One
Familiar Faces
10 years later . . . Buffalo, New York
It was raining when Dean Winchester pulled up to the curb of the marked-off house dressed in one of his best suits. Over the last two days, he and his brother Sam had been driving to Buffalo to get into town before the real authorities showed up, and so far, they'd done a pretty good job. As of this morning, only the local authorities had talked to the family that had once resided inside this house, and Dean was grateful his persuasion skills hadn't suffered over the years. He was also grateful for what a little bit of technology had allowed Sam to do in stalling the FBI from Показ up the way it was supposed to when anyone under the age of 18 disappeared into thin air. Sam was swearing this whole thing was a little strange, so while he visited the local police precinct, Dean was going to take a look at the house.
It was a nice house, from the outside anyway, but with Dean's experience, looks were always deceiving. The front entryway on the porch was taped off, but he pulled it from his path, retrieving his lock pouch from his куртка pocket and using it on the front door before he made his way into the foyer of the house. From this vantage point, he could see into the living room and the dining room, and he took note of all the furniture and the fact that it was all still completely in order. Dean remembered from the newspaper that all the action had taken place upstairs, so without so much as a glance around, he made his way up to the секунда floor. He pulled out his EMF on the way to check for spirits, looking at the pictures on the walls and noting two things immediately.
The victim Beth Mason was blond haired and blue-eyed unlike her mother and her father who were brown haired and brown-eyed and looked nothing like her. The paper had сказал(-а) Beth was only sixteen, but she'd also been a straight-A student on the cheerleader squad and the звезда quarterback for a boyfriend. She'd only lived in Buffalo about six years after her father had passed away and her mother had remarried rather quickly. While that did seem a little strange to Dean, what other people did was none of his business. Right now, all he really cared about was finding a teenage girl who'd disappeared from her постель, кровати without a single trace.
The EMF was completely silent as Dean made his way to the секунда level of the house, and he began looking in all the rooms along the hallway. The first door on the left was a small bathroom colored in various blue tones, but it didn't look like it had been touched in a little while. Dean checked all the soap and cleaning products, noting they were all feminine scents, so he figured this had to be Beth's bathroom. He checked the medicine cabinet, but the only thing he found was Tylenol and a couple of toothbrushes.
The Далее room was a considerably larger bedroom than Dean had been inside in a while, and with the furniture and the tacked on bathroom, he guessed it was the master bedroom meant for the parents. He checked every corner of the room, spotting a few еще фото that looked like vacation pictures and taking a гусак, гандер through the walk-in closet. But there was nothing out of the ordinary. There were only a few items in the clothes hamper in the bathroom, and the душ didn't even look like it had been used in several days. Dean remembered the mother and father were staying in a hotel until the local investigation was completed, but he doubted they would come back to the house. No parent he'd ever talked to went back to the house where their child had disappeared from.
The last room on the left, down the hall from the bathroom, Dean found Beth Mason's room as it set dimly lit from the white-grey clouds outside. Rain pattered the window as Dean stepped into the room, and he looked from left to right at the dresser and then the постель, кровати which was unmade like the girl had been there but had gotten up in the middle of the night for no reason. Since his EMF meter was still silent, Dean put it away, moving the window slowly and looking down to see a twenty foot drop to the ground with no apparent way to get to the ground other than jumping. He tried the window, discovering it unlocked, and he lifted it slowly, looking over the window sill and seeing it clean of every strange substance he could think of. No blood, no glass, no dirt. No sulfur.
"Hmm," he whispered softly, easing his fingers along the window sill and coming up with nothing except water from the rain as it made itself known on the carpet beneath the window.
"Not a demon."
He turned to the bedroom, glancing over the постель, кровати and moving to the таблица Далее to it where a small digital clock, a notebook and a фото cluttered the вверх along with a lamp. He turned the lamp switch, but the light didn't come on. He check the bulb, but it looked good. He didn't understand why the light wouldn't come on. The notebook beckoned his well-worn hands to it, and he picked it up slowly, noticing the guy in the фото with Beth. He looked like he was in his early 20's with brown hair and green eyes, and Dean thought maybe it was a cousin или brother. But Beth Mason was an only child, and neither of her parents had сказал(-а) anything about a cousin anywhere nearby with the ability to visit very often. Plus this guy looked a little too cozy with Beth to be a relative — the hand he had low on her hip was evidence enough of that.
Dean sat on the bed, opening the notebook and instantly seeing the last entry that looked like it was only half-finished. He didn't like making assumptions, but it was almost like she'd been Письмо in her notebook only to be stopped by something. He wondered what would usually pause a teenage girl when she was Письмо in her journal, and he immediately looked up at the фото and the boy standing beside Beth as he wore a football uniform. "I wonder what Ты were doin' a week ago, Mr. звезда Quarterback," he сказал(-а) softly.
With two things he had working to his advantage, Dean quickly took the picture from the frame and then the notebook, rising from the постель, кровати and pulling out his phone to call Sam to see if he'd had any luck with the local authorities. Dean didn't have any hopes in a place like this, but they had to look at every area of possibility. No matter how much time had passed, Dean knew the world was just gonna keep getting worse, and it was his job to make sure people were безопасно, сейф — even if that meant keeping them безопасно, сейф when they didn't know what was out there. Dean had been doing this his whole life, and even though there had been a time when he'd сказал(-а) he wouldn't be doing something like it at his age now, it was all he knew. It was all there was for him now.
Sam answered his phone after just a couple of rings, his voice soft like he was having to whisper, and when Dean heard him, he thought there might be something wrong. "What?" he snapped at Dean.
"Hey, I'm just checkin' in," Dean informed his younger brother. "What's up with the golf announcer voice?"
Sam sighed over the phone. "Sorry. I'm in the библиотека checking the old papers for any other disappearances."
"What happened to the police station?" Dean asked, making his way from Beth's room to leave the house. "I thought Ты were gonna talk to the new sheriff in town."
"Well, I talked to him. He gave me the run-around, just like I expected. But I was able to get a copy of the police Сообщить from his desk, and I figured I'd come over here to see if there was a history of disappearances in the area. Local police are always distrusting of the big guys in town, so I didn't see the point of hanging around."
Dean smiled, stepping onto the front porch and making his way to the car where he'd parked it down the street. "Nah, Ты just don't have the magic touch, my boy. Cops always respond to me better than they do to you. Always have, always will."
Sam scoffed. "Just because Ты have wing-tips doesn't mean I can't get information out of the cops," he accused. "What did Ты find at the girl's house?"
Dean slid into the driver's seat, glancing around the улица, уличный and then turning on the car to get to the library. "Well, no sign of a struggle. Nothing in the house out of place. No blood, no glass. No sulfur. EMF was clean. The only way out of her room had to be the door — her window had a twenty foot drop outside it. I don't know if she could fly, but my money's on something grabbin' her after her parents were asleep. Ты remember, they сказал(-а) she was in постель, кровати when they turned in."
Sam inhaled deeply. "Yep. Ты on your way now?"
"Uh-huh. Try not to do anything I wouldn't do until I get there."
Dean turned off his phone then, pulling through the neighborhood and looking up the address to the библиотека where Sam had apparently parked himself.
The Buffalo Public библиотека was in the middle of Lafayette Square and when Dean pulled up in front, he could see from the inside of the Impala that it was going to be snowing pretty soon. The sooner they got this tied off and back to the motel, the better. Dean grabbed everything he'd collected at the Mason house, stepping out into the frigid air and pulling his пальто over his shoulders tighter just as his cell phone buzzed from his front pocket. He pulled it out quickly, seeing a text and a picture, and he opened it without thinking.
Happy birthday! was the main message.
Dean smiled, opening the picture and seeing the face he'd been needing to see all day. He'd been thinking about this face a lot in the last few days, especially with this case, even if this face was contorted with her tongue sticking out and her eyes crossed. Even from so far away, she really did know how to make him smile. Quickly, he composed a reply and hit send, arriving at the doors to the библиотека and stepping inside out of the cold. It was warm and kinda homey inside, and Dean pulled off his пальто as he glanced around the room for Sam. He spotted a pretty, young red head behind the counter, and she smiled at him.
Even though that would've usually prompted him to make a Переместить in her direction, Dean reminded himself about what was really at stake here. He thought about Lisa and Ben and Elizabeth. His daughter. Over the last ten years, Dean had been keeping tabs on her, and her birthday had been about four months earlier. Lisa had sent him a few pictures from her birthday party, and at that thought, Dean bowed his head and turned to the stacks of the библиотека so he could find Sam.
His brother was sitting in a quiet corner of the библиотека surrounded by papers and photocopies, and he was sitting at an old viewer looking at old newspaper prints. Dean looked around, seeing a few high school students and an elderly couple, but otherwise the библиотека was quiet. It was normal, Dean supposed, at least for the time of день and the impending weather, but he made a note of it all the same. He pulled a chair from a таблица nearby, moving up behind Sam and looking over his shoulder.
"You're not scouting for porn или nothin', are you?" he asked, watching Sam stiffen and glance behind him with a scowl.
Dean smiled, moving closer. "What Ты got so far?"
Sam huffed softly. "Not a lot. I've looked back a few years, but so far, there isn't a history of disappearances in the area. Actually, for a major metropolitan area, there isn't a lot of strange activity at all, and that's weird."
"Mm," Dean murmured, reaching into his пальто pocket to pull out the picture he'd found. "Well, I think we should look for this kid," he told Sam, allowing his brother to look at the picture. "I don't know, but it looks like he's kinda close to her, don't ya think?"
Sam looked at the picture for a минута или two before he put it down on the стол письменный, стол and went back to the viewer. "Maybe," he mumbled.
"Maybe?" Dean repeated. "What do Ты think we should do, Sam?"
"Well," he said, "even though there isn't any history of disappearances in the area, I was thinking it was a little strange that neither one of Beth's parents heard anything. Especially since a girl leaving her room in the middle of the night isn't exactly uncommon, but — "
Sam stopped, his eyebrows furrowed together as he magnified an image on the viewer in front of him.
"What is it?" Dean asked.
For a minute, Sam read silently, and Dean leaned closer, trying to see what he was seeing. And for another minute, Dean glanced around the library, checking the room and making sure no one was looking at them.
"Sam," Dean сказал(-а) again.
"Well, apparently, the area hasn't seen a lot of disappearances, but it looks like Beth has that market cornered."
Dean looked at the viewer. "What?"
"Three months ago, the local paper ran a story on Beth Mason and her boyfriend Sullivan Travis. The head cheerleader and the football quarterback. It was for a charity for abused and exploited children, and it says that Beth herself was the victim of a kidnaping. When she was six. But she was found and returned to her parents."
Dean listened carefully, his memory doing a number on the situation he was in right now, and he thought back to the фото he'd seen at the Masons. Beth was blonde and blue-eyed, and both her parents were brunette with brown eyes.
"Dean," Sam сказал(-а) after another minute. "I think I know this girl. I think we saved her ten years ago."
Dean looked at the picture of Beth again. He looked at the guy in the picture closer, seeing his brown hair and green eyes, and he remembered everything all over again. "Sam, this isn't right," he сказал(-а) seriously, as if any other time wasn't serious.
"Tell me about it," Sam scoffed. "How weird is this that this girl gets kidnaped again after ten years?"
"No, that's not what I mean," Dean said. "The pictures in the house. Those aren't her parents. And if they're not her parents, then who are they? And where are her parents? The ones we met ten years ago."
Sam reached out and turned off the viewer to gather the papers around him. "I don't know," he said, "but there's only one way to know for sure."
Dean huffed himself, picking up the picture and following Sam to the front стол письменный, стол to return the materials he'd borrowed, and after only having just entered the library, Dean winked at the pretty girl behind the counter and pulled his пальто back on. Sam followed suit, and together, they left the библиотека to do a little еще interviewing with the parents who'd turned out to not be Beth's parents at all.
He went over everything he'd learned so far despite there not really being a lot to go on. He remembered everything that happened ten years ago, and he also remembered that Annabeth Miller had been the sixth girl to disappear, not the first. And if this wasn't some ordinary kidnaping and something was starting over again, then it was possible there were other girls who'd gone missing. Dean didn't like thinking that at all.
Familiar Faces
10 years later . . . Buffalo, New York
It was raining when Dean Winchester pulled up to the curb of the marked-off house dressed in one of his best suits. Over the last two days, he and his brother Sam had been driving to Buffalo to get into town before the real authorities showed up, and so far, they'd done a pretty good job. As of this morning, only the local authorities had talked to the family that had once resided inside this house, and Dean was grateful his persuasion skills hadn't suffered over the years. He was also grateful for what a little bit of technology had allowed Sam to do in stalling the FBI from Показ up the way it was supposed to when anyone under the age of 18 disappeared into thin air. Sam was swearing this whole thing was a little strange, so while he visited the local police precinct, Dean was going to take a look at the house.
It was a nice house, from the outside anyway, but with Dean's experience, looks were always deceiving. The front entryway on the porch was taped off, but he pulled it from his path, retrieving his lock pouch from his куртка pocket and using it on the front door before he made his way into the foyer of the house. From this vantage point, he could see into the living room and the dining room, and he took note of all the furniture and the fact that it was all still completely in order. Dean remembered from the newspaper that all the action had taken place upstairs, so without so much as a glance around, he made his way up to the секунда floor. He pulled out his EMF on the way to check for spirits, looking at the pictures on the walls and noting two things immediately.
The victim Beth Mason was blond haired and blue-eyed unlike her mother and her father who were brown haired and brown-eyed and looked nothing like her. The paper had сказал(-а) Beth was only sixteen, but she'd also been a straight-A student on the cheerleader squad and the звезда quarterback for a boyfriend. She'd only lived in Buffalo about six years after her father had passed away and her mother had remarried rather quickly. While that did seem a little strange to Dean, what other people did was none of his business. Right now, all he really cared about was finding a teenage girl who'd disappeared from her постель, кровати without a single trace.
The EMF was completely silent as Dean made his way to the секунда level of the house, and he began looking in all the rooms along the hallway. The first door on the left was a small bathroom colored in various blue tones, but it didn't look like it had been touched in a little while. Dean checked all the soap and cleaning products, noting they were all feminine scents, so he figured this had to be Beth's bathroom. He checked the medicine cabinet, but the only thing he found was Tylenol and a couple of toothbrushes.
The Далее room was a considerably larger bedroom than Dean had been inside in a while, and with the furniture and the tacked on bathroom, he guessed it was the master bedroom meant for the parents. He checked every corner of the room, spotting a few еще фото that looked like vacation pictures and taking a гусак, гандер through the walk-in closet. But there was nothing out of the ordinary. There were only a few items in the clothes hamper in the bathroom, and the душ didn't even look like it had been used in several days. Dean remembered the mother and father were staying in a hotel until the local investigation was completed, but he doubted they would come back to the house. No parent he'd ever talked to went back to the house where their child had disappeared from.
The last room on the left, down the hall from the bathroom, Dean found Beth Mason's room as it set dimly lit from the white-grey clouds outside. Rain pattered the window as Dean stepped into the room, and he looked from left to right at the dresser and then the постель, кровати which was unmade like the girl had been there but had gotten up in the middle of the night for no reason. Since his EMF meter was still silent, Dean put it away, moving the window slowly and looking down to see a twenty foot drop to the ground with no apparent way to get to the ground other than jumping. He tried the window, discovering it unlocked, and he lifted it slowly, looking over the window sill and seeing it clean of every strange substance he could think of. No blood, no glass, no dirt. No sulfur.
"Hmm," he whispered softly, easing his fingers along the window sill and coming up with nothing except water from the rain as it made itself known on the carpet beneath the window.
"Not a demon."
He turned to the bedroom, glancing over the постель, кровати and moving to the таблица Далее to it where a small digital clock, a notebook and a фото cluttered the вверх along with a lamp. He turned the lamp switch, but the light didn't come on. He check the bulb, but it looked good. He didn't understand why the light wouldn't come on. The notebook beckoned his well-worn hands to it, and he picked it up slowly, noticing the guy in the фото with Beth. He looked like he was in his early 20's with brown hair and green eyes, and Dean thought maybe it was a cousin или brother. But Beth Mason was an only child, and neither of her parents had сказал(-а) anything about a cousin anywhere nearby with the ability to visit very often. Plus this guy looked a little too cozy with Beth to be a relative — the hand he had low on her hip was evidence enough of that.
Dean sat on the bed, opening the notebook and instantly seeing the last entry that looked like it was only half-finished. He didn't like making assumptions, but it was almost like she'd been Письмо in her notebook only to be stopped by something. He wondered what would usually pause a teenage girl when she was Письмо in her journal, and he immediately looked up at the фото and the boy standing beside Beth as he wore a football uniform. "I wonder what Ты were doin' a week ago, Mr. звезда Quarterback," he сказал(-а) softly.
With two things he had working to his advantage, Dean quickly took the picture from the frame and then the notebook, rising from the постель, кровати and pulling out his phone to call Sam to see if he'd had any luck with the local authorities. Dean didn't have any hopes in a place like this, but they had to look at every area of possibility. No matter how much time had passed, Dean knew the world was just gonna keep getting worse, and it was his job to make sure people were безопасно, сейф — even if that meant keeping them безопасно, сейф when they didn't know what was out there. Dean had been doing this his whole life, and even though there had been a time when he'd сказал(-а) he wouldn't be doing something like it at his age now, it was all he knew. It was all there was for him now.
Sam answered his phone after just a couple of rings, his voice soft like he was having to whisper, and when Dean heard him, he thought there might be something wrong. "What?" he snapped at Dean.
"Hey, I'm just checkin' in," Dean informed his younger brother. "What's up with the golf announcer voice?"
Sam sighed over the phone. "Sorry. I'm in the библиотека checking the old papers for any other disappearances."
"What happened to the police station?" Dean asked, making his way from Beth's room to leave the house. "I thought Ты were gonna talk to the new sheriff in town."
"Well, I talked to him. He gave me the run-around, just like I expected. But I was able to get a copy of the police Сообщить from his desk, and I figured I'd come over here to see if there was a history of disappearances in the area. Local police are always distrusting of the big guys in town, so I didn't see the point of hanging around."
Dean smiled, stepping onto the front porch and making his way to the car where he'd parked it down the street. "Nah, Ты just don't have the magic touch, my boy. Cops always respond to me better than they do to you. Always have, always will."
Sam scoffed. "Just because Ты have wing-tips doesn't mean I can't get information out of the cops," he accused. "What did Ты find at the girl's house?"
Dean slid into the driver's seat, glancing around the улица, уличный and then turning on the car to get to the library. "Well, no sign of a struggle. Nothing in the house out of place. No blood, no glass. No sulfur. EMF was clean. The only way out of her room had to be the door — her window had a twenty foot drop outside it. I don't know if she could fly, but my money's on something grabbin' her after her parents were asleep. Ты remember, they сказал(-а) she was in постель, кровати when they turned in."
Sam inhaled deeply. "Yep. Ты on your way now?"
"Uh-huh. Try not to do anything I wouldn't do until I get there."
Dean turned off his phone then, pulling through the neighborhood and looking up the address to the библиотека where Sam had apparently parked himself.
The Buffalo Public библиотека was in the middle of Lafayette Square and when Dean pulled up in front, he could see from the inside of the Impala that it was going to be snowing pretty soon. The sooner they got this tied off and back to the motel, the better. Dean grabbed everything he'd collected at the Mason house, stepping out into the frigid air and pulling his пальто over his shoulders tighter just as his cell phone buzzed from his front pocket. He pulled it out quickly, seeing a text and a picture, and he opened it without thinking.
Happy birthday! was the main message.
Dean smiled, opening the picture and seeing the face he'd been needing to see all day. He'd been thinking about this face a lot in the last few days, especially with this case, even if this face was contorted with her tongue sticking out and her eyes crossed. Even from so far away, she really did know how to make him smile. Quickly, he composed a reply and hit send, arriving at the doors to the библиотека and stepping inside out of the cold. It was warm and kinda homey inside, and Dean pulled off his пальто as he glanced around the room for Sam. He spotted a pretty, young red head behind the counter, and she smiled at him.
Even though that would've usually prompted him to make a Переместить in her direction, Dean reminded himself about what was really at stake here. He thought about Lisa and Ben and Elizabeth. His daughter. Over the last ten years, Dean had been keeping tabs on her, and her birthday had been about four months earlier. Lisa had sent him a few pictures from her birthday party, and at that thought, Dean bowed his head and turned to the stacks of the библиотека so he could find Sam.
His brother was sitting in a quiet corner of the библиотека surrounded by papers and photocopies, and he was sitting at an old viewer looking at old newspaper prints. Dean looked around, seeing a few high school students and an elderly couple, but otherwise the библиотека was quiet. It was normal, Dean supposed, at least for the time of день and the impending weather, but he made a note of it all the same. He pulled a chair from a таблица nearby, moving up behind Sam and looking over his shoulder.
"You're not scouting for porn или nothin', are you?" he asked, watching Sam stiffen and glance behind him with a scowl.
Dean smiled, moving closer. "What Ты got so far?"
Sam huffed softly. "Not a lot. I've looked back a few years, but so far, there isn't a history of disappearances in the area. Actually, for a major metropolitan area, there isn't a lot of strange activity at all, and that's weird."
"Mm," Dean murmured, reaching into his пальто pocket to pull out the picture he'd found. "Well, I think we should look for this kid," he told Sam, allowing his brother to look at the picture. "I don't know, but it looks like he's kinda close to her, don't ya think?"
Sam looked at the picture for a минута или two before he put it down on the стол письменный, стол and went back to the viewer. "Maybe," he mumbled.
"Maybe?" Dean repeated. "What do Ты think we should do, Sam?"
"Well," he said, "even though there isn't any history of disappearances in the area, I was thinking it was a little strange that neither one of Beth's parents heard anything. Especially since a girl leaving her room in the middle of the night isn't exactly uncommon, but — "
Sam stopped, his eyebrows furrowed together as he magnified an image on the viewer in front of him.
"What is it?" Dean asked.
For a minute, Sam read silently, and Dean leaned closer, trying to see what he was seeing. And for another minute, Dean glanced around the library, checking the room and making sure no one was looking at them.
"Sam," Dean сказал(-а) again.
"Well, apparently, the area hasn't seen a lot of disappearances, but it looks like Beth has that market cornered."
Dean looked at the viewer. "What?"
"Three months ago, the local paper ran a story on Beth Mason and her boyfriend Sullivan Travis. The head cheerleader and the football quarterback. It was for a charity for abused and exploited children, and it says that Beth herself was the victim of a kidnaping. When she was six. But she was found and returned to her parents."
Dean listened carefully, his memory doing a number on the situation he was in right now, and he thought back to the фото he'd seen at the Masons. Beth was blonde and blue-eyed, and both her parents were brunette with brown eyes.
"Dean," Sam сказал(-а) after another minute. "I think I know this girl. I think we saved her ten years ago."
Dean looked at the picture of Beth again. He looked at the guy in the picture closer, seeing his brown hair and green eyes, and he remembered everything all over again. "Sam, this isn't right," he сказал(-а) seriously, as if any other time wasn't serious.
"Tell me about it," Sam scoffed. "How weird is this that this girl gets kidnaped again after ten years?"
"No, that's not what I mean," Dean said. "The pictures in the house. Those aren't her parents. And if they're not her parents, then who are they? And where are her parents? The ones we met ten years ago."
Sam reached out and turned off the viewer to gather the papers around him. "I don't know," he said, "but there's only one way to know for sure."
Dean huffed himself, picking up the picture and following Sam to the front стол письменный, стол to return the materials he'd borrowed, and after only having just entered the library, Dean winked at the pretty girl behind the counter and pulled his пальто back on. Sam followed suit, and together, they left the библиотека to do a little еще interviewing with the parents who'd turned out to not be Beth's parents at all.
He went over everything he'd learned so far despite there not really being a lot to go on. He remembered everything that happened ten years ago, and he also remembered that Annabeth Miller had been the sixth girl to disappear, not the first. And if this wasn't some ordinary kidnaping and something was starting over again, then it was possible there were other girls who'd gone missing. Dean didn't like thinking that at all.
