The Profiler's Daughter (Sky Stone Thriller Series) (2 page)

Sky ran a fingertip gently down the braid, withdrew her hand and turned off the flashlight.

Jake was back with the medical examiner in tow, an energetic woman with large white teeth named Vanessa Hatcher.

“The lab guys are finished, Jake. We’ll take it from here.” Vanessa laughed, as though she and Jake were sharing some kind of special moment.

Sky cleared her throat and glanced up.

“Doctor Stone?” Vanessa’s penciled eyebrows arched in surprise. “I didn’t realize you were back.” Vanessa usually did a good job of hiding her feelings for Jake but her disappointment at seeing Sky said it all.

“Sky, take a look at this.” Jake held the corpse at hip and shoulder and rolled the body, revealing an oval stain on the white sweatpants. He pulled the waistband down. Just above the dead woman’s tailbone, in the small of her back, was a patch the size of a playing card where the skin had been sliced off.

“The killer took a memento,” Sky said. “Probably a tattoo.”

“Tramp stamp,” Jake nodded and caught Sky’s eye.

Sky snapped. “Just because it’s on a woman ––” She stopped herself when she saw the flicker of a smile play across Jake's mouth. Jake knew how to push her buttons. So what?

Sky pulled a small Stanley tape measure and a paperback-sized journal from her pocket.

After recording date, location, and time with a black Sharpie, she crouched down to measure and note details of the wound. She flipped to the next page and drew a quick sketch.

“I see Doctor Stone still practices her distinctive brand of forensics.” Vanessa’s voice carried a note of derision.

“Our people take care of that,” Jake chided. “You’re a psychologist, for God’s sake. Don’t you trust anybody?”

Sky ignored the remarks. She was putting the finishing touches on the drawing when a voice spoke.

Help me
.

Sky sprang upright, startled.

This wasn’t the first time the dead had spoken to her, but it was still goddamn unnerving. Sky licked her lips.

Vanessa was staring at her. Sky willed herself into a semblance of composure but the dead woman’s supplication pulsed in her head. Help me.

Jake grinned. “I know that look.” He carefully lowered the victim to the ground and stood. “Talking to you again, are they?” He stretched extravagantly and leaned toward Sky. “This is just like old times, babe.”

Vanessa’s toothy smile remained professionally frozen on her face. “My men will collect the body, Jake. I’ll give you a call after the autopsy. See you later?”

“Affirmative,” Jake replied. But his eyes stayed on Sky as Vanessa clambered up the hill.

Sky’s heart hammered in her chest. Vanessa’s men would be here any minute. Don’t think. Just say it.

She locked eyes with Jake. “It can’t be the way it was before. It’s over.”

“Like hell it is.” Jake’s voice was low and controlled. His body closed in and Sky stiffened.

A ringtone erupted. Jake answered his cell with a grunt. He paused, and grunted again. He tried to catch Sky’s gaze but she shifted her eyes.

Jake’s vomit-stained shirt and tux jacket were gone, replaced with a white t-shirt and a worn leather Red Sox jacket.

Sky remembered the feel of that leather jacket.

“Right. I’ll tell her.” Jake cut the call and searched her face.

Sky pushed aside the sudden rush of memories evoked by the leather jacket, memories of her old life with Jake, and offered up her best approximation of a blank, neutral expression.

“That was Magnus. The kids that found the body are at the station. The boy is eleven, his sister is six.” Jake slipped his cell into the pocket of the Red Sox jacket. “O'Toole will handle the boy. I want you to interview the girl.” He reached out and touched Sky’s chin. “We can talk later. Welcome home, babe.”

Sky jerked away. The tape measure dropped to the ground and she scooped it up, nearly tripping over the crime scene tape in her eagerness to get away. She hurried up the incline but she couldn’t resist, she had to glance back as she reached the street.

Jake just stood there, watching her, his hands in his pockets and the corpse at his feet.

CHAPTER TWO

Sky topped the path gulping mouthfuls of air. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she breathe?

“You okay?” Still manning his post, Pete Moody peered at Sky with concern. “You need a lift? I’ll call for a car. No problem.”

“I’m good, Pete.”

Sky nodded to the gaggle of uniforms that had gathered at the periphery of the scene, watching her. She concentrated on crossing the narrow road. Just get to the Jeep, she told herself.

With her back to the policemen, Sky gulped air. She opened the car door, clutched the steering wheel and hauled herself into the driver’s seat. Fumbling through a zebra-print backpack, she pulled out an amber prescription bottle and pressed the lid open with a sweaty palm. She popped three blue pills – ten milligrams each – and chewed. Beta blockers. Sky always kept some on hand, in case Magnus dragged her in front of the television cameras, a stunt he had pulled on her during several investigations. Beta blockers always calmed her stage fright, surely they’d help her breathe. The bitter pills brought tears to her eyes.

Sky popped the clutch and the Jeep lurched into the grayness; officers scattered like frightened birds. She slapped the headlights on, nosed the car onto Walnut and headed north into sparse traffic. The sprawling Victorian and Georgian homes that lined the winding avenue exuded a gothic pall in the early morning fog.

A lone runner appeared in her headlights and Sky hit the brakes. The runner gave her the finger and darted off into the fog.

Pulling to the curb, Sky fumbled for her cell and called the police station, leaving a message that she’d be there shortly. Then she headed to her old apartment to look for a toy. Something that might catch a little girl’s eye.

Sky pulled up to a white clapboard two-family with brown gingerbread trim. Home. Well, home before she’d moved in with Jake nearly three years ago.

The entrance to Sky’s old apartment was on the west side of the house, hidden from the street by a giant yellow forsythia bush. The mailbox still carried her name, S. Stone, in large block letters.

Sky unlocked the door and stepped inside. It was cold and still, the air long undisturbed. She labored up the carpeted stairs, stopping halfway to catch her breath. Prisms from the crystal chandelier suspended at the top of the stairway tinkled from the draft as Sky stepped into her old apartment.

She glanced around the living room. Except for a large painting that hung over the oak fireplace, the room was empty. She'd taken everything with her when she'd moved in with Jake, everything but the dust bunnies and that picture. Sky gazed at the portrait, an oil painting, commissioned of her when she was eight years old. She’d left it behind because Jake hadn’t liked it.

Sky went to the kitchen and unbolted the lock to a rustic wooden door on the west wall. It opened to a gloomy narrow stairway. She descended two flights to the basement. Moving past moldy cardboard boxes, broken lamps, an abandoned futon – the detritus of past occupants – Sky stopped at a makeshift tool bench piled with oily rags and crusted paint cans. She was breathing easier now. The pills were working.

From underneath the tool bench, Sky wheeled out a white wicker baby bassinette overloaded with nursery items. Light filtered through a grimy basement window, casting a sickly hue over the swollen bassinette. She fished out a plush brown teddy bear wearing a plaid backpack and stuffed it in her coat pocket.

A tiny sweater of rosebud pink hung from the edge of the bassinette. Sky picked up the sweater and held it in the palm of her hand. She stood very still and closed her eyes.

Somewhere above, a door slammed. Footsteps pounded across the floor over Sky's head. Another door slammed. Rapid footsteps pelted down the basement stairs.

Rushing toward her, arms outstretched, came Candace Carabotta, first-floor neighbor, landlady, confidant. Candace was a plump brunette and her sweatered chest bounced over a long flowered skirt as she came toward Sky.

“Sky, I’ve been so worried.” Candace caught Sky up in her arms.

Crying and laughing at once, Sky breathed in the comforting talc of Candace’s perfume and relaxed into the soft flesh of her embrace.

“Let me look at you.” Candace was in her mid thirties, only a few years older than Sky, but she studied her with the critical eye of a maiden aunt.

“You are too thin. And too pale.” Candace brushed back a lock of Sky’s hair. “And too beautiful.” She shrugged and put an arm around Sky’s shoulder. “Come upstairs, you can tell me everything.”

CHAPTER THREE

“Have you visited the grave?” Candace set a steaming mug on the kitchen table in front of Sky.

Sky shook her head and looked out the kitchen window. Chintz curtains framed a gray nothingness. The fog persisted.

“Honey, you couldn’t go to your baby’s funeral. I understand that,” Candace leaned toward Sky. “But you need to visit her grave. You need closure.” She wiped an invisible spot off the table with a checkered towel. “Seen Jake?”

“Yes, I’m sorry to say.”

Candace patted Sky’s hand reassuringly. “Go on, I’m all ears.”

“Chief Moriarty called …” Sky paused. Rule number one: never discuss a case with civilians. Sky mentally blew dust off an image of the commandments engraved into stone tablets, the commandments Magnus Moriarty drilled into her, commandments that protected everyone. Commandments she’d had no use for this past year.

She started over. “This morning one of the techs hit on me, a real half assed come-on, asked me if I wanted to get a cup of coffee with him. Jake barged up and clipped him.”

“We both know Jake’s a jealous man.” Candace’s voice was matter-of-fact.

“He hip-checked a guy over a lousy cup of coffee, Candace. How can you defend him?” Sky was disappointed but not terribly surprised. Jake Farrell was the hometown hero, played quarterback for Boston College back in the day. Led the embattled BC Eagles from one victory to another. Locals forgave him anything. Sky thought of it as the power of the jockstrap.

Candace leaned back in her chair, her deep-set brown eyes clouded with concern. “Jake’s been to see me two or three times since you left. He’s in a bad way, honey. Drinking hard, not sleeping. It was his baby, too. He lost her and he lost you.”

“Jake didn’t want the baby. Not the way I did. She was my baby and I couldn’t protect her.” Sky pressed her fingers against closed eyes. Images of the ICU – searing pain, tubes twisting out of her body. Jake, standing by her hospital bed, appearing small and far away.

“The accident wasn’t your fault, honey. I saw the car. You’re lucky to be alive.”

“Lucky.” Sky tried the word on her tongue.

The accident happened three weeks before the baby’s due date. Sky thought she would die of grief when Jake told her the baby was dead. It was a hit and run, the driver of the other car disappeared. No witnesses. Police traced the vehicle to a used car lot on Washington Street, stolen and hot-wired. Some speculated that it was teenagers on a joy ride, but no one came forward, no one checked into any area hospitals with unexplained injuries. ‘It’s unlikely you’ll conceive again,’ the doctor had said. ‘Too much damage.’

Sky leaned forward. “Candace, I feel cold inside. All the time. Here.” She pressed a fist to the center of her chest.

“Honey,” Candace’s voice was halting, cautious. “You have a lot of heartache to deal with. Have you considered professional help?”

“You mean a therapist?” Sky slipped the baby sweater into her coat pocket. “Not in this lifetime.”

“I’m worried about you, Sky. Therapy might speed your healing. Bring closure.”

Candace was a social worker by profession, she counseled teenage mothers. Sky suddenly felt like a bug under Candace’s microscope.

“Some things should never heal,” Sky said. “Closure is a stupid word.”

Candace shook her head. “Such a stoic.”

“No offense,” Sky said, sipping the last drops from her cup. “But this tea tastes funny.”

“Skullcap,” Candace took the empty mug. “Good for your nerves.”

Sky pushed away from the table and turned in her seat. A TV sat on the far counter, on but muted. Text scrolled below the face of a local anchorwoman, breaking coverage: police had discovered the body of an unidentified woman near Heartbreak Hill in Newton. Cause of death unknown. No other details available.

Candace stared at the TV, her eyes round with fear. “So close!”

Sky stood up and turned off the TV. “The killer was probably her husband. Or her boyfriend.”

“So,” Candace said flatly, “you came back for murder.”

Rule number one, Sky chided herself. But she could trust Candace. She’d always confided in her before. Her friend wouldn’t talk out of class.

“You know the statistics, Candace. A third of murdered women are killed by their male partner.” Sky snapped her mouth shut. The bloody patch on the small of the dead woman’s back nagged at her. Domestic homicide rarely involved mutilation. Sky kept that detail to herself.

Sky’s fingers went to the spot on her chin where Jake had touched her. “Jake wants me to do an interview. Then I’m taking myself off the case.”

Candace frowned. “It’s a sin to waste God-given talent.”

“I can’t work with Jake,” Sky insisted. “Seeing him brings back all the bad things.”

“He loves you, honey.” Candace carried Sky’s mug to the sink and rinsed it. “I persuaded him that you needed time to heal. But Jake is not a patient man." She wiped her hands on a towel. "He had a guy checking on you while you were on Nantucket. You stayed in the house on Brant Point, right?”

“What are you talking about? Some stranger was watching me? How often? Where?”

The family vacation home was a grand, seven-bedroom affair with a deep wrap-around porch and a widow’s walk. Sky found it disturbing to hear she’d been watched on the island.

When the world she’d inhabited – a world with her baby, with Jake – was ripped away in an instant, there was nothing left. Torn and raw, Sky had gone to Nantucket to relearn how to live. Was that guy watching her through the window, watching her try to patch a life together?