Sympathy For The Devil by Asha King Read Free Book Online Page B

lacerations indicating she’d been beaten badly. It was difficult to tell if there’d been a sexual assault but she was found mostly nude so it seemed likely.
    Though she’d nosed around the police station and morgue for years, her stomach still turned sickly reading the details. By all rights it was a gruesome scene, the worst Stirling Falls had seen in recent memory. And there was the husband, Devin Archer, practically tied up in a neat little bow for police. People didn’t trust him, the wife had kicked him out. He didn’t even have a confirmed alibi—home drunk was his excuse.
    But there was no physical evidence, and the house itself looked as though it had been broke into. Screen door damaged, a chair knocked over in the kitchen, water still running in the overflowed sink, dishes broken. Some money and jewelry was missing, but that was it—it almost looked like the theft was an afterthought.
    Her heart broke for Adam through all this, with the glimpses of him caught in the middle, seeking justice that was never found. No wonder he didn’t talk about it much and even Danyiah didn’t push him on the subject.
    She flipped to the next page, eyes settling on the first sentence of a witness statement when the porch light flicked on at the house. She killed the penlight, ducked down, and waited.
    Archer locked up the house and headed for the truck.
    Tash tossed the file folder onto the passenger seat where it knocked over the remnants of Chinese takeout, kept her head low and waited with her hand on the keys in the ignition. Archer pulled down the long driveway, kicking up dust as he went, and turned into the rural route that led in the direction of town.
    She knew the road well—it went a few miles before there were any turns. After giving it two minutes, she started the engine and pulled out, heading after him.
    Once the truck was in sight, she backed off a bit and held far enough away that it didn’t look like she was riding his ass, then pulled out her cell phone and hit record.
    “It’s 10:43 p.m. on Saturday,” she said in a low voice, eyes on the back of Archer’s struck. “I’m pursuing the target. He’s spent the day at the secondary house, presumably working. He’s now headed toward town.” She hit pause, not entirely certain what else to say at this point—there was no sense rehashing what she’d read from Ingram’s files. Again, she hit record. “After purchasing paint thinner and a landline phone at the hardware store this afternoon, he was brought to the police station. An unknown amount of time was spent there; I caught up with him at the secondary house.” And I have nothing else to say . She liked keeping records of everything but it was really boring sometimes.
    She followed Archer as he cut around town. Right when she expected him to keep going, he made a right onto Prince Street. Out here the houses started to thin out and farmland increased, the very edge of the downtown core. A handful of people were on the streets, especially as they drew closer to the bar Eight’s. Of the drinking holes in town, it was the farthest on the seedy scale.
    When Archer’s truck slowed to park across the street from the bar, Tash kept going and swung around back. She didn’t head into Eight’s often but she knew the place well enough to predict the back door would be open.
    And it was—as she parked around back, she glimpsed a couple of men in a shouting match and another holding open the rear door with a small crowd leaning out and cajoling.
    Tash grabbed her purse, flew out of the car, scrambled back to lock up, then raced across the rarely used parking lot for the bar door. Classic rock blared and smoke filled the air even before she reached it.
    A smile got her through the door and past the people watching the escalating fight. Eight’s was dimly lit with Christmas tree lights running the length of the hallway. Scuffed up doors were on either side of her, some leading to bathrooms and others