The Profiler's Daughter (Sky Stone Thriller Series) Read Free Page B

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?
    “Did he live on the island? Did he take pictures of me?”
    “I don’t know,” Candace admitted.
    “Jake had no right.”
    “I’m glad Jake did it, honey. He was making sure you were safe. And, frankly, I’d like to know what you were doing all by yourself on that island. For a whole year?”
    “Painting,” Sky said. “I was painting and watching soap operas.” On the days she managed to get out of bed, anyway. “Did you know Nikki and Victor are getting another