Kill You Twice Read Online Free PDF

black, relatively new. He could feel her hand tense. She pulled it away. But not
before he caught a whiff of what he was looking for.
    It was a bright, spicy scent, and instantly recognizable. “Cloves,” he said.
    Pearl tucked her right hand under her left armpit. “So what?” she said.
    “You can’t buy cloves anymore,” Archie said. “They’re banned. Along with all flavored cigarettes.”
    Pearl smirked. “I know a guy.”
    The smell was fresh. “You smoked this morning,” Archie said.
    Bea’s arms were crossed. “It’s not allowed in the house,” she said.
    “So you went outside,” Archie said to Pearl.
    “They’re not allowed to smoke on the front porch,” Bea said.
    “We’re not allowed to do anything,” the girl with the orange Mohawk said.
    Archie leveled his gaze at Pearl. “If I go to the side yard, by the parking lot, I’m going to find your cigarette butts. I’m guessing you’re the only one around here who
smokes cloves. And I’m thinking I’ll find butts from this morning.”
    Pearl turned her head away. “I didn’t see anything. I saw him go by with the laundry.”
    A warm, dust-thick tunnel of air oscillated past from the fans, and Archie sneezed again. This time no one said gesundheit. They were all watching Pearl.
    “Then what?” he asked.
    “I came back inside,” she said.
    “What time?”
    She had the pen in her hand and was gripping it so hard, her slender fingers looked like they might snap it in two. Her arms had goose bumps. Everyone else was sweating. “Search me,”
she said.
    “Pearl,” Bea said. “You need to tell him what you saw.”
    Pearl looked away. “I saw Jake,” she said. “I liked him. I talked to him sometimes. But I didn’t talk to him this morning, because he didn’t like me
smoking.”
    Tears slid down her cheeks. She reached up and rubbed them away, and when she lowered her hand her face was smudged with ink. The pen had leaked.
    “Do you believe me?” she asked Archie.
    Sure, she had Tasered him, and when he’d come to he’d found himself hanging from meat hooks, but then again, she’d helped rescue him, too. Good times. “Yes,” he
said. Pearl’s face relaxed. Inky tears streaked her cheeks. When Archie’s daughter was four, she got into his wife’s makeup, and ended up with eye shadow and mascara all over her
face. She’d cried, too, that day. It was something kids learned to do when they wanted to get out of trouble. Archie leaned back and caught the attention of a patrol cop standing in the foyer
of the house. “Get a CSI in here,” Archie told him.
    Pearl’s eyes grew large. “Why?” she said.
    “I want you checked for blood spatter,” Archie said.
    Pearl’s tough façade faltered. Archie tried not to smile.

CHAPTER
8
    T he light was on in Archie’s apartment when he got home.
    He could see it from outside. It made him feel like he was coming home to something other than an empty place in a half-developed wasteland of warehouses and low-overhead retail. It was almost
nine P.M. , and still light. Daylight hung on hard in the Pacific Northwest in the summertime. The short dark days of winter unspooled into days that started early and stayed
light long after dinnertime. It was still light out when kids were sent to bed, and already light out when the alarm went off in the morning. Everyone stayed up late and got up too early. Everyone
was tired.
    Jake Kelly didn’t have a family. Archie had called his closest relative, a cousin in Iowa, and broken the news. So far they had turned up no leads, no witnesses, no trace evidence. The
only clue they had was the flower.
    Archie looked up at his building from where he’d parked across the street. It looked a lot like every other building in the riverside produce district: six stories of weathered brick, with
big factory windows and an old loading dock in front. The old glass reflected the dusk, so the building seemed to shimmer in and out of existence. Only a