Alice

A small coffee table sat inside a pale blue room with white trim. A pink, lacey paper table cloth lay slanted across the table, with a small tea set placed for a party of four. In strolled in a blonde little girl, dressed up in a pair of new, white Velcro dress shoes, a white party dress with white gloves , and a blue headband pulling her bangs away from her green eyes. She had a white rabbit, dressed in a tux, tucked under her right arm, and a purple and blue cat tucked under her left arm.
She put the cat in the chair to her right, and then the rabbit to her left. She sighed, intertwined her fingers, and glanced at the empty chair across from her. “Tyler!” The eight year old shouted, running out of the room and down the hall. She closed her hand into a fist and beat twice on the old oak door. She tapped her foot impatiently , because at six a full minute is quite a long time.
Tyler smiled to himself, looking at his reflection. It had been a while since the last time he had played with his little sister. The eighteen year old felt quite guilty for leaving for college in less than a week – especially with Mom and Frank fighting like this. He was trying to cheer Alice up by having a Disney movie marathon, but they only got to the end of the Unbirthday song in Alice in Wonderland when she jumped up and wanted to have a tea party of her very own. So that is where they were. His dress for the party was a pair of black Vans, loose dark blue jeans, his printed on tux t-shirt, and a black dress jacket. He ran his hand through his hair and placed a black top hat with silver trim on top of his head.
“Coming, Alice!” He shouted, taking one more glance at himself in the mirror. He took his cell phone out of his pocket and set it on the bed. No interruptions for him today. “Ta-da!” he sang opening his door and bowing before Alice.
She squealed and clapped rapidly before grabbing two of his fingers in one of her small, gloved hands, and dragged him to her bedroom. When they reached the room, Alice pointed to the seat on the far side of the table. “You sit between Mr. Fluffbottom and Chess.”
Tyler slowly raised his eyebrow to the names of the toys, but nodded in agreement and walked carefully toward the other side.
~
The glass of scotch was cold against his fingertips, but he did not move to set it down. He watched carefully out the tented black windows of the Mercedes parked two houses down from the tan, stone house on the corner of Labyrinth and Games Street.
He lifted the glass to his lips and took a quiet sip, never moving his gaze. He then turned his attention to the bald, muscular man that sat across from him in a cheap blue suit with shiny black shoes. “Are you sure that he is gone.”
“We have checked and rechecked, sir. The only humans in that house are the boy of eighteen and the girl of eight. We are taking the boy as payment. It should have both pull on both the spouse and Mr. Brooks, even though the boy is not genetically related to him.”
“Good,” the man said, taking another sip of his drink. “Let’s go ahead and take care of this.”
The bald man nodded, pressing a button on the disposable cell phone in his hand, giving the order to the assassin. Frank Brooks had passed the deadline.