Page 64 of Dark Side of the Cloth

“No, I don’t want you to leave. I… I’m just confused, and I don’t know how to feel about—well, you know,” she told him honestly. “Why do you smell like cinnamon?” she asked as the wonderful aroma hit her. She sniffed the air again and sighed.

“I brought this as a peace offering in case I needed it.” Dean pulled a white bag out from beneath his robes and slid it across the table.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“If you think it is Mabel’s fresh cinnamon buns, then you would be correct.” He gave her a wink as she grabbed the bag and moaned at the sight of the sticky goodness.

“Thank you. These are the best.”

“I know that what I do would be hard for most people to accept, but maybe this will help you make up your mind. If you choose never to see me again, I will leave town. Of course, I hope that’s not the case.”

Dean pushed the thick folder on the table over to her. He stared at it like he was unsure if he should show it to her and then removed his hands from the top.

“What is this?”

“This is every person I have punished or am in the process of researching since I completed my overseas tours of duty and joined The Righteous. Each one was a terrible person, like the man that hurt your sister. I make sure that my information is thorough and accurate before I ever decide their punishment for their crime..”

“I don’t know if I want to see this.”

“That’s your choice, but I want you to understand who I am. I have also included a file on my father and some of what was done to me. I don’t like to talk about it, but…” Dean stopped talking and looked away from her eyes.

“Who is The Righteous? I thought it was a term you used to talk about those higher up in the church, but I know now that is not what you mean. So who or what are they?”

“They are who I work for. They’re a secret organization that was a sidearm to the government for a long time. Now they are the same group, but we work behind the scenes of the law to deal with those that have skirted the legal system or hide from it completely.”

“So there are more of you out there doing what you do?”

“Yes. I don’t know exactly how many, but we are many. Only those that are elite in their field are chosen, and we are all given a new cover.”

“This is a lot to take in.” Yasmine rubbed her face, her mind reeling.

Dean reached across the table and opened his palms for her. She took the invitation and placed her hands in his.

“I want a future with you. If you can live with what I must and am sworn to do, then I’ll make it possible for us. I meant what I said, Yasmine. I’m in love with you.”

She couldn’t believe what he was saying. Dean stood and was gone before she could form a sentence. She took a steadying breath. He loved her, and he wanted a life with her. Could she live with a murderer, with a Righteous killer?

Her hands shook as she opened the folder and began to read. Simon Harris: that was the name of the man that took Raquel from this world. Photographs of videotapes, the car, and DNA evidence were all neatly labeled. She chewed her bottom lip, took a sip of her coffee, and settled in to learn what it truly meant if she stayed with Dean.

While Whitney was at work, so was Dean. He’d managed to acquire all he needed relatively easily—getting all the items hidden close enough to her backyard had been a little trickier.

He sat in the nearby brush that led down to the conservation park, binoculars in hand. He’d already had Sexy hack her calendar and knew she would be gone until this evening. It gave him ample time to set up his trap. The silver sedan backed out of the driveway, and he watched it disappear down the street. Dean waited an extra twenty minutes to make sure she wasn’t going to turn around because she forgot something before making his move.

Using the tree area as cover, he ran for the back of her house and the hidden supplies. It took more time than he would have liked, but making sure not to be seen was more important.

Same as last time, he disabled the security and made his way to the basement, and nothing had changed. That was a good sign. The first task was to get into the safe. With all of his tools and some extra instruction from Morry, he knelt and attacked the large safe. He wiped his brow as the last of the locking mechanism gave way almost thirty minutes later.

He really needed to get better at this.

With a twist and a pull, the door swung open, and the corner of his mouth curled up. Whitney did indeed have an escape plan, but she was also a collector. Upon the top shelf sat little vials with an assortment of tiny keepsakes, each with either a ring or another piece of jewelry and a small lock of hair. Leaving the vials, he grabbed the thick folders, each one labeled with a number.

He opened the first, and a wedding photo of Whitney when she was much younger smiled back at him. He flicked through the papers until he found the death certificate he expected to find—the bold letters stating that the death had been a widowmaker heart attack. The second folder was the same and the third. The fourth husband was when she moved to this town, and she happened to pick a man that wasn’t involved with the community, didn’t have any friends or family left living, and worked at a dead-end job. What did this add up to for her? A man that wouldn’t be missed. She had some random people that were not her husbands, but it was clear what she was.

Dean looked over to the tank of black widow spiders she kept—fitting.

He stuffed the files into his pack and went on the hunt for what he needed next. In the back of her house, he noticed she had large panes of glass that looked like materials to build a greenhouse. He slowly pulled the first of them out of the corner and smiled.

Yes, these would work perfectly.