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

her memory to avoid triggering an instant revelation when shesaw them again. The fact that she’d spent a lot of the intervening yearsblackout drunk probably had something to do with that.

She remembered how she had been at thetime. Her father had already been dead, of course. And her mom—

Her father had been dead. Did that meansomething?

Why would Ed Bronston target someoneusing the name of her father, when he wasn’t even around to be threatened?Because that was what this was, wasn’t it? Telling her that he knew the namesof her family—that was a threat. Something to scare her. And she wasn’tparticularly scared by someone implying that her dead father might somehow endup more dead.

But then, if it wasn’t her father, whowas Ed targeting? Whose name would he use?

And, as if a strike of lightning, it hither. Of course. It had to be. She had no idea why she hadn’t thought of itbefore.

She knew what Thomas’s last name was,and with that, she would be able to find him. She just hoped she hadn’t madethe connection too late.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

Laura pulled over on the side of theroad, not caring about whether she was making a legal move or not at that time.She could always use the excuse of being right in the middle of a case, tryingto save someone’s life. That was the benefit of being an FBI agent. She flickedon her hazard lights and grabbed her phone out of the center console,immediately opening her browser.

She accessed the online phone bookquickly, inputting the search details that she knew would find him. ThomasLacey. Of course—the one person left whom she would care about a threat to. Herown daughter.

The results loaded too slowly, makingher bite clean through the top of her fingernail in frustration. When theyfinally did, her initial surge of adrenaline tapered down quickly.

There were two.

Two Thomas Laceys.

Right now, she had no idea what theirconnection was. Whether they were related, perhaps, two men in the same familygiven a traditional family name. Whether they were the same person, updated toa new address but not removed from the old one. It didn’t matter. What didmatter was that there were two possible locations she could need to go to, andno way she could be in two places at once. They were on opposite sides of thecity.

Because, of course they were.

Laura copied and pasted the telephonenumber attached to the first one, then called it. She knew that the real ThomasLacey, the one she wanted, wouldn’t answer. He was still on his way home. Hewould only just be getting in when the phone rang to tell him that Ed Bronstonwas outside, and then it would be too late. But the second man listed mightanswer, and then she would know—she could go to the other…

“Come on, come on,” Laura muttered underher breath, listening to the line ring and ring. She saw a flash behind hereyes of Lacey’s face, the way she had looked the last time they were together.Ed knew her daughter’s name. She closed her eyes briefly, swallowing downnausea. It didn’t matter. Lacey wasn’t in danger.

She was going to track Ed down and stophim, and she was going to do it tonight, before he ever got the chance to puthis hands on her daughter.

Laura swore under her breath as sheended the call, realizing it was going nowhere. No one was picking up. Shenavigated back to the record and chose the other number, calling it with arising sense of desperation. Pick up, she silently begged. Pick up.Tell me I can go to the other one.

A car screeched by her, honking its hornto show the driver’s displeasure at her choice of parking spot. Laura shook herhead wordlessly. No one was answering.

She ended the call, feeling doubt like aball of acid in her throat. She wasn’t going to be able to cover both of them.

If she chose the wrong one, the man wasgoing to die.

She had nothing else to go on. Noglimpse of an address on the envelope. No idea what the outside of the propertylooked like. She didn’t even know if it was an apartment or a house.

She couldn’t cover both of them alone.

Laura made a snap decision, inputtingthe first address into her GPS and swinging the car back out into traffic.There was another angry blow of a horn, but she ignored it and started todrive. While the GPS routed her, she dialed another number, letting it connectthrough the car’s Bluetooth.

“Laura? Where are you?” Nate asked, notbothering with a hello as the call connected. “I thought you were just steppingout for some air, but the car’s gone!”

“I found him,” she said, her voice tooloud and sharp, the moment too urgent to moderate it. “I know who the victimis. But there’s two people with the same name. I can’t cover them both, Nate. Ineed you to go.”

“What?” Nate’s voice was a shout, but hehushed himself before he spoke again. Laura heard movement in the background,like he was walking out of the bullpen and into privacy. “How did you find her?Where have you been?”

“Him. It’s a male. Thomas Lacey.”

“Lacey…?” She heard his intake ofbreath. “You’re sure? You were convinced it would be Alex, and—”

“It’s Lacey,” Laura asserted, cuttinghim off. “Please, Nate. I’ll send you the address. Go and get a car right now.We don’t have any time for this. Just trust me.”

“I…” Nate hesitated, and for an awfulmoment she thought that he would refuse. That he would say she was out of hermind, and she had no proof. That she was going to have to somehow do thisalone. “All right. Send it to me. I’ll see if I can take a deputy’s car.”

“Thank you,” Laura replied, ending thecall quickly as she fumbled for her phone. It was dangerous, but she had nochoice. There was a red light just ahead, and she pulled up to it quicklyenough to still have the time to send the address as a message to Nate beforeshe could drive forward again.

She felt a sick spike of fear hittingher stomach. Nate. Was she sending him to his death? Was this