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

sun for a moment, and then strolled along behind his target, keepingeasy pace a good distance from him. Just enough to keep him in sight, to besure that there was no deviation from the norm.

Tonight, of all nights, it was importantthat everything went as normal. Because tonight was the night that this man wasgoing to drive another nail into the coffin of Agent Frost’s career. Not justher career, but everything else. He was going to take this one last victim, andthen she was the last. Number five.

Was she quaking with fear already? hewondered. Did she realize she was in danger? Even if she did, it wouldn’tmatter. That was why he’d brought her out here. Somewhere she wasn’t familiar.Doing it in her home would have been so much harder, but here, she came intocontact with new people all the time. Deputies, room service, servers, membersof the public.

And, of course, when she did go back tothe motel, she would be totally on her own.

He took a deep breath of the city air,tilting his head up to enjoy the late summer sun on his face. Yes, today was agood day.

But tomorrow was going to be evenbetter.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

“Aren’t you going to say anything atall?” Laura asked. “You’re not even going to defend yourself?”

Dockhand stared back at her mutinously.His arms were folded across his chest, and he quickly returned his gaze to thetable, returning to the status quo. Not a single word.

Laura shoved her chair back with afrustrated scrape. Nate looked up at her, and though no one else would havebeen able to interpret it, his expression gave her permission: Go take abreak. Get a bite to eat. Come back when you’ve got your second wind. I’llhandle this.

Laura stormed out through the door, andNate announced her departure for the tape.

Laura sipped at her coffee as she staredat the recording on the computer in their makeshift office. An hour ago, Dockhandhad finally lost his cool and stopped being so reasonable and calm. But thatdidn’t mean that he had snapped and confessed to anything. Quite the opposite.He had started refusing to say anything at all. She had fast-forwarded throughmost of it, playing back a few moments that she’d wanted to analyze deeper, buthe was giving nothing away.

Laura blew out a deep breath and rolledthe greasy packaging of her lunch sandwich up into a ball, then threw it intothe trash can on the other side of the room. It hit the inside with asatisfying slap, then rattled down on top of the other trash. If only this casewould be such an easy slam dunk.

Laura cast around for the small evidencebag she’d requisitioned. It contained the contents of Dockhand’s pockets whenhe came in. She reached in and touched the loose change he’d had, wishing itwould trigger some kind of vision. Anything, really. It didn’t have to be hisnext intended murder. It could have been a sight of him inside a cell. Anythingto tell her that she had the right guy, that his future was behind bars.

Nothing.

She sighed and put the bag to one side,rubbing her hands over her face. There was no evidence either way. The hardfact of the matter was that if they couldn’t get him to talk, they were goingto have to let him go anyway. They had nothing on him. Only circumstance andthe lack of an alibi.

That was what was so annoying about thiscase. If there was one shred of forensic evidence that they could use, theymight be able to get somewhere. But the killer seemed always to wear gloves,and that meant that there was no evidence they could use to compare to Dockhand’sDNA. They had him right where they needed him to be, but they couldn’t prove adamn thing.

Not unless Nate managed to get him toadmit everything, but given their progress over the last few hours, Laura wasn’thopeful.

She needed an outside perspective,someone who could tell her what they thought of the case without any bias. Notthat she was allowed to reveal the whole details of the case, but she could sayenough to get a second opinion. Someone who wasn’t in law enforcement. Who didn’thave the trained perspectives that she and Nate did. Someone who could seethings differently.

She picked up her phone and dialed,hoping that twice in twenty-four hours wasn’t too much to ask.

“Hello, Laura? Are you all right?”

Laura bit her lip at the sound of Garth’sconcern. She hadn’t meant to worry him quite so much—but given that their lastcall had been about her sobriety, maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised.

“Yes, I’m fine. Sorry,” she said,quickly. “I actually just wanted to pick your brain about something. Get asecond opinion.”

“Oh,” Garth said, breathing a literalsigh of relief. “Well, shoot then.”

Laura smiled to herself. He always camethrough, even when she didn’t really deserve it. He was probably on his ownlunch break, and he didn’t care about letting her use his time. “It’s thiscase. It’s… targeted at me.”

“What do you mean, at you?”

“The victims.” Laura took a deep breath.“He’s choosing the victims in order to send me a personal message.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Absolutely sure. The third one lastnight confirmed it.” Laura bit her fingernail as she waited for his response.She didn’t want to mention the fact that Nate had had his doubts. Even if hedid, she didn’t entertain them herself.

“Well, damn.” Garth paused. “There’s nowonder you’re feeling like you’re teetering on the edge. Now is the time whenyou have to stay more committed to your sobriety than ever. It’s these momentsthat catch us out. Stay strong, Laura. Don’t let it drag you to the bottle.”

“It’s not that,” Laura said, waving adismissive hand even though Garth couldn’t see it. “We’ve arrested someone. Ijust don’t know if we have the right guy. All the signs seem to fit, and yet… Idon’t know. I can’t put my finger on it, but something doesn’t seem right. Butthen again, it all fits. And I just keep going round and round in circles in myhead.”

Garth digested her words for a longmoment. Just when she was about to speak up to prompt him to say