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

of Nate’s and the sheriff’s voices, but also the hum ofthe fridge, the rush of traffic on the street outside. She felt the smooth surfaceof the plastered wall, cool under her fingers.

The pulse of pressure between her eyeswas light this time, not a full-blown headache. That was something of a badsign; the harsher the pain, the more urgent the vision, Laura knew. This wassometime in the future. She felt it building up and willed it to come quicker,to pour over her like a wave—

Laura was viewing the scene from thesame doorway, but above, hovering somewhere near the ceiling. The door had beenremoved at some point. The table and fridge were gone, and the stove had beenstripped out. The other cupboards hung rotten.

There was graffiti on the walls, and astrong smell rising to her nose. Urine, smoke. Laura wrinkled her eyes andtried to squint. The picture was so unclear, like she was watching throughdirty water. It swirled around her, leaving her unable to see the whole sceneat once.

She listened but heard nothing, only thetraffic on the street outside. Then something: yes! She found herself drawncloser to it, the vision taking her just where she had wanted to go, down, downto the floor level, to a pile of trash heaped in a corner—

And a rat shot out of it, running towardher with some morsel clamped in its jaws, a bit of old vegetable matter thatwas long past decay, right at her…

Laura blinked and opened her eyes on thekitchen again, whole and still a crime scene. She took a breath against theflash of the headache that sent her roiling, then slipped her glove back on.The pain wasn’t bad at all; she could handle it. That must have been years fromnow.

No one wanted to live in an apartmentwhere someone was murdered after a break-in, she figured. All too easy for itto happen to the next tenant as well. This place would fall into disrepair inthe future, and if there were any lingering clues, there would be no one tofind them.

It didn’t tell her anything useful.Sometimes the visions were like that. She couldn’t control them, except bycreating the optimal conditions for them to come. That meant putting herselfmore into the path of the killer. If she got connected to him strongly enough,she might be able to see his next move—like she had with the scumbag whokidnapped Amy.

Once she was close enough to crossinghis path, touching anything could trigger it—her gun, Nate’s gun, her own armif they were going to end up directly linked. But for now, she was gettingnothing. Even the sense of déjà vu she’d felt was gone. Maybe it had herimagination, or some lingering shadow of the vision of the broken apartmentthat she’d been about to have. It wasn’t as though she always understood whyher visions came, or how they worked. Maybe she was starting to feel thembefore they came now, too.

Either way, one thing was clear. Theyneeded to get closer. She wasn’t going to get any useful visions until theydid.

“We should talk to the victim’srelatives next,” Laura said, turning to join Nate again. “What was her name?Caroline?”

“Good plan,” Nate said, looking to the sheriff.“You good to drive us over there?”

“Sure thing.” The sheriff nodded. “We’vegot one of our boys down there right now, sitting with them and providing somecomfort, you know the drill. I’ll give him a call to expect us and we’ll be onour way.”

Laura glanced around one more time andthen nodded firmly, gesturing for Nate to head to the door first. They weredone here, and the quicker they moved on, the better. There was, after all, thepossibility that someone else could die tonight.

And going to talk to Caroline’s familywould be the first step toward a vision that might help her stop that fromhappening.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Laura stood by as Nate knocked loudly onthe door, staring up and waiting for it to open. There was always that awkwardmoment between knocking and being answered. When you weren’t sure if you werejust waiting outside an empty house. When you tried to rearrange your face tosomething that would be friendly and open, and then hold it until someone gotthere.

Laura hated this part of the jobsometimes. Having to talk to people who’d lost family members. Sometimes havingto be the one to break the news. It was just another layer of separation:always turning up at the worst point in people’s lives.

“Hello?” The woman who answered the doorwas easily recognizable from the photograph of Caroline that she’d seen. Therewas no mistaking the family resemblance between them: the same thin-lippedmouth, the same long nose.

“Hi, Mrs. Howard? I’m Agent NathanielLavoie, and this is Agent Laura Frost. I’m sorry to have to do this at such asad time for you and your family, but do you mind if we come in and ask you afew questions?” Nate had the polite voice down pat, along with his polite smileand his politely relaxed body posture. As a six-two Black man who spent a lotof time at the gym, Nate knew he had to keep the intimidation levels down aslow as possible when dealing with grieving white people. They’d even spokenabout it, back when they were first partners. It was another level that Lauradidn’t have to deal with, and she was grateful for that privilege.

“Please,” Caroline’s sister said,stepping aside to allow them in her home. She was pale and her eyes were red;as they passed by her, Laura noticed how she pulled her thin cardigan closeraround herself.

Caroline’s apartment had been small and cramped,and almost entirely without personality. Like it was a temporary home, eventhough she had been there for years. Here, though, there were signs of life.The sister had framed photographs on the walls of herself with a man and a fewsmall children—her family. There were toys scattered around as they walkinginto a cozy living room, where the same man from the pictures was seated on aworn sofa cradling a cup of something steaming.

“Take a seat,” Mrs. Howard said,gesturing with a jerky and awkward movement to the dining chairs that had beenbrought into the room