Sympathy For The Devil (6 page)

Devin’d had it. “It just eats you up, doesn’t it? Haunts you? Can’t prove it was me then, can’t prove it’s me now. And if you had shit on me, I’d be in cuffs. So, if you’ll excuse me.” He stood abruptly, rounded the table, and braced for Perry to stop him. But the cop said nothing, just watched him storm out the door.

Stupid goddamn small town
. Everyone in the station stared at him as he stormed back down the hall, winding around the tiny building without direction as he recalled it all so well. They’d hauled him in a dozen times for questioning, he could navigate it with his eyes closed.

He thrust open the front door when he got there, stepping out into the summer heat. The sun above seemed to set his black T-shirt on fire. He’d left his hat and shades in the truck, and he squinted against the bright light as he jogged down the steps.

A man stepped in front of him, camera raised.

Son of a—
Devin clenched his hands into fists but didn’t strike, instead stepping sharply around the guy. Punching some idiot outside of the police station was the last thing he needed to do.

“In town less than a week and another body shows up—care to comment, Mr. Archer?”

The reporter followed and Devin knew that voice—the same guy who hounded him when Chelsea died. He’d made dozens of promises, all about ‘Telling His Story’ and it turned into a tabloid tale.

Still, he practiced restraint, avoided Ingram, and strode straight for his truck. The reporter trailed him, berating him with questions, but Devin tuned him out, focused on getting the hell away from the station
and
the downtown.

But still, images of the dead woman plagued him and he knew he wouldn’t be shaking the pictures from his mind any time soon.

Chapter Six

Natasha sat in her car, a penlight pinched between her teeth and casting a thin beam of light over the pages she’d photocopied from Harry Ingram. Dusk had fallen an hour ago—it was now after ten at night and she’d seen no movement from Archer.

She’d missed him leaving the police station but had the address of the old house and caught up with him there. The red truck sat in the dirt driveway for hours; when dusk crept up, the lights came on inside, but she wasn’t willing to go up to the house to see in detail. Instead, she saw him passing back and forth, just a shadow in the light. Periodically he came out, carting boxes and packing up the bed of his truck.

She actually stopped reading at those points when she caught sight of him, pausing to watch. Nowhere could she find precisely what restaurant he’d worked for in the city, but if he was still paying the mortgage on this place—and had for five years without renting it out—as well as rented wherever else he was staying, he had to be
well
paid. A nice restaurant. But despite being a professional cook for a living, he was built like he was used to physical labor.

And each time
that
entered her head, she looked sharply away. True, there was no law that said murderers—or even serial killers—couldn’t be attractive, but it made her feel like a horrible person each time that thought entered her head.

While he was inside, her time had been spent reading—and Harry had a hell of a lot of information there about Chelsea’s murder. To fill in the blanks, she’d need to see police evidence, of course, but in the meantime she had the start of a picture painted.

Chelsea Cooper-Archer had left her husband a month before her murder—kicked him out, actually, of the house they shared which was the very same one she sat down the road from now. He moved into a hotel in town, drank frequently, and rumors swirled around him constantly. That he’d been controlling, supposedly violent. What was true and what wasn’t, she couldn’t say—Harry had a knack for embellishing. There were bits and pieces from an interview with Archer but not the whole thing—that might’ve been on the disc or somewhere else.

As for the crime itself, all the gruesome details were there except for actual autopsy photos. She’d been in the water roughly two days and a lot of evidence was lost, but the physical trauma was apparent. There were still rope marks on her body, contusions and 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 the staff areas. She clutched her purse tight to her side and stepped swiftly down the corridor of stained once-white tile. The walls were wood-paneled, seventies style and scraped deeply with knife-carved graffiti. A cloud of smoke hung high above her head and she swallowed a cough. Though not a smoker herself, she hung out with enough people who were—she could fake it, just this once, if it meant not making a spectacle of herself.

The hall opened to the main room of the bar. Wide archways left and right led to additional rooms, one with a jukebox that didn’t work and the other with a pair of pool tables. Tash went straight for the bar instead, climbing onto a stool of split-vinyl repaired with electrical tape. She didn’t know this particular bartender but batted her eyelashes at him anyway and ordered a chocolate stout.

Only while she was waiting did she realize she wasn’t particularly dressed for semi-undercover work trailing her target to a bar. Still in her cotton crop pants, a tank top, and tennis shoes, she looked a little preppy for Eight’s. There was nothing she could do about that but from now on she’d maybe dress in layers and keep backup shoes in the car.

The bartender slid her drink to her just as the front door open. While she didn’t look, a hush fell over the room, and the atmosphere prickled with awareness. Clearly most of the people there knew it was Devin Archer, and as whispering took up, anyone who hadn’t kept up to date with small town gossip was swiftly being informed.

Tash didn’t turn, taking a sip of her frothy beer and acting oblivious. Men parted from the bar a moment before a figure stepped into her peripheral vision, sliding into a barstool two seats away.

“Jack D, on the rocks,” Archer called.

The bartender eyed him for a moment, then seemed to think the better of arguing and reached for a glass.

A package crackled and lighter clicked.

“Hey.” The bartender tapped on the non-smoking sign above the array of liquor.

Archer sighed and tossed a crumpled ten on the counter. The bartender tapped the sign again and when an additional bill wasn’t tossed down, he returned to filling the drink. Her target grumbled and stuffed his cigarette pack back in his pocket.

Tash couldn’t resist, speaking though she still stared ahead. “I warned you.”

He chuckled grimly. “You didn’t say how much extra.”

“Starts at twenty if they like you.”

“So upwards of fifty for me.”

She didn’t respond, taking a long drink of her beer. The bartender served Archer his drink, took the ten, and produced change.

The bar was still quiet, all the laughter and shouts from earlier falling to whispers. Music blared, vocals near intelligible with the bass thrumming. At last Tash looked around.

All the patrons stood around the perimeter of the room, watching. For a group of mostly men who had their share of mug shots, they all had a problem with Archer’s presence.

“Ever get the feeling you’re not welcome somewhere?” he said in a low voice.

“Nope, never. Must just be you.”

He scooped up his glass, ice clinking together as he took a sip. “Think they’ll stop staring if I get a table?”

“They’ll at least be more likely to come up to the bar. So you’ll have
drunk
people staring.”

Archer stood, moved closer to her side. “Join me.”

Play it cool, play it cool—just say no, you can’t. Go wait in your car. Because he is your target and likely a killer.

He moved toward a table across the bar without awaiting her response. She stared a moment longer, then gathered up her drink and followed. For the moment, he didn’t know who she was and she could play dumb with regards to him—maybe she’d find out where he hung out or how long he’d be in town.

Patrons shifted restlessly up to the bar in Archer’s absence, posturing and grumbling, looking back at him frequently. Tash sped up and slid into the seat opposite Archer as he sat.

He set down his glass and extended his hand. “Devin.”

At last she allowed herself a long, appraising look at him. Five o’clock shadow had settled in, dusting his sculpted jaw. He’d left the hat at home but otherwise dressed casually in a black T-shirt and worn jeans as he had earlier that day. He leaned back in his seat, stretched out, and she glimpsed cowboy boots.

“Natasha.” She accepted his hand, his long, callous-tipped fingers wrapping around hers. He held her hand a moment before releasing it and her arm was suddenly rubbery, fingers fumbling as she grasped her drink again. She sipped her beer in silence. If Adam found out about this, she...she just didn’t even want to think about it. But the air was charged between them and she shifted her eyes from his steady stare as she felt a blush work up her cheeks.

“What color did you pick?”

“Haven’t yet. Leaning toward light blue. Office setting and that.”

“I see.”

Little by little, Eight’s was shifting back to normal, men stepping up to order more drinks. The crack of pool cues hitting balls resumed and muffled voices grew louder. She glanced around the room and didn’t catch anyone looking at them.

“So you don’t know who I am.”

Natasha blinked innocently at Archer. “You just said you were Devin.”

He eyed her silently, his calloused fingers tracing the rim of his glass. “Police gave me a bit of a talking to today because I threw that guy onto his car last night—I thought you called them.”

Whether it was a total lie to cover up them questioning him over the murder or just a partial one and they
did
know he tossed Gordie Martin around, she didn’t know. “Nope, wasn’t me. But Gordie got on things early this morning, getting his ducks in a row—he must’ve.”

“So what kind of office is it that you’re painting blue?”

Oh, I’m a private investigator, and
of course
I am not following you.
“I work in security.”

A wry smile tugged at his lips. “Which involves sitting in trees?”

“Sometimes. Other times it involves sitting in an office I’d like to paint blue. What do you do?”