Sins of the Angels Read Online Free PDF Page A

door, muting the din of Homicide behind her. The noise didn’t usually bother her, but today it put her teeth on edge—and it would only get worse once the media learned about the serial killer. The phones would ring nonstop then, and the usual commotion would escalate into chaos. Not that she’d be in the office much at that point. None of them would. They’d be too busy running down the leads called in by the ever-so-helpful public. Spending endless hours following up on crank calls, hoaxes, and runaway imaginations in the hopes that just one tiny clue would emerge. One truth.
    Making a face at the thought, she yawned, not bothering to cover her mouth, and headed for the counter on the opposite side of the room. She debated whether she felt better or worse after the sleep Roberts had ordered, and decided it was an even split—worse for the moment, but, with luck, better once she’d had a coffee and finished waking up.
    She took a cup down from the shelf and lifted the thermal pot from the coffee machine. Empty. Her mood nosedived from irritable to outright bad tempered.
    â€œJesus fucking Christ,” she growled.
    â€œReally, Jarvis, it’s only a coffeepot,” a woman’s dry voice commented.
    Alex jumped at the realization she had company in the room. God, she hadn’t even noticed. Rather unnerving, given her line of work. She rubbed the back of her neck as she turned to the elegantly suited woman seated at the table.
    â€œSorry, Delaney, didn’t see you there.”
    Detective Christine Delaney arched a brow. “You almost tripped over me on your way in.” The fraud detective’s cool brown gaze swept over Alex, pausing once at the same dress pants she’d worn for the last two days and again at her plain white shirt, and then settled on her face. The under-eye circles Alex herself had noticed in the mirror suddenly felt the size of overstuffed grocery bags. Delaney flipped the page in her magazine and selected a celery stick from the plate in front of her, her glossy pink nails a perfect foil for the pale green vegetable. “Roberts told everyone you went home to sleep. You don’t look much like you did.”
    Alex mentally counted to three and then favored the other detective with as sour a look as she could summon around another yawn. “Thanks.”
    â€œDon’t take it personally. You all look like hell when you’re working one of these cases. One of the reasons I don’t work Homicide.”
    Biting her tongue—literally—Alex refrained from commenting on Homicide’s good fortune and turned her attention to rummaging through the cupboards in search of a fresh coffee filter. “So how come you’re slumming it today? Don’t you have your own coffeepot in Fraud?” she asked over her shoulder as she stretched on tiptoe to retrieve the package from the top shelf.
    â€œI’m killing time until I head out to Oakville. Some hoitytoity complainant who thinks he’s too good to come to the office. Our coffeepot was empty, so I came here.” Delaney eyed her over the rim of the mug she’d raised. “Relax, Jarvis. I’m not the one who finished off your precious elixir. You’ll have to blame your visitor for that. Guess no one told him the rules.”
    Alex rocked down onto her heels. “Visitor?”
    â€œMm.” Delaney sipped her coffee and wrinkled her nose. “Ick. Whoever makes the coffee here could do with a lighter touch.”
    â€œOr you could make your own,” Alex suggested through her teeth. She spooned coffee into the filter and considered asking more about the visitor, but hesitated. Christine Delaney had perfected the art of office gossip, and after having found herself the subject of the grapevine three years before, when her relationship with another officer had soured, Alex tended to avoid anything to do with the woman.
    She rinsed out the pot and filled