The Devil You Know Read Online Free

extinct.
    Ben nodded.
    “I didn’t know they had a girl.”
    “Most people don’t. She’s sick, the girl. Has special needs.”
    I nodded my head in that ahh way you do when you really have no idea what to say. I slid behind the counter as the first customer stepped into the shop. It was a bored-looking tourist, not a local, which relieved me some. That meant she’d likely browse for a while before finding something. The cop in me wanted to hear Ben’s story.
    “Cassandra Berger disappeared from her home between one and two yesterday afternoon,” Ben said. He consulted his notepad. Like any good cop, he wanted his facts straight. “The father, Thom Berger, was at work. His wife Rebecca was home, but she was downstairs doing laundry. The girl vanished from their backyard. Rebecca reported it immediately. We canvassed the whole neighborhood but no one saw anything. Everyone was at work. We’re organizing a search team later today to search the woods behind the house. The Bergers’ house is butted right up against the bottom of Bear Mountain.”
    I sat down behind the counter. There were about a hundred things wrong with this whole scenario and my sarcasm just jumped out of me. “Because leaving a disabled girl alone in the backyard is a truly excellent idea.”
    Ben put the notepad away. “If the Bergers screwed up, I’ll be more than happy to put their asses in State Penn, believe me.” He watched me light a new smoke in that hungry way he had. He’d been on the patch for six months. So much for the patch. “You wanna help? Because we sure could use it. There’s about five miles of woods going back.”
    “Depends on whether the Kings will be there, I guess.”
    “A third of the town is turning out for this, Nick. I ain’t promising anything, and I ain’t refereeing.”
    I waved the smoke away and thought about that. Two years ago, Ben asked me to help his boys bushwhack Indian Mountain Lakes Park where a lone hiker had gone missing for six days. Turned out, he’d stumbled upon the remnants of an old house that had burned down years ago and he’d gone right through the crumbling floorboards, winding up in a dry septic tank with a broken ankle. The sulfur residue from the septic tank had confused the tracker dogs and he was too weak to make much noise. God knows what he ate or drank. Or maybe God had no idea. Wouldn’t surprise me much. I found him alive, but only after I’d left my particular group. Bradley King, who qualified as red, white and blue—redneck, blue collar, with white sheets hanging in his closet—wouldn’t stop aiming his gun at me and talking with his Saturday night fight club friends about adding a New Age fag to the collection of stuffed animals in his den.
    Every town has a walking cliché. We have Bradley King.
    I ran a hand through my hair. The tourist looked over from the bookshelves and gave me a disapproving look. My last haircut had left me with scruffy 1980’s David Bowie hair. She probably thought I was an alcoholic, chain-smoking transient being picked over by the police and was wondering where the real owner was.
    I really didn’t want to go stomping through woods until I found some half-eaten girl a bear had buried under a tree while a bunch of rednecks had a tailgating party. Not my idea of a good time. And yet, the cop in me was already dumping loads of guilt onto my conscience. “What time?” I finally asked.
    “As soon as you can get away. We started organizing this morning.”
    “I’ll see if I can get Morgana up.”
    “Thanks, Nick.” Ben actually smiled a little before he left the shop.
    The tourist, an older lady who looked a bit like one of those church ladies you see who have ten cats, checked out two books, an embroidered scarf, and some Navajo earrings. Before she left she said, “You know, I don’t believe in any of this New Age stuff. God is the only way, the truth and the light.” She set a tract down, one more to add to my ever-growing