Free Sins of the Angels by Linda Poitevin Page B

would improve.
    If.
    â€œLook,” she said. “I’m sorry if I offended you earlier, but I was just calling it like I see it, and what I see is someone who doesn’t know the first thing about investigating one murder, let alone a serial case. If I’m wrong, feel free to correct me; if I’m right, let it go. And if you can’t let it go, then for chrissake, ask Roberts to put you with another partner. Please.”
    Trent turned his face to the window. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I don’t want another partner.”
    Something in the way he grated the words made Alex study his profile with a fresh eye. It had nothing to do with her, she thought with sudden insight. He didn’t want any partner. He didn’t want to be here at all. She set down her mug with a determined thunk .
    â€œThat’s it. I’ve had it,” she informed her partner. “Just what the hell is going on? Why were you assigned to Homicide? You don’t even want to be here—”
    Ferocity flashed in the gray depths of Trent’s eyes, so fast Alex almost missed it. So awful, she wished she had. For a millisecond, she remembered the rage she had seen in a winged man in the office. She swallowed. Thought she’d seen, she corrected herself. Only thought.
    Just as she’d only thought she’d seen wings, too.
    â€œWhy?” she asked again. “Why are you here?”
    â€œBecause I can catch him.”
    Alex might have laughed if the hairs on the back of her neck hadn’t been standing on end. She lifted a hand to smooth them down. Outside the window, a flare of lightning illuminated a street gone gloomy beneath clouds she hadn’t noticed until now. She glared at the man across from her.
    â€œLet me get this straight. We have an entire police force out looking for this prick, we’re using every forensic procedure at our disposal, every profiler, and you think you’re the one who will find him? And just how, pray tell, are you planning to do that?”
    â€œI can feel him.”
    Well. What this guy lacked in experience, he certainly made up for in balls. Alex picked up her coffee again and shot him a look of exasperation. “Newsflash, Detective Trent. You don’t hold the monopoly on a cop’s instinct.”
    â€œIt’s not instinct,” Trent said, his voice deadly quiet.
    Alex’s hand froze with the cup hovering near her mouth. She so didn’t like the way this man’s reality seemed to operate. Or the way it skewed her own.
    â€œIt’s fact.” Trent leaned over the table. His glare bored into her, held her immobile. “When he stalks a victim, I feel him. When he kills that victim, I feel him. I feel his hunger, his need, his desperation. And it’s just a matter of time until I’m close enough to catch him.”
    Alex was sure she must look as stupid as she felt, with her jaw hanging slack and her eyebrows raised so high that her forehead felt stretched. But she couldn’t help it. Because she didn’t know how else to look when her new partner suddenly announced his psychic ability.
    And she’d been worried about her own sanity?
    With great deliberation, she set her cup back in its saucer. “You know,” she said, reaching for her car keys, “I think we’re done—”
    Trent lifted a hand in a sudden, imperious gesture.
    Alex raised just one eyebrow this time. “Excuse me?”
    â€œQuiet.”
    Trent had gone rigid, his whole attitude one of intense concentration, alert to something she couldn’t see or hear. Thunder rumbled faintly through the glass beside them, vibrating down Alex’s spine alongside a sudden chill.
    Her partner bolted from the booth. “He’s near.”
    Alex’s hand jerked, overturning her coffee cup. “Shit!”
    She hastily righted the cup, then pulled a wad of napkins from the dispenser and dabbed at the stain spreading