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

lip. There was nothing shecould do from all the way over here. Shouting in the background of a call wasn’ta good enough reason to send somebody over there to check on the family. Evenif she did make that call, it wasn’t Laura’s first time dealing with an abusivespouse. She already knew how immensely likely it was that Mrs. Fallow wouldjust make up some excuse that delivered her husband from all guilt, put theminds of the agents or cops that were sent out at ease, and mark Laura down asinterfering and paranoid.

No, she couldn’t do anything right now.But she didn’t want to just wait for it to happen either. There had to be a wayto spare Amy from what would happen to her. Maybe if there was an FBI agentvisiting regularly, the governor would think twice about using his fists…

She vowed to herself that as soon as shewas back in DC, she was going to pay them a visit in person. She would see Amywith her own eyes, check that she was still okay.

First, she had a killer to catch—and shewasn’t going to achieve that sitting around in here. Laura stood and strode backto their office, ready to get back to it.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

“Find anything?” Laura asked, grabbing achair to pull up beside Nate where he was working.

“Well,” Nate said, dropping his pen fora moment and rubbing his eyes. He looked as though they were on the verge ofgoing square from staring at the screen for so long. “I started with your mostrecent cases and worked my way back, through the central database. I haven’tfound anything just yet. A lot of these guys are still in prison. The ones thataren’t, I was able to check in with their parole officers. Every single one ofthem is far enough from here that there’s no way they could be involved.”

“Hmm.” Laura leaned over, looking at hisnotebook. Nate leaned back in his chair to give her an easier view. “What aboutearlier than this?”

“This is as far back as I’ve gotten,”Nate said, with a touch of grumpiness. Laura glanced at his face, saw how deepthe bags under his eyes were, and knew he was just tired. “Do you know how longit took me to work through all of these?”

Laura checked her watch and opened hermouth.

“No, that was not a literalquestion.” Nate sighed and shook his head. “How far back do you want me to go?”

“A lot further,” Laura said, frowning. “Ifwe’re looking for a criminal who has been released, then we’ll probably getmore luck with the cases from earlier in my career, surely? They’ll have donesome time already.”

“All right, fine,” Nate said, taking hiscursor and scrolling right to the bottom of a long list of Laura’s arrestrecords. “Let’s see, this is your first…”

“No, not that one,” Laura said,recognizing the name immediately. “I was only assisting. That was my firstcase. Not him, either. And that one wasn’t even a big deal. Keep going…”

“Are you doing this the thorough andlogical way, or are we just going to start checking records at random now?”Nate asked, sounding peeved. “I have a system in place, and it’s very—”

“This one,” Laura said, tapping thescreen impatiently. “This one was really angry. Brent Dockhand. Check him out.”

Nate sighed and did as he was told,clicking on the entry and bringing up the details. “All right, so what wasthis? A sex offender case?”

“He was targeting random women in theirhomes,” Laura said, thoughtfully. “Breaking in to assault them, or worse. I couldsee that as an escalation, don’t you think? Assault graduating to murder?”

“I thought we agreed there didn’t seemto be a sexual element to these murders?” Nate frowned. He was typing anyway ashe spoke, looking up the man’s details. With him on the sex offenders’ list, itwas going to be even easier to track down his current whereabouts.

“It could have changed for some reason,”Laura said. “We can figure out the whys and wherefores later. Is he stillinside?”

Nate held his breath while the pageloaded, and then blew it out sharply. “No. He’s been released—about six monthsago. And his registered address is about forty-five minutes from here.”

Laura swore in surprise. “That’s him,”she said. “Right? It has to be.”

She almost expected a vision to come thereand then. It was so close to the mark. This had to be the guy, and that meantthey were right on his tail now. Close enough to stop him.

“I…” Nate paused, then shook his head. “Ican’t believe I’m saying this, but yes. It looks like this might actually beour guy.”

“I told you,” Laura said, for a momentalmost feeling pleased. But then the reality hit her: she was right. This wasall about her. These women had been targeted directly because their names justhappened to have a connection to Laura.

The guilt hit her like a ton of bricks.

It was her fault that they had losttheir lives. Her fault that they weren’t going home to their families, orkissing their loved ones, or going to work. She was the one to blame.

“Coming?” Nate asked, wrenching her attentionback to him. He was by the door already, hesitating with his hand on thehandle, no doubt wondering why she hadn’t yet gotten up.

“Right,” Laura agreed, grabbing herjacket and following him out of the precinct.

She brought up the information again onher phone as Nate started the car, pulling out and typing in the address on theGPS at the same time. Laura found the information she was looking for andcopied the number of Brent Dockhand’s parole officer, dialing it right away.

“Hello, Albany co—”

Laura cut the woman off before she hadthe time to finish her official greeting. “Hello, am I speaking to the paroleofficer for Brent Dockhand?”

There was a moment’s pause. “Ah, yes.Who is this?”

“This is FBI Agent Laura Frost. I’mlooking for some up-to-date information on your parolee.”

“Right, okay.” There was another shortpause, as if the parole officer was still mentally catching up. Lauraimpatiently ground her teeth, needing her to get it together faster. “What isit you need to know?”

“When was his last check-in?”

“Two days ago.”

“And that was with you at his registeredoffice, yes?”

“Yes, of