Page 2 of Karma
Venom used to be part of the Summerville charter, but he moved to Griffin’s Beach when Lex and Colt did. It fits him much better, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that the woman he plans to marry in a couple of days moved, too, to win him back.
“We need to talk to you about something, Marnie,” Colt says, his hands shaking at his sides.
Marnie’s the daughter of Snake from Summerville, and while she’s not quite Lex or Lily Hankinson as far as daughters of the club go, she’s certainly used to the club life. If she’s intimidated by the men in the room, she doesn’t give anything away. In fact, her only tell is a twitch of her left eyebrow. She knows better than to show any emotion, especially fear.
“Um, okay,” she says, and her bright green eyes look up at her fiancé.
Grabbing the picture of Gerard Brock printed out, he holds it up. “Do you know this guy?”
“Yeah, he’s the one who attacked me behind the hotel the night Lex and Grayson saved me. Kept shouting that I knew too much, but I didn’t know that I actually did know anything until I saw the picture of Nina in the clubhouse.”
“But he’s not the guy you saw Nina with?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“What happened the night you met Nina?” Undertaker asks. “Walk us through everything exactly.”
He stays planted against the wall with the table between them. The last time the two of them talked about Nina in this room, he scared her. This removes any risk of him harming her, which Colt doubts he ever would do. Not on purpose. But he certainly could frighten her.
“Um, okay. She walked into the bar, and we thought she was an escort. She looked kind of disheveled, and she walked up to me. Asked me if I knew the Drifters, and I said yes. She asked me to reach out to Frances, but I didn’t know who that was. I asked if she knew his road name, and she didn’t. Then she walked back to the table.”
“But you knew you needed to remember her?” Brock asks.
Nodding, Marnie avoids looking at Undertaker. “Yeah, I had an overwhelming feeling like she’d never be seen alive again. I made it a point to memorize her. And her tattoo.”
“Why didn’t you come here immediately?” Undertaker asks.
“Because she got sick,” Venom snaps.
The two men are friends, but Venom is overly protective of Marnie. And after how Undertaker responded the last time they talked about Nina, he’s understandably on edge. Colt would feel the same way.
“I got food poisoning really bad. Ended up in the hospital for a few days, and even when I was released, I couldn’t walk more than ten feet without passing out. It took a while to regain my strength,” Marnie says.
Venom looks guilty as he stares at the floor. At the time she got sick, they weren’t speaking. It was shortly after Venom told Marnie he didn’t love her anymore, and it was almost the end of them. All the work Marnie put into winning him back after crushing him in Summerville was almost lost.
“Wait,” Marnie says and looks at Colt. “You don’t think Gerard was the one who killed those women, do you?”
Smart girl.
“No, we don’t. Not now.”
“Do you remember anything about the guy you saw Nina with?” Brock asks.
Swallowing, she nods. “He looked kind of familiar, but I don’t know why. I’d never seen him before, and I haven’t seen him since. But he gave me the creeps. The kind that has all the hair on your body standing on end.”
Venom narrows his eyes. “What the fuck is going on?”
Colt holds up a hand, telling him to wait. They need to hear this from Marnie. Holding up the picture with Phillip written along the bottom, he covers the name. “Was this the guy you saw with Nina?”
Please say no. Please tell me that there’s just a big misunderstanding with everything, and Gerard is the one who killed all these people. That somehow, someway, the guy withNina was just a hired hand. That it was Gerard who hired him, not the other way around.
Her eyes widen, and any hope Colt has vanishes. “Yeah, that’s him. You know him?”
“That’s Phillip,” Brock says and Colt catches himself on the table.
Maybe there’s still an explanation to everything. Something that doesn’t make my wife a target of a serial killer going after women who look just like her. Maybe.
Venom’s eyes dart up and lock with Colt’s. “Did he just say that’s Phillip?”
