Read The Bone Chamber for Free Online Page B

her if she knew…
    She spun around in her chair, looked right at him, very much aware that he’d heard the entire conversation, knew that she knew. “How dare you keep me in the dark about my friend’s death.”
    “This case takes priority.”
    “Was Tasha killed because of it?”
    “At this time, we have no proof that there is any connection.”
    “And being that it’s a hit-and-run, how would you know?”
    He didn’t answer.
    She turned away in anger and disgust, closing her eyes against the pain and confusion. Was it her fault her friend was dead? Sydney had recommended Tasha. She was—had been—one of the best forensic anthropologists on the East Coast. But if she was killed because of the case, then it stood to reason that anyone Sydney might have recommended would have come to the same fate…“Were you aware of the danger in this?”
    “Not all of it.”
    It was said with such quiet conviction, that she believed him. “Then why keep it from me?”
    “Because we had to reevaluate. If Dr. Gilbert was killed because of this case, then we had to protect anyone else we had working on the identification. You think you were followed on your run this morning? If you were, it was by someone who can gain access to these grounds. Someone who knew we were bringing the skull to Quantico. You can understand why I didn’t want to involve yet another artist. And why we let you go home to San Francisco to preserve the illusion that you were not connected to the case at all.”
    “Hence the private jet to bring me back?”
    “Exactly.”
    And that she could appreciate. Because if someone came after her, they could certainly do it while she was visiting her family. “I need a few minutes, if you don’t mind.”
    Griffin hesitated. “I’m sorry about your friend.”
    She nodded, waited until she heard the door close behind him, then stared at the skull through a blur of tears, wishing that Tasha had left for her dig in Italy a week earlier.
    By the time Griffin returned about fifteen minutes later, she had composed herself enough to attempt finishing the Jane Doe sketch. Pencil poised over paper, she suddenly doubted herself and her hurried sketch of the victim’s hair. “I need to see the crime scene photo one more time before I finish.”
    He picked up the briefcase, unlocked it, removed the folder, set it on the table in front of her. She opened the folder, tried to force her gaze past the woman’s visage to the surroundings, everything she needed to remember. It was not an easy task. Look at any photo of a person, and one’s gaze is drawn to the face. Look at a photo where the face has been savagely removed, and it’s just as hard not to stare at where the face is supposed to be.
    But do it she must. An ID of Jane Doe was imperative, assuming that Jane Doe’s killer had also killed Tasha. Eyeing the photo, and making a few tentative strokes on the paper, Sydney tried to mentally take in everything from the obviousto the not so obvious. She noted what the victim wore, blue jeans and a zippered sweatshirt. She noted the ground, the neatly manicured lawn, and more importantly the absence of snow, which, if the murder had occurred in this area, meant it was at least a week or more ago. To the right of the victim was what looked like the base of an old-fashioned streetlamp, black iron, and beyond that the corner of a building made of massive blocks of hewn stone that, other than the reddish color, reminded her of the historic brownstones seen in the New York area.
    “How much longer?” he asked.
    “Almost done.”
    She finished up the hair, another ten minutes to get the basics, try to emulate the style she presumed the woman would’ve worn, judging from what she could tell in the photo, what wasn’t matted in congealed blood. Brunette. She’d been a brunette. After that it was simply shading to give the sketch depth and realism. An hour later she was done.
    “All yours,” she said, eyeing the sketch of