The bell jingled as Melissa stepped inside.

So established and beloved was Saunders Pharmacy that they still had a brass bell over their door. People smiled at how quaint it felt when they entered. The discount drug store three streets away had an automatic sliding door and proper air conditioning, but Eric Saunders was the third generation to wear the white coat, and he liked standing on the shoulders of giants.

Melissa Harvey was both a regular and a friend. The town was small enough that it was rare to not be one or both, but the Saunders and the Harveys had gotten together for dinner at least twice a year since their eldest children had left for university. Jesse Harvey wasn’t just his accountant; he was a pal. His wife, Rachel, had even copied Jesse’s potato salad recipe, which Eric didn’t mind a bit.

Eric checked the wall-mounted clock, which looked as though its hands were pointing east-by-southeast, not yet ten in the morning. Melissa usually stopped by every few weeks to collect some cosmetics or grab a new asthma inhaler for her youngest, but he was not displeased to see her, not least because she was the only customer in the store.

Melissa had chosen the timing carefully.

            “Good morning!” he said, taking off his glasses and putting the inventory tablet down.

She tugged her purse up higher on her shoulder, walked right up to the counter, and folded her hands together. She didn’t lay down any products for purchase, nor hand over any Rx slips, just stood right before him and took a steadying breath.

            “I would like to buy some cyanide,” she said.

He blinked at her.

            “I’m sorry?”

            “Cyanide.”

Eric wondered if it was his hearing going next. Melissa was keeping her voice low, perhaps she was asking for fungicide, something for an infection, an embarrassing trouble.

He was about to ask her to confirm again when she did so of her own accord.

            “Cyanide,” she repeated. “The poison.”

            “Why would you want that?” he laughed. “Mice? There are perfectly good exterminators here in town. I even have traps.”

            “Oh, there’s a rat alright,” she sniffed, eyes flaring. “I want it to poison my husband.”

He gaped.

A few seconds passed and she did not break into laughter. She did not even crack a smile. Her voice was not entirely even, there was a seam of simmering rage that wavered behind every other word, and her eyes — though expertly highlighted and winged — had the brightness of that most wrathful hell, a Scorned Woman. She wore the demeanour of someone with a furious secret. If any words had left her mouth that weren’t a request for a deadly poison and admitting the intent to use it to murder her spouse, Eric’s instinct would have been to come around the counter and offer her a comforting hug, ask what her husband Jesse had done to upset her.

He was keenly aware of the surveillance cameras that his father before him had installed, watching their interaction. While the security company had told him that they didn’t record audio, he couldn’t be sure. One thing that definitely had a keen ear was Andrea, the pharmacology student who he had hired part-time to help with inventory, in the back room. She was probably on her phone. Eric couldn’t be certain, but if she was, they had a bubble of privacy.

He leaned closer, hand on the counter, to constrict the bubble and keep their dangerous conversation to themselves. In a low voice, he said:

            “Melissa… even having this conversation is against the law. You know the kind of world we’re living in today? If I joked about killing my brother, and he turned up dead a week later, I would be a prime suspect. I could lose my license just talking to you. Is that what you want? Even if you were serious, I would go to jail right along with you. Absolutely not. Okay? That’s my answer. Not a chance in hell.”

She held his gaze.

The bubble contracted further. He felt it when the leaned in closer.

She took the purse from her shoulder and dropped it on the counter. Thousands of prescriptions had crossed that sanded and stained wooden surface, but now she was pulling out a full-sized folder from inside the purple faux-snakeskin and opening the cover.

The bell jingled as another customer entered, but Eric did not look up.

Inside the folder were photos. Real photos, printed on eight-by-five glossy paper, surveillance shots taken by a professional from a distance. Whoever took them clearly had a quality camera with a long lens and had been paid well for their efforts.

The new customer stopped to browse the eyeliners and foundation bottles, all the while their bubble shrank.

Even hushed whispers were out of the question, now.

The photographer had chosen an excellent vantage point. Eric’s wife, Rachel, had a bob haircut and a pear-shaped figure, making her easily recognisable at a distance. Her tanned skin and nearly-invisible nipples were things that Eric loved about her, and seeing them on display while she mounted Jesse and rode him? It was a rusty dagger inside him, almost too much to bear.

            “Can you help me?” Melissa asked, conversationally.

Out of the corner of his eye, the new customer stood at a respectful distance, a bottle of Number 9 foundation in her hand.

Eric snapped the folder shut.

The bubble burst.

            “Well,” Eric gestured at the folder, fighting to keep his voice calm, “that’s different. Since you have a prescription, I’d be glad to dispense it to you.”