Net Knots Chapter 12, a supernatural fanfic

Disclaimer etc, see Chapter 1

NET KNOTS

Chapter 12

"I thought you'd appreciate that one," Sam grinned. "The lady was an administrator at the County Courthouse and got suspicious when her fiancé, a.k.a. the County Treasurer, bought her an expensive engagement ring with cash and wouldn't pin down to a wedding date. She found out about his oblivious wife and three kids and realised the engagement ring was just a ploy to keep her legs open until he moved on to a younger model."

Dean shook his head; for all his licentious ways he was never anything but open and upfront in his dealings with women and practised what was probably a close thing to serial monogamy. He had never been unfaithful to a woman he was 'with' and would never have had even a fleeting thought of deceiving her into continuing what she believed to be a genuine relationship just so he could continue to get sex by so cruel and heartless a method as buying what she thought was a genuine engagement ring.

"She would have done No Such Agency proud – she didn't let on a thing." Sam explained, "Once she'd secured herself a higher-paying job in another State, she wreaked quiet havoc with the records before giving a searing exposé to the local newspaper on the day she left town."

"Go, girl." Dean approved.

"He was responsible for the council's finances so she shredded a little here, misfiled a little there, and so forth, and also set the computers up to highlight all those areas where he'd - "

Dean snorted, "let me guess, done a little creative accounting?"

"Bang on the nail."

"Not a great surprise. Like the Gospel says, a man faithful in what is least will be faithful in what is great, but a man faithless in what is least is faithless in much."

"Scripture, from you?" Sam raised his eyebrows.

Dean shrugged, "Saint Luke wasn't writing anything other than basic common sense; a guy who can betray someone he's publicly promised to love and cherish is probably going to be just as dishonourable and corrupt in other areas than sex as well – especially in private when he thinks nobody's around to watch him slipping his fingers into the cash till."

Sam blinked but put aside for solitary meditation his surprise that Dean had not only been able to recite the biblical quote but even knew where in the Bible and by whom it had been written. Instead he related, "Right again - turned out that the guy had pulled the same M.O. before twice, with women who believed he was their fiancé until he spotted a younger, prettier target. He's now divorced, unemployed, flat broke after his previous victims sued him for psychological distress and under investigation by the IRS for tax fraud and embezzlement, which will take forever because for some reason the County Courthouse either doesn't have or can't find half its paperwork."

"Sounds like my kind of woman." Dean smiled. "So, I fill in the retroactive permits like an upstanding citizen trying to help out those beleaguered bastions of bureaucracy and from now on I don't break a sweat when a cop spots me with my Glock-17 tucked into the back of my waistband?"

"That's the tune." Sam gestured towards the laptop, where the screensaver was lazily spinning. "And now the website is up and running I'm going to design us a nicely officious ID with a big gold badge like a hog's head and a fancy coat-of-arms and Samuel J. Winchester Federal Investigator in big letters…"

"…and 'paranormal and supernatural' in veeeh-ree tiny print right at the bottom," surmised Dean.

"Yep. That way we can junk our glove box's unique card collection and whoever pulls us over can forensically swab down the trunk or glove box to their hearts content."

"But what it someone actually reads it?" Dean pointed out.

It was Sam's turn to shrug carelessly. "What if they do? I looked up some stuff on eBay and Amazon, and people are selling relics and bits of stuff that are supposedly haunted, cursed or otherwise supernatural for hundreds of dollars on a daily basis. I mean, it's only the same reason that you can find 'Psychics' listed in the phone book for pity's sake - people will believe it's as real as they want it to be. As far as officialdom goes, we have a legit website, we pay our taxes and have no customer complaints, so as long as Uncle Sam gets his tax dollars out of us, who are they to object?"

Continued in Chapter 13…