"Morning, Dean." Lisa smiled at Dean as she walked by.
Dean looked up from the cluttered mess of papers on his desk and waved at her. "Mornin', Lis." He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed as he pushed the papers into a stack. He walked over to the string of whiteboards along a wall. He cleared some room and hung the photos, letters, news reports, bank statements, and other pieces of evidence on the board. After a moment of thinking, Dean's face lit up in realization and he scrambled to find a marker. He drew a few arrows, circled and underlined a few things, and added some barely legible notes next to others.
"Have you been here all night?" Bela asked, leaning in the doorway.
"What makes you think that?" Dean replied.
"Have you looked in a mirror yet?" She laughed. "You look like shit."
"Some mornings you're not too fresh either, Bela." Dean retorted. "It's just one of those days."
"You're lying." Bela stated. "I checked the time logs."
"Fine." Dean sighed. "This case is just really getting under my skin."
"It's under all of ours, Dean." Bela said. "How long have we been working solely on this case? Seven months now?"
"Almost eight." Dean kept his focus trained on the boards in front of him.
"God... Have you found anything new yet?"
"Not much. I mean, I did find some stuff, but nothing that will blow the case wide open." Dean answered.
"Humor me." Bela chuckled. "I'm a little bored. I have to do background checks on all the known victims and they're all so clean. AKA, boring."
"You're terrible." Dean snorted. "Anyways, come here."
Bela went over to the boards and looked at what Dean was pointing to.
"Look at the time stamps on these bank transactions." Dean said.
"What about them?" Bela asked.
"What about them?" Dean scoffed. "Look. The times are all within twenty minutes of each other, just in different hours. This one was done at 3:03 in the after noon, this one at 6:10 in the morning, and this one at 8:01 at night."
"So?"
"That means that there is a set schedule and that the link between all these transactions is in the time!" Dean exclaimed. "We know that these transactions have probably been heavily falsified already. This means that whoever's trafficking this people has their own schedule. Given that the only thing changed is the hour, that means that the hour is the only thing that matters. That's what's throwing us off our tracks. So, my point here is, that the person or people getting paid are in the same time zone. So this means it's not a huge chain of human trafficking. It's just a small group of people most likely living close together or one person."
"Holy shit! That's a big deal, Dean!" Bela jumped in the air. "There's a reason Henriksen made you senior field agent. He's going to love this."
"It still doesn't tell us much though." Dean countered. "We already knew that it's going down on the east coast. This just tells us to narrow our search."
"Still, this could be really helpful. I'm going to go tell the others." Bela shrugged.
Dean popped his thumb in the base of the marker as the others filed into the room.
"What'd you find, Winchester? I'm not getting any younger waiting for one of you to make some headway on this." Agent Henriksen retorted.
Dean laughed before giving the others the same explanation he gave Bela.
"Job well done." Victor mused. "You really impressed on that one."
"Thank you, sir." Dean nodded.
"On that note, a tip came in from an anonymous source earlier. I was going to tell you about it later, but I think it fits rather well with what you just told us, Agent Winchester." Victor walked up to the front of the room and Dean stepped to the side. "The man said that the trafficker was in a small town in southern Florida. Considering up until now we thought that there were multiple places with multiple people, it would've been a waste of resources to send a much needed agent to a community that may come back with nothing to offer, but now it's different."
"So will you be sending one of us down to Florida then?" Lisa asked.
"Yes, Agent Braeden. I think that since Agent Winchester brought us to this revelation, he should be the one to go. After all, he has devoted so much time to this case and knows the most about it." Henriksen answered. "Are you okay with that, Agent Winchester?"
"Yes, Agent Henriksen. I am." Dean replied.
"Excellent. We can talk in my office and I'll brief you." Victor turned to the rest of the group. "Session dismissed. You may resume your duties."
"So what's the name of the town?" Dean had to increase his pace to keep up with Henriksen.
"Haeven." Victor replied. "Pretty much like heaven, but the a and e are switched."
"Huh?" Dean mused. "Pretty ironic when you think about it. An FBI wanted felon living in a town one letter away from heaven."
"Yeah..." Victor mumbled, entering his office, gesturing for Dean to take a seat. "So when you come into work tomorrow, I'll give you a briefcase with a numerical lock on it of course with all of our case files, a list of all the residents in Haeven, and basic background checks of all of them in a binder. I'll also put an ad out in Haeven for you asking for someone to take you in and let you stay with them for a while. I will also include a fake ID and credit cards for you. The bureau will pay for all expenses on those cards, but as always, the cards will only be used for food, rent, and necessities. Personal items will have to be paid with with your own money. I'll have a jet ready to fly you down first thing tomorrow. Get all that?"
"Yep." Dean smiled. "Can I have the rest of today off to pack and get some extra sleep?"
"Of course." Henriksen nodded.
"See you first thing tomorrow morning then." Dean said, exiting the small room.
Dean slung his bag over his shoulder and pulled on his jacket.
"Leaving so soon?" Charlie smirked. "It's not even lunch."
"Well, as Bela pointed out, I look like shit and need sleep." Dean laughed.
Charlie laughed along with him. "Well she's not completely wrong."
"Shut up." Dean playfully punched her arm.
"Sleep well, princess eyes." Charlie snorted.
"You're just jealous." Dean flipped his invisible hair.
"Of Dean Winchester?" Charlie scoffed. "I would have to be crazy."
Dean rolled his eyes. "See you tomorrow, Charlie."
"See ya!" Charlie sang as Dean climbed into the elevator.
Dean arrived at work and went straight to Victor's office.
Agent Henriksen handed Dean the suitcase. "I'm depending on you, Agent Winchester. You're the best agent I got."
"Thank you, sir." Dean smiled. "I won't let you down. I'll make sure we find that motherfucker soon enough."
"Indeed. Krissy has your ID and credit cards downstairs. She'll get you those and then give you your plane ticket." Henricksen replied.
Dean nodded in understanding and proceeded out of the office.
"How long do you think you're gonna be gone?" Charlie asked, running up to him as he exited.
Dean shrugged. "Don't know. Hopefully not too long. No one wants to catch this son of a bitch more than me."
"I could believe that." Charlie retorted.
"Well that's 'cause it's true." Dean smiled.
"Human trafficking..." Charlie breathed. "Some people are just so twisted."
"I know, right?" Dean snorted, waiting for the elevator.
After a moment, the doors opened. Charlie wrapped her arms around Dean and pulled him in tightly. "Be safe."
"I'm always safe." Dean smirked.
"Love ya." Charlie kissed his cheek softly.
"Love you, too, Charlie." Dean laughed patting her back. "You need to let go of me now. The elevator's about to leave."
"Oh. Right." Charlie chuckled, returning her arms at her sides. "See you then."
"See you then."
Dean got off the elevator and went to Krissy's desk. "Henriksen said you have my ID and stuff."
"Yep. I sure do." Krissy unlocked a cabinet, and pulled out a small stack of plastic rubber banded together. "Here you go, Dean Smith."
"Smith?" Dean scoffed.
"Original, right?" Krissy smiled as Dean picked up the cards.
"Gotta love the FBI." Dean sighed, swapping the license and credit cards with his own. "Hopefully no one gets suspicious of a random guy showing up with a simple name and no job and nothing about his past."
"Yeah." Krissy laughed. "Let's get you to the airport."
"Ugh. I hate planes." Dean groaned.
"We all know that, Dean. You're such a baby." Sam retorted, entering the room and placing a stack of files on Krissy's desk. "Those are the DNA results Alexander put in. Get those to him ASAP."
"Will do." Krissy chided hitting a button on the phone. "Agent Ramirez, Doctor Winchester has dropped off some files for you."
"I got to go. Duty calls, but have fun tanning in the sun around tons of hot babes." Sam remarked.
"Do you know how few people actually live in Haeven? Like 200." Dean snorted. "I'll check their profiles on the plane, though. See if I can score up some hot chicks."
Sam shook his head and laughed. "Well in a town of 200 people, I'd go slow with sleeping around. Don't exhaust your resources too fast."
"Shut up." Dean grinned, picking up his briefcase off the floor and turning to Krissy. "Ready?"
"Yep." Krissy smiled. "Viva Florida."
A/N: I've had this idea for like ever. For those of you who read/reading Party Hard and know that I'm not writing anything for it for two more days, this is why I wrote pretty much. Not writing was killing me since it's something I do everyday, so I ended up succumbing to the forces of the dark arts and starting this. And I swear, more to myself than anyone else, that this will not end up being a long story. I know I said this about Party Hard and it ended up being 110,000+ words. That worked out well, but I'm serious this time. :P This wasn't exactly my best idea, but it was poking me for a while along with one other idea.
