Sins of the Angels by Linda Poitevin Read Free Book Online Page A

her, making her jump.
    â€œShit!”
    â€œAlex?” Staff Inspector Roberts’s voice asked. “You all right in there?”
    â€œYeah,” she replied. “I’m fine. I’m coming.”
    She tugged a sheet of brown paper towel from the dispenser and scraped it over her face, any pretense of preserving her makeup long since gone. She was fine. Apart from a general lack of sleep shared by everyone in the department right now, there was nothing wrong with her. Nothing.
    Especially not fucking wings.
    Alex scrunched the damp paper towel into a ball and dropped it into the garbage can. She pulled opened the door. Roberts’s gaze probed her face with wary concern. She forced a smile. “Is everyone waiting for me? Sorry about that.”
    Her supervisor gave a soft, noncommittal grunt. “You sure you’re all right? You looked like you saw a ghost out there.”
    Despite her best intentions, Alex flinched. She curled her hands into fists at her sides and saw Roberts’s all-too-perceptive eyes track the movement. A tiny crease appeared in his forehead.
    â€œI’m no worse off than any of the others after this last week,” she assured him. “We’ll all be a whole lot better once we’ve caught this prick.”
    Roberts stared at her for a long second before nodding. “Right. Then let’s get to it.”
    Â 
    â€œTRENT.”
    â€œDetective.”
    The task force meeting had ended, and Alex faced her new partner across a few feet of carpet that felt more like the Grand Canyon. She shifted from one foot to the other. Back again. Tapped her clipboard against her thigh. Looked everywhere but directly at Trent and still managed to notice the fit of his suit jacket across broad shoulders.
    â€œHell,” she muttered.
    â€œPardon?”
    â€œNothing.” She sighed. “Let’s get you settled. Your desk is over here with mine. I’ll have one of the admin assistants put in a requisition for your computer this afternoon, but it’ll take them a day or two to get one for you. You’ll have to share mine in the meantime. You’ll need to order cards, too.”
    Alex led the way across the office as she spoke. Her desk was at the epicenter of Homicide, her preferred location. In the midst of the noise and activity, it made paperwork a challenge sometimes, but it also let her keep her finger on the pulse of everything going through the unit.
    â€œCards?” Trent asked behind her.
    â€œBusiness cards. You’re there.” She stopped and pointed at the empty desk abutting her own paper-strewn mess. “I’ll have someone make copies of the files for you.”
    â€œWhatever. So now what?”
    Halfway into her chair, Alex paused. She eyed the other detective. “Um, now you read the files, familiarize yourself with the case—”
    â€œA waste of time.”
    â€œI beg your pardon?”
    Dark eyebrows met in a slash above eyes that flashed with impatience. “We need to be out there.”
    â€œOut where?”
    â€œThere.” Trent gestured toward the windows on the far side of the office. “Looking for him. For the killer.”
    Sudden suspicion reared in Alex. She straightened again and assessed her new partner with a critical eye. In his midto late-thirties, he had to have been on the force for at least a decade to make detective. Long enough that he should know how an investigation ran. An unsettling thought occurred to her.
    They wouldn’t dare.
    â€œHow long were you on the streets, Detective?” she asked.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHow many years were you in uniform, on patrol?”
    Trent hesitated. Looked annoyed. “I don’t see how that matters.”
    Alex’s heart hit the floor. Good God. They did dare. They’d given her a career paper pusher as a partner. A desk jockey who didn’t have the first clue about investigative procedure.
    Was this why