Chapter Text
The gas station's security light buzzed overhead, casting everything in that particular shade of fluorescent ugliness that made four in the morning feel like the end of the world. Rory leaned against brick that still held a ghost of yesterday's warmth, her body beginning the slow inventory of damage accumulated over the past few hours. The sprint through back alleys had left her calves burning. Her leather jacket had rubbed a raw spot on her collarbone where the collar sat wrong. The taste of adrenaline crash lingered metallic and unwelcome on her tongue, mixing with the stale coffee she'd had six hours ago at the bar.
Sam paced three steps in one direction, pivoted, paced back. The movement was controlled but barely, all that height and energy looking for somewhere useful to burn. His phone stayed dark and silent in his hand, and Rory watched him check it for the fourth time in as many minutes even though he had to know it hadn't rung.
He moved differently than Dean—less swagger, more tension. Where Dean's confidence was performative, Sam's uncertainty was genuine. The suit looked wrong on him somehow, like he'd borrowed someone else's skin and hadn't figured out how to wear it yet.
When it finally did ring, the sound made them both flinch.
Sam had it to his ear before the second ring. "Dean?"
Rory straightened off the wall, her eyes tracking the shift in Sam's expression—relief bleeding through first, then concern darkening around his eyes, frustration tightening his jaw. She couldn't hear Dean's side of the conversation, but she'd spent enough years reading people across bar tops to know what Sam wasn't saying carried more weight than what he was.
"How did they—"
Whatever Dean said next made Sam's free hand curl into a fist. The knuckles went white in the security light. His shoulders tensed like he was bracing for impact from something he couldn't see coming.
"Okay, we'll—"
Sam pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it with the kind of betrayal usually reserved for people, not objects. The screen had gone dark. Call ended.
"What'd he say?" Rory kept her voice level, matter-of-fact. Panic solved nothing, and they had enough problems without adding emotional spiraling to the collection.
"Jericho County Jail." Sam shoved the phone back in his pocket with more force than necessary. "Arrested for impersonating a federal agent. He started to say something else but we got cut off."
Rory let the silence stretch for a beat, watching Sam process and catalog and start running through solutions. She could practically see the wheels turning behind his eyes—weighing options, discarding variables, trying to find the angle that made this fixable.
"Well," she said finally, her voice dry as desert air. "That's not ideal."
Sam's expression suggested her humor wasn't particularly helpful, but something in his face eased fractionally. He scraped both hands through his hair, making it stand up in directions that would've been funny under different circumstances, and started pacing again.
"We need to figure out bail. Or a lawyer." He was talking to himself as much as to her, working through the problem out loud. "Do hunters have lawyers? Dad might know someone. If we could find Dad—"
"We could break him out."
The pacing stopped. Sam turned to look at her fully, both hands still shoved in his pockets like he was physically restraining himself from doing something rash. His expression walked the line between insane and tempting. "We're not breaking him out."
"Why not?" She pushed off the wall, feeling her spine protest the movement. Everything ached in that specific way that promised tomorrow would be worse. "Standard county jail, security's not that sophisticated. Bolt cutters, decent timing, element of surprise—"
"That's illegal."
"So's impersonating a federal agent."
"More illegal." Sam gestured with both hands, emphatic enough to suggest he was convincing himself as much as her. "Like, years-added-to-the-sentence illegal. Felony illegal."
Rory just looked at him. Kept her expression neutral, her posture relaxed, and let the silence do the work. She'd learned this trick behind the bar—sometimes people talked themselves into the right answer if you gave them enough quiet space to think in.
Sam's shoulders dropped. He exhaled hard, the sound carrying about four years of exhausted resignation compressed into a single breath. "Okay. We'll figure something out."
"Something legal?"
"Something semi-legal. Maybe." He said it like the compromise physically hurt him to voice.
"That's more realistic." She started walking, not bothering to check if he was following. He would—hunters always followed the practical choice eventually, even when they hated it. "But first we need to get back to the motel."
"The motel the cops just raided."
"The motel where Dean's car is sitting unattended." She kept her pace steady, not fast enough to draw attention if anyone happened to be watching from dark windows, not slow enough to look like hesitation. "He's going to need it when he gets out. We're going to need it before then. One problem, one solution."
"The cops might still be there."
"Might be." She turned the corner, keeping to the shadows out of habit. At this hour Jericho was dead enough that shadows felt optional, but old habits had kept her alive this long. "Only one way to find out."
Sam fell into step beside her, his longer stride forcing her to stretch her own pace to something that felt awkward. They moved through empty streets where nothing stirred except the occasional car passing in the distance. The October air carried the smell of dry grass and eucalyptus, that particular California scent that lingered even this late in the year. Somewhere a dog barked once and went silent. A streetlight flickered at the end of the block, the bulb fighting a losing battle with its own wiring. The town felt abandoned, like everyone had agreed to stay inside and pretend the night wasn't happening.
"How many times has Dean been arrested?" she asked after two blocks of silence that was starting to feel oppressive.
Sam made a sound that lived somewhere between a laugh and something more complicated. "You want the official count or the realistic one?"
"The realistic one."
"Five, maybe six." He hunched his shoulders slightly, hands shoved in his pockets. "There was this thing in Arkansas where he talked his way out before they actually booked him. Texas wasn't really his fault—some sheriff's deputy had it out for Dad and Dean was just there at the wrong time. Ohio was definitely his fault."
"What happened in Ohio?"
"Bar fight. Some asshole was harassing a woman, Dean stepped in, the guy took a swing, Dean broke his nose." Sam's mouth did something complicated—half fond, half exasperated, entirely familiar. "Guy pressed charges. Dean spent three days in county lockup before Dad could get him out and make it disappear. Complained the entire drive home that the guy started it."
Rory felt her own mouth curve despite everything—despite the exhaustion, despite Dean in jail, despite watching her Jeep sink into black water hours ago. "Sounds about right."
"He's an idiot sometimes." But Sam said it with the kind of affection that only came from years of watching someone be an idiot and loving them anyway. "Gets in his own way trying to do the right thing."
She didn't respond to that, just filed it away with everything else she was learning about the Winchester brothers. The dynamic between them, the history written in offhand comments and careful silences, the particular flavor of protectiveness that clearly ran both directions despite Sam being the younger one. Legacy hunters raised in the life, their father's shadow stretching long enough to cover them both.
The motel materialized through pre-dawn darkness like something half-remembered from a dream. The VACANCY sign still flickered its neurotic rhythm, neon struggling against the inevitable death of its own circuitry. Rory slowed their approach automatically, her eyes moving across the parking lot in systematic sweeps—counting exits, cataloging sight lines, checking for threats.
No cop cars. No officers standing watch with coffee and boredom.
As they moved closer to where the Impala sat—exactly where they'd left it, chrome catching the parking lot lights in a way that made the car look almost predatory—Rory noticed the yellow crime scene tape crossed John Winchester's door two units down, plastic fluttering slightly in the breeze.
"Why didn't they tow it?" Sam voiced the question half a second before she would have.
Rory moved closer, angling her approach to check the interior without presenting too much of her own silhouette. Registration papers were clipped to the driver's side visor, visible through the windshield, exactly where any cop would look first during a traffic stop.
"Not registered to Dean." She squinted at the name on the visible form. "Robert Plant."
Sam made a sound that was definitely a laugh this time, sharp and startled. "Led Zeppelin. He registered his car to the lead singer of Led Zeppelin."
"Of course he did." The corner of Rory's mouth twitched despite everything. The man had commitment to a bit, she'd give him that.
"You have no idea. Before I left for school, we were federal agents named Angus Young and Robert Johnson. Once Dean tried to use Lemmy Kilmister." Sam shook his head, something warm creeping into his expression despite everything. "The cop didn't even blink."
Rory pulled her lockpick set from her jacket pocket, the leather case worn smooth from years of use. She selected the tension wrench and half-diamond pick without looking, her fingers knowing the weight and shape of each tool through muscle memory alone.
"We should wait for Dean," Sam said, but the conviction had leaked out of his voice somewhere between the gas station and here.
"Dean's in jail." She crouched by the driver's side door, fitting the tension wrench into the lock and feeling for resistance. The metal was cool against her fingertips, the mechanism inside old enough to have personality. "We need transportation. He needs his car when he gets out. This is practical problem-solving."
"You're breaking into Dean's car."
"I'm borrowing Dean's car." The lock fought her, older mechanism that required patience. She adjusted the tension by small degrees, feeling individual pins catch and release. "There's a difference."
"He's going to be pissed."
"Probably." The final pin gave with a click that sounded too loud in the empty parking lot. She pulled the door open and reached across to unlock the passenger side. "But he's got to get out of jail first, so I've got at least a few hours."
Sam walked around the front of the car and climbed in with the air of someone who'd already accepted this was happening whether he liked it or not. "This is a terrible idea."
She slid into the driver's seat, and immediately felt like an intruder in someone else's sacred space. Everything about the Impala's interior suggested a car that was loved with the kind of devotion most people reserved for family members. The leather bench seat had been reupholstered at some point, the stitching careful and precise. The dashboard gleamed even in the dim light, not a speck of dust visible. Even the floor mats looked maintained, no accumulated dirt or debris from years of neglect. The interior smelled like leather oil and something else—gun oil, maybe, or the particular scent of a vehicle that spent most of its time on long highways.
She dropped to the floorboard, pulling her small flashlight from her pocket. "Hold this."
Sam took the flashlight and angled the beam where she indicated, his face in the reflected glow looking pained. "Please tell me you've done this before."
"Relax." Rory pulled the panel cover loose, exposing the wiring harness underneath. Red wire for battery, brown for ignition, yellow for starter. Standard configuration for anything built in the sixties. "I've stolen plenty of cars."
"That's not reassuring."
"I always gave them back." She stripped insulation from the battery and ignition wires with careful precision, hyper-aware that she was touching something Dean Winchester clearly loved more than most people loved their families. The wires were clean, well-maintained, the whole harness showing signs of regular care. Even the underside of the dash had been detailed. She worked quickly, connecting battery to ignition with steady fingers despite the small voice in her head pointing out that this was probably going to get her killed when Dean found out. "Consider this a temporary loan."
"Still not reassuring."
The wires sparked when she touched them together, and the Impala's engine rumbled to life with a sound like distant thunder compressed into a confined space. The whole car vibrated with barely contained power, and Rory understood immediately why Dean Winchester treated this vehicle like it was sentient. It felt alive under her hands—responsive and dangerous and absolutely lethal with the right driver. The engine settled into a purr that was somehow both smooth and aggressive, all that American muscle just waiting for an excuse to be unleashed.
She left the wires twisted together and tucked them loosely back under the dash—accessible for the next time they'd need to start it. The panel cover went back in place, hiding the evidence.
"See?" She slid back into the driver's seat. "No permanent damage."
"Dean's going to murder both of us." Sam buckled his seatbelt like he was strapping in for his own execution. "Slowly. With significant planning involved."
Rory tested the wheel, feeling the weight of power steering calibrated for someone who knew how to handle American muscle at speed.
She pulled out of the parking lot slowly, no squealing tires or dramatic exits. Just a smooth departure that wouldn't attract attention from anyone who might still be watching. The engine purred underneath them, all that contained violence waiting for someone to let it loose. The streets were still empty, that dead hour before dawn when even the insomniacs had given up and gone to bed.
"Nice ride," she said after a moment, because it was true and because the silence had gotten heavy again. The Impala responded with precision that bordered on aggressive, every input translated immediately into movement. This wasn't transportation. This was a weapon on wheels.
Sam's head dropped into his hands. "Don't. Don't get attached. Don't talk about it like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you're appreciating it. He'll know somehow. He always knows." Sam's voice carried years of experience watching his brother have an unnatural connection with an inanimate object. "And then he'll kill you."
"Noted."
The Motel 6 looked exactly like she'd left it—single story, doors facing the parking lot, the kind of place that asked no questions as long as you paid cash up front and didn't make noise after midnight. She pulled the Impala into a spot two doors down from her room, killed the engine, and felt the full weight of exhaustion settle over her like a physical thing. Her hands ached from gripping the wheel. Her eyes burned. Her body had moved past tired into that strange twilight zone where everything felt slightly unreal.
"We need a plan," Sam said, but his voice was rough with exhaustion that matched her own.
"We need sleep." Rory climbed out of the car, her legs protesting every movement. Everything hurt—muscles she'd forgotten existed sending complaints directly to her brain, joints threatening to quit entirely. The cool morning air hit her face, sharp enough to make her blink. "A few hours. Then we figure out the rest."
"A few hours isn't enough."
"It's what we've got." She unlocked her door, the keycard reader blinking green on the second try. The hallway smelled like industrial cleaner and cigarettes despite the NO SMOKING sign on every door. "Come on."
Sam hesitated in the doorway, clearly working through some internal debate about propriety or boundaries or something equally unnecessary given their circumstances. "I can sleep in the car—"
"Sam." She cut him off before he could finish. "It's five in the morning. You're exhausted. I'm exhausted. There are two beds. Take one."
He looked like he wanted to argue, but exhaustion won. He walked inside, taking in the room with its two twin beds and the research still scattered across the table where she'd left it hours ago. Newspaper clippings and maps and death records, all the pieces of a hunt they still needed to finish. The room was cool—she'd turned off the heater before leaving for the bar a lifetime ago—and it smelled faintly of old carpet and the particular mustiness that lived in every cheap motel room in America.
"Shower's yours if you want it," she said, already pulling clean clothes from her duffel. "Just leave me some hot water."
The bathroom door clicked shut, and a moment later she heard water running through pipes that had probably been installed before she was born. Rory sat on the bed closer to the window, unlacing her boots and setting them beside the nightstand where she could reach them quickly if needed. Always know where your exits are. Always keep your weapons close. Always be ready to move. The rules that had kept her alive for four years, habits so ingrained now that following them required no conscious thought.
She lay back on the mattress, staring at water stains on the ceiling that suggested stories she didn't want to know. The springs creaked under her weight, the sound loud in the quiet room. Her body was screaming for sleep, muscles going liquid now that she'd stopped moving, but her brain kept cataloging—exits mapped, weapons accounted for, Dean in jail, hunt unfinished, John Winchester missing. The tactical assessment ran on loop, easier than thinking about everything she'd lost in that river.
The shower cut off. Sam emerged a few minutes later in clean clothes, his hair damp and sticking up in directions that suggested he'd given up on controlling it entirely. He looked marginally more human, though exhaustion still painted bruises under his eyes dark enough to look like injuries.
"Your turn," he said, already heading for the far bed.
Rory grabbed her clothes and didn't bother responding. The bathroom mirror showed someone who looked like they'd gone three rounds with something mean and lost decisively. Dark circles, pale skin, hair that had given up entirely. She looked away before the reflection could tell her anything else she didn't want to know.
The shower was scalding, the kind of heat that bordered on painful but felt necessary anyway. She stood under the spray and let it wash away dried sweat and the lingering smell of river water. The water pressure was terrible, sputtering and weak, but it was hot and that was enough. Steam filled the small bathroom until she could barely see the frosted glass of the shower door. She counted to thirty—giving herself that much and no more—and then pushed everything down where it couldn't touch her. Later. She could deal with loss later, when the immediate crisis wasn't quite so immediate.
The bathroom was thick with steam when she emerged, mirror completely fogged. She dressed quickly, ran her fingers through wet hair to work out the worst tangles, and stepped back into the main room. The cooler air was a relief after the shower's heat, helping clear her head.
Sam was already asleep, sprawled across the far bed with his long limbs taking up more space than should've been physically possible. His breathing was deep and even, one arm flung over his eyes to block out what little light filtered through the curtains. The kind of unconsciousness that came from exhaustion so complete that staying awake was no longer optional.
Rory set her phone alarm for eleven-thirty—five hours, which still wasn't enough but was better than nothing—and climbed onto the other bed without bothering with the covers. The mattress was lumpy, springs poking through in uncomfortable places, but it was horizontal and that was all that mattered. Sleep came fast and heavy, dragging her down into darkness where nothing waited except dreamless black.
The alarm's shrill cry shattered the quiet like breaking glass.
Rory's hand shot out before she was fully conscious, killing the sound on instinct. Eleven-thirty according to the display. Her body still felt like it had been hit by a truck, but it was an improvement over complete shutdown. Every muscle had gone stiff during sleep, her neck locked at an angle that sent pain shooting down her spine when she tried to move. Her mouth tasted like something had died in it, and her eyes felt like they'd been replaced with sandpaper.
Sam groaned from the other bed, face pressed into the pillow. "What time is it?"
"Almost noon." Her voice came out rough, throat dry. "Time to move."
"Not enough sleep." But he was already sitting up, scrubbing both hands through his hair and making it stand at even more improbable angles. He looked about as good as she felt, which was to say terrible. "Okay. Dean. We need to get Dean."
Rory stood, her body filing formal complaints about every decision she'd made in the past twelve hours. She ignored them. Pain was just information, and the information said she was functional enough to keep moving. Her knees protested. Her lower back sent shooting complaints up her spine. She rolled her shoulders and felt things crack that probably shouldn't have.
"Coffee first," she said, reaching for her jacket where she'd draped it over the chair. "Then we figure out the Dean situation."
"Coffee." Sam repeated the word like it was sacred, like it held the answer to every problem they currently faced. "Yeah. Coffee first."
They looked at each other across the motel room—two hunters running on five hours of sleep that felt like twenty minutes, a stolen car in the parking lot, and a growing list of problems that included jail and ghosts and missing fathers. Sam's expression suggested he was questioning every life choice that had led to this exact moment. Rory probably looked the same.
"There's got to be a diner in this town," she said, pulling on her boots and lacing them with fingers that felt thick and clumsy.
"Every town has a diner." Sam grabbed his jacket, checking his pockets automatically for phone and wallet and weapons. "Whether the coffee's any good is another question."
"I'll take bad coffee over no coffee."
"That's the spirit."
They headed out into midday air that was mild for October, the sky overcast but the temperature pleasant enough in the low sixties. A breeze carried the scent of dry grass and dust, that particular California combination that never quite went away even this late in the year. Rory climbed into the Impala's driver seat. She reached under the dash and touched the exposed wires together—spark, rumble, the engine catching with that same throaty purr. Sam got in without comment this time—apparently they'd crossed some threshold where her driving Dean's car had moved from crisis to accepted fact.
The diner Sam directed her to was three blocks away, a place called Mel's that looked like it had been serving breakfast since the Eisenhower administration. The sign out front flickered intermittently, the letter E giving up entirely every few seconds. The parking lot was half full with pickup trucks and one ancient station wagon that had probably been parked in the same spot for the past decade.
Inside, the diner smelled like burnt coffee and bacon grease and decades of cigarette smoke that had soaked into the vinyl booths despite the NO SMOKING signs that had probably been installed sometime in the nineties. The linoleum floor was cracked in places, patched in others, the pattern worn away near the door and the counter from years of foot traffic. A handful of locals occupied the booths—truckers mostly, a few farmers in work clothes, everyone looking like they'd been awake since before dawn and would probably keep working until well after sunset.
The waitress who approached with coffeepot in hand looked like she'd been working this shift since the Carter administration. Her name tag said DOREEN in faded letters, and she didn't waste time with pleasantries.
"Coffee?"
"Please," Sam said with the desperation of someone who needed caffeine like oxygen.
"Two," Rory added.
Doreen poured without comment, sloshing the dark liquid into stained ceramic mugs that had probably been white once upon a time. The coffee was exactly as bad as expected—burnt and bitter and sitting on the burner too long—but it was hot and caffeinated and that made it perfect.
"You two eating?" Doreen pulled a pad from her apron pocket, pen poised with the efficiency of someone who'd done this ten thousand times.
Rory's stomach reminded her she hadn't eaten since—when? Yesterday afternoon? The timeline had blurred. "Yeah. Burger with extra pickles and cheese. Fries."
"Same," Sam said, then reconsidered. "Actually, make it a double. And can I get extra bacon on that?"
Doreen made a notation that was probably shorthand for 'starving tourists,' and disappeared toward the kitchen without another word.
Rory wrapped both hands around the mug and let the heat seep into her palms while her brain slowly struggled back online. Across from her, Sam was doing the same, staring into his coffee like it held answers instead of just disappointment. He drained the first cup in four long swallows and immediately refilled from the carafe Doreen had left on their table.
"Okay," Sam said after his second cup, his brain clearly starting to function again. "We need a plan for Dean. Bail, lawyer, something."
"Or we figure out why they arrested him." Rory set down her mug, the ceramic making a dull thunk against the Formica table. She could see the gears turning in Sam's head, that methodical way he processed information. "Was it just the fake ID? Random bad luck? Did someone call it in?"
Sam opened his mouth, closed it. Blinked. "That's actually a good point."
"If someone called it in, we need to know who. If it was random, we need to know if the cops are actively looking for more fake feds." She took another sip of terrible coffee, felt it burn all the way down. "Changes our approach."
"And the phone call," Sam added, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. His fingers drummed against the mug, restless energy looking for an outlet. "That wasn't Dad. Dean was sure."
"So something's trying to keep you away from the bridge. From the hunt." The pieces were there, she could feel them starting to click together even if the full picture wasn't clear yet. Like looking at a jigsaw puzzle and knowing what the image would be before all the pieces were in place. "Your dad's journal mentioned sulfur traces. Demon activity. What if—"
"What if there's more than just Constance?" Sam finished the thought, his expression darkening in a way that suggested this possibility wasn't new to him. "What if something else is in play?"
"Woman in White doesn't usually work with demons. But that doesn't mean something else isn't here." Rory paused as Doreen reappeared with two plates loaded with burgers that looked like they'd been assembled with the specific intent to stop a human heart. Thick patties, melted cheese, bacon piled high, fries that glistened with grease. Exactly what they needed.
Sam dug in immediately, the kind of focused eating that came from genuine hunger rather than politeness. Rory took a bite and had to admit—for a truck stop diner in the middle of nowhere, Mel's knew how to make a burger.
"We need to find Joseph Welch," Sam said around a mouthful of food. "Constance's husband. He's still in town according to the obituary."
Rory ran through variables while working on her burger. Joseph Welch had lived with this for twenty years—the town's collective memory of his wife killing their children, then herself. Small towns never forgot. Never forgave. Approaching him wrong would get the door slammed in their faces. They needed an angle that wasn't exploitative, wasn't trauma tourism. Just facts. Just stop more people from dying.
They ate in relative silence, the food helping clear some of the exhaustion fog. Sam finished his double burger and most of his fries before sitting back with a satisfied sound.
"That helped," he said.
"Food usually does." Rory pushed her plate aside, half the fries still remaining. Her stomach had shrunk after years of irregular meals, couldn't handle the volume anymore.
Sam was already scanning the diner, eyes landing on the payphone mounted on the wall near the bathrooms. "Phone book's over there. Let me check if Welch is listed."
He stood and crossed to the phone, and Rory watched him flip through the tattered White Pages that dangled from a metal cord, pages yellowed and soft from decades of use. Small towns were good for something at least—everyone was listed, addresses included, no privacy in a place where everyone already knew everyone else's business anyway.
Doreen reappeared to clear their plates. Rory left cash on the table that included enough for a decent tip—the woman looked like she needed it—and stood as Sam came back.
"Got it," he said, his voice low. "Joseph Welch, 459 Lindbrook Road."
"Then that's where we start." Rory pulled on her jacket, feeling the familiar weight settle on her shoulders. "Talk to Joseph, figure out what's happening with Constance, then we deal with Dean."
"You think he'll talk to us?"
"Only one way to find out."
The afternoon air was warm enough that Rory unzipped her jacket, the October sun breaking through the overcast in patches that felt pleasant rather than harsh. The promised rain seemed to have backed off, the clouds thinning slightly. Rory started the Impala again—the process faster this time—and Sam directed her toward Lindbrook Road.
Jericho looked different in full daylight than it had in the dark hours before dawn. The downtown consisted of maybe six blocks—a hardware store, a pharmacy, a bank with bars on the windows, a few shops that looked like they'd been struggling since before she was born. Most of the storefronts had HELP WANTED signs in the windows, faded and dusty like they'd been there so long nobody even saw them anymore. A few people moved along the sidewalks, some in short sleeves despite the season, nobody making eye contact with anyone else. An old man swept the sidewalk in front of the pharmacy with methodical strokes that suggested he'd been doing it for decades. A woman hurried past with two small children in tow, grocery bags swinging from her arms.
They passed the library where Sam and Dean had done their research—brick building with white columns, probably built in the thirties with WPA money and pride. The elementary school sat a block over, playground equipment showing its age, the swing sets moving slightly in the breeze with nobody on them. This was a town that was dying slowly, losing its children to bigger cities with better opportunities, aging gracefully into obsolescence.
Lindbrook Road was on the east side of town, where the houses got smaller and the yards got bigger and everything had that particular shabby quality that came from years of deferred maintenance and not quite enough money. The addresses climbed as they drove—412, 425, 438. Trees lined the street, mostly eucalyptus and valley oak, their leaves rustling in the afternoon breeze.
459 was a small ranch house set back from the road, white siding gone gray with age and weather, the porch sagging slightly on one side like it was tired of holding itself up. The yard was neat enough—grass brown from summer heat but cut short, a few shrubs struggling in the California drought. A pickup truck sat in the driveway, rust eating at the wheel wells, a faded SUPPORT OUR TROOPS ribbon stuck to the back window.
Rory pulled the Impala to the curb half a block down, killed the engine. They sat there for a moment, both of them looking at the house where Joseph Welch had lived for two decades with the memory of dead children and a wife who'd drowned herself in the river.
"Ready?" Sam asked.
"No." But she opened the door anyway, stepping out into the mild afternoon. "But let's do it anyway."
They walked up the cracked sidewalk to 459 Lindbrook Road, and Rory cataloged exits automatically—front door, side door visible around the corner of the house, windows on either side. The porch steps creaked under their weight, the wood soft in places that suggested rot underneath the paint. The doorbell didn't work—she pressed it and heard nothing—so Sam knocked instead.
Nothing.
He knocked again, louder this time. Still nothing.
Sam tried the doorbell himself, then knocked a third time. "Mr. Welch?"
Silence answered. Not the weighted silence of someone inside refusing to answer, but the empty silence of a house with nobody home.
"Truck's in the driveway," Rory said, studying the vehicle. "Could be someone gave him a ride somewhere."
"Or he's out back and can't hear us." Sam moved to peer through the front window, cupping his hands against the glass to block the glare. "Can't see much. Looks like nobody's home though."
Rory checked her watch. One-fifteen. "We could come back."
"Or we wait." Sam was already heading back toward the Impala, his long legs eating up the distance. "He's got to come home eventually."
"Stakeout it is." Rory followed, climbing back into the driver's seat. The leather was warm from the sun, pleasant rather than stifling. She started the engine and let it idle, cracking the windows to let in the breeze.
Sam slouched in the passenger seat, his long legs cramped even in the Impala's generous interior. "Could be an hour. Could be four."
"Could be ten minutes." She adjusted the rearview mirror to keep the house in view. "Only one way to find out."
The minutes crawled by with the particular tedium that came from surveillance work—nothing happening, nothing to do but watch and wait and try not to think too hard about everything else. The engine hummed quietly. A breeze rustled through the eucalyptus trees lining the street, their distinctive scent drifting through the open windows. A dog barked somewhere, sharp and persistent, then went quiet. The overcast sky filtered the sunlight into something soft and diffuse, making it hard to judge the passage of time.
Rory watched an old woman two houses down come out to check her mailbox, moving with careful deliberation like her bones hurt. A teenager skateboarded past, earbuds in, wearing a t-shirt like the October temperature was nothing. A minivan pulled into a driveway across the street, and a woman got out with grocery bags, wrestling them toward her front door while two small kids tumbled out behind her.
Normal life. Regular people doing regular things, nobody aware that something was killing men on Centennial Highway, that a Woman in White was drowning people in the same river where she'd drowned herself.
Rory's fingers found the steering wheel, tapping out a rhythm that didn't exist anymore. No tape deck. No music. The Cranberries' "Linger" had been in the player when the Jeep went under. That entire collection, built tape by tape over years. Every truck stop, every thrift store, every rare find carefully curated. Mazzy Star. Soundgarden. That bootleg Pearl Jam recording from the Seattle show. All of it somewhere at the bottom of the river now, plastic cases cracked and waterlogged, magnetic tape unspooling in the current.
She pulled her hand back. Focused on the house. Loss could wait.
"So," Sam said after twenty minutes of silence, "you've been hunting four years?"
"Give or take." Rory kept her eyes on the Welch house. This felt like a test, or maybe just curiosity, but either way she wasn't sure how much to share.
"My whole life." He said it with a flatness that suggested complicated feelings compressed into simple words. "Until I left for Stanford four years ago." His hand went to his phone, checked the screen even though it hadn't buzzed, then dropped back to his lap.
"Stanford." She glanced at him, reassessing. That explained the suit, the restless energy, the way he moved like someone still figuring out which skin to wear. The particular flavor of discomfort that came from being caught between two worlds. "So you got out."
"Yeah." Sam's jaw tightened. "Thought I was done with this. Had a girlfriend, an apartment, law school applications ready to go." He paused, and something raw crossed his face. "Then Dad went missing. Dean showed up. Here I am."
"Girlfriend know what you do?"
"No." The word came out sharp enough to cut. "She thinks I'm helping my brother with a family emergency. Which I guess is technically true."
Rory heard all the things he wasn't saying—the compartmentalization required to keep a normal life separate from hunting, the way those worlds couldn't coexist, the inevitable choice between them. She'd never tried to have both. Had never had the option, really.
"Must be hard," she said. "Keeping those separate."
"It's working. This is temporary—just until we find Dad." But his voice carried doubt he probably didn't realize was audible.
They fell back into silence. Thirty minutes. Forty-five. The breeze picked up slightly, carrying with it the dry, dusty scent of California in late autumn. The afternoon sun had started its slow descent toward the horizon, the light taking on that particular golden quality that came in the hours before sunset.
"Your turn," Sam said eventually. "How'd you get into hunting?"
Rory's hand went to her jacket pocket, checking the weight there without conscious thought. "My dad was a hunter."
She left it at that. Didn't explain about her mother or the demon or why she'd started hunting. Sam was asking the right questions, but she wasn't ready to give him real answers. Maybe later. Maybe never.
Sam seemed to sense the boundary, because he didn't push. "But you hunt alone."
"Yeah."
"Must be tough."
"Has its advantages." She watched a cat slink across the Welch's front yard, moving with liquid grace through the brown grass. "Nobody to worry about except yourself. Nobody to slow you down. Nobody to—"
"Get killed because you made the wrong call?" Sam's voice was quiet, understanding in a way that suggested he'd thought about this before, had run those same calculations.
"Something like that."
"Dean would say hunting alone gets you killed faster." Sam's mouth curved slightly, not quite a smile. "Dad always said the same thing. 'We're stronger together' and all that."
"Your dad's missing and your brother's in jail." Rory kept her voice neutral, factual. "Not exactly a great advertisement for the family business model."
Sam's almost-smile vanished. "Fair point."
The hours continued their slow crawl. Two-thirty became three o'clock became four. The Impala's interior had warmed enough that Rory turned off the engine, letting the breeze flow through the open windows. Sam had given up on sitting normally and was sprawled across the passenger side with his head against the window, eyes half-closed but still tracking movement outside.
The light had shifted significantly by the time anything changed. What had been bright afternoon sun had mellowed into that rich golden hour glow, shadows stretching long across brown lawns. The air had cooled enough that Rory zipped her jacket back up. Five-forty according to the dashboard clock. They'd been sitting here for over four hours.
Sam straightened in his seat, rolling his shoulders with audible pops. "Maybe he's not coming back today."
"Give it another hour." Rory's eyes felt gritty from staring, her back complaining from the awkward angle. "If he's not back by dark, we'll come back tomorrow."
Sam nodded, settling back into his slouch.
Fifteen minutes later, just as the light was beginning that final transition from golden to dusky, a car pulled up—ancient Buick, oxidized paint, one taillight held on with duct tape. It parked behind the pickup, and a man climbed out with the slow movements of someone whose body hurt. Late fifties, weathered skin, tired eyes. He pulled a paper bag from the passenger seat—groceries, from the shape—and headed for the front door.
"That's him," Sam said, already reaching for the door handle.
"Wait." Rory caught his arm. "Give him a minute. Let him get inside, put his stuff down. We show up the second he gets home, he's going to be defensive."
Sam hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah. Okay. Five minutes."
They watched Joseph Welch disappear inside his house. Lights came on in what was probably the kitchen. A shadow moved past the window—putting away groceries, settling in after wherever he'd been all afternoon.
The sky was deepening now, that blue-gray twilight that meant darkness wasn't far behind. Perfect timing. If they could get information from Joseph about Constance, about where she might be tied to, they'd have just enough time to act before full dark brought the Woman in White out to hunt.
Rory checked her watch. Let five minutes tick past with glacial slowness. Then five more for good measure.
"Now?" Sam asked.
"Now."
They climbed out of the Impala, and Rory felt every hour of sitting compressed into stiff muscles and protesting joints. The walk to the front door felt longer this time, weighted with anticipation. The air had cooled noticeably, October asserting itself as the sun continued its descent. Whatever Joseph Welch told them would determine their next move.
Sam knocked. Three solid raps that echoed in the early evening quiet.
This time, footsteps answered. Slow and heavy, the shuffle of someone who didn't move fast anymore. The door opened on a chain, and Joseph Welch's face appeared in the gap—the same weathered skin and tired eyes Rory had seen from a distance, but up close she could see more. The lines around his mouth that spoke of years carrying weight nobody should have to carry. The way his shoulders slumped like something had broken inside him a long time ago and never healed right.
"Yeah?"
"Mr. Welch?" Sam had his most earnest expression on, the one that made him look young and harmless and genuinely concerned. "My name is Sam. This is Rory. We're looking into the disappearances on Centennial Highway. We were hoping we could ask you a few questions."
Joseph Welch's expression didn't change, but something shifted behind his eyes. Recognition, maybe. Or resignation.
"You reporters?"
"No sir," Rory said. Non-threatening. Matter-of-fact. "Just trying to figure out what's happening before someone else gets hurt."
The silence stretched. Joseph Welch studied them both with the careful assessment of someone who'd learned not to trust easily. His eyes lingered on Sam's suit, on Rory's worn leather jacket, reading them the way she'd been reading people across bar tops for years.
His hand moved to close the door. "Can't help you."
"Mr. Welch—" Sam started.
"You think you're the first ones to come asking?" The door was closing, inch by inch. "Had reporters, had cops, had goddamn ghost hunters with their cameras and their bullshit. All of you wanting to pick at old wounds like there's something new to find."
Rory saw Sam's shoulders tense, preparing to argue, to push. She spoke before he could.
"We're not asking about what happened in 1981." Her voice stayed level, factual. "We're asking about what's happening now. Three men dead in the last month. All of them near the bridge where your wife died. Someone else is going to die if we don't stop it."
Joseph Welch went still. His hand frozen on the door.
The silence felt like it lasted forever. She could see him weighing options—the cost of opening old wounds against the cost of more deaths. His jaw worked like he was chewing words he didn't want to say. Behind him, through the gap in the door, she could see a living room frozen in time—furniture from the eighties, family photos on the mantle that probably included children who'd never grown up.
Finally, the chain rattled. The door opened wider.
"Come in then," Joseph Welch said, stepping back. His voice carried the exhaustion of someone who'd told this story before and knew he'd tell it again. "Might as well get it over with."