[Remedy]

((Everything it italics here will be part of a flashback, even though it's all written in third person. :L  It's mostly just a money-earning speed roleplay I'm doing with myself so I can buy another pretty pet, but I'm also experimenting with a minor character of mine.  No warnings for this; it will be clean.))

With the life she had, Iris considered herself to be a very lucky woman.
She had a four year old child named Chandler and a husband who worked as a doctor in a hospital only twenty minutes away.  
Her job was everything she wanted it to be; she owned a small cafe that had become very popular since she opened it five years ago.  With the doctor money her husband brought in, she really had no need to have this job, but it had always been a dream of hers.
Yes, Iris knew that she could very well be the happiest woman in the world.

[Remedy]

Not everything always ran smoothly, though.  At work, she sometimes ran into strange characters to came in for something to eat or drink.  They weren't all bad, but she enjoyed watching the people that come in and out and, rude though it may be, listening in on the conversations they have.  
When working in a place where plenty of people come and go, there is no telling what kind of people might stop by.  

As she swept the floors and put the chairs on the tables at the end of the day, she let her mind wander to some of the people who had come into her shop in the past.

[Remedy]

It was on one morning early in the wintertime one year, when the snow was falling gently and covering the concrete walkways outside in a thin layer of white.  Her son, who had just turned three at the time, was safely playing in the office room in the back.  Iris kept toys in there to keep him occupied when she brought him along to her work.  
She had just finished checking on him, which she did every fifteen minutes or so, being the worrying mother that she was.  

As she returned to her post at the cash register, two shady looking men entered the store and walked up to her.

[Remedy]

Iris watched them as they approached, taking in their appearance.  
The one leading was a tall, broad-shouldered man with short yellow hair.  His eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses, and he was dressed in a suit- not anything unusual for the amount of professional people working in the city.  
The second man was dressed the same; sunglasses, suit, and all; however, he was shorter and skinnier than the first, and his hair was a bit longer and chocolate-brown colored.  

Again, their appearances were nothing out of the ordinary, but... something about the way they carried themselves made her uneasy.

[Remedy]

Smiling sweetly and politely as she always did to every customer, Iris greeted them as they approached the cash register.  As she took their order, she kept one hand on the pepper spray stored under the counter for emergencies, just in case the need for it arose.  Iris never did like to assume these kind of things based on her first judgement of someone, but with a child in the back, she always had to be cautious.  
Thankfully, they both ordered coffee without any incident and took a seat in a back booth as they waited.  

Her curiosity rose, which led to a desire to know a little more about these strange gentlemen.

[Remedy]

After preparing their coffee, Iris took both cups back to the men.  They had been engaged in a hushed conversation, but were silent as they watched her approach.  Part of her wanted to be suspicious of this behaviour, but it was something that everyone did.  Conversations tended to become awkward if continued in the presence of a listening stranger, as she had both experienced and witnessed on her own.  
Even so, she couldn't help but linger at another table close to theirs, asking the people sitting there how they were doing while keeping half of her attention on the men who had started back up on their conversation.

[Remedy]

Iris had only caught on to a few words; the men were back to mumbling.  From what she heard, it sounded as though they were planning to meet up with someone else.  However, it had a bit more of an ominous feel to it with the way they were voicing it.  Letting her imagination wander, it only made her more anxious thinking of all the things that they could be implying.  
Returning back to the cash register, she tried to clear her mind of those silly thoughts, believing that her imagination was just blowing things out of proportion.

[Remedy]

Before Iris could give anything else much thought, a group of people came flooding in for morning coffee.  With her attention diverted for the time being, she didn't make her way back around to their table until about fifteen minutes later.
Visiting each table with a pitcher of fresh coffee, she eventually found herself at their table, asking if they needed a refill.  While she was there, she noticed that they both were still wearing their sunglasses.  
It was odd, since they were indoors and the lighting was relatively dim.

[Remedy]

Each of the men politely declined the offer for a refill, telling her that they would be on their way soon.  Nodding and walking back across the room, she entered the door behind the counter that led to the small kitchen.  Smiling at the other employee she had hired a year ago, she set the pitcher down and continued on back.
There was another door connected to the kitchen that led to the office, where she kept all the buisness papers and whatnot organized.  It was also where she had left her child, so she stopped in for a moment to check up on him.

[Remedy]

Smiling happily when she saw he was alright, she took a moment to pick little Chandler up and give him a hug so he wouldn't feel too lonely.  Iris always worried about leaving him back here alone, but she had made sure to make the room as safe as possible so he wouldn't get hurt.  The work computer she used was a laptop that she kept locked away in one of the drawers of the desk.  All of the drawers had locks on them so he wouldn't take anything dangerous out or try to climb them like stairs.  
Sprawled on the floor in one half of the room were his toys, which consisted of stuffed animals without button eyes or noses (as those were choking hazards) and toy trucks that were too big to fit in his mouth and had no little pieces that could pop off.

[Remedy]

After checking up on Chandler, Iris went back out to see if anyone had arrived or left.  As her eyes scanned the room, she noticed that the strange men from before had gone.  Walking back to their table, she began cleaning up.  First pocketing the average-sized tip, she lifted both coffee cups in one hand and reached for their napkins with the other.  
After placing the cups by the sink to be washed, she had almost thrown away the napkins when she noticed that one had something written on the back.

[Remedy]

After examining the napkin, Iris drew the conclusion that it was a map that had been sketched on it.  As it seemed, the map was of one of the floors of a building, with separate rectangles representing rooms. There were also arrows pointing here and there, along with other symbols that may have represented actions or objects.
It had probably been drawn by one of the men as a visual help with an explanation for something.  Curiosity was eating away at her, and she really wanted to know what the map was of- or for.

[Remedy]

Shaking her head to rid herself of such foolish desires, Iris tossed the napkin in the trash and continued with her duties.  It would do her no good to fret about those men.  They weren't regulars, and it was likely that she would never see them again. Plus, she had a child to take care of, and it was in no way safe for her to investigate further into something like that.
After finishing up in the kitchen, she went back behind the counter and continued her normal daily activities.

[Remedy]

Thinking back on that experience, Iris still assumed that the men were up to something suspicious.  She had seen in the paper later that week that multiple people had been sent to a hospital - most to the one where her husband worked.  Apparently there had been a major scandal with a group of pharmacists trading illegal drugs with major gang leaders.  
It had been a shock to her community to learn about something like that close to home.  At the time, she had tried to get as much information on it as she could.

[Remedy]

Unfortunately for Iris, the police and even the press had been rather tight-lipped about the whole event.  Even so, she still wondered if those men had anything to do with it.  Often, she found herself wishing she had kept that napkin, even though it probably wouldn't have done any good.  
Looking down at the broom in her hands, Iris realized that she had probably cleaned the whole place twice in the time she had zoned out.  With a sigh, she went to retrieve the dustpan.