Karma Patrol Read Online Free Page B

and started having children, she’d begun to resent the hypothetical man whose continued absence from her life kept her from reaching those same milestones. Now that she was nearly thirty, she imagined she would have some harsh words to say to him about his tardiness if he ever did show up.
    Shannon was giving her the sympathetic look that she absolutely hated, and she shrugged off the mention of her absent soulmate with a forced smile. “I’d settle for getting that promotion to account specialist,” she informed Shannon, taking a sip of her coffee, “but in order to do that, I have to keep this area as close to null as possible until the selections are made.”
    “You know I’ll do anything I can to help,” Shannon promised, and Jade’s smile became a little less forced.
    “That’s sweet of you, but I’ll be all right. Just don’t go tearing through here destroying karmic plans left and right in order to find someone’s perfect match until after I make specialist!”
    Shannon laughed. “If it has to happen, I’ll make sure to bring them over to Mark’s territory to do it,” she promised, and Jade grinned.
    “Talk about karmic payback,” she agreed. “Thanks, Shannon. I’d love to stay and chat, but I need to get back to work if I’m going to get home on time tonight.”
    “Is there something good on TV, or do you have a hot date with your Shakespeare collection?”
    “Neither,” Jade replied with a rueful smile at the reminder of her nonexistent social life. “I want to get my laundry done before I run out of clean clothes. Exciting, huh?”
    “That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all day,” Shannon informed her, hiking the strap of her crocheted purse a little higher on her shoulder as she turned back toward the transit station entrance. “As if you could ever run out of clothes!”

    The lighting in the homicide squad room was dim, and the janitor had turned off the main bank of overhead lights when he’d left for the night about twenty minutes ago. Kalindi Patel had returned from the courthouse around six, and she and Aaron headed out together shortly after that.
    Luke was fine with being left alone. Sanford and Patel were both good detectives, but neither of them shared his single-minded dedication to the job. When he was focused on what they referred to as one of his ‘conspiracy theories,’ their constant doubting comments irritated the hell out of him. It would have been one thing if he were the kind of cop who was prone to making wild leaps of logic, but his instincts were almost always right.
    In this particular case, Luke was certain there was something more to it than a simple blackmail scheme gone wrong. It was the reason he was still sitting in front of his computer, reviewing Bridget Hanlon’s DMV records for any clues as to why he recognized her picture. He’d found nothing so far, and he was about to close the file he was reading when a name at the bottom of the page caught his eye.
    “Son of a bitch,” he breathed, the pieces falling together in an instant. He grabbed for his phone. Aaron answered on the second ring.
    “Luke! Did you change your mind about coming out with us?”
    “She’s Bridget
Hanlon
,” he replied, ignoring the question. “Jeremiah Hanlon’s daughter.”
    “Jeremiah Hanlon… what, the Bible thumper?”
    “Yeah, the Bible thumper,” Luke agreed. “But he didn’t start out life as a televangelist. In the eighties, he was a low-level enforcer for the Westies.”
    “You’re kidding me. America’s favorite preacher is mobbed up?”
    “Well, if you believe his PR manager, he left the gang when he found Jesus in the early nineties. I watched the documentary last week.”
    “And our victim was shot in the back of the head—”
    “Just like a mob hit,” Luke finished. “We originally ruled that out because he didn’t have ties to organized crime, but Bridget Hanlon does. Remember that case we worked last month with Prescott from the