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

plan of the apartment on a page of hisnotepad. “Here. So the killer would have walked out of this doorway—rightbetween the kitchen door and the landline itself.”

Laura paused, studying his diagram. “Huh.”

“Right. So maybe she was already usingthe landline. I think we should pull the phone records. We might get lucky.Maybe there’s a recording of this guy breaking in on someone’s voicemail. Maybewe get to hear his voice—or she recognizes him and says his name.”

“That’s a good thought,” Laura said, andgrinned. “God, I hope we get something.”

“You’re welcome,” Nate teased. “Sinceyou’re so into recordings right now and all.”

“I’ll call the boss,” Laura said,grabbing her cell out of her pocket. “If they put it through on a rush, wemight be able to get them right away.”

“Fingers crossed,” Nate said, leaningback again with the easy grace of a man who worked out enough to know his ownbody well. He wore a small smile, self-satisfaction for coming up with apotential lead.

If he was right, it could be anotherpiece of the puzzle. It seemed a long shot, but right now they needed something—anything.Laura waited for the line to connect, ignoring the way the dial tone seemed topulse at the same rate as the throbbing in her head.

If she could hear his voice, maybe thevision would clear up and she would be able to identify his next victim.

It wasn’t too late to stop that murkyvision from becoming reality. There were a few hours left until nightfall.

It wasn’t too late to save a life—but ifshe didn’t hurry, it would be.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“I’ve got it,” Laura said, tappingimpatiently on her phone screen to open the email. “Hold on—here we go.”

“What does it say?” Nate asked, dragginghis wheeled office chair across to her. Laura pulled back quickly before theirheads could bump, shifting in her seat to provide an excuse for the suddenmovement.

“There’s a number that called her rightbefore she called nine-one-one,” Laura said, swiping across the file to zoomin. “It looks as though it connected. That’s a shame, I guess. No answeringmachine message.”

“It’s still a lead, though. Let me see,”Nate said, reaching to take the phone out of her hands.

Laura didn’t have time to react. Hishand brushed against hers before she could stop it, and the veil of death fellover her again, dampening everything for a moment. She shivered and tried toremember how to breathe. As quickly as it happened, it was gone, Nate holdingthe phone up as he typed out the number into a search bar on the computer.

Laura swallowed on her dry throat,watching him work. He was focused on the screen, frowning as he pulled up theresults. He was so—big. So full of life. So vibrant. How could he be under theshadow of death?

“No listed results online,” Nate said,shrugging. “Doesn’t mean it doesn’t belong to anyone.”

“Try and give it a trace,” Laura said. “I’mjust going to call back to HQ. I can’t help but wonder whether the first victimhad a call as well, you know?”

“It’s worth a look.” Nate nodded. “Hey,if we don’t do it now, we’ll only have to do it in a few days when we’re tryingto trace every single person either of them ever talked to.”

Laura groaned as the line began to ring.“Don’t say that,” she said. “I don’t want to still be at a dead end with thisin a few days.”

Nate only chuckled, returning hisattention to his computer. He brought up an FBI portal and logged in, hisfingers running easily over the familiar keys of his password, and began inputtingthe data.

Laura’s attention was taken away whenthe call was answered, and she spoke directly to the team back in DC who wouldbe able to request the phone records.

“Did you find anything?” Laura asked asshe ended the call, looking back over at Nate.

He nodded, tapping his fingers againstthe desk. “Sort of. It’s not good news. As far as we can trace, the numberbelongs to a burner phone.”

Laura sighed. She wished burner phonesweren’t a thing. Cheap, no-contract handsets you could buy at any conveniencestore and load with a calling card instead of having to sign your name tosomething. Virtually untraceable, unless you got really lucky. “I’ve got theother phone records coming shortly. The phone company didn’t put up a fight,for once.”

Nate smirked. “Well, there’s one silverlining. Let me think about this phone thing. Maybe there’s a way…”

Laura didn’t press him as he trailed offinto silence, his head cocked to one side. Nate was good with technology. Justlike he didn’t question her so-called intuition, she knew better than tointerfere when it came to tech.

A buzz in her hand drew her attention toher phone, and the incoming email. She opened it hurriedly, checking theattachment. It was a report from the same phone company—given that the two victimslived in the same area, that wasn’t a surprise.

Laura spun around to look at theirinvestigation board, to what Nate had written about the estimated time of deathof the first victim. Then she checked the report again. And she checked it athird time, just because it was almost too good to be true.

“Nate,” she said. “There’s another call.To Laura Carlisle, right around the time of her death.”

Nate’s head snapped up. “Tell me thenumber.”

She rattled it off as he typed, leaningforward over his keyboard as the details came up.

“Same deal,” he said. “Burner phone.Same model, different phone. Both of them were activated on the day of thekilling and have now been marked as inactive.”

“So, they were bought just for this onecall,” Laura said. “That together with them being untraceable—it’s got to bethe killer, right?”

“Yeah,” Nate said, though he stillsounded thoughtful. Like he had something else on his mind.

“What?” Laura prompted, seeing that hedidn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

“Well, this type of phone,” he said,slowly. “I’ve come across it before. I’m sure I saw it in a case before you andI partnered up. This model needs to be activated with a unique serial numberbefore it can make calls out.”

“So… does that mean it’s traceable?”Laura asked, hope springing to life.

“Maybe,” Nate said, nodding. “Yeah,probably. We can see which store it was bought from. The manufacturer will