The day had been like any other Monday for Kimberley Cole. The pretty blonde, 36 year old wife and mother of two had just finished dropping eight year old daughter Laura and eighteen year old son, Zack, off at their respective schools. She pulled the key from the ignition of her 4 x 4 BMW as it idled in the drive of her gorgeous suburban house. She stopped a moment to sort her curly blonde hair as she gazed in the mirror before getting out into the morning sun and heading indoors to start on her Monday chore of doing the washing and ironing for the family.
She had entered the house and tidied away some errant shopping before she entered the spacious living room before she was even aware of the figure that sat, hooded and brooding on her sofa. She had walked pretty much all the way in before she noticed him so it wasn't a case that she could just back out and call the police. Besides just as she stared at the figure he looked up and Kimberley recognised him as Curtis, a boy her son had been hanging about with for a few weeks now.
"Curtis? Is that you? What on earth are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in school?"
There was a palpable concern in Kimberly's voice, if not outright fear that she tried to hide under cover of annoyance. But instantly she knew something was very wrong here. The teenager looked up, his head still surrounded by that damned hood and stared insolently at this woman, whose house he had invaded. The stare was meant as a challenge, as an assertion of his position and when it was accompanied by him pulling an object from his pocket and dropping it hard on the glass coffee table it made Kimberley nearly jump out of her skin. When she recovered enough to demand again what it was he wanted and what it was he had just nearly broken her table with he smiled as he heard the tremor in her voice.
"That, Mrs Cole is the knife used in the stabbing of that old guy in Park Avenue last week."
Kimberley paused for a moment as her mind went back to watching the TV news report on the incident where a pensioner was mugged and stabbed by a gang of youths, he was going to be OK but it had been an incident that had flamed local passions against this so-called youth mob culture and she and her husband had castigated the culprits and demanded they faced harsh justice if ever caught.
"S-So? Where did you get that from C-Curtis? Why bring it here?" she was scared now, the boy had a gleam in his eye that she did not like one bit, she was already considering inching towards the door.
Again he smiled.
"I brought it here Mrs. Cole because it has your sons fingerprints all over it, and I thought you'd like to know that."
"What!? Zack had nothing to do with the attack! What are you going on about?"
Her angry reaction was exactly what Curtis had desired, she was no longer looking to flee the living room, rather she wanted to stay and argue with him.
"Yeah? That right Mrs Cole? Funny the knife has only his prints on it then, isn't it? Funny how if the cops were to be tipped off they'd find the old man's wallet in Zack's locker at school, isn't it? Funny how I got this footage that puts him at the scene in the gang."
With that he flipped on the Cole's TV and played a DVD he had burned, it was grainy footage taken off his mobile phone but it was clearly Zack and he was in a group of kids that swarmed forward. Curtis paused the picture on the clearest shot of her son and Kimberley collapsed onto the sofa her hand to her mouth, in shock.
"What do you want? What is this? Please don't tell the police? Please my Zack wouldn't do this. Not Zack!"
Curtis stood up, he was tall and even at a distance towered over the pretty housewife. He picked up the bag with the knife in it and slipped it back into his jacket pocket.
"Whether your son would do it or not there's plenty evidence that he did do it and unless you get over here on your hands and knees bitch and start sucking on my cock the police are going to get every last bit of it!"
Kimberley reeled back against the back of the sofa, she had not expected that. The shock of learning about what her son had been up to (she didn't believe Curtis that he had actually done it but she could not deny the footage she had just watched) had knocked her for a loop and now for this coloured teenager to make this demand she was totally thrown by it. Her mind raced as she thought about the terrible repercussions this could have on Zack and his future. She could not allow him to be exposed, yet she was loathe to degrade herself like this to this piece of blackmailing shit.
"Please Curtis, why? Why do this? I thought Zack was your friend. You don't want to do this. Why?"