky."
Dean left.
"Then Dean went back to Karen's place to check up on her," Sam explained. "I mean, you know, she had been pretty upset earlier."
"So why didn't you go with him?" Ballard asked.
"I just went back to the motel." He paused a beat. "How'd you know we were there, by the way?"
"We found the motel matchbook on your brother when we arrested him. Let's quit fooling around. Now, you were with your brother the whole time you were in Baltimore. Why separate now? Because your brother left you. To go murder Karen."
"He didn't kill anyone."
Ballard hit the table. "I heard the 911 call! Karen was terrified. She said someone was in the house."
Karen was sitting on the sofa in pajamas, crying. The TV was on low. As she blew her nose, she heard a figure pass by. She took off her glasses to rub her eyes, paused, then put them back on. Across the room in a mirror, she saw a ghostly figure and yelped. She turned on the light and the figure was gone. She got up, panicked, and went into the hallway, then into the bedroom and shut the door and called 911.
"Hello, emergency services," the operator said.
"Hello? I think I saw someone in my house," Karen told the operator.
"What is your address?"
"It's 421 Clinton Avenue. Please, can you-" there was a click and the call was disconnected. "Hello?"
The printer on her desk flicked on and started printing out the same repeated pattern as before: "danashulpsdanashulpsdanashulps". Karen fumbled for a flashlight, turned, and saw the ghost behind her - it was a young blonde woman with dripping red eyes. Karen screamed.
Dean arrived at Karen's and knocked on the door. "Karen, you in there?"
Dean looked around, then picked the lock and entered. He tried the light by the door, but it didn't work. He went further into the house, up the stairs and into the bedroom. He pushed open the door and saw Karen lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood. Her throat was slit deeply. He saw the pages from the printer and frowned.
"Seriously, what the hell?"
He knelt by Karen's body, noticing bruises on her wrists. He took one wrist in his hand.
"Freeze," a policewoman ordered.
Behind Dean, two cops had their guns trained on him.
"Stay on your knees," the policewoman said. "Hands where I can see them. Now!" Dean complied. "Cuff him."
Sheridan was sitting in an observation room where he could see Dean, handcuffed to a table.
Ballard entered. "You getting anywhere with him?"
"No. Just a bunch of wise-ass remarks. You?"
"Sam's story matches Dean's to the last detail."
"Hmm. Yeah, well, these guys are good. I'll give 'em that."
"If we don't get Sam to flip, we have nothing but a lot of circumstantial evidence."
"Hey. We've got Dean at the crime scene with blood on his hands. Juries have convicted for less."
"Yeah, but, I mean, where's the murder weapon? What's the motive? You talk about reasonable doubt."
"Diana." He touched her face. "Do you have reasonable doubt? We keep leaning on these guys, one of them will tumble. And don't forget about St. Louis. I'm telling you. This Dean guy is our guy."
"I know Tony Giles was a friend of yours."
"Yeah. He was, he was a good friend."
"Look, and I know you want to clean this mess up quick. But come on, Tony knew a lot of criminal types, I mean, maybe we're just..."
"Criminal types? He was a defense lawyer, for god sakes, of course he knew criminal types."
"All right, let's get back at 'em."
"No, you know what? Let 'em stew in their juices for a bit. Find those girls. Come here." He kissed her.
DEAN'S INTERROGATION ROOM
Dean, still handcuffed to the table, was muttering to himself, thinking. "Dana Shulps, Dana Shulps, Dana ShulpsDana, DanaShulps..."
SAM'S INTERROGATION ROOM
Sam pulled a pad of paper and a pen to him and wrote DANA SHULPS in block letters and frowned in thought.
DEAN'S INTERROGATION ROOM
"Maybe it's not a name. Maybe it's not a name."
SAM'S INTERROGATION ROOM
"So if it's not a name... Anagram, maybe?"
He wrote ANDA SH... under the first line, then continued.
DEAN'S INTERROGATION ROOM
Head down, Dean continued to mutter to himself. There was a knock on the door and he looked up.
A smiling middle-aged man poked his head in. "Mr. Winchester?"
"Yeah."
"I'm Jeffrey Kraus. I'm with the public defender's office. I'm your lawyer."
"Oh. Thank God," Dean said in a deadpan tone. "I'm saved." Kraus sat. "Hey, could I, uh, steal a pen from you? Some paper?"
"Sure." He handed over the items and Dean started scribbling. "Uh, well, the police haven't found a weapon yet. So that's good. But, uh, they got your prints. And literally blood on your hands. And with your police record, uh..." he noticed that Dean was ignoring him, "Mr. Winchester? What are you doing?"
"I think it's an anagram."
"A what?"
"An anagram. Same letters, different words."
Dean had written different ways of DANA SHULPS, trying to figure out the anagram. "Uh, do me a favor? See if you recognize any of these words, you know, local names, places, anything like that?"
"Do you understand how serious these charges are?" Kraus asked.
"I'm handcuffed to a table. Yeah, I get it. Humor me. Take a quick look."
Kraus pulled the pad towards him. "Well, S-U-P, I don't know about that, but Ashland is a street name. Not far from here."
"A street." He took the pad back, tore off a sheet of paper, and started writing again.
"Let's start with where you were the night Anthony Giles died."
"Can you get in to see my brother?"
"Mr. Winchester, you could be facing the death penalty here."
"Hey, thanks for the review, Matlock. But. If you want to help me..." He held up the folded notes he'd just finished. "I need you to see my brother."
POLICE STATION
Ballard was writing an email at her computer. Suddenly, the repeating string DANASHULPS started scrolling across the screen. She looked around, nervous.
SAM'S INTERROGATION ROOM
Sam looked at the note Dean sent him.
HILTS--
IT'S A STREET
ASHLAND
-MCQUEEN
"I hope that's meaningful," Kraus said. "But I'd like to discuss your case now."
Sam gestured to the chair. "Sure thing, Matlock."
"You two really are brothers, aren't you?" He sat. "Now. As you know, the DA might be interested in..."
A knock on the door was quickly followed by Ballard who addressed Kraus. "We need you. With the other brother."
DEAN'S INTERROGATION ROOM
Several others had crowded into the observation room outside where Dean was being held. Across from his seat, a digital camera had been set up. Ballard and Kraus entered.
"Counselor? Your boy decided to confess," Sheridan said.
"Mr. Winchester? I'd advise against that strongly," Kraus warned.
"Talk directly into the camera, first stating your name for the record."
Dean cleared his throat and leaned forward, looking directly into the camera. "My name is Dean Winchester. I'm an Aquarius. I enjoy sunsets and long walks on the beach with my wife and daughters. And I did not kill anyone. But I know who did. Or rather what did. Of course it can't be for sure, because our investigation was interrupted. But our working theory was that we're looking for some kind of vengeful spirit."
"Excuse me?" Ballard questioned.
"You know, Casper the bloodthirsty ghost?"
In the observation room, the spectators started laughing.
"Tony Giles saw it. I'll bet you cash money Karen did too. But see, the interesting thing is the word it leaves behind. For some reason, it's trying to tell us something. But communicating across the vale, it ain't easy. You know, sometimes the spirits, they, they get things jumbled. You remember "REDRUM". Same concept. You know, it's, uh, maybe word fragments... other times, it's anagrams. See, at first we thought this was a name, Dana Shulps. But now we think it's a street. Ashland. Whatever's going on, I'll bet you it started there." Dean spread his hands and smiled.
"You arrogant bastard," Sheridan said. "Tony and Karen were good people, and you're making jokes."
"I'm not joking, Ponch."
"You murdered them in cold blood just like that girl in St. Louis."
"Oh, yeah. That wasn't me either. That was a shapeshifter creature that only looked like me." He smiled at the camera.
Sheridan lost his temper and hauled Dean up by the collar, slamming him against the wall.
"Pete, that is enough!" Ballard yelled.
"You asked for the truth," Dean reasoned.
"Lock his ass up," Sheridan ordered.
Another cop took over, shoved Dean face-first against the wall and handcuffed him.
SAM'S INTERROGATION ROOM
Sheridan and Ballard made their way to Sam's room to find him gone, the coffee and note still on the table.
"What the hell?" Sheridan asked. "Where is he?"
Sheridan went to the window, which was open, and saw that it was maybe a four story drop with no visible fire escape nearby. Ballard saw the note on the table and picked it up.
"What'd he do? The fire escape's way over... what?"
"These two guys," Ballard said, handing him the note.
"Hilts and McQueen?"
"Hilts is Steve McQueen's character in The Great Escape."
BATHROOM
Ballard entered the bathroom and the lights flickered. She sighed. As she approached the sink, it turned on by itself. She recoiled. All the faucets started pouring out hot water, steam rising. In the fogging mirror, the letters DANASHULPS formed. Ballard scrubbed them away to reveal the ghost. Her throat was slit deeply, her eyes deep red, and she struggled to talk.
DEAN'S LOCKUP ROOM
Dean was handcuffed to another table as Ballard entered, nervous. She shut the door.
"Can we make this quick?" Dean asked. "I'm a little tired, it's been a long day, you know, with your partner assaulting me and all."
"I want to know more about that stuff you were talking about earlier."
"Time Life. Mysteries of the Unknown. Look it up."
"Let's pretend for the moment you're not entirely insane."
"Mmm."
"What would one of these things be doing here?"
"A vengeful spirit? Well, they're created by violent deaths. And then they come back for a reason, usually a nasty one. Like revenge on the people that hurt 'em."
"And uh, these, they're capable of killing people?"
As she rubbed her neck, Dean noticed something on her wrist and asked, "Where did you get that?"
She pulled up her sleeves to reveal deep bruises, like those on Karen's wrists. "I don't know. It, it wasn't there before."
"You've seen it, haven't you? The spirit?"
"How did you know?"
"Because Karen had the same bruises on her wrists. And I'm willing to bet that if you look at Giles' autopsy photos, he's got 'em too, it's got something to do with this spirit, I... I don't know what." She turned away, looking into the mirror. "I know. You think you're going crazy. But let's skip that part, shall we? Because the last two people who saw this thing? Died, pretty soon after. You hear me?"
"You think I'm going to die."
"You need to go to Sam. He'll help."
"You're giving your brother up."
"Go to the first motel listed in the yellow pages. Look for Jim Rockford - it's how we find each other when we're separated. Now you can arrest him if you want. Or you can let him save your life."
MOTEL
Sam and Lucie were sitting at a motel desk going through files. Harriet sat nearby with her dinner. Cadence was sleeping on a bed. There was a knock on the door. Sam opened it to find Ballard. He hesitated and Ballard shrugged and entered.
Ballard showed Sam her wrists.
"These showed up after you saw it?" Sam asked.
"Yeah, I guess," Ballard replied.
"All right. You're going to have to tell me exactly what you saw."
"You know, I must be losing my mind. You're fugitives. I should be arresting you and your sister-in-law. I should take the girls."
"All right," Lucie said. "Well, you know what? You can arrest us later, okay? After you live through this. But right now, you gotta talk to us. Okay?" Ballard nodded. "Great. Now, this spirit. What did it look like?"
"She was, um, really pale, and her throat was cut, and her eyes, they were like, this deep dark red? It appeared like she was trying to talk to me. But she couldn't. It was just... a lot of blood."
"You know what? Here. We've been researching ever girl that's ever died or gone missing from Ashland Street, " Sam said as he led her over to a table, where he gathered up a stack of crime scene photos.
"How'd you get those? Those are from crime scenes, and booking photos."
"You have your job, we have ours. Here. We need you to look through these, tell us if you recognize anyone."
Ballard sat and flipped through the stack. On the third photo, a young woman's booking photo, she stopped. "This is her. I'm sure of it."
"Claire Becker?" Lucie questioned. "28 years old, disappeared eight or nine months ago."
"But I don't even know her. I mean, why would she come after me?"
"Well, before her death, she was arrested twice," Sam informed. "For dealing heroin. You ever work narcotics?"
"Yeah, Pete and I did. Before Homicide."
"You ever bust her?"
"Not that I remember."
"It says she was last seen entering 2911 Ashland Street. Police searched the place, didn't find anything. Guess we gotta check it out ourselves. See if we can find her body."
Ballard looked at him in shock. "What?"
"Well, we gotta salt and burn her bones. It's the only way to put her to rest. Hattie, you and your sister are gonna stay in the car, okay?"
"Of course it is."
"Okay," Harriet replied.
2911 ASHLAND STREET
Sam and Lucie led Ballard into a dark and creepy warehouse.
"So what exactly are we looking for?" Ballard asked.
"Lucie and I'll let you know when we find it," Sam replied.
They split up. Sam and Lucie checked up a flight of stairs and Ballard continued on the lower level. She turned towards a window and saw Claire standing by the window. The ghost struggled to talk.
"Sam? Lucie? Sam? Lucie? Sam! Lucie!"
"Hey!" Sam said. "Hey, we're here, what is it? What happened?"
"Claire..."
"Where?" Sam and Lucie asked.
"She, she was here."
"Did she attack you?" Lucie questioned.
"No. No, she was just like, reaching out to me. She was over there by the window." The window was blocked by a shelving unit. "Here, help me move this."
"All right," Sam said.
They shoved the shelves aside, revealing the window. It was labeled from the outside, ASHLAND SUP(lies).
"Our little mystery word," Ballard realized.
They turned to see a shadow on the opposite wall, casting the words into clear reflection.
"Now the extra letters make sense," Sam noted as he and Lucie pulled out their EMF readers and approached the opposite wall.
"What are those?" Ballard asked.
"Spirits and certain remains give off electromagnetic frequencies."
"So if Claire's body was here, that would indicate that?"
"Yeah. Well, that's the theory."
The EMF readers purred as the two waved them over the brick wall and they turned.
Sam started breaking through the wall with a sledgehammer. When he'd knocked out a sizable hole, he poked his flashlight inside. "Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely something in there." Sam started breaking through the wall with elbows and fists. "You know? This is bothering me, and I think Lucie too."
"Well, you two are digging up a corpse," Ballard pointed out.
"No, not that. That's, uh, that's pretty par for the course, actually."
"Then what?"
Lucie frowned. "It's just, I mean, no vengeful spirit Sam and I've ever tussled with wanted to be wasted, so why would Claire lead us to her remains? It doesn't make any sense." Sam had broken up most of the wall.
"There. Give me a hand?" Sam said.
Together, Sam, Lucie and Ballard pulled out a shroud-wrapped body and placed it on the ground. Sam pulled out a pocket knife and cut the ropes holding the shroud together, uncovering her. Ballard held out her wrists.
"Her wrists," Sam noted. "Yeah, they'd be bruised just like yours?"
Ballard noticed a necklace on the corpse and touched it cautiously.
"That necklace mean something to you?" Lucie questioned.
"I've seen it before. It's rare. It was custom made over on Carson Street." She reached to her necklace. "I have one just like it. Pete gave it to me."
"Now this all makes perfect sense," Sam said.
"I'm sorry?"
"Yeah. You see, Claire is not a vengeful spirit, she's a death omen."
"Excuse me?"
"Claire's not killing anyone," Lucie explained simply. "She's trying to warn them. You see, sometimes spirits, they don't want vengeance, they want justice. Which is why she led us here in the first place. She wants us to know who her killer is."
After a beat, Sam asked, "Detective, how much do you know about your partner?"
Ballard took a moment to think. "Oh my God."
"What?" Sam and Lucie questioned.
"About a year ago, some heroin went missing from lockup. Obviously it was a cop. We never found out who did it. But whoever did it would need someone to fence their product."
"Someone like a heroin dealer," Sam realized. "Someone like Claire."
HIGHWAY
Sheridan was driving an armored van with Dean in the back.
"So I'm being extradited to St. Louis, huh? And you just decided to transfer me yourself, 800 miles? At two in the morning? This can't be good."
Also on the highway, Ballard was driving Sam, Harriet and Cadence, who was sleeping, and Lucie down a similar stretch of road, finishing a call on her cell.
"All right. Thanks," Ballard said.
"What is it?" Sam and Lucie questioned.
"Pete just left the precinct. With Dean."
"What?"
"He said the prisoner had to be transferred, and he just took him. Dispatch has been calling, but he won't answer the radio."
"Radio?" Sam repeated. "He took a county vehicle?"
"Yeah."
Lucie said, "Well, then they should have a lo-jack, you just gotta get it turned on."
CLEARING
The armored van pulled off the road and stopped.
"Pee break?" Dean asked. "So soon? You might want to get your prostate checked." Sheridan got out and circled to the back. "Son of a bitch." Sheridan opened the van. "Hey, I'm cool in the van, you go do what you gotta do."
Sheridan hauled Dean out and threw him to the ground. "You're a cocky son of a bitch. You think those people in St. Louis are gonna buy that crap you're peddling? Here's the thing. You're not gonna make it to St. Louis. You're gonna die trying to escape." He pulled out his gun and pointed it at Dean's head.
"Wait! Wait. Let's, let's talk about this. I mean, you don't want to do something that you're gonna regret later." Sheridan cocked the gun. "Or maybe you do."
Ballard arrived and yelled, "Pete! Put the gun down."
"Diana?" Sheridan questioned. "How'd you find me?"
"I know about Claire."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Put the gun down!"
"Oh, I don't think so. You're fast. I'm pretty sure I'm faster."
"Why are you doing this?"
"I didn't do anything, Diana."
"It's a little late for that."
"It wasn't my fault. Claire was trying to turn me in, I had no choice."
"And Tony? Karen?"
"Same thing! Tony scrubbed the money, he got skittish, and then he wanted to come clean. I'm sure he told Karen everything."
Dean glanced at Sam and Lucie, who were giving him "How do we get out of this" looks. Dean shook his head, Sam gritted his teeth and Lucie looked worried.
"It was a mess; I had to clean it up," Sheridan said. "I just panicked."
"How many more people are gonna die over this, Pete?" Ballard asked.
"There's a way out. This Dean kid's a friggin' gift. We could pin the whole thing on him. Right? No trial, nothing. Just, just one more dead scumbag."
"Hey!" Dean protested.
Sam held an angry Lucie back.
Sheridan raised the gun and Dean backed off. "No one will question it. Diana, please. I still love you." She lowered the gun. "Thank you. Thank you."
As he turned back to Dean, Ballard brought her gun up and fired, hitting Sheridan in the stomach. He went down and Dean rolled out of the way.
"Then why don't you buy me another necklace, you ass?"
He tackled her legs, knocking her down. She lost her gun and Sam and Lucie tried to go for it, but Sheridan got there first.
"Don't do it! Don't do it!" Sheridan cried.
Ballard stared past Sheridan, who turned to see the ghost of Claire behind him, staring through her bloody hair. She smiled. A gunshot went off. Ballard had recovered a weapon and shot Sheridan in the back. He went down, permanently.
Ballard knelt by the body of her late partner. She got up and approached Sam, Dean and Lucie, standing nearby.
"You doin' all right?" Sam asked.
"Not really," Ballard admitted. "The death omen Claire. What happens to her now?"
"Should be over. She should be at rest."
"So, uh. What now, officer?" Dean questioned.
"Pete did confess to me. He screwed up each your cases royally. I'd say that there's a good chance that we could get your cases dismissed."
"You'd take care of that for us?" Lucie asked.
"I hope so. But the St. Louis murder charges? That's another story. I can't help you. Unless... I just happened to turn my back, and you walked away. I could just tell them that the suspects escaped."
Sam frowned. "Wait, are you sure?"
"Yeah, she's sure, Sam," Dean said.
"No, it's just, I mean, you could lose your job over something like that."
"Look, I just want you guys out there doing what you do best. Trust me, I'll sleep better at night." She turned to go. "Listen, you need to watch your back. They're gonna be looking for each of you right now. Get out of here. I gotta radio this in."
"Hey, uh, you wouldn't happen to know where my car is, by chance?" Dean inquired.
"It's at the impound yard down on Robertson." She noticed Dean's calculating look. "Don't... even think about it."
"It's okay, it's all right, don't worry," Sam said. "We'll, uh, we'll just improvise. I mean, we're pretty good at that."
"Yeah. I've noticed."
Sam, Dean, holding a sleeping Harriet, and Lucie, holding a sleeping Cadence, walked off down the road.
"Nice lady," Sam commented.
"Yeah, for a cop," Lucie muttered. "Did she look familiar to you two?"
"No, why?" Sam wondered as the boys shoved her in a gentle, playful manner.
"I don't know. Anyway, are you two hungry?"
"No."
"For some reason I could really go for some pea soup," Dean said.
Lucie laughed and nodded. "Me too. Not to eat, but for the amusement of it."