Maddison Winchester: Journal 2 {Supernatural}

7 The Usual Suspects: Part 1

October 17th - October 20th, 2006

Dean and I sat at a table outside of a café. Sam had run in to grab us drinks while Dean read over a local newspaper.

As Sam approached, Dean flipped the newspaper to face his seat. The headline read Man's Throat Slit Without a Trace.

Sam handed Dean his coffee and me a peach tea. "There you go." Then he sat down.

"Anthony Giles," Dean said.

"Who's Anthony Giles?" Sam asked.

Dean pointed to the newspaper. "He's a Baltimore lawyer. Working late in his office, check it out."

Sam picked up the paper. "Uh..." He skimmed through. "Throat was slit, room was clean. Huh. No DNA, no prints."

Dean nodded. "Keep reading. It gets better."

Sam continued, "'Security cameras failed to capture footage of the assailant.'"

Dean shrugged. "So, I'm thinking either somebody tampered with the tapes—"

"Or it's an invisible killer." Sam nodded.

"My favorite kind. What do you think, Scully?" Dean smirked. "You wanna check it out?"

Sam furrowed his brow. "I'm not Scully. You're Scully."

Dean shook his head. "No, I'm Mulder." He smirked. "You're a red-headed woman."

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Sam and Dean disguised themselves as employees from an insurance company to talk to Anthony's wife, Karen. I was left to wait in the car as usual, but they filled me in once they returned.

"So, apparently, Anthony said he saw a woman standing at the foot of his bed a few nights ago, but when he blinked, she disappeared," Sam said as Dean pulled away from the house.

"Do you think this woman could have anything to do with his death?" I asked.

Dean looked back at me in the rear-view mirror. "Karen thinks he just had a nightmare."

"Don't you think that's too much of a coincidence, though?" I asked.

Dean nodded. "That's why we're headed to his office."

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We broke into Anthony's office to see if we could find anything the police may have missed. The room was pretty dark, so we turned our flashlights on and started looking around.

"Maddi, just stay close. We don't know what killed him yet," Dean said.

I nodded and then shined my flashlight over the office until I spotted a bloodstain on the floor.

Sam walked over with his flashlight. "Anthony Giles's body was found right about here." He read from a piece of paper, "Throat slit so deep part of his spinal cord was visible."

I frowned, and then we continued walking through the office. Sam walked around and sat behind the desk.

Dean picked a piece of paper up and handed it to Sam. "Take a look at this."

Sam took the paper and furrowed his brow as he read it, "'Dana Shulps.'" He looked up at Dean. "A name?"

Dean picked up another piece of paper. "I dunno, but it's everywhere." He looked up, grinning. "Well, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."

Sam shined his light on the glass desk. "Huh."

He took a deep breath and then exhaled over the glass. As it heated up, the words Dana Shulps were revealed.

"Wow." He chuckled. "I'd say we've officially crossed over into weird."

Dean walked over and shrugged. "Maybe Giles knew her."

"Or maybe it's the name of our pale, red-eyed mystery girl," Sam suggested.

"Well. Let's see what we can see," Dean said.

As we searched through the office, we became frustrated. We weren't finding anything helpful. Sam was going through the computer as Dean, and I searched through files.

Dean sighed and walked over to the desk. "There's not a single mention of a Dana Shulps anywhere. There's not a D. Shulps. Or any other kind of friggin' Shulps."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Great."

"What have you got?" I asked as I joined them by the desk.

Sam shook his head. "Nothing. No Dana Shulps has ever lived or died in Baltimore in the last fifty years, at least."

Dean sighed. "So, what now?"

"Well, I think I'm pretty close to cracking Giles's password." Sam shrugged. "Maybe there's something in his personal files, ya know?"

"By close, you mean...?" Dean asked.

Sam looked up from the computer. "Thirty minutes, maybe?"

"Awesome." Dean glanced at his watch. "So, I guess I just get to, uh, hang out." He sat down. "Awesome."

I pulled a chair up next to Sam and watched while he worked. Dean sighed and started making clicking and mouth-fart noises. Sam and I looked up at him.

"Dude, seriously?" Sam asked.

"All right, I'm gonna go talk to Karen again." Dean slapped his thighs and stood up. "See if she knows anything about this Dana Shulps, huh?"

Sam nodded. "Great."

"Keep going, sparky." Dean smiled and walked out.

After about another half-hour, Sam and I packed up and set off back to the motel.

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When we got to the motel. Sam said that he had a surprise for me.

"What is it? What is it?" I asked.

Sam laughed. "All right, hold on. Let me get it out of my bag first."

"Is it the third Harry Potter movie?" I asked, excited.

Sam looked up from his bag. "We talked about this. Books first, then movies."

"Okay, so it's the book?" I asked.

Sam shook his head and pulled a DVD out of his bag. "Nope. We are gonna try something different tonight." He handed the movie to me.

I grabbed it and read the title. "'Alfred Hitchcock's: The Birds'?" I looked up at Sam. "What is this?"

Sam smiled and took the movie back. "Alfred Hitchcock is an old movie director. One of the best."

"The cover looks like it's from the '50s. Why would we want to watch that?" I asked.

Sam laughed and put the DVD in the player. "1963, actually. You like Harry Potter so much. I figured we could share horror movies too. 'The Birds' was the least intense one I could think of for your first horror movie." He smirked. "I guess I could've gone with one of the classic monsters, but then I thought of Hitchcock."

I sat on the couch. "But we basically live a horror movie. What's the point?"

Sam sat next to me and turned the TV on. "Just give it a chance."

As we sat through the movie, I inched closer and closer to Sam. It turned out to be a lot scarier than I expected, and I knew that the next time I saw a flock of birds, I would run screaming. Just as Tippi Hedren was being swarmed, the front door burst open. Sam and I jumped up from the couch.

When we turned around, we were completely surrounded by a swat team pointing their guns at us. We put our hands up, and a woman walked into the room.

"Going somewhere?" she asked.

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