Brenda sits on the edge of the seat. She can’t lean back and relax. She knows she’ll have to move fast when the moment comes.
She longs to order another coffee but that would mean going to the counter and turning her back on the other tables in the café.
She’s far too warm. The weather report had said a maximum of -14, so she’d bundled up in her down coat. She has to keep it on, zippered right up, even though the café is over-heated. She has to be ready.
Only a couple of minutes left on her parking meter. She can’t leave. She’ll have to risk getting a ticket.
Then it happens and it’s all over. It must have been when she glanced at the newspaper the guy at the next table was reading. When she looked up, the woman had disappeared.
Brenda leaps to the door, rushes out, looks up and down the street. But there’s no sign of the red coat, the long swinging black scarf. Only the traffic warden, tucking a parking ticket behind the windshield wiper of Brenda’s car.
That hadn’t been the first time she’d tried to follow the red-coated woman. You’d think a red coat would make it easy.
*****
Thursday Blurt 2017
Susi Lovell 