Target Down - The Ghost Assassin

The Delivery

"Skylar, hunny!" Came my mother's sing song voice billowing out from the front doorway.

I lazily get up from my desk, pulling my earphones off and around my neck and stick my head out of my bedroom's doorway so I could hear and see her, standing there in her pale blue uniform with a white apron on. All ready to head out to work.

My mother is a tall petit woman with a fair, even complexion and a pretty but stern featured face. It's her pale copper, wavy hair, cut into a long bob and her light blue eyes that make her stand out and popular amongst the male diner patrons and the envy of the women. It's also those features I inherited from her.

She works night shifts at the local 24 hour diner, in town, as a waitress. She could get a much better job, with all the degrees she has, if we had to move to any one of the bigger cities but she's not interested. It's not like we need the money anyway.

The father I never knew and don't hear my mother speak of, left us with enough money to put me through a private school, as well as for my mother to retire early at the ripe age of only 49. Yet, she refuses though. Something about people not needing to know our business, and in a small town that takes quite a bit of effort.

"Hey, Mom. You off to work?" I ask her already knowing the answer but I do it to let her know that I've both heard her and noticed that she's in her uniform.

"Yeah hun. Look, usual rules. Don't let anyone in while I'm not here. No going out without telling me...." She starts rapping off her house rules, as she always does on her way out the door. Half the rules I never get to hear because she's out the door even before she's finished her list. As she's about to close the front door, she stops and pops her head back in. "Oh, yes and dinner is in the oven. Please don't let it burn this time. I would also like to eat when I get home." She chuckles. Blows me a kiss and is gone.

We have a good relationship. The only things that bug me every now and then, when they do get mentioned, is her strict sense of wanting our lives to be private and the fact that she refuses, point blank, to tell me anything about my father. Nothing at all. I can tell it's not that she doesn't know who he is but it seems more that she doesn't want me to know who he is. Even on my birth certificate my father is recorded as "unknown".

By nature, I'm far too curious to not want to know and having just turned 14 and being as much of a teenager as I am. When something is off limits, it becomes even more enticing.

However, for now, I have a human science assignment I need to finish before Monday. So thoughts of my mysterious father will need to wait.

15 Minutes of solid research and writing about the human anatomy and my stomach reminds me that dinner is still busy cooking in the oven. I jump up and make my way towards the kitchen. I pull open the oven door and get hit with the warm smell of potato and garlic, making my stomach grumble even more. Switching the oven off and grabbing the oven mitts, I pull the very hot and steaming oven tray out which is filled to the brim with my mom's delectable cottage pie.

As I put the tray down on the counter, I hear the doorbell ring.

Odd, I thought. I sure wasn't expecting anyone. I saunter over, pull back the thin, purple, chiffon curtain and look through one of the windows that frame the front door.

Nothing. Hmmm. Not a sole outside. Odd, I think again and yet I still move to the door, unlock it and cautiously open it, just to make sure.

As I slide the door open, I poke my head out and confirm that there is in fact no-one there. There was, however, a smallish box sitting ever so neatly in the middle of our 'welcome' mat, right in front of the door.

I look around once more, making mental notes of our front yard, the driveway and even the neighbor's house across the street. No-one. Nothing, not even a cat or dog walking around. It's quiet.