Read Bite Me (Woodland Creek) for Free Online

Rickman said those words. “Statute of Limitations is up,” she replied quietly.
    It seemed that was going to be her go-to defense. Not that he could blame her, of course.
    Rickman made a noise in the back of his throat. “Do I need to worry that these men might try shooting up my town?” He looked to his computer. Already, he had several profiles up. He had Jake look at them just to confirm they were correct. “These other guys are small time, but they can be dangerous when they think they’re moving up in the world or have something to prove. This other one, Robert Hammer? I can’t even believe that’s his real name.”
    “He had it legally changed,” Jake said.
    Rickman’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”
    Jake nodded. “I know, pathetic, right?”
    Alice singsonged under her breath, “Jake the Snake.”
    Rickman looked over at her. “What was that?”
    Jake cleared his throat. “She didn’t say anything. Anyway, yeah, Bobby’s the main problem here. He has money, enough of it that he was able to hire a bunch of other goons. Uh, you should know he’s got a bunch of dogs with him, too.”
    Rickman glanced up at him. “What kind of dogs?”
    Jake had to be careful with this. Very careful. “The well-trained kind. Rottweilers. I don’t think they’ll go after civilians, but they definitely have Alice’s scent, and mine now, too,” he added after thinking about it for a minute.
    “Uh huh,” Rickman said, and his eyes turned hard as he stared at Jake. “They shifters?”
    Jake had just been in the process of sucking back another gulp of coffee, and it was either swallow it down or spit it out.
    Since spitting it out would mean getting the chief right in the face, he forced himself to swallow it all down, despite the fact it was so much that it hurt his throat and made him have to pound his own chest.
    Alice spoke up just as Jake got a handle on not choking to death. “How did you know?”
    “So I was right.” Rickman leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers over his belly. Despite being in good shape, it turned out that he did have something of a softer middle.
    Must’ve been from age.
    “I always worry I’m going to spit that word out and people will look at me like I’ve lost it, but so far, every time, my guesses have been correct. I thought I heard you call him Jake the Snake a second ago. That what you are? A snake?”
    Jake scratched the sudden itch that was on the back of his neck. “Yeah. Diamondback rattlesnake.”
    Rickman whistled. “Jesus, that sounds deadly.” He nodded his head to Bobby’s most recent photo. “Is that why his face looks so fucked up?”
    “I had to bite him,” Jake said quickly. “He was going to hurt Alice.”
    Jake forced himself not to look back at her. He didn’t want to see the look on her face when he said something like that. It seemed too personal.
    “I’m thinking your story from before makes more sense.”
    “Do the rest of the police know?”
    “I’d say about half the town is in on what goes on around here,” Rickman replied. “Makes it easier to get things done. Kind of hard to hire new people, though.”
    Jake supposed that would be a problem. Lunch breaks must be weird when a man knew that half of his coworkers knew about the secret of the town, but the other half didn’t.
    “So what are you? Something that I assume makes it easy to take things that aren’t yours?”
    “Um, flying squirrel,” Alice replied.
    Rickman’s thick brown brows shot up high. “No shit. Thought for sure you would’ve said a ferret or a crow.”
    Jake looked back at Alice just as she shrugged one shoulder. “Most rich people don’t lock their higher windows. Sometimes they even leave them open.”
    “And you just glide right in?”
    Alice nodded, grinning as though remembering some fond experience. There was a light in her eyes as she spoke of it, but then she seemed to realize Jake was looking at her.
    The light went out, and the grin vanished