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

if shecould force thoughts out of her brain. “I don’t know… um… they were allattacked alone.”

“Right, but they didn’t all live alone,”Nate said, tapping that pen again. Laura wanted to reach out and yank it out ofhis hand, but she didn’t want to risk their skin touching.

“Nate, please,” she said, gesturing tohis hand.

Nate gave her a momentary and lopsidedsmile, dropping it. “Sorry.” He took a breath, rubbing his eyes and shaking hishead. “Dammit, there’s still too many of them. How are we supposed to figureout which women are going to be alone tonight? It doesn’t even have to be allnight—Paul Frost was on his way home.”

“And the child was still in the house,”Laura said. She had not forgotten that horrible image: the innocent child lyingasleep upstairs while his mother was brutally murdered. If he had come down fora glass of water, what would the killer have done?

Nate let out a frustrated breath. Heleaned back in his chair and read from their board. “He calls them first. Hefinds a woman who is alone and has the right name, and breaks into the houseafter she answers. Then he strangles her to death before leaving.”

“Add in the fact that phone records showthe call going to Nadia’s cell phone, not her landline, and it doesn’t give usanything,” she said, but an idea was beginning to take hold. “Nothing exceptthe way he likes to do things. What if we could stop his usual technique fromworking?”

“I’m listening,” Nate said.

“We have to warn them. Let them knowthat there’s someone going around doing this. Tell them not to stay home alone.”

“All of them?” Nate gave her a sidewayslook, his eyes wide. “Laura, there are hundreds of people on this list.And that doesn’t even include anyone who might have just moved here.”

“And we have a whole station of deputiesand receptionists and assistants, not to mention the media,” Laura said. “We’vegot to do this. We’ve got to warn them.”

She didn’t wait for Nate to agree withher. She knew he would, even if it took him a short while to think it over.They didn’t have a short while. They needed to get on this now. She headed forthe door, straight down the hall toward the sheriff’s office.

Sure enough, he followed. He always hadher back.

Except that someday soon, he would bedead. If she couldn’t stop it.

Laura pushed the thought away along withthe roiling sickness that threatened to bubble out of her stomach. So manythings she needed to concentrate on. So many people whom only she could save.She had to stay focused, had to remain on-task. Ed Bronston first.

***

Laura stood at the top of the bullpenten minutes after she’d had the idea, watching ten members of staff seated atdesks with their phones, calling through their own sections of the phone bookto every single Alex they could find. Warning them not to go out alone, not tobe at home alone, just in case. Telling them to go and stay with family orfriends if they needed to. Warning them about not answering the phone if theydidn’t know the number.

Laura listened anxiously in the bullpenas the first calls were made, making sure the deputies had all the detailsright. They couldn’t afford for this not to reach the people who needed to hearit.

“Hello, is that Alex Allen?”

“Hi, am I speaking with Alex Busch?”

“Yes, hello, I’m looking for AlexCarmine.”

She glanced up to the glass window atthe back of the room. Sheriff Lonsdale was visible through it in his office,making calls to local news stations about an emergency press conference.Somewhere behind them, in another room, the dispatch team were working hard torecall every member of law enforcement they could from breaks and nights off,trying to get them back in to join in the effort.

“We should join them, at least until wehear anything different,” Nate said, casting around for a desk phone. Then heshook his head at himself and pulled out his cell. “Come on. We can start goingthrough some of these batches that haven’t been assigned yet.”

“Wait,” Laura said, calling him back.Something was happening in her head. Not a vision: a thought. A realization. Itwas right on the tip of her tongue, something that she could almost grasp. “Whydoes he call them?”

“You know we haven’t figured that outyet,” Nate said. “Probably just to check that they’re home. Maybe he asks forsomeone else in the household, to make sure that they’re alone.”

“But Carrie lived alone,” Laura said. “Andhe wouldn’t need to make a call like that if he was watching them. Didn’t wework out that she was killed pretty soon after she got home from work?”

“Yeah,” Nate said, frowning. “I don’tknow, then. Maybe it’s all part of it. Maybe he gets off on talking to themfirst.”

Laura shook her head. “It’s toosignificant,” she said, biting her fingernail. She spun in a circle slowly,thinking. She was visualizing the last moments of each of the women, the ritualthe killer had to go through. Trying to see it from his side, not theirs. “Theremust be a reason why he has to talk to them first. He goes to all the troubleof getting the stolen phones, knowing that they might potentially be tracedback to him if he isn’t careful enough. That’s the one piece of evidence we’vehad that went anywhere. It has to be significant enough to justify the risk.”

“Is it a risk?” Nate asked pointedly. “Westill got no closer to figuring out who he was, even when we knew how he gotthe phones.”

“He’s right outside,” Laura said, almostto herself at this point. “He knows they’re in there. He waits for them to goin. Maybe… maybe for Nadia Frost, he waited until her son was in bed. He knew.So why call them? What else could he need to be sure of?”

“Their identity?” Nate suggested. “If he’sonly seen their names written down, he won’t know what they look like inperson. He might want to be sure.”

“Yes!” Laura clicked her fingers. “That’sit—it has to be. So where does he get their names? The first two—the first two,he called them on landlines. Home phone numbers.”

She looked down at