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

it had been extricated from thevictim’s neck. There was no blood, not much sign of a struggle. The onlyfree-standing furniture in the whole kitchen was the fridge and the table, andthey didn’t appear to have been affected.

There was a microwaveable tray ofcongealed mac and cheese sitting on the table, a dirty fork lying beside it.Yes, Laura thought. The mac and cheese was familiar too.

“Do you have the pictures?” Laura asked.There hadn’t been any included with the briefing. She’d assumed that wasbecause the local police photographer hadn’t been able to finish his images intime for the printout.

“Here.” The sheriff pulled out a folderfrom under his arm and extricated several printed shots, handing them to her.Laura held one of them, a full-body shot, up in the air until it aligned withthe view in front of her.

“She was holding the phone,” Laura said,loud for Nate’s benefit. He had come back into the hall behind them, but therewas nowhere near enough room for all three of them to look through the doorway.

“Yes, she actually managed to make acall to nine-one-one before she was killed,” the sheriff said. “Unfortunately,he strangled her with the phone cord while she was still on the line. We dohave the recording. Would you like to hear that?”

Laura considered it. “Does he sayanything? Make any identifiable noises?”

“No.”

“Anything relevant from her?”

“No, she barely makes a noise at all,apart from the choking. Just says that someone’s broken in, and that’s all wegot.”

Laura shook her head. “Then I don’t wantto hear it until I have to. We hit a dead end, then we’ll listen. But it doesn’tsound like it’s going to be much use, and this case is dark enough alreadywithout audio of the moment of her death.” She glanced back at Nate to check hewas on board with it, but his expression was open and it didn’t change. Laurawas no sadist, and no masochist either. She didn’t think it would be good foreither of them, hearing that. Not until it was necessary.

She just hoped it wasn’t going to becomenecessary.

“All right, what else?” Nate asked. “Shehad the cord around her neck still?”

“Yes, it’s as though he just dropped herto the ground and left her there,” the sheriff said. He leaned over Laura’sshoulder to point at several areas on the image; she tried not to be tooobvious as she flinched back away from his touch. She’d seen enough hoveringdeath today. If she was going to be having visions, she needed them to befocused on the case—not on whether the sheriff was likely to stub his toe onhis way to bed tonight. “We think he strangled her from behind, possibly as shewas trying to get away from him. He would have used the cord to bring her upshort, then used her own body weight and his to keep the cord tight. Medicalexaminer is telling us that he probably lifted her off her feet, into the air,judging by the impressions on her throat.”

“The act of killing is enough,” Lauramused. “He kills her, then drops her. She’s no longer any use to him.”

“So, we’re not looking at a sexuallymotived crime,” Nate said. “Anything taken?”

“Not a robbery either,” the sheriffconfirmed. “Other than the smashed bedroom window, and this phone off the hookin here, it’s like no one ever came in. Come and look at this.”

They turned as a unit, Nate and Lauraboth following the sheriff into the bedroom. The space was no less cramped inhere; there was only just enough room for one person to walk around all threesides of the bed, with the headboard close to the window. One wall of the roomwas packed with a dresser, a small table holding an alarm clock, and amakeshift wardrobe rack hanging free.

The sheriff pointed carefully at thealarm clock, making sure they were watching before he lifted it up. Around theclock, a ring of grime and discoloration made the cleaner patch underneath itstand out starkly.

“That’s how you know nothing else ismissing,” Laura said, nodding. She glanced around the rest of the space. Thegaping hole where the window had once been and the debris of the shards allover the bed seemed to tell the rest of the story eloquently enough. She leanedover, her eyes scanning the covers, the windowsill. There was no sign of anykind of shoe print.

“He got in over the fire escape?” Nateasked, nodding at the window.

“Oh, yes.” The sheriff nodded. He leanedtoward the hole, pointing outward. “It’s fixed to the side of the building,just here. Not a direct route, but all he would need to do would be to swingout from the fire escape and smash through the glass feet first. Or usingsomething to smash it—a stone or anything, really—and then swing himselfthrough. We believe he left the same way, as the front door was still locked.”

“I suppose a witness statement is toomuch to hope for?” Nate said.

The sheriff grinned at that. “Unfortunately,”he said. “It was late in the evening, and the back of the property has noexternal lighting. Anyway, from what forensics are saying, it’s likely he worea hat or a mask. So an eyewitness report wouldn’t necessarily do us much goodat this stage.”

Laura nodded, glancing around one lasttime. She stepped back without saying anything, heading back to the kitchen.She need to get some idea of what had happened here. A vision, maybe. Somethingthat would give her another piece of the puzzle. She couldn’t see the past, butshe might be able to see a clue, something that they would otherwise miss. Anew homeowner finding an ID card that had slipped underneath the carpet yearslater, during renovation. That kind of thing could happen.

She glanced behind to check that the sheriffand Nate were still occupied in looking over the bedroom, and quickly slippedher hand out of one of her gloves. She laid it on the wall by the doorframe, aspot that the killer was unlikely to have touched. Something that wouldn’tcompromise future evidence. Then she tried to concentrate, to focus in. She smelledthe tang of the mac and cheese, sitting and spoiling out on the counter. Sheheard the low murmur