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

thuds; having seen the place now, Laura could picture her kicking out,hitting the cupboards, connecting with the counter. It sounded as though shewas fighting hard.

The recording was heartbreaking. Lauraclenched the side of the table until her knuckles popped. Slowly, the sounds ofchoking petered out. The dispatcher kept asking over and over again if Carolinecould hear her, if she was all right, telling her to hold on and to stay on theline.

Finally, there was silence.

There was a clunk of the handset hittingthe floor, and then footsteps walking away. A tinkling of glass, only justaudible, as he went back to the bedroom and presumably exited the house. Thennothing.

Sheriff Lonsdale cleared his throat, agruff sound that broke the heavy hush. “It goes on like that for about four orfive minutes, before our first responders arrive and you can hear them breakdown the door,” he said. “No more noise from her, and he’s long gone.”

“Play it again,” Laura said, gesturingtoward the screen.

“Are you sure?” the sheriff asked,hesitating. “It’s a hard listen.”

“Exactly.” Laura took a breath. “I needto be sure I didn’t miss anything. It will be easier the second time.”

That was barely true. Sometimes repeatlistens could make it worse, because you knew what was coming. But she had tokeep listening. Maybe if she heard him enough times, if she learned todistinguish the sounds that he made from the other noises on the call, if shecould get down deep enough to know him a little more…

Maybe a vision would come.

“Well, I’ll leave you with the computer,if you don’t mind,” the sheriff said. He cleared his throat gruffly again.Laura did a quick calculation in her head. If he had children, she realized,they would probably be about the same age as Caroline. “I don’t need to hearthat again.”

Laura nodded, waiting until he had movedout of the room and stopped making noise before pressing play. Her thoughtsstrayed to Lacey in the interim. One day, Lacey was going to grow up to be ayoung woman too. She’d be just as at risk as anyone. But Laura couldn’t thinkabout that right now. It wasn’t exactly easier for her to listen to a womandying, but she had to do this. She had to—so that it didn’t happen again.

And there it all was again. Caroline’sfrantic plea for help. The 911 dispatcher trying to talk to her, to askquestions, to find a way to help. The sound of the cord being pulled tightaround her neck, an intake of breath, a—

Laura’s mind raced back. Wait—thatintake of breath. It couldn’t have been Caroline. Not if she was alreadychoking. Laura marked the point in her head, trying to listen hard to the restof the tape. To Caroline gagging and trying desperately to get free. It musthave been hard to hold her while she fought. He must have been breathing hard.There would be more sounds, more traces of him. Laura was sure of it.

“All right, I don’t think we’re going toget anything out of this,” Nate said, as the tinkling glass signaled the killer’sexit again. “Let’s move on. What’s next?”

“No,” Laura said, turning and looking athim. He met her eyes with a raised brow. “I’m not done yet. I need to listen toit again.”

“Again?” Nate frowned, then shook hishead. “Laura, it’s horrible. Don’t force yourself to keep listening. We’re notgoing to find out anything from it, not on our own anyway. If you want itanalyzed, let’s send it to the tech geeks and have them try to isolate anythingthey can, turn up the volume. We’re better used elsewhere.”

“I nearly have it,” Laura snapped,turning back to the screen. “I heard something. Just let me do this.”

She instantly regretted snapping at him.Nate was only ever trusting and patient with her, whether she deserved it ornot. He didn’t deserve to be snapped at. More than that, he was the one who lether get away with all of her quirks, never asking why she did things the wayshe did. If she annoyed him enough to start throwing his own weight around,that could quickly change—and it would be her own fault, too.

Maybe she wouldn’t need to snap if shecould get her hands on a drink. Something to relieve the tension, makeeverything easier. But she knew she couldn’t do that.

“Fine,” Nate said, his voice sharpenough that she knew he wanted her to hear he was put out. “If it’s thatimportant to you, keep listening. I’ll work on my notes.”

Laura’s hand hovered over the mouse,ready to press play, but she hesitated. “Thank you,” she said first, hoping hertone conveyed that she was contrite.

She shuffled her chair closer to thespeakers as she pressed play. She considered even putting her ear flat againstthem, but that probably wouldn’t help. Laura concentrated hard, waiting for thespot where she knew she had heard it.

There! An intake of breath,unmistakable.

She had him, now. His signature. Thesound of breathing wasn’t exactly like a voice. It wasn’t completely unique. Itwasn’t even identifiable in a lot of cases. But if you had a recording of twopeople breathing, especially if they were straining, often you could tell themapart. That was something Laura had picked up over years of surveillance jobs,listening to bugs, waiting to burst in as part of a raid.

In this case, it was easy to tell themapart. Caroline was choking. That left only two people breathing on the line:the dispatcher, whose microphone was much closer to her mouth, and who besideskept muting the call while she spoke with the first responders. And there washim. The killer. Distant from the handset, overpowered often by Caroline’schoking or the dispatcher’s voice. But he was there.

At the end of the call he wasn’tbreathing too heavily. Not panting for breath like he might have been. He wasn’tpanicked or rushing to get away. He let Caroline drop and then walked calmlyback the way he came in. Laura would have given anything for a microphone closeby the window—to hear if he made a grunt of effort as he swung back to the fireescape, to listen to him moving further away. The weight of his footsteps onthe metal. But this was