Chapter Eleven

"Design must be proved before
a designer can be inferred."
-Percy Bysshe Shelley

"But you have to be hot."

"I'm not wearing shorts, Jess. Especially not neon red shorts with palm trees on them."

"So you might be open to a different color?"

Sam gave her a withering look, which she completely ignored as she continued browsing through the sales rack.

Jess's own shorts were the result of taking a knife to her more ragged pair of jeans as soon as the temperature stopped dipping below sixty. Her latest mission was to convince Sam to do the same. More because he had so adamantly refused the first time she suggested it, than because she had any real investment in his choice of apparel.

Shopping had grown much more amusing since she realized that it wasn't just the idea of cut-offs he was opposed too, but any kind of shorts at all. Shorts for him anyways; he was nothing but supportive of her desire to wear them.

Middle Tennessee was almost unbearably hot in September. Even up on the Cumberland Plateau, where it was marginally cooler than the surrounding landscape, afternoon temperatures in the high nineties weren't uncommon.

She couldn't believe how fast time was going. They had criss-crossed the country several times in the last few months. From Mystic Seaport to the Everglades, Carlsbad Caverns to Yosemite. Sam flat out refused to do anymore hunting, but he was less opposed to running errands and package pick-up and delivery at Bobby's behest.

Jess had met a wide variety of strange and interesting people, and seen a great deal more of the world than she would have believed she would ever have the chance to just nine short months ago. She had met psychics, and seen magic, and other things both amazing and horrible -and that was just delivering packages. She couldn't imagine what it would be like to be an actual hunter, and found herself not-unhappy that Sam refused to even entertain the idea of taking those kind of jobs.

It was September, and there was still no sign of Dean.

On the plus side, Sam had not suffered another one of his debilitating visions; on the negative side, that left them with nothing to go on but the one vision of the unknown woman.

Bobby had turned up nothing. Word had trickled back from a few sources that they might have lifted a glass with a hunter named Dean in various locations, but it was always days or weeks after the fact. There were never any signs by the time Sam and Jess could get there to check.

Sam had gone through a few weeks of depression as spring turned to summer and they made no progress, but lately he seemed to have grown somewhat resigned, and was taking more pleasure in the freedom of the road again.

Jess had had a bout or two of homesickness, but they were brief, and easily curable by calling her parents for a few minutes. They still weren't thrilled with the situation, but at least seemed to have accepted the fact that she wasn't heading back to California to take up her organized middle-class life anytime soon. She was suspicious that they had increased their life-insurance policy on her from the "just enough for a funeral" class to the "…and console our grief with a year-long cruise" bracket.

Sam seemed to find that endlessly amusing.

"I'm going next door to the Post Office," he called. "Do we need anything but stamps?"

"I don't think so. But hold up a sec, I'll come with you." Jess replaced the shirt she had been examining on the rack and followed Sam back out onto the street.

The tiny brick post office was almost empty. Sam browsed around looking at posters and stamp displays while Jess stood in the short line.

The teller called her up in less than five minutes.

"What can I help you with today?" The woman seemed bored, but friendly.

"Just stamps, I think."

"How many?"

"Ah ...hang on." She looked around for Sam and saw him standing at the end of the counter examining a cork board with some flyers tacked up on it. "Sam! How many stamps?"

He didn't answer her. Jess held up one finger to the woman behind the counter and went to grab Sam's shoulder.

"Sam, how many stamps?"

He turned to face her, one of the flyers from the board in his hands, expression fierce. "It's her."

"It's who?" Sam shook his head impatiently at her question and looked past her towards the woman at the counter. "Can I take this?" he asked loudly, but didn't wait for a reply from the confused looking attendant. "I'm just going to take this, ah... Have a nice day!"

Sam grabbed Jess's arm and dragged her out while the woman at the counter was still looking bemused.

"Look. Look!" He shoved the black and white missing flyer into Jess's hands. "It's her, Jordan Black. The woman from my vision."

Jess stopped walking and stared at the paper. "The one with Dean?"

"Yes," Sam hissed, grabbing her again and pulling her down the street. He was looking over his shoulder like he expected the postal clerk to come running out at any moment demanding the poorly photocopied missing-person flyer back.

They ducked into a small diner on the corner and asked for a booth in the back.

The paper showed a petite woman with a snub nose, short curls, and a lively smile sitting on a porch swing. The background as far as could be made out in the poor quality of the copy job was generic trees, and could be anywhere. The lettering below the picture read:

Jordan Black
5'7
Caucasian
Brown Hair
Blue Eyes
DOB: 7/7/88
Missing Since: 6/15/09 from Franklin, Tennessee
Last Seen Wearing: Purple T-Shirt, Jeans
If you have information please call:

But the piece of paper where the contact information should have been was ripped off.

Jess ran her finger over the tear in frustration. "What now?"

Sam motioned the waitress over. "Excuse me, how far away is Franklin from here?"

"Only about thirty minutes or so." She noticed the flyer. "Oh, that poor girl. Did you know her?"

Sam cast Jess a look, then turned to face the waitress directly. "Her parents knew my parents, we kind of grew up together, but we haven't been in touch in so long... I didn't even know she was missing."

"That must have been a real shock to see that flyer."

"It was, it really was," Sam said fervently. "Can you tell me anything about it?"

"Not much to tell, sweetie; just what was on the local news. Been a few months now, but I think she just vanished in the middle of the night." She looked away, distracted by another customer. "Looks like another table. Did you guys want to order anything before I go?"

"Ah, no. Thanks. Not right now."

"You all have a good rest of the day, then."

Jess waited until she was gone, then leaned in. "Thirty minutes away? Nine months on the road, then out of the blue you see her face on some random flyer, and she's thirty minutes away?"

"We don't know yet, Jess. She vanished from Franklin. No way of knowing where she is now."

"No," Jess agreed, sliding out of the booth and grabbing her purse. "But we know where to start looking."