Angel Sleuth Read Online Free PDF Page A

room. She looked up from her book and smiled at the sound. Jeremy sat curled up on the living room sofa, reading Cat Fancy magazine and stroking Hester’s fur. He turned the page, and the cat batted at his hand.
    “Sorry. I thought you were finished.” He flipped back, and the cat took up her purring once more.
    “How do you think she’s doing?” asked Mary Jane. She nodded her head toward Kaitlin’s bedroom upstairs.
    “Oh, good,” said Jeremy. “She writes stories about animals, so I know she likes them.”
    “That’s not really what I’m asking, Sweetie,” said Mary Jane. “I mean what do you think she’ll tell everyone about us?”
    “Did she say anything to her mother?”
    “No,” said Mary Jane. She marked her place in the book and set it on the table next to her. “I think she’ll forget about us if she gets busy, good busy. Right now she’s too stressed. We should take her out for some entertainment soon.” She arose from the chair. “Let’s go see what that billiard’s parlor is like tonight.”
    Jeremy wrinkled up his nose. “Nah, I’ll stay here. Ask Kaitlin to go with you.”
    “I think she’s busy now. Or will be soon. C’mon. I’ll give you another pool lesson.”
    Hester jumped off Jeremy’s lap and headed for her dish in the kitchen.
    “You don’t want me tagging along. It’ll cramp your style. Pool halls are filled with guys. You might meet someone there.”
    Her son was such a smart fella, she thought, as she ran up the stairs and grabbed her pool cue from the bedroom closet. “Kaitlin,” she called down the hallway, “I’m off for an hour or so to Kenny’s.”
    Kaitlin’s door opened, and she entered the hallway with a sheet of paper in her hand. “You taking Jeremy or do you want me to babysit?”
    Mary Jane noticed the paper and thought, she’s reading the letters. Good.
    “I don’t need babysitting,” Jeremy called up from the living room. “I’m almost ten, you know.”
    The two women rolled their eyes at one another.
    “Would you mind?” whispered Mary Jane. “Make sure he’s in bed by ten at least.”
    “Sure. Have fun. Watch out for some of the guys that hang out at Kenny’s.”
    * * *
    When Mary Jane entered Kenny’s all eyes turned toward her. Few women came into the establishment, and certainly none looked anything like her. Tonight she wore her favorite red sweater, pulled low over her breasts. She paired it with black tights tucked into her ankle boots. After several seconds of appreciative scrutiny, those at the bar turned their attention back to the reason they were there—beer and television uninterrupted by kids or wives.
    One patron sat alone, his grey eyes snapping steely silver sparks of interest as they took in Mary Jane. Of course, she could tell he noticed her beauty and her flamboyant manner of dress, but she was pleased to see most of his attention was drawn to what she held in her hand—a pool cue. Fate pulled him toward her.
    “Looking for a game?” he asked.
    Her eyes traveled from the burr cut of his salt and pepper hair to his long-sleeved plaid shirt and worn jeans on down to the alligator cowboy boots on his feet. She particularly liked his face, craggy, but with a full soft mouth, one that could do with a lot of kissing, she suspected.
    “You any good?” she asked.
    “Damn good.”
    And she knew he wasn’t lying.
    The boys at the bar watched her break. Mary Jane smiled to herself. The man had a game on his hands.
    “When you’re not losing at pool,” she said after beating him four games in a row, “what do you do? And I assume you’ve got a name?”
    They sat at one of Kenny’s tables, a pitcher of unfinished beer between them. Mary Jane could drink most men under the table, but she figured that was something this guy didn’t need to know about her yet. She sipped from her glass as daintily as if it were French champagne.
    “Mac’s the name,” he said, “and I used to be a detective with the NYPD. Now