The Keepsake

Flash Fiction by Oliver Cassidy
Author of Blood Drive



He was hired to kill a woman named Gretchen Mulder. He was hired by a woman at her company who wanted her position. He followed her for days, watching her every move. On the day he killed her, he followed her into a restaurant and watched her as she ate her lunch, her final meal. Caesar salad and orange juice. For the first and only time, he caught her eye, and she smiled, and she toasted him, and he took her picture. Unaware, open, friendly. It bothered him a bit when he killed her, her friendliness.

He kept her picture. He kept it in a safe place. He looked at it often.