The Devil You Know Read Online Free PDF

to take a mother who had just lost her only child to task. I looked down at my notes instead. “Cassie requires almost constant care?”
    “Yes,” Thom Berger answered, though his voice was more guarded now.
    “Do you have any enemies, Mr. Berger? Anyone who might want to do you or Mrs. Berger harm?”
    Thom Berger looked angry. “I run a True Value, Mr. Englebrecht. You don’t make many enemies selling weather seal.”
    “Is there anyone in your past who might want to harm you or your wife?” I repeated.
    “No one.”
    “Have you noticed anyone new in the neighborhood? Anyone—anything—suspicious or out of the ordinary?”
    “Nothing,” he answered, his voice cold and dead. I could tell that Thom Berger didn’t think much of psychic detectives.
    Ten minutes later, I was standing in the backyard, looking over the area where Cassie Berger used to sit and play. A privacy fence ran the whole backyard. There was a swing set and a sandbox and a safe plastic slide. There were toys scattered around, some Barbies, and a plastic bucket and shovel for the sandbox. One of the Barbies was lying in the sandbox, half buried. I picked it up. It was a holiday angel Barbie. I moved to the swing set. It was sturdy, built to last for generations like the ones in the orphanages where I’d grown up. Everything in the backyard had been dusted down for fingerprints. Only Cassie and her parents’ had been found. I sat down on the seat of the swing and looked out toward the far side of the backyard, the Barbie in my lap.
    A few minutes later, Ben appeared beside me. “Good questions,” he said. Up on the mountain, someone shot off a shotgun and he sighed and shook his head. The natives were restless and ready to play. “What were you digging for?”
    I shrugged. “Sometimes the way they answer is more important than the answer itself.” I thought about that. “Does Thom Berger regularly dope his wife, or is this just a special occasion?”
    “She takes Zoloft for anxiety and depression.”
    “Ah.
    “You think she did her own kid in?”
    I shrugged. “There’s a theory.” I stood up and walked to the gate. Like everything else, it had been dusted already. There was a latch on it, not exactly childproof, but far enough up that I was pretty certain a five-year-old couldn’t reach it, even if she’d been able to crawl the length of the backyard. Something more was going on. Something bad.
    I stepped out into the woods with the doll under my arm.

Two years ago, I hadn’t found the lost hiker alone. Brownswick had helped me.
    I wondered if he would help me find Cassie Berger, assuming she was still in the woods. Then again, I’d left him pissed off the last time I’d seen him. Maybe he would just kick me in the nuts and stomp off. He wouldn’t be the first. I know Morgana wanted to kick me after I got her out of bed to watch the shop this morning. Over the years, I’ve developed a rather long kicking list among both my allies and enemies. I’m just lucky that way.
    Brownswick is my animal familiar. Every witch has at least one. Morgana has crows, the most populous creature in this part of the state. They’re beautiful and scary, and she can even see through their eyes. They don’t talk, or talk back. I have fauns and satyrs, who do. No, really. I definitely got the short straw, in my opinion.
    I didn’t go looking for Brownswick this time, either. Brownswick came to me. I had only hiked perhaps three-quarters of the way into the woods, up a steep incline and through enough blue firs to cover my coat in needles, when I noticed him. You don’t see fauns; you notice them. Or rather, they let you notice them. Brownswick was seated in the boughs of one of the aforementioned blue firs, eating a honeycomb while a swarm of angry honeybees surrounded him. They were likely stinging him, though Brownswick didn’t notice, or else didn’t care, though he did scratch at one of his ears with a foreleg before glancing down at