Accused Criminal

Lana rolled out of bed quickly. She felt limber and young, unaffected by the injuries her body was still attempting to heal. Then the cold struck her, followed by the pain and soreness.

Howard wasn’t in the bed, which she quickly realized. She was probably alone in the house, which meant Howard could have already called Shannon, and he could have someone on the way to kill her.
The boot on her leg hobbled her walking a little, but she moved swiftly enough to get dressed and rush out of the house within five minutes of waking up.

If someone was being sent to the house, she wasn’t safe there, but as she rushed outside into the winter Lana had a sudden image of being snatched up outside the grocery store. Inside the house wasn’t safe. Outside the house wasn’t safe. She weighed the danger of staying tucked away in the house, maybe hiding in the closet in Cameron’s room until she heard Howard and Cameron return home.

Outside, after she considered both options, was safer. There were more places she could hide and Lana could hide among the masses.

She decided to go to lunch, hoping she could keep food in her nervous stomach.

Rushing back inside, Lana snatched up her purse, made sure that her wallet was still inside, and then she ran back outside. She opted for walking to a local café. That way, if someone came to the house, they would see her car and hopefully assume that she was still home. Then, perhaps, her house would be on the evening news: headline reading “HOUSE SET FIRE BY UNKNOWN PRYROMANIAC”.

With a boot on, walking briskly through the snow was a challenge. She staggered a few times but made it to the café in fifteen minutes.

Little green umbrellas where coated in white splotches, and the metal chairs which circled the tables beneath the umbrellas wore a matching coat of snow. No one sat outside during winter.

A short little man jumped through the door in front of her, the bell hooked to the top of the door jingling.

Lana kept some distance between herself and the man even as they stood in line. After she ordered a coffee and muffin at the front counter, Lana took her number and searched for an open table apart from the already taken ones so that she would be able to keep an eye on everyone in the café.

There were a handful of open tables. Most of them were nestled between tables other people were already seated at, but there was one table at the edge of the café. A dull light hung above the round table, casting shadows from the menu and napkin holder.

She slid into the black chair, nearly topping out of it when the chair tilted to the right beneath her weight. Steady, she placed the number the server had given her onto the table’s edge, and then darted her eyes about the room.

A couple held hands near the middle of the room, and at the table beside the pair was the little man who had been in line in front of Lana. Closer to Lana was a woman in a business suit sipping coffee and typing on a laptop which her eyes were glued to.

“Mr. Andrews,” she caught a man speaking on the phone as he moved to a table near the front of the room. “Mr. Andrews I assure you that this will be taken care of.” She had never seen this man before, but a sixth sense warned her that he was dangerous. Dressed in a long heavy black coat, his shoulders where dusted with snow. A red tie peaked out from the collar and he pressed a small black phone to his ear and spoke in a low voice. “I’ll have a man there tomorrow. She won’t be a problem any longer. No mistakes this time. No beginners.”

Her heart fell into the pit of her stomach and Lana went stiff. As she tried to breath regularly, she studied the man. She was sure that she had never seen him before and his round face was completely unknown to her memory. The next twenty minutes where spent getting to know him.

Lana studied the thick jaw which was clean shaven and the fine eyebrows that sat above two sharp eyes. He was bald, with no sign of hair growing in. Tiny ears sat on either side of his head and the man had high cheekbones. The snow melted into his jacket quickly, and the black coat appeared to be a thick armor. A coffee sat in front of the man, untouched, until a short man with blonde hair and a strange tattoo on the side of his neck sat down at the table. Then he grimaced, sipped the coffee and nodded once.

With his back to her, Lana could not see his face or study more than the hunch of his shoulders, so, she returned to the larger man. His eyes, small and close to his nose, appeared black from the distance that she sat, but could have been brown.

They talked in low voices, using nearly no facial expressions or hand motions, and then the short man stood and left. The larger man stayed seated long enough to finish his coffee, and then he rose, smiled at Lana and steppe back out into the snow.

Yes, he smiled at her. There was eye contact which lasted only a second, but long enough to establish she had been seen.

This was the man trying to kill her… well the man her husband was sending to kill her.

If her heart was already in her stomach, it fell to her feet and terror took over. She was no longer safe in the café. At any moment, she felt, the room could explode, killing her, the business woman, and the couple holding hands near the door in addition to the other patrons.

Lana stood and hobbled out of the café, back onto the snowy side walk and shivered. She was a dead woman walking.