Rings

Reena’s Xploration Challenge #243 is a sentence starter this week and I am choosing situation two.

The doorbell rings and your character answers it – finding nothing but an envelope with nothing on it. They open it and follow the instructions.

Sarah heard the door sill clank, and peered out of the window. It was dark, and she could only see the outline of a person walking away. She wasn’t sure if it was a man or a woman – it could have been either.

Used the darkness of the hallway, she retrieved an envelope, but to read it, she needed some light. She sits at her computer desk, where she slowly opens the flap. Inside is one strip of plain paper.

St Ives car park, in one hour, alone – there is nothing else, no stamp or who it is from.

She thinks about what to do next: there is no way she can drive there, not safely at least. Having completed the journey every day from work, she could walk there, with some time to spare.

‘Got a note, St Ives carpark, one hour,’ she rings Mike, but there is no reply, so she leaves a voice mail.

Grabbing a coat from the stand, she is outside before she can think twice. It isn’t safe, not on her own, but she has no choice. Once outside, she puts her keys and mobile in her pocket, along with a wad of twenty pounds notes.

The cold air hits her warm cheeks.

She doesn’t need the light to know where she is going, and strides across the path, leading her to the bay. From there it is only a matter of walking in a straight line towards the car park.

It is quiet, nothing is moving, but flashes of light in her line of vision. It is something she is used to. Taking one step after another, she listens to her mobile, the software allowing her some sense of time.

Only half an hour and she will be be one step closer to knowing who she is meeting.

At the edge of the car park she waits the last ten minutes on her own. The empty car park, has very little lighting. She is aware of how alone she is, but as a journalist, she is used to being in these situations.

‘Sarah . . . Masters.’ A voice sends her out of her lull. He is wearing an aftershave, which is familiar, but she is not sure from where. ‘You need to come with me . . .’

‘Can’t we do the deal here?’

‘Too many prying eyes, besides, need to know if your not wired.’

‘Where?’

‘My car is just here, don’t worry, you’ll get what you want.’ He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. ‘Or I can leave now, and we won’t do the deal.’

Sarah allows him to guide her forward, and in the car, her head is covered with a dark cloth. Her arms tense, but she tries to understand a little bit more about her surroundings.

The leather is soft, expensive, and clean.

‘Can I ask where we are going?’ she asks.

‘Inquisitive little thing,’ the passenger says, in a Cornish accent.

‘Just need to know if I’m going to get out of this car alive,’ Sarah says.

The car slows to a halt, and someone touches her on the shoulder. ‘You got the dosh?’

Sarah reaches in her pocket, and brings out the money. There is silence until she hears the rustle of paper. She is given, what she thinks is drugs, back in the same pocket. The car purrs, and is moving again.

The door opens. ‘Sarah, we’ll be in touch.’

Out in the carpark, she reaches inside her pocket, and there is a small, soft package.

‘Sarah . . . thank God.’

She knows it is Mike, his Irish lilt, a calm in the storm.

‘You shouldn’t have gone alone . . . ‘