I hate trying this shit with careful people. You’d think she’d mess up at least once. Forgot a window open. Miss locking the door once. Just once. But no. Not my luck I guess. Wouldn’t be one of my jobs if it went right, would it? Either way, times running up for her and me.
My shoes softly thudded along the cobblestone path leading to house. It was a big house. I walked around it at least thrice by now. The windows lining the bottom floor looked into the lounge, kitchen and sun room, of course. She was paranoid. Never leaving a window unlocked. Annoyingly so. I doubt she expected that all this effort would honestly work.
While, windows would be fantastic to clamber into, the door will have to do. I grabbed the cold bronze hand and lightly jiggled it. Locked. Should’ve expected that. This woman is too paranoid. My lock picks would have to do. Leaning slightly against the worn wood, I fished the small black fold-out lock pick set from my pocket.
I flicked through the options. I felt fancy that day. Why rake the lock? The lock anyhow, was pretty cheap. Clearly not on par with the rest of her more paranoid tendencies. The pins were set disappointingly fast and I was past the front door before much else went on.
The house was cold. Marble counter tops in the kitchen. Pure white covering most of the walls. A neat grey carpet running up to the staircase. Itself made of dark wood and a glass railing. It looked almost like a show house. Aside from the odd photo hanging on the wall. Nothing that particularly caught my eye. I suppose it was a good thing that I was heading up. The grey carpet would’ve soaked up too much blood from me to clean.
The kitchen had spare knives. One rather nice silver steak knife about a few inches long and a reasonable weight. Rather thick blade too. Not to my taste of course, but any roughly sharpened piece of metal would do just fine. At least, fine enough. It would have had to do.
And so I headed up. Up the creaky wooden stairs and too the one room with a closed door. I clenched the steak knife to my chest. Through the keyhole I couldn’t make out much. A bed, yes. Some figure smothered under the blankets. A pair of windows on either side of the bed, which would be a problem for me. A side table and so on. Nothing quite odd.
I nudged the door open and rushed into the room. The figure lurched, throwing the blankets up. Not fast enough. I grabbed onto her, covering her mouth with my hand and presses the knife to her throat. Her brown eyes widened and fixed onto mine.
“Hey, shush. Let’s not scream, okay?”
She nodded and I stepped back. Her breath was shaky. Her voice came out in a weak and soft whisper.
“W-why are you doing this?”
I leaned a bit closer. A grin pulling at my lips.
“Lisa Smithson, right?”
Her eyes darted between the knife and mine before she nodded.
“Look, you pissed of some really well paying people. So, if you could kindly help me out here?”
My hand grasped onto her arm. Her skin still warm from the bed. I pulled her to her feet. She quickly tugged back before bam. Job done.
Jacob rolled his eyes as I wound down from the tale. He leaned back in his chair.
“You’re bull shitting me?”
My jaw set. I sat up more straight before sighing.
“Maybe. I did get the job done.”
“Not the way you said. For one you can’t pick locks that well.”
“I can!”
Jacob narrowed his eyes at me. His green gaze fixed on my awkward shifting.
“Not... Always. On those cheap front door locks, yes.”
“Yeah, sure. I believe you.”
I thought it better to take a swig of my drink. Some overly sweet hot chocolate with marshmallow. Perhaps, I should cut out these hot chocolate drinks. Would save me a lot in the long run.
“You can’t fool me, Mike.”
“Fuck you, Jacob.”
A soft bubbly laugh sounded out from Jacob’s side.
“So, how did it actually go down?”
I’d hardly get out of this. Not without satisfying Jacob’s teasing. I took a deep breath.
“The house was, large, yes but nothing special. The usual sub-urban house. White picket fence, locked windows and doors. While, the front door was locked, I managed to quickly rake the lock. It was cheap and I slipped into the house.
I forget my knife, so I had to improvise. I stole a knife, a rather nice one, from the kitchen. I than headed up to the top flight of stairs and ta da. Job done.”
An annoying moment passed before Jacob cackled. His large hand landed on my shoulder as he kept laughing.
“Okay, enough.”
“You forgot your knife?”
I focused back onto the mug of hot chocolate. Not wanting to have to see Jacobs grinning face.
“World class assassin here.”
“You got locked in your car one time.”
Jacob went a slight red as she laughter died down.
“Low blow.”
“All is fair in love and war.”
Jacob rolled his eyes and glanced off to some other direction.
“I wish you were adopted.”