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  Crap.

  Possum, he guessed. If the critter came out of the thicket, it would trigger the sensors. If he tried to wave it away, it would trigger the sensors. Who knew what alarms that might set off. Even if they saw it was just a possum, it would wake the watchers and put them on alert.

  “Git,” he hissed.

  The possum stared back at him.

  “Git now.”

  A standoff ensued. The possum stared at him. Miles stared back.

  The need to relieve his aching bladder grew stronger.

  Stupid, stupid possum. He had half a mind to kill it instead of the girl, blow his cover and just go home.

  Inside his stealth clothing, he felt a drop of sweat slide down his neck.

  Go away you ugly cur.

  The critter seemed to have heard his silent plea. It turned and waddled back into the undergrowth.

  Miles heaved a sigh.

  He gripped the zipper of his bag and took another deep breath. This would be the tricky part. Finding the head from the tail and grabbing it without moving so fast he set off the cameras.

  Miles slid his hand into the bag and felt the head of the beast within. He’d velcroed its head to the right side of the bag so he’d know where it was and the Velcro had held.

  Thank Jesus for little favors.

  With his hand around the creature’s head, he unfastened the Velcro with his other hand. The snake wasn’t happy. He could feel the body writhing in the bag. He pulled the seventeen-foot-long reticulated python from his case and fed its head into the hole he made in the window.

  Perfect.

  His job was done.

  Now the snake just had to be a snake.

  He hadn’t fed the snake for weeks. That girl sleeping in her bed was going to look like a turkey dinner to it. He might not have time to digest her before someone realized she was missing, but the life would have been squeezed out of her by then. Of that Miles was certain.

  Time to move.

  He couldn’t be sure he hadn’t triggered an alarm. There’d been no way for him to keep the snake from moving.

  Miles grabbed his bag as the last of the tail slid into the house and moved himself through the darkness. He took the shortest path that would move him out of the view of the cameras. Once away from the house, he broke into a jog toward the nearest hunk of scrub forest to relieve himself.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Abby, don’t,” mumbled Charlotte, unsure if she were dreaming or awake.

  Abby barked again and stepped back, placing a paw directly on Charlotte’s cheek. She jerked her head out from under the dog.

  “Come on. What are you doing?” She put her arms around the dog to keep her from crushing her face.

  “What are you—”

  Something moved near Charlotte’s feet.

  Hm.

  It took her sleepy mind a moment to piece together what bothered her about that movement.

  The dog is right here…

  That was it. The dog was usually the thing that moved at her feet at night.

  And if the dog is up here with me...

  Something moved again.

  Faster.

  Abby skittered out of her arms and yipped as she fell off the side of the bed.

  Before Charlotte could react, something flopped across her hips and she froze, her breath caught in her throat.

  The nightlight she kept on in the hallway provided just enough light for her to see the heavy thing sliding across her legs. The pattern, the shape, the way it moved. All these things told her it could only be one thing.

  A snake.

  An enormous snake.

  How can a snake be that big?

  She would have thought it was a dream, except she could feel her heart pounding. No way could she sleep with what felt like a rhinoceros repeatedly slamming into her ribs.

  The snake began to move.

  Charlotte glanced to the left and saw its tail, much too far away. The thing had to be twenty feet long.

  She wanted to slide out from under the weight of the creature, but feared any movement would signal her presence. If the head turned back for her while she was pinned beneath its weight...that had to be a bad thing.

  Abby barked from the hallway. The snake had eyes on her. It was moving across Charlotte’s legs on its way toward the yapping morsel in the hall.

  Charlotte wanted to scream for Abby to get away from the approaching reptile but again, feared noise would bring quick retribution from her slithering guest. She wasn’t entirely sure she could scream. It felt as if her throat had closed for the foreseeable future.

  Slowly, she reached out her hand and grabbed her phone from the nightstand. The snake remained on her, but it paused.

  Oh no.

  She froze.

  Did it pause because it felt me move? Or because...I dunno...whatever snakes pause for?

  The snake remained still. Abby remained barking in the hallway, a regular staccato yap. Surely, Andy and Butch would come busting in any second with all the racket Abby was making, but Charlotte wasn’t sure that’s what she wanted. Once those two oafs were in the house, who knew what might happen? There weren’t a lot of—

  Um.

  What is this?

  A python?

  Probably.

  There weren’t a lot of pythons in New Jersey, she guessed.

  She raised her phone and dialed Declan. The snake remained still. It seemed unhappy about chasing after the yapping Abby, but not so unhappy it had changed its mind. If it started forward again, Charlotte judged she had about three or four feet before she’d have to grab the tail to keep it from reaching her dog.

  She wasn’t looking forward to that part.

  What do I know about pythons?

  They’re destroying the everglades’ ecosystem.

  Okay. True, but not helpful. Unless a team of conservationists burst through her door right now to kill it.

  She didn’t think pythons were poisonous, but she didn’t relish the idea of being bitten by a face bigger than a dinner plate either. And if the thing started wrapping around her—

  “Hello?”

  Charlotte pushed a whisper from her dry throat. “Declan, there’s a snake in my room.”

  “What? Charlotte?”

  “Snake.”

  “There’s a snake in your room?”

  She nodded and realized he couldn’t see either her head bobbing or the size of the snake in her room.

  “Yes. Big. Help. Now.”

  “How big?”

  “Twenty.”

  “Inches?”

  “Feet.”

  “What? I’m on my way.”

  “Thank you.”

  She hung up and called the number Andy had given her in case of emergency. She guessed a twenty-foot python constituted an emergency, though she still didn’t know if alerting the city kids was the best idea.

  “Hello?”

  She couldn’t tell if it was Andy or Butch on the other end of the line, but whoever he was, he sounded sleepy.

  The snake began to move and Charlotte held her breath. It dropped another foot over the edge of the bed and then stopped again. Now she could see the front of it in her doorway. Its head wagged back and forth with agitation as Abby backed another two feet and continued barking.

  “Andy?”

  “Charlotte? What’s wrong? You okay in there?”

  Andy definitely sounded bleary. The boys had apparently fallen asleep.

  “Listen to me. Do not come flying in here, but there is a very large snake in my bed.”

  She winced. That just didn’t sound right.

  “A snake?” Andy sounded a little sharper.

  “Yes. A python, I think.”

  “A python? They’re real?”

  Charlotte sighed.

  City boys.

  Andy’s going to be a big help. He thinks pythons are like dragons and unicorns.

  “Yes. Very real.”

  “Uh..
.”

  “Listen. Come in, normal. Grab Abby. Take her outside. Do you hear me?”

  “Uh, sure, is the snake—”

  “The snake is in here with me. You’re safe at the front door. Just get Abby before the snake does.”

  I think. In reality, she really didn’t know how fast a twenty-foot snake could move. She’d seen Black Racers slither like they’d been shot from a cannon, if this snake was anything like those jerks...

  “Okay. Yeah. Right. Comin’.”

  Andy didn’t hang up. She heard him waking Butch and chewing him out for falling asleep on his shift. She heard them get out of their car and then heard Andy’s heavy breath on the other side of the line.

  “Wait. What about you?”

  “Just take care of Abby.”

  “But we’re here to protect you. Not the dog.”

  “You didn’t sign up for pythons.”

  “No, dat’s true but—”

  “And if something happens to Abby I swear I’ll feed myself to the snake.”

  “Oh jeeze, Charlotte—”

  “Could you hurry please?”

  “Yeah, sure. Hey, you want me to shoot it?”

  “Maybe. Let’s start with Abby.”

  “You want me to shoot Abby?”

  “No come get Abby.”

  “Right. Right. I gotchu.”

  She heard her front door opening. Butch appeared in the hallway behind Abby and grabbed the dog’s collar. He pulled her out of the house, the Wheaten fighting him the entire way.

  Andy appeared as Butch disappeared with the dog. His jaw hung low as he stared at the serpent partially in the hall and partially still lying across Charlotte’s lap.

  He pulled his gun from a holster strapped to his body.

  “Charlotte, I’m going to have to shoot that thing.”

  “How good a shot are you?” she asked as quietly as possible.

  By the hall nightlight she could see Butch grimace.

  “I used to be alright...”

  Charlotte frowned and shook her head slowly. She held up her index finger, asking him to wait.

  “Let me think a second.”

  Charlotte ran through the scenarios in her mind. If Andy missed the snake, the sound of the gun might send it into a frenzy. It could retreat and bite her, wrap around her in fear and squish the life out of her…

  She lifted her chin to peer down at the head in the hallway. It already seemed lost and restless, now that the dog had disappeared. The head began to twist to the right, as if it was thinking about turning around.

  Crap.

  Outside, she heard tires screech to a halt. She heard a voice that sounded like Declan’s shout something to Butch.

  Thankyouthankyouthankyou you big sexy ex-soldier boy. Please tell me you brought your gun.

  Declan appeared at the end of her hallway, moving Andy aside.

  Andy looked at him. “She told me not to shoot it unless—”

  “I have my gun,” said Declan, staring down the hall and locking eyes with Charlotte.

  Yay!

  His gaze dropped to the floor in front of her bed. “Holy—”

  He sees the snake.

  Declan pulled out his pistol and fired. The python’s head stopped moving and flopped to the ground. Disturbingly, the body stretched across her legs began to move. Charlotte scrambled out from under her sheets and rolled to the opposite side of her bed as the tail thunked to the floor.

  Declan strode forward, stepped over the dead snake, and pulled Charlotte into his arms.

  “You scared me to death,” he whispered into her ear.

  “You were scared to death?”

  She held on to him, gripping his body against hers. She liked to be tough and not so damsel-in-distressy, but sometimes a pair of strong arms wrapped around you were exactly what you needed when you were almost crushed by a giant python. She hoped pressing herself against him would keep her heart from pounding through her chest and escaping on its own.

  Charlotte opened her eyes and spotted Andy squatting over the snake, poking at it with the tip of his gun.

  She looked up at Declan.

  “Nice shot.”

  He took a deep breath and released her. “How did this happen?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Declan glanced around the room and quickly spotted the missing glass in Charlotte’s window.

  “Someone did this on purpose. They cut your window.”

  “Someone tried to murder me with a snake?”

  “It looks like it.”

  A fog of fear slowly began to lift from her brain, revealing a few things that didn’t make sense. “How did you get here so fast?”

  “I was down the street.”

  “Why?”

  Declan shrugged. “I was watching. Apparently not well enough.”

  “You were watching Andy and Butch and they were watching me and someone still managed to try and kill me with a twenty foot snake?”

  He frowned. “Mm.”

  “What about the cameras?”

  “Nothing set them off.”

  “A python being shoved through my window didn’t trigger the cameras? You’re going to have to talk to Blade about the quality of his equipment.”

  Declan nodded and pulled his phone from his pocket. “That’s actually my next call.”

  Charlotte walked down the hall and outside to find Abby there, Butch still holding her collar. She lowered and hugged the dog.

  “My little watchdog.”

  “Is it dead?” asked Butch.

  She nodded.

  Butch heaved a sigh. “I didn’t sign up for none of this.”

  Declan walked outside. “Blade’s going to see if he can find anything on video.”

  Charlotte nodded. “In a few hours I’ll call Tilly and see if she has anything on her cameras.”

  Declan ran a hand through his hair and heaved a sigh.

  “Why can’t I ever just date someone who works in an office?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Tell me you’re kidding.”

  Miles felt like a child being scolded by his father. He didn’t like the feeling as a kid, and he didn’t like it now. Jim’s voice had that same tone of deep disappointment that usually came before his father backhanded him.

  “I didn’t know she had a dog.”

  “Knowing if someone does or doesn’t have a dog shouldn’t be the deciding factor on whether or not you decide to kill them with a python.”

  Jim sounded frustrated. The dude talked funny. If he knew where he lived he’d put a python in his window.

  “I told you to stop her from investigating what happened in the warehouse. Not to try and kill her with a snake.”

  “Same thing.”

  “It is not at all the same thing!” Jim was yelling now.

  “I got it. Jeeze. They killed my damn snake. I got expenses.”

  “Are you saying you want me to reimburse you?”

  “Well, yeah, it’d be nice. They grow pythons that big on trees, you know.”

  “Don’t pythons, in fact, often live in trees?”

  Miles sucked on his tooth.

  There’s going to be one livin’ in your bed if you keep talking to me like that.

  Jim didn’t wait for an answer. “Look, we’re only working together because you said you could find Jamie.”

  “Who?”

  “Simone.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You said you’d tried to kill her once already and almost done it.”

  “That’s true.”

  The last bit. I don’t have any idea where she is now. I told you that lie hoping you could find her for me.

  “You said you came so close to killing her that you had to become a recluse—”

  “Become a recluse?” Miles laughed. “How can I become a spider?”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “I didn’t say I’d become a recluse. I said I tried to kill her
with a recluse.”

  Jim fell silent for a moment. “Come again?”

  “I said I almost killed her with a recluse. Recluses, actually. A whole jar of brown recluses. I put them in her car but somehow they didn’t bite her.”

  “You...your assassination attempt was made with brown recluse spiders?”

  “Uh huh. Someone said they saw her outside her car with a high heel in her hand stompin’ and slappin’ them all dead. She knew that sort of thing was my style of killin’, so I had to skinny out of town after that.”

  “You have got to be kidding me. How did you end up in witness protection in the first place?”

  “I tricked my boss into a room with a brown bear.”

  There was another long pause.

  “Jim?”

  “Just don’t do anything.”

  The line went dead.

  Miles hung up and stared at the cheese puff sitting beneath the sofa across from him. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Killing people with animals was his thing. He’d forgotten how much he loved it and he didn’t want to stop.

  He’d never liked shooting people. It was so, well, just not natural. Some people hunted with bows and arrows because shooting didn’t seem fair to the animal. He hunted with his bare hands and other animals. There was a nobility to it.

  Miles stooped to pick up the cheese puff and popped it in his mouth, chewing on it thoughtfully. He strolled out the back door of his Daddy’s home and headed for the large barn. His Daddy had been dead for years and the home was barely fit to live in, with all the holes in the roof and the rotten floorboards, but he still kept his pets in the back barn and slept most nights in the bedroom, which he’d patched enough to keep dry.

  Some nights, he went to town and found a friend with a better house and a better bed, even if the sheets were for kids.

  He passed his pickup truck. The logo painted in fat, bubbly lettering declaring “Wild Party” had nearly faded from view. The “a” in party was a lion’s face, but in fact, he hadn’t had a lion in a long time. His one-time partner in the wild-animals-for-parties business left him when he was sent to jail and the bastard took most of the best animals. The lion, the tiger cub, the parrots...all gone while he rotted in a cell. It had been Miles’ idea to create an exotic animal rental company, but that hadn’t kept L.J. from taking all his animals and running off to Orlando with them. Even now, he sometimes saw L.J.’s wild animal rental ads. His old partner was making a fortune.