Read The Bone Chamber for Free Online Page A

picking up her pencil, eyeing her sketch. “If you told me, you’d have to kill me.”
    “Actually,” he said, “if we told you, someone else might kill you.”
    She looked up to see if he was joking.
    Apparently he wasn’t.

4
    Sydney examined the sketch pad, the nearly finished drawing. She’d been sitting in this damned room for the last couple of hours, and the autopsy photo had yet to materialize. Still, Sydney doubted she’d need it. The original crime scene photo contained the necessary elements such as the hair, and she made a rough sketch on a separate sheet of paper. She’d complete it from that—wanted to complete it from that, as anything was better than looking at the crime scene photo, the memory of which was bound to stay with her far too long.
    Her cell phone vibrated. Thinking it was probably Tasha returning her call, she pulled it from her belt, saw her ex, Scotty Ryan’s number showing on the screen, then looked over at Griffin to see if he would object.
    “Who is it?” he asked.
    “My boyfriend. He’s an agent out of HQ,” she said, figuring Griffin was in the business, and undoubtedly knew she meant the Washington, D.C., office.
    “I was under the impression the two of you had broken up.”
    “Delving a bit on the personal side, aren’t you?”
    “This is a sensitive case.”
    “So what do you know about me?” she asked, ignoring Scotty’s call for now.
    “You’re thirty-three, five-nine, brown hair, blue eyes—”
    “Besides the obvious?”
    “You were a cop in Sacramento for eight years before joining the Bureau four years ago. According to SAC Harcourt, you’re one of the best forensic artists the Bureau has. You transferred from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco when you and your boyfriend broke up, and you were recently looking into your father’s murder, which took place twenty years ago. His murder case is why you took the transfer back to D.C.”
    “Maybe I should have asked if there was anything about me you don’t know.”
    “Red wine or white.”
    His answer surprised her, and she was tempted to quip that apparently he hadn’t seen her and Tasha drinking the other night, or he’d know it was red. Instead, she merely stared at him, noted there was actually a spark of amusement in his previously unreadable gaze, and it wasn’t until her phone vibrated again that she was able to look away. “I need to take this call. Scotty’s a little on the possessive side. But then you probably already know that if you’ve done a complete background.”
    As quick as that spark appeared, it was gone. “ Nothing about this case.”
    Sydney ignored him, flipped open the phone. “Hey, Scotty.”
    “I called your mom’s house, and she said you were already back at Quantico. Are you okay?”
    “Just a crime sketch. I’m flying back to my mom’s this afternoon.”
    “I mean about Tasha.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “The hit-and-run.”
    Sydney stilled, felt her heart beat several times as she absorbed what she was hearing. “What?”
    “I figured you knew, why you flew back to D.C. It was in the papers. She was crossing the street and—”
    “Oh my God,” she said, since that was all she could think to say.
    “I’m sorry, Sydney. I know you were good friends.”
    “I can’t believe it…”
    He was quiet for a moment, then, “Call me when you’re done. I’ll pick you up, and you can decide what you want to do.”
    “Thank you…”
    He disconnected, and she closed her phone, staring at it, unable to believe any of this was real. They’d just gone out drinking…
    And then it hit her. That’s why Griffin had handed over a set of notes that weren’t included in a finished report. Tasha had been killed before she’d been able to complete it. It was also why Tasha wasn’t present, because she would’ve insisted on being here.
    What was it Griffin had said to Sydney, why they’d refused to tell her what was going on? Because someone would kill