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

tallenough to eat up the distance between them with long strides. She only had timeto register the fact that he was holding something dense and dark in his handbefore she dodged out of the way.

He growled at her, an inhuman snarlwithout words, and swung again, quick and heavy, aiming right for her head.Laura knew she couldn’t keep evading him. She was trapped unless she got to herfeet. The only thing she could do was to roll forward instead of away,launching herself at him, a facsimile of her earlier leap for the car.

The kidnapper fell to the road with acry, his legs tangled around her body as he plunged back, allowing her to traphis feet. She fought her way out and got up, ready to cuff him—but before shecould even get her bearings, a sharp blow to her thigh had her crying out andgoing down, her knee giving way.

“Fucking bitch,” the kidnapper spat,scrambling up and over her. One of his hands pinned her shoulder in place, hisweight preventing her from shifting. He lifted the club into the air, and Lauratensed.

There was no way she could pull herselfout of the way of the blow.

CHAPTER TWO

Laura’s only hope, she knew, was to use hismomentum against him. She grabbed the handcuffs from her belt and in onemotion, snapped one side around the wrist that held the club and pulled downhard on his arm as she did it.

She managed to avoid the club smashinginto her nose by the thinnest margin. She felt the air move around it, the smallspray of dirt fly over her face when it hit the ground.

The kidnapper stumbled and tried to pullback, but she had him now, and she tugged as hard as she could against thecuffs. She used all of her body weight to smash his fist against the hardsurface of the concrete until he dropped it. The impacts ran heavy through herarms and shoulders, leaving aches that Laura ignored, adrenaline flashingthrough her and drowning out the pain.

She had the training, and she didn’tneed to think. Laura took advantage of his focus on freeing his right hand toflip him over, grab his left hand, and pull it across. The second cuff snappedinto place behind his back, and Laura panted for breath, using her weight tokeep his legs down while her arms pushed down on his to stop him fromstruggling.

She looked up at the car. It had seemedempty in her vision. Now, too.

“Where’s the girl?” she asked, her voiceas ragged and hoarse as her breaths. Arresting him, reading him his rights—thatcould wait. She needed to find the girl.

He was still trying to struggle againstthe cuffs and throw her off. Silently, Laura prayed that Nate had followed her,that he was coming over the hill even now to help her keep him restrained.

“The girl!” Laura shouted, the effortcracking her throat. “Where is she?”

The kidnapper looked at her sideways,his head twisted to one side and forced against the dirt. She could see thewhites of his eyes, rolling with the effort of trying to get free. A sneer cameover his face, an imitation of a grin. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “She won’tbe alive much longer.”

Laura felt her heart plummet like astone.

Her vision had shown her the wrongthing. The girl wasn’t here.

And Laura had no idea how to save her.

“Laura!”

She looked up to see Nate jogging towardher, breaking into a faster sprint as he took in the scene.

“Radio it in,” she called out to him; itwas unnecessary. He was already pulling the radio off his belt as heapproached, his gun still drawn and pointed steadily at the kidnapper’s head ashe pressed the call button.

“Sir, we have the suspect,” he reported,rattling off a quick description of their location. He turned briefly to waveuntil the figures down near the farmhouse waved in response, and Laura saw thembursting into motion. They were on their way to help.

“How did you know he was here?” Nateasked, putting both gun and radio away as he knelt beside her. He grabbed holdof the kidnapper’s cuffed wrists, allowing her to get up and move away as shecaught her breath.

“I saw the trail of dust,” she liedbreathlessly, gesturing off to the side. Now that she had stopped moving, shefelt it: the blow of her body against the windshield, the jolts through herarms as she forced the club out of his hands, every point of contact she’d madeagainst the ground each time she fell. Above it all, the headache, throbbing soviolently she felt sick.

Nate looked at her sharply. “You okay?”

“Had a few knocks,” Laura said, gulpingin the fresh air as fast as her body would take it. Water. She needed water tohydrate herself, stop the headache getting worse. “I’m fine. Focus on him.”

“Lavoie?” That was another agent, comingup the hill toward them and then jogging up the road.

“I’ve got him here,” Lavoie said,nodding at Laura. “Agent Frost took him down. We should take him forquestioning.”

“Urgently,” Laura cut in, seeing the specialagent in charge coming into hearing range—along with the others who had beengathered around the farmhouse. “He said something about the girl—that she won’tbe alive much longer.”

“Where is she, you scumbag? Huh?” Natedemanded, giving the man a shake, but he seemed to have gone off somewhereinside his own mind. He only wheezed slightly in response, his mouth hangingopen and his eyes hooded. Nothing changed when Nate hauled him to his feet,handing him over to a pair of cops who quickly began the interrogation.

It all washed over Laura like the lightbreeze that was still making the wheat whisper below. She was finding it hardto think through the throb of her headache, the burn of the pain points allover her body. She felt tiredness come, tried to battle it. Something wasn’tright. The girl.

“Hey.” It was Nate again, standing infront of her, one arm hovering just beside her elbow as if ready to catch her. “Youdoing okay? Really?”

“I just—this isn’t right,” Laura said,looking up at him. He was something she could focus on against the too-brightsky, the loudness of the voices around her. “She’s in danger.”

Nate glanced behind