Dad would be so proud.
Enough reminiscing.
Room 112. I memorized the building blueprints. East wing, second door on the right. A quick in and out.
Sounds echo through the hallway.
Paper shuffling. Plastic clacking against a desk. Murmurs.
My gun’s in my hand before I can blink. The familiar weight comforts me. Pressing against the wall, I strain my ears.
More rustling.
Custodian?
No, the janitorial staff clocks out at six. It’s almost seven. The principal? Admin leaves at four thirty.
I creep closer, my eyes focused on the harsh, unnatural light spilling down the corridor. When I reach the corner, I peek around the edge.
Several classroom doors open to the hallway. More voices.
My mind spins. Staff meeting? School event? Nothing in the prep material I received suggested any events this evening.
Someone’s getting a fist to the face once I return home.
Holstering the gun, I peer down the hallway, jaw tight as my perfect plan collapses.
Leave? Or stay?
People aren’t just an inconvenience. Their presence changes the rules. I can’t search the classroom freely the way I intended. My stomach knots from the loss of control. For the first time in years, I find myself unprepared.
Unacceptable!
Whatever the cause, I’ve got to adapt.
As I consider my options, I straighten the suit jacket tailored to cover the gun at my ribs and run my hand over my jaw. The sign on the correct door reads,Miss Davidson’s Kindergarten, cut from construction paper and dusted with glitter.
As I approach, my mind cycles through contingencies. If it’s occupied, I can walk right past. Retreat and reevaluate. But first, I need eyes on the target.
I sweep the room. Small tables. Tiny chairs. Walls plastered with…art? A reading corner. Low shelves. Everything built for bodies a third my size.
A woman stands in the center.
File lists Chloe D. as twenty-three, with brown hair, brown eyes, a petite build, no tattoos, and no scars. This could be her.
Her back’s to me as she hangs a banner across the whiteboard that announces, in rainbow letters,Kindergarten Parent-Teacher Night!She wears a dress with cartoon apples, red on blue. Not too fitted, though I sense a nice body hiding beneath the absurd pattern.
She doesn’t fit any criminal profile. No tension. No wariness. Just a young woman prepping her classroom while humming and dancing.
When she spins around, her brown eyes jump up to meet mine, as if she hadn’t anticipated an adult in her doorway.
Those eyes animate at the sight of me. My mind stills. My breathing slows. The charged air fizzes around me.
Alive.
Her beauty far exceeds the photo displayed on the copy of her driver’s license.
She doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who’s hiding millions in diamonds.
