Fiction: Ray's Honey Pots, Part Two

General Notes: FF, MF, FD, MD, mind control, violence, language

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"Do you want to call that dairy you were headed to?" Rowan asks.

Shit.

"Good idea. I'll get the phone number out of my car."

I rise halfway out of my seat but she stops me, as I hoped she would, saying, "We'll get that on the way to getting you some gas. You go ahead and drink your tea and warm up."

Somehow, she's managed to finish her own mug of tea. She hadn't even sat down. Instead, she puts her mug in the sink and moves to the fridge, opening it and her head and torso disappear behind the fridge door. That makes me nervous. I like my victims where I can see them. My hands itch to reach for my gun. Instead, I force myself to take a sip of tea. It tastes like shit. The warm mug does feel good against my palms, though. I hold it a little tighter.

"I'm just going to get started on making a snack plate for the girls," she says, reappearing with her hands full of a bag of grapes, a few individually wrapped sticks of string cheese, and a bag of sandwich meat. She dumps them onto the table then retrieves a small platter from one cabinet and a box of crackers from another.

"You need something to go with your tea?" she asks as she starts arranging things on the platter. It's got a hand-painted swirly design to it. Country colors and what looks like a stylized rooster at one end. It's ugly.

"No, thanks. I'm too nervous to eat anything," I reply honestly. I had planned on simply breaking in, surprising her with a single shot to the head, and damaging the safe Ray said they had in their bedroom. No need to actually break into it, of course; just enough damage to make it look like a botched burglary. Even a simple plan like that made me too nervous to eat before a hit job. Small price to pay for the cash it brought in, not to mention the honey pot with the braid.

"Which dairy was it you were headed to?" she asks, her eyes still focused on the task of getting the food on the platter.

Dammit. I've forgotten to keep the conversation all about her. Now I'm going to have to make shit up and then remember my lies for at least another hour. I struggle to remember one of the dairies I'd passed.

"Von Dressler," I say, adding a little uptick at the end, as if I'm not totally positive.

"Really," she says. I see her hands pause for a moment. My first clue something is up. My brain starts thinking about my next move, my options, her options. I glance at the phone on the table, closer to me than to her. If she lunged for it, could I get it first, get it out of her reach, and somehow subdue her? I look at her body. She's wearing layers of conservative, loose-fitting clothes, making it hard to determine her bulk and her fitness. My own mother had worn far less most of the time.

"Why?" I ask, trying to acknowledge her tone of disbelief, turn it into the idea that maybe she had information to share with me.

"Oh, well, they're just a small family outfit," she says, turning away from me to put away the box of crackers. I decide not to slip her phone into a pocket. There is still time to lull her back into a false sense of security. "I didn't know they were looking to hire anyone."

"Oh," I say, letting out a small laugh, "No, I wasn't headed there for a job interview." I wait to see if she'll supply a reason, herself. She doesn't disappoint.

"Their new system?" she says, putting the rest of the stuff back in the fridge, "Mark said everything was running smoothly."

"Glad to hear it," I say, "Yeah, no, I'm not doing anything more than verifying it's running smoothly, except," I add, smiling slightly, "you never know if a satisfied customer might want to expand the system in some way."

She laughs as she closed the fridge. Her eyes meet mine. My second clue something is up: her laugh doesn't make it to those creases by her eyes. My heart begins to beat more quickly. I try to keep my face open and friendly. I still have options.

The front door bangs open. Rowan breaks our mutual gaze, turns her head toward the doorway to the living room. My heart rate jumps again. I dare to reach for her phone and manage to slip it into my back pocket without her noticing.

"Mom?" I hear a girl's voice.

"In the kitchen, sweetie," Rowan calls.

There's the sound of rain coats swishing off of bodies and then the clump, clump of rain boots being discarded. In my head I hear my own mother, calling from her bedroom, "Hang up your goddamned coats and if I find any fucking water or mud on my floor I'm making you clean it up with your tongues!" I swallow my nervousness. I am the monster, now, not her. I've made sure of that. And I've made sure about just what kind of monster I am.