Dean and Elizabeth sit at a table outside a café, him looking for a case on Sam's laptop and her talking to her niece on the phone while Sam is at a payphone asking around about John. The three year old has been a brat for the past two hours, so Tanya has called to see if Elizabeth can make her behave somehow.

"Lilly," Elizabeth scolds," be nice to your cousin 'cause he'll be bigger than you before you know it. Besides if you keep being mean I won't take you out for ice cream the next time I come to visit." That threat has the desired effect she's looking for, Lilly immediately beginning to apologize. "Alright, I have to go. I love you, Lillybug."

"Love you too, Aunt Sissy!" She ends the call and lays her phone down on the table, still smiling at her niece's behavior. The kid is too much like Elizabeth for her own good sometimes and it'll drive Tanya and Darren crazy one of these days.

"So, how's the little one," Dean asks, taking a drink of his coffee.

"She's... Lilly." Elizabeth looks back down at her phone, contemplating whether or not to call Zane and ask him what else he's found out in the Mary Worthington case when Dean yells over to Sam.

"Your half-caf Double Vanilla Latte is getting cold over here, Francis!" Sam rejoins them at the table with a sour expression, sitting in the chair across from Elizabeth. "I take it you got nothing."

"I told them to check everything I could think of," Sam says, frustration bleeding into his tone. "I even made them run Dad's plates for violations." Elizabeth sighs and rests her forehead on her arms, shielding her face from the bright sunlight. She'd been up most of the night due to cramps and she'd love nothing more than to take some strong painkillers and sleep. "Dad just doesn't want to be found."

"Check this out." Dean shakes her shoulder to get her attention and she grunts to show she's listening, though she doesn't move. "I got a news item out of the Plains Courier in Ankeny Iowa, only about a hundred miles from here."

"Mutilated body was found near the victim's car, parked on nine-mile road," Sam reads aloud, sounding more than a little disinterested. "Authorities are unable to provide a realistic description of the killer. The soul eyewitness is quoted as saying 'the killer was invisible.'"

"Could be something interesting."

"Or the witness could be in shock and trying to block it all out," Elizabeth points out, finally sitting up again to take a drink of her coffee. "There's no way you can be absolutely positive that the so-called witness wasn't even involved in the whole thing." Dean scowls, shaking his head at her.

"But what if it's the real-deal, you know, our department?" Elizabeth purses her lips, thinking on that for a moment. "Huh, you gonna take that bet or you gonna wuss out on me, Liza? If I'm right, then you and I try out that position I read about a few days ago." It's the smirk that makes her decision, willing to take any bet that means wiping it off Dean's face.

"If I'm right, then you have to take me shopping with no complaints."

"Sounds like a deal." They shake hands, binding the contract. "Remember, there's no backing out now." His eyebrows scrunch together, looking Elizabeth over. "You okay? You're lookin' a little pale."

"Don't be getting soft on me yet, Dean."

It's almost two hours before they arrive at the frat house the victim had lived in, Elizabeth not sitting up until she can't feel the rumble of the engine anymore. They'd been mostly silent during the drive, Sam and Dean probably worrying about their dad while Elizabeth napped in the backseat as the Ibuprofen kicked in.

"I don't suppose I can stay in the car," she asks, trying to smooth her hair down as well as she can.

"Not with horny frat guys around," Dean confirms. Elizabeth sighs, opening her door and getting out, making sure to stay close to the guys.

"Any particular reason you decided to crash at a frat house," Sam asks, looking around at the men that seem to swarm the grounds. It looks like your typical college experience, something out of a movie aimed at pre-teen boys where girls always go around topless and there are no rules to follow.

"Our victim lived here." Dean leads the way over to where three guys are working on a car, the hood propped open and their hands filthy with grease. "Nice wheels." The men look up and Elizabeth isn't sure if they're just not pleased to see them or if they're squinting because of the sunlight. Either way, they look like they're ready to throw a punch at a moment's notice. "We're your fraternity brothers from Ohio and this is my girlfriend." He pulls Elizabeth up to the front between him and Sam, one arm wrapped loosely around her waist. "We just got here and we're lookin' for a place to stay." The three guys smirk at each other, Elizabeth and Sam sharing an apprehensive look.

Great, we're gonna be stuck with the weird guy no one wants to be around.

"Go on up the stairs inside," the shorter one holding a banana instructs. "Look for the door that has a Purple Man poster on it." Dean nods his thanks and starts inside, the other two walking a little fast to catch up as they start up the stairs.

"So, how weird do you think this guy's gonna be," Elizabeth asks in a hushed voice. Sam shakes his head with a smile on his face at the question. "Come on, do you actually think those douches are gonna give you a room without someone that wouldn't make you want to pull out your hair?" As she finishes talking, they reach their destination and she gets an eyeful of a skinny college kid painting the top half of his body a dark purple. "Oh..." She's unable to say anything else, her jaw resting on the floor. Sam notices and uses his index finger to close her mouth, patting her shoulder gently.

This was worse than I thought and that's pretty bad because my thoughts are warped.

"Who are you," he asks, ignoring the obvious look of shock on Elizabeth's face. Dean clears his throat, hiding most of his discomfort a lot better than his friend is.

"We're your new roommates," he says with a slight smile, walking into the room. Why the hell would you paint yourself purple? Kids these days are getting dumber and dumber by the generation. Oh God, she's starting to sound like Bobby.

"Do me a favor and get my back. There's a big game today." Sam and Elizabeth look at each other before looking at that guy again, feeling more uncomfortable than they thought possible. Spirits and monsters she understands, but it's the supposedly normal people that can deliver the real shocks.

"They're the artists." Dean points over his shoulder at the other two, ignoring Elizabeth's glare with ease. She takes the bucket of paint and lets Sammy have the honor of painting the idiot while Dean makes himself comfortable in a chair, flipping through a random magazine that had been lying on the floor. "So…" He looks to the subscription sticker on the front. "…Murph, is it true?"

"What do you mean?"

"We heard one of the guys from here got killed last week." Murph's cheeriness seems to drain out of him at the mention of the murder, narrow shoulders slumping forward.

"Yeah, that's true." It's obvious he doesn't want to talk about it, but to get answers they have to get a bit pushy sometimes.

"What exactly happened to him," Sam asks, dipping the paintbrush into the bucket Elizabeth holds.

"They're saying some psycho with a knife, maybe a drifter passing through. Rich was a good guy." Have you ever noticed that when someone dies, even if they were a complete douche, at least one person says they were a good person? I mean, yeah, it's rude to speak ill of the dead, but not everyone was Mother Teresa.

"We also heard he was with someone." Murph gets his happiness back in a snap, a grin lighting up his face.

"Not just someone, he was with Lori Sorenson."

"Is she campus royalty or something," Dean asks. His attention shifts from the magazine to Murph's lower back, nodding towards it with an arched brow. "By the way, Sammy, you missed a spot there." Sam gives him a glare that can even rival the one Elizabeth is sending his way. Dean's smirk doesn't last long, Elizabeth stealing the paint brush just long enough to splatter some of the purple paint on Dean before handing it back. The shocked expression on Dean's face is priceless, making her wish more than anything that she had a camera.

"Uh, Lori's a freshman," Murph says, grabbing a towel off the edge of his desk and throwing it to Dean. "She's a local and super hot. Best of all, she's a reverend's daughter, so she's like forbidden fruit." Dean leans forward in his seat, interest officially captured and the paint on his jacket forgotten.

"You wouldn't happen to know which church, would ya?"