Devil's Plaything Read Online Free PDF

not too much to think more conspiratorial forces are at play.
    What if something’s happened to the first woman I’ve met in years who doesn’t think my worldview needs to be realigned by a shrink or shaman? She says she wouldn’t change a thing about me except the part where I use wanderlust as an excuse not to go on a second date. And she seems to help keep my brain in check. Once when Pauline and I were sitting at a downtown café, a woman plopped at the table next to ours, Giants baseball cap pulled down low, clutching to her chest a big purse made of black fabric. A surgical scar ran from the woman’s wrist to her triceps, dotted around its edges with other tiny pink scars. They were textbook shrapnel wounds. Through careful straining, I could make out that the bag contained a heavy, thick battery, something that might power a small generator. I’d once survived a bombing at a café and I whispered my concerns to Pauline, trying to sound like I was making a joke. She introduced herself to the woman, who turned out to be a mechanic, injured once by an exploding combustion engine that spewed debris and hot oil. Pauline hired her to maintain her BMW, and to remind me, as she put it, “to err on the side of not being crazy.”
    That’s what she’d tell me now, with a smile and a gentler prod of her index finger to my ribs, as I look around the empty office. I’m sure she’ll return shortly from whatever errand she’s on, and I can go back to keeping the perfect package at arm’s length.
    I shrug off my backpack, pull out her swiveling ergonomic chair and sit to take stock.
    On her desk sits a pile of manila file folders. The folder’s tabs have headings like “Q1 financials” and “Competitive analysis.”
    Also on the desk, in an elegant silver frame, is a black-and-white 4-by-6 photo of a twenty-something guy, smiling, hollow-cheeked, bowl haircut. Pauline’s brother, Philip, an addict who battles fiercely against the lure of crystal meth.
    Beside the frame is a calendar filled in neat script with daily meeting reminders. I’d not have noticed except that it’s turned to September—last month. September 27 stands out. It’s circled in thick red pen.
    What I notice most on her desk is what I don’t see: an envelope addressed to me, with the heading “for your eyes only.”
    I wonder if I should call the police. And say what? My boss is late to meet me for drinks?
    I call her again. I get voice mail.
    I gaze blankly at Pauline’s computer. Next to it stands a veritable squirt-tub of hand sanitizer. Hardly a sign of a hypochondriac, this is standard office furniture these days. In yesteryear, proper office decorum might have included offering a visitor a taste of alcohol. Now it entails offering them a squirt. I push down on the dispenser and wind up with an excessive gob in my right palm. I rub it into my hands and start to swivel in her chair, turning a circle, contemplating my next move.
    I see the envelope.
    Its edge juts out haphazardly from between two thick medical dictionaries on the bookshelf. In this otherwise neat office, it looks like someone stuck the envelope there in a hurry.
    I walk over and pull it out. As Pauline described, the address is written in scribbled hand. It reads: “Nathaniel Idle, Highly Evolved World Traveler.” Pauline hadn’t mentioned the traveler part.
    No return address or postage graces the envelope.
    Inside it, I find the thumb drive. I pop it into her computer.
    Onto the monitor appears a login screen. At the top of the screen, it says: “password protected.” The user name is filled in “Nathaniel Idle.” The password is empty. All just as Pauline described it.
    Into the password line, I type: “Annie.” For years, I used my ex as a password like a secret I was keeping with my computer about the power Annie still held over me. It fails.
    I