By Lincoln Reed
Sara centers the crosshairs on the blonde’s skull. The unsuspecting woman wearing a blue sundress drinks from a teacup, her face shadowed by the café table’s umbrella.
A hundred yards away, hunkered atop the roof of an abandoned warehouse, Sara finesses the scope’s elevation and windage with a smooth efficiency earned by months of practice. Below, the city produces an occasional pedestrian and passing vehicle while the empty boulevard remains trapped in the simmering quiet before the morning rush. Within the next five minutes, a train will roar past on a bridge overlooking the café, masking the rifle’s echoing boom. Sara will disassemble her weapon and flee the scene before the train’s ambiance decays across the unsuspecting neighborhood.
Her right index finger caresses the trigger. With a simple exhale and a smooth squeeze, the blonde’s brain will paint the café’s foggy windows.
A man slides into a seat across from the blonde. Sara swivels the scope, but the newcomer ducks below the umbrella before she can glue the crosshairs to his face.
Sara pans the scope from the man’s dress shoes, past his slacks, and locks the crosshairs between the knuckles of his ring finger. A silver Rolex decorates the man’s wrist. The $10,000 kind. A totem worn to either impress his date or distract from the tan line suggestive of an abandoned wedding ring.
Sara shifts the scope up the man’s arm, crawling over the rolled-up sleeve of a gray, wool sweater. The weave is in a fisherman’s style, not unlike the kind she spent hours knitting for him last year. The same sweater he wore this morning when he left for work.
Sara inches the sight up the man’s arm, hunting his face. When he leans back in his chair, Sara moves the sight onto his neck where a birthmark stains his skin like an ink dot.
Whenever he leaves for his job across town, she kisses Tom on the neck, fortressing her red lipstick around his birthmark. Claiming her territory, she’d said, so the world knows he’s taken. But now, he sits at the café, any trace of her kiss erased.
Tom. The thought of him tremors through her bones. After seventeen years of marriage?
Tom. After supporting his career, moving to a new state away from her friends and family. He’s all she has, and this is how he repays her?
Tom. Her Tom? Having a nine-month affair?
This blonde woman. Who does she think she is?
Tom. Sara gave her heart to him, her life, her trust, and for what? Him sneaking around behind her back? Does he think she’s stupid? What about their vows?
Sara pivots the scope seven inches above the blonde’s shoulders. Right through the temple. She won’t feel a thing.
But Tom? Sarah grins. What can a good wife do about a husband like Tom?
***
Hours later, after the evening rush, Tom arrives home, opens the front door, and slinks inside.
“Tom?” From the kitchen, Sara withdraws a pan of lasagna from the oven. “That you?”
“Yeah. It’s me.”
“You’re home late.”
Tom saunters into the kitchen, playing cool. “Not hungry. Going to turn in.”
“Oh? Everything okay?”
“Yeah, just tired.” Tom scratches at the stiff collar of a wrinkle-folded dress shirt, something he must have bought after the blonde’s blood splattered his sweater. “Just another day at the office. Emails. Meetings that should’ve been emails.”
Sara opens a bottle of wine and pours two glasses. “What happened to your wool sweater?”
“Oh, that. Uh, yeah. Ketchup stain from lunch. It’s at the dry cleaners.”
“You should’ve brought it home. I could’ve gotten it out.” Sara sashays toward him, holding the glasses of wine.
“I’ve got a headache, really. Going to bed.”
“Wait.” She models her blue sundress. “Don’t you like it?”
Tom blinks, squints. “What?”
Sara gifts him the glass and smooths the fabric on her new dress. “Just got it this afternoon. I was out this morning and saw one just like it. I thought to myself how great it looked next to your gray sweater.”
Tom raises the glass to his lips. Stops.
“Well?” she tilts her head, imagining the frantic questions running through his mind. “Don’t you like it?”
Tom grunts. “Sure. It’s nice.”
Sara taps her glass to his. “My mother said it would never work out.”
Tom’s eyebrows narrow.
Sara smells her wine glass, relishing the aroma. “The sweater. She never thought I would see it through to the end.”
Tom sets his glass on the kitchen counter and starts for the stairs.
“Oh, Tom? A Detective Watts called while you were out.”
Tom pauses. Peeks over his shoulder.
Sara swirls the wine in her glass, enjoying the moment. “He said you might be home late helping with an investigation. Something about an incident at a café this morning? I said that couldn’t be since you were at work. Probably a spam call.”
“Yeah.” Tom massages his forehead. “They’re getting creative, aren’t they?”
“So hard to know who to trust these days.” Sara unsheathes a knife from a butcher’s block. “You sure you aren’t hungry?”
“Sara?” Tom shifts from one foot to the other. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
She cuts into the lasagna. “Oh, honey, you know there’s nothing you can say or do that would make me stop loving you.” Sara moves toward him, knife in hand. “When the preacher asked if I would stick with you until death, I meant every word.” She caresses his face, gazing into his eyes. “I’m not going to let anything come between us.”
She moves her lips toward his ear. “Does it look better on her or me?”
Tom fidgets. Sara presses the knife against his throat, but not enough to break the skin. “Where’s your ring?”
Tom grinds his teeth.
Sara plants her lips on his neck, fortressing her ruby red lipstick around his birthmark. “Next time there’s blood on your sweater, it’ll be yours.”
She eases back the knife, smiles. “Hungry?”
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“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”…and Sara proves it!
This grabbed me right from the beginning and didn’t let go. Excellent work!
Great use of language. “Emails. Meetings that should have been emails.”
tldr; lady who treats the commandments as suggestions get mad when her husband treats the commandments as suggestions.