Sympathy For The Devil Read Online Free PDF Page B

voice had an edge to it now, one he’d cultivated over the years that seemed to warn most people off.
    “Hi there,” a young guy said. “We were just wondering if you’re happy with your current telephone service.”
    A telemarketer was not what he’d been expecting. Devin blinked. “Um...yeah.”
    “Really? Maybe there’s someone else we can ask. Is your wife home?”
    The snickering on the other end of the line had rage rearing again, his white-knuckled grip on the phone threatening to crack the plastic receiver. “Listen, you little shit, I will tear your fucking head off if you ever call here again.”
    But they didn’t hear him, their laughter screeching in his ear.
    He grasped the base of the phone and jerked it, the cord snapping from the wall. It left his grip before he could even think about it, the whole unit smashing into the wall. It dented the plaster, leaving fine dust across the floor, and fell in a broken heap on the hardwood.
    His chest heaved, hands clenching into fists and heart pounding so hard he could hear his pulse in his ears.
    Stupid goddamn kids. Stupid goddamn town . He wanted to get the hell out again but a fat lot of good it would do him— someone had to get the house ready to be sold and no one in town was willing to work for him. He’d tried already.
    But he deserved it—deserved the vandalism, deserved the pranks, deserved their scorn. Deserved whatever they heaped on him and more for what happened to Chelsea.
    I killed her, after all.
     
    ****
     
    Natasha trekked along Main Street late in the afternoon. Her heavy purse was slung over her shoulder, bumping against her side as she walked. Tomorrow, she’d head over to Stirling Falls Memorial Hospital with a slice of pie from Liliah Jean and sweet talk her way into some medical reports—Sundays were good because the people working tended to be part time and really didn’t want to be there, so were happy for company and easier to finagle information from. Depending on how long that took, she might also be able to head to the police station and read up on the Chelsea Cooper-Archer cold case.
    For now, she needed a line on Devin Archer. Adam had nothing useful for her besides the address of his old house—which Adam had heard Archer wasn’t currently sleeping at. So she’d need a current address and to get a handle on his routines. Easier to watch him if she had an idea of where he’d be—less obvious if she just showed up various places rather than tailed him.
    Unfortunately, Adam hadn’t been able to offer her a photo, either, since he’d burned them all years ago, and Archer wasn’t the sort to have social networking profiles. The library had newspaper archives, at least, and if that didn’t pan out, the police station would have something.
    There were just two realtor offices in town and both indicated Archer had called about two weeks back about getting his house and farm sold. Neither had taken him on as a client and everyone had spoken to her in hushed tones, asking whether or not she knew what he had done. Though she’d grown up in Stirling Falls, her family had moved when she was a teen and it was years before she moved back—the benefit of that was that people were eager to share with her, like she was one of them even if she wasn’t in the know yet.
    No one seemed to know where Devin Archer was currently living, though they offered her possibilities—all with the idea to warn her away from those places. She made a note of each of them, smiled politely, and decided she’d go poking around tonight.
    In the meantime, she strolled for the hardware store. In a small town, there weren’t many places to pick up supplies if you were working on your house, which Archer definitely would be doing if he intended to sell the place. Of course, he might’ve headed a few counties over, but Johnny Bianchi, who took over the hardware store last fall, was new in town and wouldn’t necessarily know Archer, therefore he