She leered at her next victim as he sat in the coffee shop across the room from her table. She always picked out those who seemed helpless but were really hurtful. This particular victim had kept a low profile so he never got picked up by the police for any of the heinous crimes that he committed. She knew better. When her orders from her superiors came to hunt and kill this particular man she relished the task and spent most of her time stalking him to figure out his habits and plan her revenge. He was very good at being inconspicuous. Every day he took a different route to the coffee shop and every day he changed up his order. Something that was not unseen but was not very common in the regular people she was sent to eliminate. She knew this one would need more time and if she wanted the ultimate revenge she would have to be patient and give her thoughts time to connect with the present feelings she was having for this man.

Most of her victims were loud people and they always had two or three people surrounding them at all times. Many of them were already wanted by the police for petty crimes or for mass murders. A lot of them were biding time. They knew that one small slip would land them in jail, and she was to make certain that it didn’t happen and they landed in the earth instead. When she started there was no chance of redeeming themselves. There punishment was death and many of them knew that death was always the one thing you can be sure of. Some of the young ones felt invincible and even when her last bullet had entered their skulls they smiled a cruel smile and then faded away.

This man was different and she felt the hair on her arms prick up and shivers race up and down her spine. He had raped and murdered two young boys and she knew the police had nothing on him. After a few years of surveillance the police had given up. For them it was a waste of time to follow an innocent man. Other suspects who looked more likely were always showing up.
She downed her coffee and placed a tip on the table before she exited the café, her mind still swirling with questions. She glanced through the window briefly to make sure he was still there and entered her Cadillac and drove to her safe house to catch a nap. At least she was entitled to having a short nap, she was so tired from her midnight surveillance and she took liberty of a few hours in the day when he had coffee and went to the library for this morning paper to catch a few hours of sleep. There was a tracker attached to his vehicle and his favourite phone so if he did something completely out of the character that she had noticed then her alarms would sound and she would be up and running after him.

The safe house was a cozy apartment in the basement of a red bricked house. The upstairs neighbours; Nancy and Ned Bedford, had been very welcoming. Stories of the previous residents had peppered her conversations with them. The woman that used to live there had a violent boyfriend and rumours were that the making up was louder than the fights.

She wrinkled her nose at the smell that wafted from the house as she drove up. Nancy must be baking again. Ned joked that her baking was better than it smelled. She sure hoped so because this one reeked of disaster and she knew that the smell would have already dropped into her residence and she would have to get rid of the scent by opening her windows for another day.
She unlocked the door, entered the cozy apartment and kicked off her shoes. Then she wandered into her bedroom and fell on the bed, sinking into the mattress. Within a few minutes she was sound asleep.

She woke up slightly after noon and showered before consulting her tracker for her victim. He had managed to make his way to the post office and the jewellery store. She wondered out loud what he would have to do there. But pushed the thought to the back of her mind when she saw where he currently had holed up. The shivers she had associated with him slowly climbed back up her spine. He had made his way to one of his acquaintances who lived near the local children’s school. In her previous pursuing he had visited this place two times before; a perfect place to choose the next unsuspecting, innocent victim. Her heart raced, as it had the first time he had made his way over there. She checked the time that he had made it there, only half an hour ago, but in her experience time was nothing compared to motives and hatred. It only took a few seconds to drain life out of men and it could be done with a carless thought and blinding rage in the heat of the moment. This man might burn holes thorough these children before anyone could catch up and react.

The house where she had set up her surveillance of her target last time was occupied, the husband was sick in bed. The house next door offered her the comfort and quiet she wanted though so she broke in and set up her equipment. When she had located him with her lens she went to the task of lip reading, most of it was casual conversation and she noticed that the other man seemed nervous and fidgety. Due to experience, she knew that something not clear on the surface of the man’s hardened façade was keeping him for his otherwise calm composure. Her training kicked in and she desperately searched for clues as to why. She noticed that he kept glancing at the windows overlooking the school yard where children had milled around the play areas.

Her search of this man’s past had dug up a few petty crimes and an attempted pare of a young girl, but it appeared that guilt had eaten at his mind because he had showed up the girls doorstep and apologized and paid of her therapy. She knew that if he was an accomplice, he would have quite a lot of compassion to swallow. Her target, on the other hand, seemed quite at ease doing whatever he wanted and needed for his own sinister thoughts to be hushed.

Her target was arguing with the man about what appeared to be the next job. She felt her hair push through her sweater as the chills seared her back again. After a bit of arguing and one smashed beer bottle later, her victim exited the house with a cruel smiled planted on his handsome face.

The tracker indicated that he drove back to his house and she drove past to reassure herself the he was there for a bit. She decided to run a few errands and grab some groceries while she waited for his next move.

The grocery store was busy and packed with mothers getting done the shopping of supper. She grabbed the essentials and went back to her vehicle. Then she decided it would be worth it to go past his place again after she had put her purchases into her bare cupboards.

It was dark when she cruised by his house and one light was on in his sitting room and she could see his face reflected in the glass, his head bent over a book. His brow was furrowed and he appeared lost in thought. She parked her car some distance away and walked past his house again. She disappeared around his corner and swiftly crept to his back yard. She broke the basement window with a tiny crack, thankful that his windows were flimsy and poorly installed. Training had made it a habit to wait for movement and sound of the victim stirring to the noise. A few minutes of listening assured her that her next move would be alright. She slid into the narrow opening and noiselessly rolled onto the basement floor. Once again instinct kicked in and she got up slowly and listened. No noise meant she crept up the flight of stairs to the main floor.

The upstairs door was opened a crack and light form the single illuminated lamp shone into the basement. She forced her breathing to shallow and felt her hip for her handgun. Her mind rested a bit when her hand touched the cold steel. Her other hand instinctively reached to her upper thigh for her knife. Another shiver of relief flooded her mind as her hand touched the other steel object.

She contemplated her next move. She could rush in and force up the information she so badly wanted confirmed or she could sit silently for a few hours and wait and watch his movement. One of the bonuses on her job was that she did not need a victim’s explanation, not stories had to be heard, no evidence of their disgusting crimes shared. Most of his past had already been hacked and she knew more about this lonely man than his departed mother ever had.

In all her years, she had steeled her mind form emotions. She felt no pity for her victims and training told her not to dwell on the past. What she had done was gone and there was nothing she could undue so there was no sense on dwelling on it. She had studied other great assassins and the common occurrence of a young death was imprinted on most profiles. When she had searched into reasons she had dug up the unfortunate reality of the past ghosts coming back to haunt. The greatest assassins had not died at the hands of avengers but at their own hands. Many of them had recorded feelings of guilt and regret before they died and she had made a contract with herself to never look back and fall victim to her own thoughts. She knew her greatest asset was a clear mind.

She turned her thoughts to the current and forced her energy to find a resolution. Her most current problem was what to do for the night. She could take his life or she could wait for him to divulge more information and show her what his acquaintance that afternoon had been so nervous about. She decided on the later.

She kept up her silent visual and interpreted his random mutterings as he absorbed himself in his book. After of a few hours he stood up, stretched, and padded off to his room. She heard the sound of him brushing his teeth and washing up. Then his footsteps made their way to his room and a half an hour later he was softly snoring.

She took the liberty of his quiet house to snoop around for interesting details about him. Her hands searched his floorboards for hollow boards and the walls for hollow areas. A lot of her previous victims would keep books or journals on their next targets and she knew that a lot of their thoughts could be decoded by their recent musings. Her hands tapped out a hollow area in the back of his study and she slowly pounded around the area searching for an opening. The button on one of the arm chairs caused a slow, soft clicking sound and she followed the sound to the spot in the wall. Suddenly the wall moved aside and opened to another staircase leading downwards.

She wandered back to the kitchen and searched for a handheld light to guide her down the new dark stairwell. The light showed her a bunch of old stairs with cobwebs running down the sides. She paused and listened for any sound of movement from his room. Any sign that he had heard her at any time and was silently coming to kill her. Once again assured that she was the only conscious one there she stepped into the dark stairwell and made her way down the set of steps.

After a short decent she found herself in a tiny room packed with documents. Her hands searched the papers and her eyes raced over the pages. What she read disturbed her. Apparently he was more dangerous then she had previously imagined. According to her recant findings he had also killed his known victim’s best friends and had documented the moment and memories for his own sinister pleasure. She had read other places of these children also being murdered but her mind had not drawn the conclusion that this man had chased theses grieving friends and silently carved their lives out of them also.

He had recorded how they had screamed at them when he described the deaths of their dead friends to them and how every one of them pleaded for their lives. He them described how he carved small pieces off each of them and watched as they screamed. He recorded there last statements.

Many of these events relied to her were nothing new and she was revolted but kept reading. After an hour she decided not to push her luck, she put everything back to exactly the way she found it and she made her way up to the main floor. She closed the door and made her way back to the way she had entered the house. She paused as she was about to crawl back out the back window and listened for any sign of life. Once again assured by the stillness she noiselessly tiptoed out and away from the house.

She revved up her car engine and drove back to her safe house. She opened her laptop and searched for more information. She entered the names of the victims she had just read about and documented the new developments in her files on her target. She felt sympathy flood her for the grieving parents, two of the boys had been only children and came from loving families who had pleaded for their safe return.

None of the bodies were ever found. She had yet to discover where he hid them all so well. So far the tally was at five dead boys and she had as inking feeling that there were more. She felt rage build up in her. She never felt remorse when she killed and she distinctly knew that of this one there would be no regret. Disgust swelled in her mouth and she realized that she was loosing focus. She slipped out of her clothes and glided on her track suit.

She ran around the town as the early morning sun warmed its way into the sky. She had always loved her early morning run and relished the thought clearing exercise. She returned and took an icy shower. She felt more awake then last night and ready to face more unearthed slayings.

The tracker indicated that he was still at home so she settled down in her couch and relaxed in front of her TV. She flicked through the channels until her finger rested at the news and she intently was recent events unfolding in front of her. It always calmed her to know that the world always had bigger problems and she never made front page news.

The tracker beeped and she watched him drive to the coffee shop. She hopped into her car and sped over to the shop in time for her to see him grab the day’s paper and his choice of latte for the day and settle in the chair she had occupied the day before. The familiar shivers returned and she wondered if it was coincidence or if he was passing a message to her. She ordered her usual latte and settled for a chair across the room. Her curiosity was peaked and she desperately wished she could read thoughts. Settling for body language was just as, if not more important, but the greatest slaughterers and the one with low profiles were very good at keeping their thoughts repressed.

He sat reading longer than usual this morning. When he finally got up he strode toward the exit and slid out of the shop. She waited a bit and then she left after him and watched his vehicle drive towards downtown. She slowly drove to his house and consulted her tracker for his whereabouts.