Doctored Chance #NaNoWriMo2019

30 | Kidnapped from Kindergarten

A kindergarten is one of the worst places for grown men and women to linger when dressed in black hoodies or in my own case, trench coats and hats of any color. Tobias considered this carefully when he chose his disguise that morning. When I stood in his exact position, I lament that I did not, and was quickly chased from the property—though I did double back after removing my coat and stuffing it in my typewriter's case.

Tobias, unintimidating and—apart from a missing foot—unremarkable, went quite unnoticed on the kindergarten grounds with his blonde, slightly melted silicon mask and his last pair of blue contact lenses. He waited by a large black sedan, absently smoothing out the wrinkles in his plain white button-up.

He watched many mothers and fathers walk their children up the path, most below the height of his thighs. It was loud, causing a pounding in his head and mild disorientation. Discomfort and irritation increased steadily. Little ones screamed at each other; laughed; cried to their parents for abandoning them at the doorstep. His hands noticeably trembled over his cane in a state of agitation.

Tobias's eyes drifted over all to one particular boy in the crowd. Handsome and well-dressed in expensive and up-to-date fashion, gifted with his father's dashing hazel eyes which glinted gold in the sunlight as a god's should. He had the same spiky blonde hair that Benjamin Jones used to, before it all roasted to chestnut. Unfortunately for the child, he carried his mother's pinched lips, superior attitude, and stuffy posture. The boy's button nose never lowered from a skyward point of indignation.

Tobias's person seized with fearful premonition. Before he could take the time to reflect on and understand the sudden, twisting pains that shot through his body, he fled from the vehicle. Following instincts of vision, he limped into the crowd, all the while rubbing the node below his ear with weary reminiscence.

The wealthy young boy left his mother at the door and the woman turned back towards her sleek company car not a moment later. Big hair bounced. Red heels clicked with perfect rhythm, toes as pointed as her pale nose. She did not see him. Whatever cramp—a sixth sense, perhaps?—he had suffered had saved him, he realized, from being exposed in that instant. He was sure of it. She would know the mask, and he had suspicions that she would know the face beneath.

This woman was not foolish.

Tobias carefully waited for her to pass before he followed. He had to pick up his pace, half-jogging over the chalk-covered sidewalk with his peg and cane until he arrived in an intimate range of hearing.

"Mrs. Jones," he hailed, barely more than a whisper.

She stopped. She had not taken her partner's name. Tobias filled with a warm and rewarding pleasure that brought a shaky smile to his lips.

It was funny. He had smiled more in past few weeks than he had in the past four years. Genuinely.

The woman looked to her sides at the many ears surrounding. She kept her back to him.

This was the kind of off guard that Tobias wanted; the kind of off guard that would not provoke a shout or a scream or the drawing of attention. Tobias and Dizzy, in their data scan before bed the night before, had not been able to uncover any information about the details of Benjamin Jones and his lawyer's relationship. I attempted to dig deeper, but found the same.

"Mrs. Benjamin Jones," he repeated carefully, his tone level, his gaze firm.

The lawyer turned slowly. Her eyes widened the moment they met his and she faltered in her heels with a weak-ankled step backwards and a slight gasp. Tobias caught her by the shoulder and set her right, then withdrew his hand to his cane.