Nice Girls Don't Bite Their Neighbors by Molly Harper Read Free Book Online

expression on their faces. I arched an eyebrow, but that was mainly because of the way Dick was dangling Joe by his ankles, while the baby giggled hysterically. Jolene sighed, retrieved her inverted offspring, and smacked the back of Dick’s head.
    “This is why you’re an alternate,” she told him.
    Gabriel cleared his throat. “Jane, I know that you’re still a bit in shock from Jamie’s turning, but we were hoping you might be ready to talk about a few things.”
    His formal tone brought a ghost of a smile to my lips. “Such as?”
    Gabriel and Dick exchanged uneasy glances, making me cry, “Stop doing that! I swear, I liked it better when you two were conspiring against each other, not me. Out with it!”
    “Jane, you were nearly hit by a car today. Maybe it was an accident, but I think we can agree that there’s a ninety-percent chance that it was intentional,” Gabriel said.
    “Ninety percent?”
    “I did the math,” Andrea assured me. “The number of occasions in which you have been injured due to accident or miscalculated practical jokes, versus intentional injury.”
    “The point is, we’re not going to wait around for trouble to find you this time,” Gabriel said. “This time, you’re going to let me use every resource at my disposal to seek this person out and stop him.”
    “Agreed,” I said, nodding.
    He arched an eyebrow. “You’re not going to protest?”
    “No, I think you have a really good grasp on the problem. I’m not going to do anything that pushes us apart or drags the problem out. If you need to stay with me at the shop while I’m working, we’ll set up office space for you there. Hell, I’ll get you your own fax line. If you think we need to close the shop for a while, we can do that. Let me know what I can do to make this situation easier for you.”
    Frowning, he sighed. “Now is not the time for sarcasm, Jane.”
    “I’m not being sarcastic!”
    “Then I have no idea how to respond.”
    “You kiss me and tell me everything is going to be OK.”
    He kissed me. “Everything’s going to be OK.”
    “OK.”
    “I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit,” Zeb griped.
    “Stretch, you have any idea who might have been behind the wheel of that car?” Dick asked. “You said it swerved toward you after it struck Jamie. Do you think it’s possible that you were the target and Jamie was just collateral damage?”
    “Yes,” I said. “That’s actually been buzzing at the back of my brain since Jamie took his last breath. And after the last couple of years, I actually have a system for narrowing down a list of suspects when something like this happens. But honestly, I don’t think I have anyenemies left at this point. I mean, I haven’t done anything to anyone lately. And I don’t think I have anything that anyone else would want. That’s generally what gets me in trouble. First, there was Missy, the insane real estate agent who wanted to take my house and turn it into a tacky vampire condo development. Then Esther Barnes, the psychic who tried to scramble Zeb’s brain and prevent his wedding to Jolene. And of course, Jeanine. But those were all cases of my actually doing something to piss someone off.”
    “What about the ladies in the Chamber of Commerce?” Zeb asked.
    “Well, yeah, they’re plotting against me, but Nice Courtney says their plans are of the ‘make Jane a social pariah who dies pitiful, penniless, and alone’ variety. I think it involves getting all of my advertising changed to say ‘Specialty Hookers.’ ”
    “Local vampire haters?”
    “Nah. I can’t see one of them having a beef with me specifically. If anyone, they’d go after . . .” I pressed my lips together and gave Dick a speculative look.
    “What?” he demanded.
    “Oh, nothing.”
    “Former employers?”
    “Mrs. Stubblefield is drying out in a rehab center in Bowling Green.”
    “Gabriel’s other errant vampire children?”
    “He promises me there are no