A Very Venom Christmas - Kristine Allen Page 0,19

I’m not going to make promises,” he offered.

“That’s awesome,” I gushed, then reeled myself in as I scrawled my number on a notepad with the shop’s logo on it. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

Dressing in my winter accessories again, I gave him a nervous smile and walked to the door.

“Ms. Barnes? Are you sure you’re okay?” he questioned.

It was on the tip of my tongue to be honest and tell him no, but I didn’t really know him. Instead, I took a deep breath, exhaled, and replied, “Yes, I’m fine. It’s just imperative that I speak to Decker.”

“I’ll do what I can,” he said, and I left. For a second, I banged my head lightly on the window of my truck. Pulling myself together, I got inside and started the engine.

When I pulled out of the lot, it was getting dark. Another weird thing about Iowa—it seemed like it got dark a lot earlier in the winter.

There was another truck in the lot that pulled out after me, and I wondered if it was Snow. My overactive imagination had him following me to see if I was plotting against his friend. At first I was nervous, then I giggled a little at my weird brain.

The shop was on the same edge of town as Mel’s, so I decided to stop in to grab a pizza. When I pulled in Mel’s Pizza’s parking lot, the other truck kept going. I really laughed then.

“You don’t get enough of us when you work?” Mel shouted out to me when I approached the counter. I gave him a wide grin.

“Never.”

“Your usual?” he asked me as he stepped out of the kitchen, wiping his hands off.

“Please.” I spent the twenty minutes while I waited checking my phone to see if Decker had called and I’d somehow missed it. Of course not. Fucker.

Pizza in hand, I left the restaurant and continued home. A truck passed me going the opposite direction. I wasn’t sure, but it looked like the truck that had been at the custom shop. That weird brain of mine started working overtime.

Especially when the truck pulled into the gas station and, instead of stopping, came back on the road and followed behind me. It was an older white Dodge with a red front quarter panel on the driver side, which made it hard to miss.

“It’s a coincidence. Don’t get your panties in a wad. It’s a small town. You’re bound to see the same people more than once a day if you’re out and about.”

My ringtone sounded, and I cursed the timing. Blindly, I dug around in my purse for my phone. Once I located it, a quick glance told me it wasn’t a number I knew. My heart started racing again.

“Hello?” I put it on speaker and set the phone on the seat.

“Snow said you needed to talk to me,” Decker’s deep voice rumbled. There was an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before.

I’d known I needed to talk to him, but I hadn’t given much thought to what I was going to say when I did. Suddenly the thought of telling him was terrifying.

“I—” I began, but the truck I’d noticed earlier passed me, cutting me off. I slammed on my brakes to avoid hitting him as he cut back over, and my phone went flying to the passenger floorboards. “Holy shit!”

“What the hell is going on?” he shouted as my pulse hammered and I gripped the steering wheel tightly. Shaking like a leaf, I pulled into the dollar store parking lot.

“Hang on,” I called out. I had to unbuckle to reach my phone.

“Hello?” I said.

“What. The. Fuck. Happened?”

“This truck almost hit me,” I stuttered out. When I’d talked to Margaret yesterday, I hadn’t wanted to admit that weird shit had been going on over the last couple of weeks. Except it seemed like one strange thing after another.

My porch light was only the beginning. Several times I had an odd feeling that I was being watched. Then I would’ve sworn on my life that someone had been in my house. Nothing was missing, things were simply “off.” Today, it had been the incident with that truck.

Maybe my mind wasn’t so weird after all.

“Are you okay? Where are you?” he barked into the phone.

“I’m fine. I’m almost home.” I tried to smooth the situation out in my own head as well as to him.

“I’ll be there soon,” he ground out, and the line went silent.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

“Decker?”

Risking a glance at my