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

she was calculating how muchtime she had left. Just a couple of minutes of microwaving time, then maybe tenor fifteen minutes to eat it with her phone in her hand, looking over socialmedia. Another ten minutes to get changed for bed and brush her teeth, and shecould be asleep. But no, wait—she had an early shift in the morning, so shewould be better off showering right now to save time. So, another fifteenminutes on top of that. Then she could fall into bed, at last.

A ringing noise rose above the sound ofthe microwave beside her, making Cassie lift her head. Her eyes instinctivelydarted to the cell phone sitting on the counter beside her, but it wasn’t that.This was a different tone. It was the landline; it had come with the apartment,but she’d never really had cause to use it. No one even had the number, apartfrom her sister. It was probably either a crank call or a scam.

Carrie let it ring out, ignoring it.There was no point in answering it, and she couldn’t suffer any fools with howexhausted she was. They would be getting a real piece of her mind, so she wasdoing them a favor by not answering. She waited for the microwave to finish,then pulled the hot plastic tray out and dropped it on the counter, wincing andmoving fast to avoid burning her fingers.

The phone went silent, and Carrie sighedas she fished for a fork out of her cutlery drawer. Blessed peace. Now shecould just eat this as quick as possible, get a quick lukewarm shower, andclimb into her lumpy single bed and shut the rest of the world out.

She was lifting the tray over to thetable when the phone rang out again, almost making her drop the whole thing.

“Dammit!” she shouted, dumping the trayonto the table and rubbing her forehead. If she’d lost her dinner as well aseverything else today, she would have probably lost her mind on top of it. Shetried to stay cool for a single second, then gave up and marched through to thehall and the ringing phone.

She wrenched it off the wall and put itto her ear. “Hello?” she demanded, half-shouting already.

“Hello.” It was a male voice,unexpectedly calm. “Am I speaking to Carrie Adeline Birchtree?”

Carrie resisted the urge to confirmright away, even though the guy knew who she was. Even her middle name. Thatwasn’t necessarily a good thing. Debt collection agencies would be able to gethold of her full name, right?

“Who’s calling?” she asked. It was late,too. Why would a debt collection agency be calling this late?

“Miss Birchtree, I’m with the IRS,” hesaid, his voice low and controlled. “I need to confirm a few details of yourlatest tax return with you. It seems you may have overpaid your taxes.”

Carrie hesitated. No, this wasn’t right.It was probably a scam. Debt collectors didn’t need to tell the truth, didthey? They could straight-up lie to get you to tell you who you were. She didn’tyet want to confirm who she was. But then again, if she was going to get abigger tax refund…

“Do you know what time it is?” sheasked, putting off the decision until later. “It’s a ridiculous time of night.What are you doing calling people at this time?”

“Ma’am, we tried calling you earlier andyour phone wasn’t answered,” he said. “That’s why it’s been left to me on thelate shift.”

Carrie hesitated. A late shift. Thatmade sense. There were probably enough people who needed calling about thiskind of thing. Why wouldn’t they have a call center working around the clock?She couldn’t hear anyone behind him—but then, maybe it was quieter there atnight. She wandered back through to the kitchen, the cord on the phonestretching behind her as she stirred her mac and cheese to cool it down.

“Well, please call back again tomorrow,”she said. “I’ll be able to answer in the early afternoon after I get off work.”

“Before I confirm that, can you justconfirm for me that you are Carrie Adeline Birchtree?” he asked. “If you’renot, there’s no point in scheduling a call back.”

Carrie chewed the fingernail on herright thumb for a moment, thinking it over. Wasn’t it obvious already that shewas who he was asking for? If she wasn’t, she would have said no and put thephone down. She’d as good as confirmed it already, at least as far as it matteredif someone was trying to track her down. So maybe it was the tax thing. Maybeshe could get a little extra money in the bank. It wasn’t long now untilwinter. She could do with a little extra cash, something to keep the heating onlonger during the weekends when she was home.

“Yes,” she said, at length. “That’s me.Look, just call back tomorrow, okay? I’m about to go to bed.”

“I can’t do that, Carrie.”

Carrie froze, her thumbnail halfway backto her mouth. His voice had changed, she could swear it. It was deeper now.Less polite. Like a mask had been taken off. “Why not?” she asked, cursingmentally. She shouldn’t have told him her name. This was it, wasn’t it? He wasgoing to tell her how much she owed and how much she’d better have ready in themorning, or they’d take everything. Not that it mattered. She didn’t haveanything worth taking.

“Because I’m right outside your door.”

Carrie’s head sharply jerked toward thedoor. No. He couldn’t be. Had she heard that right?

“What?” she asked, praying for him torepeat it so she could hear how she’d gotten it wrong.

Instead, a series of beeps rang out fromthe handset, signaling that the call had been ended.

Carrie pulled the phone away from herhead and stared at it, hoping it would give her some kind of answer. There wasnothing. She rested it down on the kitchen counter for a moment, trying tothink. What was going on here? Some kind of prank?

Maybe she’d misheard him. Maybe he said “Ican do that,” and then just confirmed it and ended the call. How couldshe have messed those words up? Was that possible? No, she played the wordsback in her head and they still sounded the same.

He’d said he was