memento vivere - supernatural & criminal minds

chapter 10

Chapter 10
Woman In White

Jude carefully wedged a bobby pin into the lock, waiting for the soft click of the cylinder. It was early morning and they’d just checked into a motel. After seeing the name Aframian on Dean’s credit card, the clerk asked them if they were having a family reunion. He said a man named Burt Aframien had bought a room at the same motel for the entire month.

She pushed open the door to John’s room and let the boys pass before bolting it behind them. Grimacing at Dean’s dusty footprints - he was still covered in a thin layer of dry mud - Jude switched on a lamp, though it provided hardly any light. The room was in shambles. An open suitcase lay on the rumpled bed, clothes and hunting supplies spilling out onto the floor. A thick ring of salt encircled the bed - protection against spirits. The walls were plastered with maps, newspaper clippings, pictures, and notes. Images of the arcane and paranormal surrounded them, half in shadow.

There was a half-eaten burger beside the lamp. Dean leaned down to smell it and recoiled. “I don’t think he’s been here for a couple days, at least.”

Jude stepped past Sam over the salt line and eyed the items scattered on the bed. Cat’s eye shells, pentagram talismans, iron weapons. They were all to ward off or defend against evil. “John was scared of something getting in. This isn’t just precaution, it’s paranoia.” Jude pretended not to see the look Dean gave her. She had many of these items in her own apartment hidden in plain sight. Only a hunter could notice them, and Dean had. 

He turned away to examine the back wall. It was pasted with the victims of Constance Welch, their images, obituaries, and descriptions lined up in three neat rows. “I don’t get it,” Dean shook his head. “I mean, different men, different jobs, ages, ethnicities. There’s always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common?”

“Dad figured it out,” Sam beckoned from across the room. He pointed to a copy of the same Jericho Herald article they had found, ‘Suicide on Centennial.’ “She’s a woman in white.” The cascade of ivory as Constance’s specter tumbled from the bridge flickered in Florence’s mind. That particular strand of ghost was the product of an unfaithful man - a woman scorned. Their anger burned through to the afterlife and trapped them as harbingers of vengeance.

Later that day, Jude flopped across her bed with an arm slung over her eyes. She’d gotten her own room with her own card, thinking the peace would do her good, but the walls were so thin that she could hear Sam and Dean chattering next door. Her phone was pressed to her ear as she listened to a voice message from Hotch in response to the one she’d sent about an hour ago. They’d missed each other’s calls by a matter of minutes.

Adding layers to her lie, Jude had told him that Grandma Janice - a name she pulled out of her ass on the spot - had passed in her sleep and the funeral preparations were underway. She gave herself some wiggle room on her return by adding that her family might need extra help going through her grandma’s house because she was a bit of a hoarder.

Hotch’s reply was predictably monotonous and vague, and though he gave her a brief rundown of their current case, he withheld details so she didn’t worry about it. He made it clear that they wouldn’t ask her to consult while she was away unless absolutely necessary, which at present, it wasn’t. Jude wished it was. She missed the well-worn routine of sifting through case files and brainstorming with the team over cups of too-strong coffee. Other than holidays, Jude hadn’t been away from the BAU for this long since she started working there. In Hotch’s message, he said that Spencer kept turning with the apparent intention of telling Jude something and going silent when he remembered she wasn’t there.

Through the wall, Jude heard Dean grumble a farewell and the slamming of his door followed by a knocking on her own. Reluctantly, she rolled upright and trudged over to open it. “You could’ve just yelled through the walls, they’re that thin.”