Quintic Read Online Free PDF

of fight or violence.
Either the blow had taken the girl by surprise or she had known her
killer.
    The file was
not that thick , but Patricia took days to
read it, re-reading some of the interviews and taking notes.
Nothing stood out and yet something felt odd. With the team busy
with the ritual murders, as the press was calling them, no one had
any free time to spend with her. Hence, she had no one to contact
the detectives initially involved with the case, no one to
accompany her to talk to the family. An official position on the
team might have made her research easier, but she did the next best
thing. She had lunch at the diner.
    The place
looked pretty ordinary. Service was average, the food was average,
but that didn’t explain why she couldn’t eat a bite. She took a
stroll down the back alley. As she walked, she called Christopher
just to hear his voice.
    “ Hi, Big
guy, are you busy? How about I take you out for a coffee or
something?”
    “ No can do;
I have a meeting coming up.”
    As if she
hadn’t known that already. “So how’s your day going so far?” Just
from the sound of his voice, he was not having a fun day. Too many
meetings with the Brass lately. “Do you have plans for the weekend?
If you want, we could go shopping.” Anything to keep him on the
phone while she walked up and down that dark alley. For sure he
knew she was up to something but hearing his voice was reassuring,
whatever he was saying. Silly.
    She hung up
only when she returned to the street. She had not seen anything
peculiar, had felt no zingy light-bulb moment of insight. Her
imagination was at a stop. This visit was a big zero.
    She went for
a drink with Reid that night, her nursing the boondoggle of a diner
tour with too much red wine, Reid forgetting yet another lousy date
with too much cognac.
    “Life sucks,” Reid commented.
Reid was a woman of few words.
    “It totally does,” a tipsy
Patricia agreed. “I’m in the mood for some Tai Chi. Are you in?
Let’s go tonight.”
    Spur-of-the-moment decisions were the best. They headed for
a weekend at the Yoga Tai Chi resort Patricia sometimes went to for
a break from police work and the policemen that came with it.
Seeing as Patricia was already drunk, they flew to the
place.
     
    Strangely,
she missed Christopher that weekend. Tai Chi was the thing she did
when she felt overwhelmed. Tai Chi, Yoga and red wine. Young and
not-so-young trainers worked at the retreat. She liked the sight,
but Reid totally loved it as only an exercise addict could. Going
out with jerks was definitely easier than dating Christopher,
Patricia mused. At least back then, she had enough detachment to
sample the trainers, almost mandatory since the Yogi strictly
forbade wines and other alcoholic beverages on resort grounds. Her
samples remained mostly fingertips-and-lips-brushing affairs,
though. It was a wonder she kept coming.
    Then again,
it wa s a wonder they kept accepting her.
Granted when (if?) she practised, her Tai Chi was close to master
level, but her Yoga was barely average from lack of patience, go
figure. Worse, she jumped the wall to the neighbouring town every
other night to hit the ice-cream parlour. The Yogi master did like
her, though. Wise old man. He looked worried about her this
weekend. Yet again. How did he know the last months had been
hellish?
    After half a
dozen solved crimes, a couple of fights, some misdemeanours and two
or three suspensions, she had reached a mutually satisfactory
agreement with Christopher. She worked at the precinct three days
every other week (meaning she basically went to the precinct
whenever she wanted). In return, the Big guy granted her access to
one cold case at a time, just one. He made damn sure to control the
information she could access too, by giving her files the team had
not worked on, for example.
    Where he got
those, he never said, and she didn’t ask.
She wasn’t to interfere with ongoing investigations, never ,
unless someone