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

He held the bag out to Sky. “Mange!”
    She nodded politely and accepted the gift. Given the amount of red meat she normally consumed, the Chief's bag of sausages ought to last her, what? Five years?
    "By the way," Sky tried for a casual tone. "I'm withdrawing from this case. I can't work with Jake. I thought I could. Sorry to pull out like this."
    The Chief wiped his hands carefully on a tissue and began rearranging a stack of manila files on his desk.
    Sky was encouraged by his silence and continued. "I'll brief Kyle on this morning’s interview. I’m just not ready to come back to work.”
     "You can take time. Take all the time you need. But take it after this case is solved."
     Sky plunged ahead. "Things are complicated. Jake's breathing down my neck. Butera hates me. I need more time." Sky shoved her hand in her coat pocket and stroked the baby sweater.
     "Come with me." Magnus stood up and marched out of the room with a sideways gait that always reminded Sky of John Wayne.
     She gripped the bag of sausages and followed him down the corridor to a dark, cramped room she'd never seen before.
    Magnus flipped a switch and motioned her to sit. The room was illuminated with the glow of a computerized map of Newton beamed large on the wall.
    "StatCom," he said. "Developed a few of years ago by NYPD. We feed all Newton’s crime data to our people in the crime analysis and mapping unit – civilians – experts in the use of geographical information systems. Rapes, assaults, homicides," he explained, "broken down into those committed with guns, domestic or non-domestic, burglaries listed as residential or commercial, thefts classified as retail, personal, or auto." He pointed to the wall. "Those guys give us maps like this one."
    Sky scanned the familiar matrix of Newton streets and villages, overlaid with irregular clusters of hexagons and triangles.
    "The hexagons show the residential streets and shopping hubs where thieves have broken into cars," the Chief explained.  "The triangles show where our officers have responded with focused patrols.  The closer the overlap –”
    "The bigger the drop in car break-ins," Sky finished his sentence.
    She had a scientist's appreciation for the power in this kind of feedback. Criminal behavior and police performance juxtaposed visually. Nice.
    "We've had a thirty-six percent reduction in car break-ins this year alone." Magnus was clearly proud of his new toy. He hit a key on the board and the map flashed with a new cluster of shapes. "Residential burglaries, down twenty-eight percent." He punched the key again, and another cluster appeared. "Arrests on outstanding warrants? Up a hundred and thirty-nine percent!"
    "A triumph of the scientific method," Sky nodded.
    The Chief flipped off the computer and they sat together in darkness. Officers passing through the hallway cast shadows on the wall in front of Sky. She watched them drift back and forth like Plato's shades.
    "I know you got a bad deal," Magnus said. "You lost your baby." His voice seemed to drop an octave. "Burying a child is a hard thing. Maybe the hardest thing."
    Did he understand, Sky wondered? And if he did, so what? She wanted nothing more than to sit in this dark room. She wanted to sit in this dark room forever.
    "Listen carefully, Sky. Hear me out.” Magnus’s voice was firm. “Local news is already calling this the Heartbreak Hill Murder and that’s just the beginning. Two hundred news outlets are in town for the Boston Marathon, from all over the planet, and they’re salivating like hyenas. Remember the girl murdered in Aruba? One cable network diddled that story every day for two years, turned that particular police department into an international joke.”
    Magnus pulled a cell phone from his breast pocket. “Someone out there thinks they can murder a woman in the center of this city and get away with it.” He pounded a fist to his chest. “My city.”
    He leaned toward