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

others,” I muttered, narrowing my eyes at him.
    Gabriel elbowed Dick in the gut. “Jackass.”
    Dick chortled and ducked a second blow from his childhood best friend.
    “Have you noticed how many people don’t like you?” Jolene asked. “Your grandma Ruthie, my aunties, Mrs. Stubblefield, old lady psychics.”
    “Ooh!” Zeb exclaimed. “What about all those girls you insulted-slash-made-cry in high school? We just saw them at the reunion. That probably stirred up some feelings.”
    “I don’t think you’re helping there, Zeb,” Dick said, patting Zeb’s shoulder.
    “And I didn’t ‘make’ those girls cry. In general, I was responding to bitchery in kind. I was provoked!”
    “Every time?” Andrea asked.
    “There weren’t that many times,” I insisted.
    Andrea looked to Zeb, who was nodding. “Yes, there were,” he said.
    “What about assassins paid by your grandma Ruthie?” Jolene suggested.
    “That is . . . surprisingly plausible,” I grumbled. “Look, over the years, my unique sense of humor and perverse grasp of honesty may have led to some hurt feelings and long-held grudges. But overall, I’m a pretty likable person.”
    They all seemed to bite their lips simultaneously to keep from snickering.
    “I hate you all!” I exclaimed.
    “I’m glad y’all are takin’ this so seriously,” Jolene said in her best motherly tone.
    No one had the decency to look sheepish.
    “OK, so the suspect list is long and somewhat vague,”Andrea said. “The question is, how do we keep Jane—and by extension, her loved ones and colleagues—from getting shot, stabbed, poisoned, beaten, Tasered, burned, maced, or otherwise slapped about by anonymous yet incredibly determined forces?”
    “We don’t let her work alone at the shop,” Gabriel suggested.
    “We put her in a hermetically sealed plastic vampire habitat,” Dick said.
    “We hire one of my nicer cousins to come over durin’ the day and keep an eye on the place,” Jolene added.
    “We keep her from handling guns, knives, poison, Taser guns, fire, or mace so she doesn’t injure herself,” Zeb said.
    “These are all good suggestions,” I said. “Except for putting me in a vampire hamster cage. But Gabriel’s right. I’m tired of waiting around for trouble to come to me. I’m tired of dreading a ringing phone because it could mean that one of you has been hurt. I’m tired of keeping my head in the sand. So I’m going to take a more proactive approach.”
    “We,” they chorused.
    “Instead of sitting around, waiting for the next incident, I—”
    “We,” they corrected me again in chorale, which was a little creepy.
    “We are going to try to find the person driving that car. The plate was obscured, but I got a partial number. Jolene, do you have any cousins who work in the DMV?”
    “I’m insulted that you even have to ask.” She snorted, bobbing the baby on her hip. “I have three.”
    I scribbled out a description of the car’s make and model and the partial license plate and handed it to Jolene.
    “Can we get a whiteboard, like on Law and Order ?” Andrea asked.
    Dick nodded. “I was thinking official ‘Keep Jane from Being Murdered Task Force’ T-shirts.”
    The team seemed ready to “break” to take on their individual tasks, when Gabriel raised his hands. I gritted my teeth and waited for the inevitable speech that could be summed up as “I think we should keep Jane locked away and ignorant for her own protection.” Instead, Gabriel said, “I would like to lodge a formal objection to the ‘go looking for trouble’ plan. I think it’s ill advised and very likely to get at least one of us hurt. But I’m also smart enough to recognize that it’s an empty gesture, and since you’re going to do it anyway, I might as well get onboard.”
    I cooed. “Aw, you know me so well.” I pressed a kiss against his tensed, frowning lips. “You know, you’d think I would be used to someone trying to kill me by now,