Already Gone (A Laura Frost FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 1) by Blake Pierce (notion reading list .txt) 📗

she wasn’t calm enough for sleep. She felt everything stillbuzzing around in her head, all the fears and worries and the desperate impulsethat told her she needed to do something. Maybe going back to her usualsearch would help to quiet her brain for a while.

The search was something that Laura hadbeen undertaking for a long time now. It had come hand in hand with AA;realizing that she needed to fix herself, needed to get herself back on thestraight and narrow. In order to do that, she first had to understand what wasgoing on in her head. What the reasons were behind her slip-ups. Or so theysaid, at the meetings.

Lauren knew what was behind her slippingup. Every single relapse could be traced back to a particular vision, or to therepercussions of one of her previous slip-ups that was caused by a vision. Sheknew what it was that she had to deal with.

What she didn’t know, what she had neverknown, was where the visions came from. Why they happened to her and not toanyone else. How she could trigger them, how she could make them moreeffective. She had learned a few tricks over time—like isolating herself fromothers, or making sure she was well rested and fed, and putting herself intophysical contact with people who could be at the center of them. She had alsolearned, mostly through trial and error, that the visions only told her aboutfutures that she was personally involved in. She knew, too, that she couldaffect their outcome—that she could stop the futures she saw from happening.

The only way that she could think of toget to the bottom of all of this was to find someone else who had also beenthrough the same thing. A support group. A mentor. Someone who could give herthe answers she so badly needed.

That was why she spent most of her sparetime searching online and looking into other people who claimed to be psychic.People who worked as clairvoyants, or claimed to have a big lead that couldhelp a police investigation. Almost all of the time, what she found was someonewho was desperate for fame and money, not someone with a real gift like shehad. Or curse, as she preferred to think of it.

Every now and then, there was someonewho didn’t quite fit the pattern. They would be content with working a small-townjob, doing psychic readings for a few customers a week. Making hardly any moneyfrom it. But even in those cases, Laura had invariably found that the reasonbehind their perceived reticence was that they just wanted to help a fewpeople. Or they just wanted a little pocket money. Whatever it was, it wasnever the real thing. It was just cold reading, a whole bunch of fakes deceivingpeople over and over again.

Laura stared hopelessly at the forum shehad found, featuring a thread where people discussed what they thought mighthave been psychic dreams. It wasn’t even a real lead, as far as leads went.Even if she thought any of these people really were psychic like her, she wouldhave to spend hours, if not days, tracking down IP addresses and trying tofigure out who they really were. There were ways to figure it all out, but shewasn’t in the tech department of the FBI. This kind of thing took her a longtime.

And for what? She wasn’t going to getanywhere with this. She sighed with frustration, slamming the lid of her laptopclosed. A glass of wine looked really good right about now.

And yet. With a growl of frustration,Laura wrenched the lid open again, looking at the results that still had notcleared away from her screen. She had to do this. Even if she knew it washopeless, she had to keep digging. Keep looking. For the sake of her daughter,particularly tonight but also for the long run, she had to keep searching.

The only other option was to loseherself completely at the bottom of the glass, and Laura didn’t want to letthat happen again anytime soon. She searched Governor Fallow’s name instead,looking for the address for the governor’s mansion. As soon as she got thechance, even if Dean didn’t find anything, she would go to the governor’s houseand ring the bell, try to check up on Amy in person. Tomorrow, if she couldsneak out of the office early.

She wasn’t going to let Amy fall by thewayside. She wasn’t going to let her down, the way she had with Lacey.

Laura was going to stop this—and no onewas getting in her way, not even the governor of the state.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Carrie put her key to the door andslipped, fumbling it. She muttered a quick curse under her breath as she foughther tired fingers to grasp the key again and make it into the lock, almostfalling through the door as it opened.

She sighed, pulling off her coat anddumping it on the peg by the entrance as she kicked off her shoes. She had thevague feeling she should put them away, but then again, it could wait until themorning. She just wanted to eat something and get into bed. Anything else couldwait, and she didn’t particularly care what it was. After the shift she’d had,she couldn’t imagine anything less than fire or flood that could convince herto put her shoes back on or care about a little mess.

Carrie charged through to thekitchenette and grabbed something down from one of the cupboards. As she didso, she hit her elbow on the side of the fridge, like she had done a milliontimes before.

“Goddamn Albany rent!” she cursed,because that was the cause of the bruised elbow. If she had been able to afforda nicer place, at a lower rent, she wouldn’t have been stuck in this tinylittle place with its too-close cupboards and its utter lack of space.

She managed to get the packet of mac andcheese down without further incident and shoved it into the microwave. Shejabbed the few buttons on the front that still worked until she managed to getsomething approximating the right time, and set it going, leaning back againstthe counter with her head in her hands.

Mentally,