She rested the piece of paper against an empty cup of tea that had been left abandoned on her kitchen table. It looked like a poor imitation of the picture of a greeting card leaned against a vase filled with an expensive flower bouquet. Sophie tried to imagine how her mother would react if she ever walked into her flat and saw her poor décor.
The place that her murderous acquaintance had recommended to her seemed to be in one of the better areas of town. Coincidentally, Sophie was pretty fed up with those "better areas". She liked to call the rather run-down part of the metropolis where she resided her home. It seemed to her that this was her niche, the place where she fitted in. Being surrounded by classy buildings and classy people made her feel uneasy.
Another thing that made her feel uneasy was encountering criminals. Whoever the strange man's boss might be, Sophie was sure that he would be trouble. She didn't really need to even contemplate on taking the job. It was not an option. She wasn't one to play with fire.
Yet, she couldn't keep her eyes from wandering towards the note. It was like the more she tried to distract herself from even thinking about it, the more it dominated her mind. While prepping dinner, while reading a book, while watching TV, it remained in the back of her head, easily absorbing her attention
Eventually, she gave up, rose from her couch, went into the kitchen, and sat in front of the note again - like a crazy person, she told herself. Besides the mystery of what she might discover if she indulged her curiosity and actually applied for a job in this club, there was also something else that drew her to the note which she hadn't realized before.
The handwriting of this murderer did not cover expectations. She would have anticipated it to be either extremely simple, aggressive scribble that displays a lack of patience, time, and care for such mundane things as writing. Or to be a calligraphic masterpiece that she somehow associated with psychopaths.
She had been wrong. Just like the brief touch of his skin against hers had indicated that he was, after all, just made of flesh and blood, his handwriting was 'normal', too. It was neither very orderly or messy and if she hadn't known that it was his, she wouldn't have given it a second glance, let alone thought.
Sophie was unhealthily curious about the man, she found herself equally frightened and intrigued by him. Her initial approach, the easy approach, to label him as a monster, did not suffice to satisfy her. After all, she was convinced that every human being held a manifoldness of personal experience, character traits, and unmatched complexity in store.
When someone is being confronted with a monster, running away is probably the only good option. But Sophie didn't believe in monsters. And meeting someone who has something monstrous about them, was far too fascinating for her to even turn away.
She would love to do him justice, to uncover his identity and background, to understand how someone could do the things he does.
And she couldn't see herself achieving that without getting her fingers at least slightly dirty