Did she agree?
“Don’t look at me like you don’t trust me, Imogen.”
“I don’t trust you,” I replied. “You never give in that easily. Or ever.”
Grandma adjusted her glasses and opened her book again. “I can be reasonable. It probably won’t happen again this year, though.”
“I suppose that’s the best I can ask for.” I pushed up from the sofa and kissed the side of her head. “I’m going to watch TV in bed.”
“Okay, dear. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” I glanced back at her three or four times, but she was already engrossed in her book and paying me no attention whatsoever.
I was definitely suspicious of her. I knew my grandmother and the only time she’d ever given into something that easily was when her car battery had died and I had to drive her around for three days.
I actually think she liked that, though, so the joke was on me.
I headed upstairs to my room and shut the door behind me. It was deathly silent up here, but instead of turning on my TV, I sat on the bed and stared at the blank screen.
All the ideas I’d had, all the plans to be a civil person, they’d all gone out of the window. I hadn’t lied with what I’d said to both Mason and Grandma today. I had feelings I had to deal with because I was only human.
Only when I’d done that could I begin to actually grow a pair and be an adult.
Hey. At least I was aware of my shortcomings.
Fixing them?
That was another matter entirely…
CHAPTER EIGHT – IMMY
Clown In A Box
“I don’t have any of the pink, but I can order some today. It’ll be here Tuesday,” I told the woman in front of me. She was about to become a grandma and wanted to knit her new grandbaby something special, but I was out of the color she wanted in the yarn she wanted.
“Ooh, I don’t know.” She fiddled with the strap of her purse. “I did hope to purchase it today.”
“Ma’am, I can honestly say that most stores around here won’t stock this yarn, and if they do, they probably won’t in this color. It’s not one of my regular stocks and we have the biggest selection in the county.”
She nibbled on her bottom lip. “Will it definitely be here on Tuesday?”
“Let me put it into the software real quick for you.” I turned to the laptop and input the order, triple checking the delivery date before I confirmed that it would be here by midday on Tuesday.
After another minute or two of decision-making where I served another customer, she agreed, paid, and left.
I blew out a breath into the empty store. Thank God for that—I needed to have lunch before the class this afternoon.
I flipped the sign on the door to closed and locked it, then headed to the back for my lunch. It didn’t take long to eat, although that might have been because the news I was reading on my phone wasn’t all that appetizing.
You know, the world was ending and all that. Never mind that I’d already lived through something like four apocalypses.
All we needed was the zombies.
Then I really would have lived through all the projected ends of the world.
Well, assuming I survived the zombies. That was undecided. I wasn’t much of a runner.
I skimmed past the latest celebrity scandals right as I finished up. There was always something going on, and while I wasn’t one to keep up on it, gossip blogs were great to read while on the toilet.
Hey, we all have a vice.
I locked my phone and, after throwing my trash in the can, headed out to the main store. I had ten minutes to finish setting up for the class before ten kids descended on my Saturday.
A box by the front door caught my eye as I was walking through. I frowned—I wasn’t expecting any deliveries to the store, and there was no way my usual UPS or FedEx guys would leave a parcel outside in the middle of freaking Main Street.
I quickly unlocked the door and reached down for the box. There was no address on it, just my name written in block capitals.
That was weird.
Was it, like, a bomb?
Oh, my God. What if it was a bomb?
Jesus, Immy, have a word with yourself. Nobody is interested in bombing a small-town art graduate who runs an art store and teaches ceramic painting to kids.
I picked it up and carried it inside, shaking off those stupid dramatic thoughts. I locked the door behind me and set the box on the counter on top of my order book.
This was how the stupid bitches died in horror movies.
I reached under the counter for the box cutter and sliced open the tape. It exploded in front of me with a maniacal laugh.
My entire life flashed in front of my eyes.
I screamed, staggering back onto the small shelving unit behind me. My hand knocked into a vase that went flying to the floor and smashed, making me scream again at the sudden noise.
My heart thundered against my ribs, and I gripped the top of the unit so tightly my knuckles ached.
What.
The.
Fuck.
I blinked furiously, trying to bring focus back to my vision. A clown-like Jack in the Box was taking up the entire counter, and it flopped side to side as it stared at me. It had the most hideous yellow hair and red cheeks, and the manic blue eyes were surrounded by black and white paint, but it was the tongue that really got me.
The tongue snaked halfway up its cheek, and it was the most glaring pink I’d ever seen in my life.
It was absolutely fucking terrifying.
I was going to kill Mason Black.
I didn’t need to look in the box to know if this was his work or not. This was the kind of outrageous shit he loved to pull. In his opinion, if a prank didn’t scare the ever-loving shit out of me, it wasn’t worth doing.
Hence all the spiders.
Well, he’d won, because I was two seconds from calling nine-one-one and getting checked for a heart attack.
I was pretty sure I’d experienced the precursor to one just then.
I grabbed my phone to text him, then stopped. I didn’t have his number anymore, so a texted death threat wasn’t going to do me any favors right now.
No. I had to come up with a way of getting back at him that didn’t involve talking to him.
Unfortunately, that would have to wait, because I had a class to teach.
Damn it.
***
“Tell me again how this works.” Hannah looked the ladder up and down. “How are you going to attach the Jack clown thing to his window?”
“Double-sided sticky tape,” I said simply.
“Double-sided sticky tape,” she repeatedly dryly. “How do you even know which room is his?”
Ah, the hitch in my plan.
“I don’t.”
“You don’t?”
“No. That’s why we’re staking out his house.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but we’re about as sleuth-like as a T-Rex.”
“At least we have real arms,” I muttered. “Look, his payback needs to be severe and swift. I have to get this over and done with and send the message that I know it was him.”
“Jesus, you sound like a group of unhinged politicians waging war in a remote part of the world.” Hannah sighed, pulling her dark hair into a ponytail on top of her head. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.”