Free The Killing Kind by John Connolly

had once specialized in profiling. She had joined me in Louisiana as the hunt for the Traveling Man came to its end, and we had become lovers. It had not been an easy relationship: Rachel had been hurt badly both physically and emotionally in Louisiana, and I had spent a long time coming to terms with the guilt my feelings for her had provoked. We were now slowly establishing ourselves together, although she continued to live in Boston, where she was doing research and tutorial work at Harvard. The subject of her moving up to Maine had been glanced upon once or twice, but never pursued.
    “I've got bad news. I can't come up on the weekend. The faculty has called an emergency meeting for Friday afternoon over funding cuts, and it's likely to pick up again on Saturday morning. I won't be free until Saturday afternoon at the earliest. I'm really sorry.”
    I found myself smiling as she spoke. Lately, talking to Rachel always made me smile. “Actually, that might work out okay. Louis has been talking about heading up to Boston for a weekend. If he can convince Angel to come along I can link up with them while you're tied up in meetings, then we can spend the rest of the time together.”
    Angel and Louis were, in no particular order, gay, semiretired criminals; silent partners in a number of restaurants and auto shops; a threat to decent people everywhere and possibly to the fabric of society itself; and polar opposites in just about every imaginable way, with the exception of a shared delight in mayhem and occasional homicide. They were also, not entirely coincidentally, my friends.
    “Cleopatra opens at the Wang on the fourth,” probed Rachel. “I think I can probably hustle a pair of tickets.”
    Rachel was a huge fan of the Boston Ballet and was trying to convert me to its joys. She was kind of succeeding, although it had led Angel to speculate unkindly on my sexuality.
    “Sure, but you owe me a couple of Pirates games when the hockey season starts.”
    “Agreed. Call me back and let me know what their plans are. I can book a table for dinner and join the three of you after my meeting. And I'll look into those tickets. Anything else?”
    “How about lots of rampant, noisy sex?”
    “The neighbors will complain.”
    “Are they good looking?”
    “Very.”
    “Well, if they get jealous I'll see what I can do for them.”
    “Why don't you see what you can do for me first?”
    “Okay, but when I wear you out I may have to go elsewhere for my own pleasure.”
    I couldn't be sure, but I thought her laughter had a distinctly mocking tone as she hung up.
    When I got back to the house, I called a number on Manhattan's Upper West Side using the land line. Angel and Louis didn't like being called on a cell phone, because—as the unfortunate Hoyt was about to learn to his cost—cell-phone conversations could be monitored or traced, and Angel and Louis were the kind of individuals who sometimes dealt in delicate matters upon which the law might not smile too gently. Angel was a burglar, and a very good one, although he was now officially “resting” on the joint income he had acquired with Louis. Louis's current career position was murkier: Louis killed people for money, or he used to. Now he sometimes killed people, but money was less of a concern for him than the moral imperative for their deaths. Bad people died at Louis's hands, and maybe the world was a better place without them. Concepts like morality and justice got a little complicated where Louis was concerned.
    The phone rang three times and then a voice with all the charm of a snake hissing at a mongoose said, “Yeah?” The voice also sounded a little breathless.
    “It's me. I see you still haven't got to the chapter on phone etiquette in that Miss Manners book I gave you.”
    “I put that piece of shit in the trash,” said Angel. “Guy who laces his shoes with string is probably still trying to sell it on Seventh Avenue.”
    “Your breathing sounds