Evil at Heart Read Online Free PDF

“ ‘And then work in a second until you’ve got your whole hand in there.’ ” Susan demonstrated, like she was stuffing a turkey. “ ‘And then the other hand, and you keep stretching until it’s about six feet.’ ” She pantomimed it. “ ‘What do you do with a six-foot asshole?’ the cop asks.”
               
                “Let me guess,” Henry said. “Give him a badge.”
               
                Susan dropped her hands back in her lap. “You’ve heard it,” she said.
               
                Henry pressed the buzzer. “Mine was better,” he said.
               
                “I can write a good book about this case,” Susan said. “Something important even, maybe.” They both knew what that meant. Not like The Last Victim. “Gretchen is a celebrity to some people. I want to explore that. I want to understand the cultural fascination with violence.”
               
                “Come on, Susan,” Henry said, lifting his hand to the back of his neck. “Let him move on.”
               
                “You know what I’m working on now?” Susan said. “It’s a bathroom book. A thousand weird ways people die. Like how many people a year are killed by falling coconuts.”
               
                “How many?” Henry asked.
               
                “About a hundred and fifty,” Susan said. “They’re really dangerous.” She raised her finger again. “The point is I can’t do this Gretchen book without him.” She gave Henry a pleading look.
               
                A female voice cracked over the intercom. “Can I help you?” the voice said.
               
                “Finally,” Henry muttered. “It’s Henry Sobol to see Archie Sheridan,” he said.
               
                “I’ll be right there,” the voice said brightly.
               
                Susan wasn’t ready to give up. “I watched her cut his throat,” she said. She and Henry had both been there. Susan had held a dish towel on Archie’s neck, felt his warm blood soak the cloth. She blamed herself for Gretchen’s escape. She wondered if Henry blamed her, too. Susan had, after all, in a blaze of panic, provided Gretchen with access to a gun.
               
                Henry looked her up and down and then frowned. Susan thought he was going to say something snarky about her hair. But instead he squinted at her and said, “You take care of yourself, right?”
               
                “I take vitamins,” Susan said.
               
                Henry sighed. “I’m talking about varying your route to work,” he said. “Locking your door at night.That sort of thing.”
               
                The hair on Susan’s arms stood up. Henry would only ask her that if he thought there was a chance she might be in danger. “Oh, God,” she said. “You think it might actually be her.”
               
                “Just take precautions,” Henry said. “Can you do that?”
               
                A knot of anxiety tightened around Susan’s throat. Take precautions? She’d moved back in with her mother. They hadn’t locked the front door of their house for as long as Susan could remember, until two months ago. Since then, Susan’s mother, Bliss, had lost eight keys. “What happened out there?” Susan asked. “Is there something you guys aren’t releasing?”
               
                The door opened and a nurse appeared.
               
                “I shouldn’t have said anything,” Henry said to Susan.
               
                “You think