Already Gone (A Laura Frost FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 1)

by Blake Pierce

  Maybe she wouldn’t need to snap if she could get her hands on a drink. Something to relieve the tension, make everything easier. But she knew she couldn’t do that.

  “Fine,” Nate said, his voice sharp enough that she knew he wanted her to hear he was put out. “If it’s that important to you, keep listening. I’ll work on my notes.”

  Laura’s hand hovered over the mouse, ready to press play, but she hesitated. “Thank you,” she said first, hoping her tone conveyed that she was contrite.

  She shuffled her chair closer to the speakers as she pressed play. She considered even putting her ear flat against them, but that probably wouldn’t help. Laura concentrated hard, waiting for the spot where she knew she had heard it.

  There! An intake of breath, unmistakable.

  She had him, now. His signature. The sound of breathing wasn’t exactly like a voice. It wasn’t completely unique. It wasn’t even identifiable in a lot of cases. But if you had a recording of two people breathing, especially if they were straining, often you could tell them apart. That was something Laura had picked up over years of surveillance jobs, listening to bugs, waiting to burst in as part of a raid.

  In this case, it was easy to tell them apart. Caroline was choking. That left only two people breathing on the line: the dispatcher, whose microphone was much closer to her mouth, and who besides kept muting the call while she spoke with the first responders. And there was him. The killer. Distant from the handset, overpowered often by Caroline’s choking or the dispatcher’s voice. But he was there.

  At the end of the call he wasn’t breathing too heavily. Not panting for breath like he might have been. He wasn’t panicked or rushing to get away. He let Caroline drop and then walked calmly back the way he came in. Laura would have given anything for a microphone close by the window—to hear if he made a grunt of effort as he swung back to the fire escape, to listen to him moving further away. The weight of his footsteps on the metal. But this was all they had.

  “All right, satisfied now?” Nate asked. He was leaning back in his chair, looking at his notes with exasperation. He thought she was being foolish. Laura could take that. She needed to know.

  “Not yet,” Laura said. “I’ve almost got something.”

  “What are you hearing that I’m not?” Nate asked, dropping his pen back on his notebook and looking at her with frustration. Even so, there was softness behind his gaze. He wanted to take care of her, she realized. Wanted to protect her from listening to this nightmare. But he didn’t know why she had to.

  “I can hear him breathing,” Laura said, opting to at least go with the truth. Even if it wasn’t the whole truth. “Just let me go again. I’m figuring something out. You… you can leave the room, if you have to.”

  “Okay,” Nate sighed, shaking his head. “But I’m not going anywhere. We’re partners. If you’re listening to this, I’ll stay as well. I’ll just… distract myself.” He looked down at his phone and started tapping the screen. Laura couldn’t tell if he was reading messages, researching something, or just playing a mobile game, but it didn’t matter. So long as he was quiet, Laura could work with that.

  She played the recording again. She could feel Nate looking at her every time she reset it to the beginning and pressed play again, but she ignored him. She closed her eyes, trying to block out everything else. Rather than focusing on where she was—on going through her senses one by one—she lost herself in the recording. She blocked out everything else. Now that she was used to the sounds that Caroline made, to the voice of the dispatcher, she could ignore them. She focused hard, trying to drown herself in the sound of his breathing.

  Laura pressed play for the eighth time and closed her eyes again. Slowly and carefully, hoping that Nate’s view would be blocked by her body, she reached out and pressed her fingers to the speaker on one side of the computer monitor.

  A stabbing pain shot through her forehead, and Laura tried to breathe through it. She kept still, listening hard—there it was, that one loud intake of breath she’d first heard—

  Laura was above her, looking down. The woman—she was definitely a woman, that much Laura could sense as much as see. But her face was obscured by black wisps like smoke, like ink flowing through water. Everything was dark and dim, like an old photograph shot in sepia, scratched and unclear. She fought to see through it, to get past…

  The woman. There was something around her neck. Just for a moment Laura made it out, just for a moment she heard a desperate cry. A female voice cut off by a choking sound. Laura grasped for more, but everything was too dim. She couldn’t smell or taste or hear or feel a thing. It was all dark ink around her, and the woman was getting further away. Smaller.

  The woman was dying.

  Laura’s eyes snapped open and she snatched her fingers away from the speaker, pressing them against her forehead instead. The headache rolled through her like a wave, pushing every single thought out of her head until she got a grip on it. Then she deliberately unclenched her jaw, relaxed her clenched fist, breathed out.

  She was so close. The fact that the vision had come at all meant that she was on the right track. It was closely linked to her own future, her near future, and she would be close enough to stop it. If only she knew where the woman was—who she was—when it would happen. Who was standing behind her, wrapping something around her neck. Every single useful detail had been obscured, too far out of her reach.

  Except for one. The fact that she was right. The killer was going to strike again.

  If she could just get more information, the vision would be more complete. But she didn’t have anything else to go on. The killer had left no evidence, no scrap of himself. She couldn’t find anything that pointed to his motive, any trace of his DNA, any sign he had left behind. She only had his breath—and that wasn’t enough.

  She resisted the urge to slam the keyboard against the desk in frustration. She had been so close. Why couldn’t he have spoken on the recording? Why couldn’t he have left her at least a grunt to work with?

  It was like the shadow she felt over Nate. Too vague. Too dim to allow her to actually take any action. It wasn’t fair. Why did she have to put up with these headaches and all the inconvenience of keeping the secret if it wasn’t going to actually help her to save a life?

  “You finally given up?” Nate asked, making Laura exhale and turn to look at him. “You look like crap.”

  “Thanks,” Laura said darkly, shaking her head. “Listening to the last moments of a dead woman over and over again will do that to you.”

  “Did you at least get anything out of it?” Nate asked. He set his notebook aside and leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. His large hands clasped loosely together below his chin as he studied her.

  “He’s not out of breath,” Laura said. “At least, not too much. He strains a little to pull the cord, but I think he’s strong. And he’s very calm—controlled.”

  “Meaning he’s going to be a bitch to find,” Nate said, scrubbing one of his hands back over his tightly coiled hair. “I hate the calm ones.”

  “I’m sure their victims feel the same,” Laura said, with a light twist to the sides of her mouth. “I don’t know. It’s not much to go on. But I’m confident we’re looking for a man, at least.”

  “You know, I’ve been thinking,” Nate said, reaching for his notebook again. “This was a recording from her landline, right?”

  “Yeah,” Laura said, frowning. “That’s why it was all picked up. He was using the cord from it to strangle her.” Had Nate not realized that all along?

  “Well, my point is, who uses a landline these days? Didn’t she have a cell?”

  Laura thought back. “Yeah, I think I read something about this in the notes from the first responders. Her cell phone was left on the bed. She couldn’t go back for it, if that’s where he came from.”

  “Yeah, but the landline was out in the hall, right?” Nate sketched out a quick plan of the ap
artment on a page of his notepad. “Here. So the killer would have walked out of this doorway—right between the kitchen door and the landline itself.”

  Laura paused, studying his diagram. “Huh.”

  “Right. So maybe she was already using the landline. I think we should pull the phone records. We might get lucky. Maybe there’s a recording of this guy breaking in on someone’s voicemail. Maybe we get to hear his voice—or she recognizes him and says his name.”

  “That’s a good thought,” Laura said, and grinned. “God, I hope we get something.”

  “You’re welcome,” Nate teased. “Since you’re so into recordings right now and all.”

  “I’ll call the boss,” Laura said, grabbing her cell out of her pocket. “If they put it through on a rush, we might be able to get them right away.”

  “Fingers crossed,” Nate said, leaning back again with the easy grace of a man who worked out enough to know his own body well. He wore a small smile, self-satisfaction for coming up with a potential lead.

  If he was right, it could be another piece of the puzzle. It seemed a long shot, but right now they needed something—anything. Laura waited for the line to connect, ignoring the way the dial tone seemed to pulse at the same rate as the throbbing in her head.

  If she could hear his voice, maybe the vision would clear up and she would be able to identify his next victim.

  It wasn’t too late to stop that murky vision from becoming reality. There were a few hours left until nightfall.

  It wasn’t too late to save a life—but if she didn’t hurry, it would be.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “I’ve got it,” Laura said, tapping impatiently on her phone screen to open the email. “Hold on—here we go.”

  “What does it say?” Nate asked, dragging his wheeled office chair across to her. Laura pulled back quickly before their heads could bump, shifting in her seat to provide an excuse for the sudden movement.

  “There’s a number that called her right before she called nine-one-one,” Laura said, swiping across the file to zoom in. “It looks as though it connected. That’s a shame, I guess. No answering machine message.”

  “It’s still a lead, though. Let me see,” Nate said, reaching to take the phone out of her hands.

  Laura didn’t have time to react. His hand brushed against hers before she could stop it, and the veil of death fell over her again, dampening everything for a moment. She shivered and tried to remember how to breathe. As quickly as it happened, it was gone, Nate holding the phone up as he typed out the number into a search bar on the computer.

  Laura swallowed on her dry throat, watching him work. He was focused on the screen, frowning as he pulled up the results. He was so—big. So full of life. So vibrant. How could he be under the shadow of death?

  “No listed results online,” Nate said, shrugging. “Doesn’t mean it doesn’t belong to anyone.”

  “Try and give it a trace,” Laura said. “I’m just going to call back to HQ. I can’t help but wonder whether the first victim had a call as well, you know?”

  “It’s worth a look.” Nate nodded. “Hey, if we don’t do it now, we’ll only have to do it in a few days when we’re trying to trace every single person either of them ever talked to.”

  Laura groaned as the line began to ring. “Don’t say that,” she said. “I don’t want to still be at a dead end with this in a few days.”

  Nate only chuckled, returning his attention to his computer. He brought up an FBI portal and logged in, his fingers running easily over the familiar keys of his password, and began inputting the data.

  Laura’s attention was taken away when the call was answered, and she spoke directly to the team back in DC who would be able to request the phone records.

  “Did you find anything?” Laura asked as she ended the call, looking back over at Nate.

  He nodded, tapping his fingers against the desk. “Sort of. It’s not good news. As far as we can trace, the number belongs to a burner phone.”

  Laura sighed. She wished burner phones weren’t a thing. Cheap, no-contract handsets you could buy at any convenience store and load with a calling card instead of having to sign your name to something. Virtually untraceable, unless you got really lucky. “I’ve got the other phone records coming shortly. The phone company didn’t put up a fight, for once.”

  Nate smirked. “Well, there’s one silver lining. Let me think about this phone thing. Maybe there’s a way…”

  Laura didn’t press him as he trailed off into silence, his head cocked to one side. Nate was good with technology. Just like he didn’t question her so-called intuition, she knew better than to interfere when it came to tech.

  A buzz in her hand drew her attention to her phone, and the incoming email. She opened it hurriedly, checking the attachment. It was a report from the same phone company—given that the two victims lived in the same area, that wasn’t a surprise.

  Laura spun around to look at their investigation board, to what Nate had written about the estimated time of death of the first victim. Then she checked the report again. And she checked it a third time, just because it was almost too good to be true.

  “Nate,” she said. “There’s another call. To Laura Carlisle, right around the time of her death.”

  Nate’s head snapped up. “Tell me the number.”

  She rattled it off as he typed, leaning forward over his keyboard as the details came up.

  “Same deal,” he said. “Burner phone. Same model, different phone. Both of them were activated on the day of the killing and have now been marked as inactive.”

  “So, they were bought just for this one call,” Laura said. “That together with them being untraceable—it’s got to be the killer, right?”

  “Yeah,” Nate said, though he still sounded thoughtful. Like he had something else on his mind.

  “What?” Laura prompted, seeing that he didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

  “Well, this type of phone,” he said, slowly. “I’ve come across it before. I’m sure I saw it in a case before you and I partnered up. This model needs to be activated with a unique serial number before it can make calls out.”

  “So… does that mean it’s traceable?” Laura asked, hope springing to life.

  “Maybe,” Nate said, nodding. “Yeah, probably. We can see which store it was bought from. The manufacturer will have records of which identifiers went to which customers. Then we can talk to the store—maybe they have detailed enough sales records that we can see who bought them.”

  “Unless he paid in cash,” Laura said. “But still. This is great, right?”

  “It’s a start,” Nate said, jumping to action. “I’ll call it in, see if the Chief can get a warrant for us, just in case. Then I’ll jump on the line with the manufacturer.”

  “It could take a few hours,” Laura said, and then shrugged. “But it’s all we’ve got to go on right now.”

  Nate nodded, putting the phone to his ear as he waited for it to connect.

  Laura tuned out his conversation, rubbing her face as she looked over at their investigation board. The faces of the two women who had died stared back at her. Laura and Caroline. No one had moved fast enough to save them. If they didn’t get this information before the end of the night, there could be another face going up on the board.

  Laura reached for her purse while Nate was distracted, and quickly pulled out a blister pack of painkillers. She took one straight down, without water. When you were on the move a lot and suffered with near-constant headaches, you got used to being able to take whatever pain relief you needed without waiting for convenient facilities.

  She sat back in her chair then, waiting for the painkiller to take hold. Having the throbbing in her temple out of the way would certainly make investigating a bit easier. But right now, she wasn’t sure there was anywhere else they could go. The phones were a good lead. If they were really lucky, this would clear the whole thing up. They’d be able to get a
name, go arrest the guy, and it would be over.

  But it was getting late, and Laura couldn’t help but feel they were racing against time. The vision she had seen—the pain had been bad, which meant it was probably happening in the next few hours at most. If they didn’t get the information before then—or if they got it when the killer had already left home to go after his next victim…

  Laura didn’t want to think about the girl she had seen, or half-seen, in her vision. That girl was on the cusp of death. She probably didn’t even know it yet, but her life was in grave danger. And what was Laura doing? Kicking her heels at the local precinct, resting in a chair and waiting for her painkillers to kick in.

  She picked up her cell phone, needing to do something to distract herself. Something to keep her mind away from the urgency. Sitting on her hands had never been her favorite thing to do, and right now, it amounted to torture. Besides, she needed to check whether she had any messages or updates from home. An invitation to go visit Lacey would be nice, though she didn’t hold out hope for that anymore.

  She just braced herself in case one day she would receive word from Lacey’s father that there was an emergency.

  Laura checked her emails online, skimming through a load of junk mails from Nigerian princes and supposed purveyors of magic pills. Down below them, though, there was at least one message she actually wanted to read: a reply from a forum she was signed up to about psychics.

  She’d joined as a bit of a last-ditch effort to find someone who was like her. After years of just reading the forums and remaining a passive bystander, Laura had come to realize that she wasn’t getting anywhere at all. And she figured it was possible that anyone who was like her, might be just like her. Meaning that they, too, would hang silently around on the outside, watching and waiting.