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

“Have there been any developments in thelast couple of hours?” Nate asked, as the sheriff put the car into gear andbacked out of the lot.

“Nothing special,” the sheriff said,sighing. “We’ve been doing our best. Still waiting on forensics reports for thesecond victim, but the first one came back. Preliminary, at least.”

“Any evidence we can work with?”

“Not yet.” From her position in thebackseat, Laura could see the sheriff’s mouth reflected in the rearview mirror;when he wasn’t speaking, it settled into a thin, hard line. “They’ll runfurther tests, but we’re not seeing anything usable. No fingerprints other thanthe victim’s and her roommate’s. No unidentified hair follicles or bits offabric or skin under the fingernails—nothing we’d want to see in a case likethis.”

“Like this?” Laura asked, her earsperking up. Understanding how the police on the ground were seeing the case wasessential. Not only would it possibly help inform their own impression of it,but there was also the factor of internal bias. If they’d decided already thecase was going one way, Laura and Nate needed to make sure that it was theright decision. Otherwise, they could all end up blind to other facts that didn’tsupport their working theory.

“Strangers,” the sheriff said, glancingat her in the mirror. Laura caught a glimpse of his eyes as he moved his head.They were flintlike, gray, just like the straggling remains of hair on hishead. “As far as we can see, there’s no link between the two women. So our workingtheory is this was done by strangers.”

Laura made a mental note of that, butsaid nothing. It had been the same conclusion they’d drawn on the plane, butthat didn’t mean it was true. After all, there were countless ways that peoplecould interact—particularly in this internet age. The two women might havecommented on the same thread on a forum and the killer was in there too. Itcould be as tenuous as that. Really, properly checking for connections wasn’t asimple job that could be completed in less than twenty-four hours.

Right now, it was looking likelythat the murders were committed by a stranger. That didn’t make it definite.

The cruiser wound down wide streets thatlooked as though they could have been almost anywhere in the US. Standard blockformations, trees at intersections, Starbucks and McDonald’s and mom-and-popstores that were few and far between. The buildings were tall and stately,solid rectangles that had been around for long enough to witness boom and bustover and over. City life was going on all around them as they drove. Peoplewalking to and from work, kids coming home from school, moms with strollers runningerrands.

It always struck Laura how removed theywere from normal life. How odd it was that normal life was bustling aroundthese crime scenes, which always had a kind of pallor over them. Like there wasone tiny point in the world where time had stopped, and everything was slow andsomber, but the rest was unaffected.

When you spent years interacting withothers only at these places, these other worlds, you started to forget what itwas like to go back to reality. Adding in her visions, Laura hadn’t felt likeshe was anywhere close to touching normal for a long time. The drink had beenthe only thing that helped with that.

Until it had robbed her of everythingelse she’d still had, and left her only with that isolated feeling, that morbidexistence of lurching from murder scene to murder scene.

“This is it,” Sheriff Lonsdale said,snapping Laura’s attention to the windows on the other side of the car. Theywere coming up on a small apartment block, a converted home with three storiesand a small porch. It looked boxed in, next to two much larger blocks thatdwarfed it, leaving it constantly in the shade.

There was a section of police tapeacross the entrance, and a deputy standing guard to the side of the building toensure no one could creep around the back. Laura was already taking off herseatbelt as the car pulled up to the curb, ready to jump out and hit the groundrunning on the investigation.

Two hours in a plane and then the carjourney meant that standing up and breathing fresh air felt good. Well, asfresh as you could get in a city. Laura stretched her arms above her head onthe sidewalk, shaking out the kinks.

“The body’s been taken to the morgue, Ipresume?” Nate said, sliding on a pair of sunglasses against the bright sun.Laura had been wearing hers since they got off the plane. It was a habit ofhers, so that when she needed to wear them because of her headaches it wasn’tso obvious.

“It has,” the sheriff confirmed. “But we’vepreserved the rest of the scene for you to examine.”

As they followed him up the short stepsonto the porch, Laura felt a prickling feeling on the back of her neck. It onlyseemed to intensify as they walked inside the building and to another interiordoor, presumably leading to the first-floor apartment.

What was that?

It dawned on her as the sheriff led themupstairs and through a second-floor door into the victim’s home. It was déjàvu. She felt as though she’d been here before.

She felt that way, but she couldn’t havebeen. She’d never even been to Albany until now. How could she know this place?How could she have known to look for the peeled-back edge of the wallpaper bythe kitchen door if she hadn’t already known it was there?

Laura was silent as she stepped throughthe apartment, slipping on a pair of gloves so she would be free to touchanything she saw. The kitchen was ahead, she knew that. There was a fridge justa little too close to the cupboards. She stepped through and there it was: justhow she had expected.

How was it that she knew all of this?

It was like she had seen it on TV,though of course that wasn’t the case.

“This is where she was found,” SheriffLonsdale said, startling her as he appeared right behind her. “She was lyingright there, beside the table. Looks like the phone was just long enough toreach.

Laura nodded, looking down at the cord.The handset was still lying on the floor where