Kill You Twice by Chelsea Cain Read Free Book Online Page B

taller than any of the trees around it. It’s the tallest tree.”
    Archie was quiet.
    “So that could be a clue, right?” Susan said.
    “Maybe,” Archie said. “Or it might be a coincidence.” He was slouched forward on the toilet seat. Susan was sitting on the floor. She was suddenly aware of how small the
room was, and how close their bodies were. His shirt was buttoned wrong. She found that weirdly charming. It was really hot in there. Archie reached his good hand toward her face, and grazed her
cheek with his fingertips. Susan couldn’t move. “Your eye makeup is a little smeared,” he said.
    She touched her face. “Oh,” she said. She could feel her cheeks warm. “Thanks.”
    Archie stood.
    “Why don’t you ever call me back?” Susan asked.
    “I have a lot on my plate, Susan,” Archie said.
    “Is it because of Leo?” she asked.
    “I’m too hot in here,” Archie said. He left the bathroom. Susan stewed for a second and then hopped up and stomped after him. She found him sitting on the black couch, his
bandaged hand in his lap.
    “So?” she said, standing.
    “Thanks for stopping by,” Archie said.
    It was evening now and the apartment seemed strangely bright compared to the dark sky outside.
    “I know you don’t like him,” Susan said.
    “I do like him,” Archie said. “We have a history.”
    She knew all about that. “You helped catch his sister’s killer,” she said. She sat down next to him on the couch, careful to leave a respectable eighteen inches between them.
“It’s not the ideal way to meet,” she said. “But you of all people know what he’s been through. He thinks the world of you.” It was more complicated than that,
Susan knew. Archie and Leo’s father went way back, and Archie knew exactly how Jack Reynolds made his money. “His father is hinky,” she said with a sigh. And by hinky she
meant a drug kingpin . “Okay. I’ll give that one to you. But”—and she lifted her finger for emphasis—“he’s not like his father.” She
reconsidered this. “I mean, he’s not perfect. But he’s not Scarface.”
    “You don’t need my permission to date Leo Reynolds,” Archie said.
    She didn’t. Certainly. That was ridiculous. Why would she?
    Still . . .
    “What if I wanted it?” Susan asked.
    Archie looked at her for a moment, and then rubbed his eyes with his good hand. “There are things I can’t tell you.”
    “No duh,” Susan said. “You are like a walking vault of things you don’t tell people. People who have secrets should pay you to hold on to them for them. You could be like
a secret bank.” She rolled her eyes. “There are things you can’t tell me?” she asked. “Worse things than the things I know already? How is that even
possible?”
    Archie didn’t answer.
    She wanted to remind him that she wasn’t with the paper anymore, that he could trust her, that she was his friend. She wanted to tell him that she wouldn’t betray him. But mostly she
wanted him to know it, without being told.
    “So you won’t get dinner with us?” Susan said.
    “Susan.” He could make her name sound so long sometimes.
    “We could just swing by a food cart,” she said quickly. “No pressure. Some Belgian fries and a Korean taco or two.”
    Archie crossed his arms and looked at her. “I saw Pearl today.”
    Susan immediately lost her train of thought and tucked her socked feet up under her on the couch. Pearl? Here? If Archie was lying, it was verbal kung fu par excellence. “Seriously?”
Susan said.
    “She lives at the halfway house where the victim was a volunteer. She may have been the last person to see him alive, besides the killer.”
    It had been a year since they’d seen Pearl. “I thought she was back at her mother’s in Salem,” Susan said.
    “Foster mother. I checked. She ran away again. The state put her in the house while they look for new placement.”
    “How does she seem?” Susan asked.
    “Like a defensive smart-ass