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

head throbbed. The inside of her mouth both tasted andfelt like sand, as it always did after one of her visions hit.

“Are you all right?” Nate whispered, hiseyes still trained on the house as he leaned only slightly closer to her.

“Headache,” Laura fired back. Her eyes weremoving desperately, tracking the scenery around them. The kidnapper had beenable to see the front of the house. That must have meant he was coming from herright—and there must have been a hill—there, behind the cluster ofagents opposite the front door.

What if the vision was wrong? Laura knewthey weren’t always accurate. She saw what could be, not necessarily what wouldbe. And if it was wrong, and the girl was inside the house…

If she messed up now, the girl mightdie. There weren’t enough agents on the ground to cover all of the exits alone.

She had to move, and fast. She thrusther gun back into the holster by her side, knowing it would only slow her downas she ran, and broke formation, sprinting at a diagonal angle from thefarmhouse. She felt rather than saw Nate move instinctively to reach for her, holdingher back from breaking formation, his fingers closing on air. She knew theothers around her were staring as she went. She heard the agent in charge shouther name. It didn’t matter.

Laura plunged into the tall wavingwheat, taking a direct route as fast as she could go. The thin fronds whippedat her elbows and around her body, and she knew if she put a foot wrong andwent down it was all over. Behind her, she heard the command from the special agentin charge to go in. She ignored it. They were all going the wrong way, and shehad no time to convince them of that fact.

Laura was almost at the road, herprogress hampered by the incline of the hill. She was almost at the top. Wherewas he? The agents were coming out of the house below when she threw a glanceover her shoulder. There was no one here. Was the vision too late?

Too early?

Laura spun in the middle of the road,her breath ragged and burning her lungs. There was no sign of the car. Belowher, she saw two agents exiting the house, shaking their heads. She’d beenwrong. The vision had been false.

Not only had she jeopardized themission, but she’d been wrong. She was going to get her ass handed to her—andshe tasted bile in her mouth as she wondered if she’d maybe given him a chanceto slip away… There was no sign of Nathaniel by the side door. Had he followedher? Had he left the side door unguarded?

She heard it first. A thin, reedy kindof noise. The way the land was built here was all wrong for acoustics; the hillgave her little view of the land on the other side, where the road vanishedinto trees, and everything seemed to absorb sound and bounce it around her. Herpounding head didn’t help. But the sound made her turn, and it almost wasn’tenough notice.

She had barely begun to move when shesaw it. The car, cresting the ridge, coming directly into view and drivingright for her. She was close enough to see his face through the windshield, tosee the moment he spotted the FBI logo on her chest.

She still had a chance. She threw herbody forward, ignoring the complaint in her lungs and the sting in her calves,her eyes trained only on the car. She could see him moving, putting the carinto reverse, throwing his arm across the back of the seat. It was almost toolate—

Laura hit the edge of the wheat fieldand launched herself through the air in one last-ditch effort to stop him fromgetting away. She landed solidly on the windshield, spreading her arms and legsin search of a hand- or foothold and managing to cling on desperately to thebodywork as the impact knocked out the last breath in her body. The car wasalready moving, wind whipping in her ears and sending her hair flying into hereyes as she clung on for life, not having thought her way through to step twoof this desperate leap.

The car was speeding up, just as she hadseen in her vision. Laura gritted her teeth and clung on, feeling the strain inher cramped fingertips, how she had to use all the strength in her body to holdherself down and not fly off like a paper bag caught in the wind. She couldhear him shouting something through the windshield, but the rush of the wind inher ears and the roar of the engine right under her were too loud to make outthe words.

She became aware of movement close toher head, to the window of the driver’s side rolling down and an arm coming outof it, and she braced herself for him to hit her. But before he could reachher, a massive, juddering shock pitched her away from the windshield and offthe car completely.

Laura slammed down her arms to absorbthe impact and rolled across the hard surface of the old road, not breathingagain until she managed to lie still. Even then she couldn’t rest—she heard therev of his engine and instinct threw her to the side, off the concrete, intothe wheat. If he came at her and ran her over—

But the revving stopped, and Lauralooked up, managing to make out through her spinning and roiling vision thatthe car was not moving. It was stuck, she realized from this angle, one of the backwheels spinning uselessly in the air while the front was lodged in a low ditchat the side of the road. She’d managed to throw him off course enough to stophim. Which was good, because from all the spinning and the motion on top of herheadache, she was pretty sure she was going to throw up.

Laura put her hand out to stabilizeherself and came up with a handful of dirt, her fingers sinking into the drysoil. The sound of a door opening made her look up and see the kidnapperjumping out of the car, his face twisted in rage. He was lanky, all sinew,