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

“You’re not going to get anything,”Laura said grimly. “He’s innocent.”

Nate turned fully to face her, his armscrossing over his chest. “I take it this means you’ve come across some newevidence?”

“Better than that,” Laura told him. “I’veworked out who the killer is.”

Nate blinked. “Are you going to let mein on it?”

Laura scrubbed a hand across her face. “Sorry.I only just worked it out. I remembered the case. This was years ago, back inBrooklyn. He was put away directly because of my expert testimony about hismental state. I stopped him from getting away with a cushy psychiatricsentence. It’s got to be him.”

Nate was already moving to the computer.Perhaps seeing she was still reeling and in no state to navigate the complexand outdated database system, he leaned over the keyboard, nudging her wheeledchair out of the way. “Name?”

“Ed Bronston,” Laura told him. “Edward,maybe. I know he went by Ed during the trial.”

Nate’s fingers sped across the keys,clacking out the name. “Here we go. Wait, you said he didn’t go to a psychward?”

“No,” Laura said, looking up andfrowning. “He went to jail. Why?”

“Well, his last release is recorded asbeing from Albany State Hospital.” Nate shook his head, scanning quicklythrough the results on the screen. “Ah, here: he was jailed for a year first.That’s why he didn’t come up when I was scanning for recent prison releases.”

“What does it say?” Laura asked, bendingher neck to see the screen while he stood in front of it. “Why wasn’t he keptin jail?”

“Uh…” Nate clicked to open up therecord, waiting for what seemed like an age for the page to load. “Looks likehe started exhibiting abnormal behavior which was referred to the prison’spsychiatrist. Then he was referred on to a psych ward for evaluation, where hebit a fellow inmate.”

“Bit?” Laura wrinkled her nose. “Heshould have been restrained, surely?”

“Hmm,” Nate agreed, scrolling throughanother page of a scanned-in handwritten report. “I don’t know. Sounds like theother prisoner was doing work in the wards, maybe. Earning some good behaviorpoints by serving food. Then he got too close to Bronston, who bit the insideof his wrist so deeply the guy nearly bled out.”

For just a brief second, Laura had avivid image of a vein spurting blood into an open mouth, and she swallowed downnausea. Had she seen that before? Or was it just her imagination workingovertime at the gruesome story? “And that didn’t get him thrown into solitary?”

“Apparently, it was deemed that he wassuffering from a severe mental break and delusions, and hearing voices.” Nateclicked onto another report before continuing. “His release record shows thathe was given a clean bill of health after several years of ongoing treatmentwhich showed gradual improvements. He was then released back to live withrelatives—here, in Albany.”

“He’s from here?” Laura asked, searchingfor the information on the screen.

“You didn’t know that?” Nate’s voiceheld a note of surprise.

“No,” Laura said, sighing and shakingher head. “I thought he was from Brooklyn. But it makes sense. That’s why he’skilling here. Because this is where he lives, not because it has any particularsignificance to me.”

“Well, then how did you figure out itcould be him?” Nate asked, frowning. “I mean, it does make sense. It looks likethis is our guy. I just don’t get how you made the leap.”

“Call it divine inspiration,” Laurasaid, getting up from her chair and gesturing to the screen. “Whatever it was,we’ve got to go. Do you have his current details?”

Nate nodded, grabbing a piece of loosepaper from beside the monitor and scrawling down the address he had on thescreen. “I have his parole address. Nothing else is registered to him—no car,no cell phone number, no employment record. I guess we better hope he’s athome.”

“If he’s not there, we’ll have the sherifftrack him down,” Laura said, already rushing for the door. “Come on. We haven’tgot any time to waste. There’s only a few hours left until evening starts todraw in—and we need to find him before he kills again.”

Nate followed her as she marched asquickly as she could through the halls of the precinct, out to their waitingcar. This was it. Laura knew they were on the right track, knew it in her bones—andthey weren’t going to miss him this time.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Laura glanced up at the sky as she gotout of the car, noticing just how low the sun was. They had the benefit of itbeing late summer on their side, because darkness wasn’t happening until laterin the day. But it was still coming. It was happening inexorably, and there wasnothing they could do to stop it.

The only thing they could do was to stopEd Bronston before he struck again.

The building they had pulled up in frontof was an apartment block, shabby and faded. Paint was peeling on the windowframes of the ground floor, and someone had tagged spray paint by the entrance.Their path to the door was littered with a punctured football, empty chip packages,and a broken down old children’s stroller with no wheels.

It wasn’t the nicest place to live. Bronstonhad gotten out of a psych ward, and before that prison, so there was a goodchance that he was unemployed now. If this was even his home. Most parolees hadto live with a family member, someone who would take them in and vouch forthem. If time wasn’t so much of the essence, Laura would have stopped to talkto the parole officer first, find out what Bronston was doing now. What hissituation was.

But the parole officer had not answeredthe call when Laura had tried in the car, and there was no time to wait. Theyhad to go in now, even if that meant not having all of the information on hand.It made her itchy, made her hands twitch back toward her gun in fear, but whatelse could they do? If they waited, another death was certain.

But even that thought pulled her upshort as they approached the intercom that controlled the front door. Death—shehad been thinking all the while about the death of the next victim. But whatabout Nate?

His death was coming soon,