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Steffie In Pink

Such a pretty pink house. Such a pretty house. Such a pink house. Steffie felt uncharacteristically uneasy being in such a conspicuous structure, except that all the houses around were conspicuous. Such a pretty emerald house on one side, such a pretty cerulean house on the other, pretty lemon and ochre and lavender and pale indigo houses all around. Because who wouldn’t want to vacation at the beach surrounded by an off-color rainbow?

Not that Steffie was on vacation. Quite to the contrary, she had come to lie in wait for someone who would — not someone who had offered, but someone who would — give her information.

She had found a corner of the pink kitchen that would shield her from the windows. She had found listening devices and had moved them into a drawer in the pink bedroom, had spotted supposedly hidden cameras and had left them, because she had already been seen.

Now she knew her reluctant informant wouldn’t be coming, but her old friend, an assassin, would be. Not a particular “old friend”, since all previous assassins were now deceased, but familiar in type if not person.

The sun set and the pink faded to gray.

In the dark silence, Steffie heard the almost silent tickle of a pick in the lock of the kitchen door. No surprise that the motion sensor lights between the cottages hadn’t come on. She braced herself and so was ready when the threat came, not from the door she had heard, but from the door she hadn’t. Misdirection was spycraft 101.

She reached toward a carving knife from the drainboard.

The assassin dove for it. Momentum sent him plunging into the chef’s knife Steffie had grabbed from the opposite counter. It drove deep, between his ribs and into his heart. He didn’t make a sound, except for the satisfying thump as he hit the floor.

Steffie left the knife in place. If she had withdrawn it, he would have bled red all over the pretty pink floor, and she couldn’t have that, now, could she?

MY PROMPT FOR TODAY: That very pink house.