Already Gone (A Laura Frost FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 1)

by Blake Pierce

  And if they all did that, well, they would never find one another at all.

  So, she’d taken the plunge. Signed up with a fake email address and a fake name, initially from a library computer so that it wouldn’t even register the account to her IP address. She was fairly certain there was no way the account would be connected back to her or the FBI. She wasn’t as good with the tech stuff as Nate was, but she’d learned a thing or two from him over their time working together. VPNs, for example.

  She’d created a post a while back on a few of the various sites that existed for discussion of the psychic gift, and she’d had a few replies over time, too. She’d asked for people who genuinely had psychic gifts, and who saw snatches of the future, to contact her. She’d only found charlatans so far. The same story as any other method she tried to figure out if she was not alone in this.

  This post intrigued her. It was from a user who had only just created a brand new account, presumably just to be able to reply to her thread. And it was free of the usual bragging or links to websites where she could “test” their skills for a price.

  It read: “Hi AnnaSmith8932. I think we may share the same gift. I don’t talk about it a lot, but I see things happening around me all the time. To my friends and family. And after I see it, I get the chance to try to fix it or stop it from happening.

  I would love to know if we are experiencing the same thing. I’m living in Virginia, so I don’t think we’re too far apart. We should meet up and compare notes.”

  Laura bit her lip, reading it through again. Did they seem genuine? It was altogether possible this was one of the frighteningly lonely people who seemed to stalk these kinds of sites and try to get dates out of them. But then again, the message hadn’t seemed flirtatious. In fact, the tone of it was serious enough that it gave Laura real pause.

  She shot a glance behind her. Nate was still on the phone, on hold. Laura guessed he was waiting to be patched in on a call, or else to be transferred to another department. She couldn’t hear the hold music, but she could see him bobbing his head just slightly from side to side, almost unconsciously. She smiled in spite of herself and turned back before he could feel her watching him and look up.

  She took a single deep breath before typing out her reply.

  Hi, VirginiaMan383. Nice username! I would like to meet up. I’m not in DC right now, but I’ll contact you when I get back.

  And that was that. Laura figured she didn’t need to really meet him. If she looked into him a little more and changed her mind when she was home, she just didn’t need to contact him again. But if he was the real thing, if there was even a chance of him being the real thing, she needed to know.

  Laura tried not to let it happen, but it did, every time. She felt a flare of hope in her chest, the same place where it had blossomed with regards to the case a few minutes before. What if this was real? What if she’d finally found someone just like her?

  She had so many questions. For the person who had made her like this. For the universe, if it wasn’t a person. Maybe someone who was just like her would be as clueless as she was. But maybe he would have some pieces of the puzzle, and she had her own, and together they could figure it out more. Find a way to make it stop. To give her peace.

  Peace was a little thin on the ground right now, and Laura would have given a lot to get some.

  She got up from her chair, lifting her coffee cup and gesturing at Nate. He nodded silently in response and passed his own over. Laura walked out into the hallway, down a couple of turns to the coffee machine, which was one of the only things she could navigate to effortlessly in the building. A few hours into the job, and she knew where the coffee machine was. You had to get your priorities in order.

  She was filling up Nate’s mug, her own already waiting for her on top of the machine, when one of the sheriff’s deputies came and stood by her, waiting with an empty cup in his own hand.

  “How’s it going?” he asked, obviously trying too hard to be casual. He was young. Laura guessed he’d never dealt with an FBI agent before.

  “Would be going a lot better if this stuff was stronger,” she said, giving him a bland smile over her shoulder.

  He chuckled. “You can say that again. Oh, if you push this button over here, it’ll give you an extra shot.”

  He reached out and pushed it for her. He didn’t even touch her. He didn’t need to. Because now they were intertwined, the lines of their fates running together for just one moment. And when Laura took the cup from under the machine with a grateful nod, she felt the stab of pain in the center of her forehead.

  It took her by surprise—a vision coming out of nowhere. What was happening now? Was this officer in danger?

  There was nothing for it. She grabbed hold of the other cup and turned away from the deputy, so that at least he wouldn’t be able to see her face when the stab of p—

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Laura was in a bullpen, looking over the desks of the assembled men and women of the sheriff’s department. Some of them were talking, others sitting behind computers and staring at the screens. A couple were on the phone. One was just slowly eating an oatmeal and raisin cookie.

  Laura looked around, saw the deputy she had been speaking to coming back into the room. He had a cup of coffee in his hand. He looked a little cocky, a swagger in his step. Like he’d just met his first FBI agent and was feeling like a real cop.

  “Hey, man.” He nodded to one of the others in the room as he passed by, walking like he thought he was cool. He was very young, Laura thought. He put his coffee to his mouth and sipped at it as he walked.

  By one of the desks, a round-shaped woman was half-sitting on a low filing cabinet, her back right up against a potted plant that was rocking precariously. She must have felt it beginning to give, because she lunged for it suddenly, shooting to her feet and grabbing hold of the pot.

  She jumped right into the deputy and knocked his arm. The coffee flew into the air, drenching down the front of his uniform. It splattered onto case files on the nearby desk, and Laura heard someone yelling, “Hey—”

  Laura blinked, unable to prevent a gentle sway as the pain of the vision receded slightly. At least she had already taken the painkiller. Maybe it would take care of this headache as well as the earlier one, whenever it finally kicked in.

  Relief flooded over her, some of the tension easing out of her shoulder. Not a death. Just a spilled coffee.

  She hesitated, hearing the sound of the coffee machine whirring to life behind her. The deputy was right there. She could delay things. Speak to him. Say something. Then he wouldn’t be walking past the lady right as she stood up. He wouldn’t spill the coffee.

  Laura sighed and started walking back to the office. It wasn’t her job to save the whole world. All her life she’d warned people when she knew she shouldn’t. Tried to give them advice, which often got thrown back in her face. Given them hints of what to avoid, which only got her accused of setting them up or knowing that they were being set up. A few times, it had been her warning that had directly led to the person being in the wrong place at the wrong time, because they were trying to see if she was right.

  And then there were the ones where something even worse had happened. You stopped a waitress in a diner from getting coffee on her apron, and maybe it was a six-year-old child walking by when the hot water fell instead.

  Laura didn’t like taking those kinds of risks. Not when there wasn’t already a life at stake. You tried to fix everything little thing around you, and you’d end up with an even bigger headache—and who knew if any of it would actually help?

  Behind her, she heard the deputy shout, followed by a general uproar as the coffee splattered over everything in sight. She didn’t turn around.

  “I’ve got it,” Nate said, as she reentered the room, already on his feet. He was reaching for his jacket. “Both phones were purchased at the same store, right here in Albany.”

  Laura took one hurried mo
uthful of her useless coffee and set it on the desk, grabbing her own jacket and shrugging it on. At last—a lead. Maybe this would give them the name of the killer.

  Maybe this would allow them to stop him before he killed again.

  “I’ve got this,” Laura said. “Why don’t you stay behind?” Surely it was safer for Nate here, inside the precinct, than out there in the world.

  “No way,” Nate said, putting his jacket on and reaching for his phone. “I’ve been all cooped up in here. I need to get some action. Let’s make some progress.”

  So much for that. There wasn’t anything else she could say that wouldn’t come across as suspicious; she was already pushing it.

  “All right. Let’s go,” Laura said, striding out of the room before Nate had the chance to.

  ***

  “This is it,” Laura said, leaning forward in her seat as she pulled the car into the parking lot. “Can you see anyone?”

  Nate leaned his long frame forward as well, straining to see in the dark. “Not yet. Guess we’ll get out and head for the doors, see if anyone’s inside.”

  The store was not as dark as the parking lot, though the blazing yellow lights did not seem to illuminate any customers. There were still a couple of cars parked here and there, but that didn’t indicate much. There were other businesses around the same lot, no doubt sharing it. It was late, and most people had gone home for the night. Laura parked near the entrance and got out of the car, feeling the cool evening air flow over the skin of her face like a welcome balm.

  Nate stepped out away from the car, looking around, squinting into the distance. “I can’t see anyone at all,” he said. “Are you sure they’re open? Maybe if we—”

  Laura only had a split second to grab hold of the back of his jacket and pull, making him stumble back into her. A moment later, the car that had pulled into the parking lot at a reckless speed rushed past the spot he had been about to step right out into.

  “Jesus,” Nate panted, one hand going to his chest. “That was close. Thanks.”

  Laura gasped in a breath, relief washing over her. It was short-lived. Her heart was hammering in her chest with the stress of pulling him back, of seeing what could have been his impending doom. The car had come out of nowhere, and she almost hadn’t seen it in time.

  She wanted to think that she had just saved him from the shadow of death that she had seen hanging around him. But she knew she hadn’t. For one thing, the feeling would have been much stronger if the danger was that close.

  For another, she could still feel the lingering chill of its touch as she let go of the back of his jacket. It was hanging over him still, and she still had no idea what it meant.

  “You should be more careful,” she scolded him, as she got her voice back. “I might not be here to pull you back next time.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Nate said, with enough sincerity and earnestness that Laura didn’t shoot him an elbow in the ribs for being cheeky. Even if she had wanted to, she didn’t want to feel that again. She couldn’t. Not when she needed to concentrate on what they still had to do.

  They walked the short distance toward the entrance of the store together without further incident. As they stepped in through a blast of air conditioning—still turned on despite the fact that the outside temperature had cooled—Laura blinked to adjust her eyes to the harsh light. They were in a store that looked much like any other she had been in: several aisles of racks containing items for sale lined up all in a row, more items around three and a half walls. On the remaining half, a counter area was currently manned by an employee in his early twenties.

  “Oh, hello!” That was an older man, in perhaps his forties or early fifties, approaching from the left. Laura’s gaze snapped to him, then back to the younger man behind the counter. A quick analysis of their features showed a familial resemblance. Same messy brown hair, same dark eyes, same angular nose. Laura guessed the server was his son. “You’re the FBI agents I’m supposed to be meeting?”

  “Yes,” Nate said, flipping open his badge to show the man. “I’m Agent Lavoie, and this is Agent Frost. You recently sold a couple of items that we need to trace. If possible, we want the customer’s identity.”

  “Right, yes,” he said, gesturing them over to the counter. “I’m the owner—my name is Fred. I’ve pulled up some of our records on the computer to show you.”

  The young man stepped aside as the three of them all bundled behind the counter, taking up almost the whole space. He waited nervously by the side of the gate that let them in, holding one of his arms across his body. He looked nervous, his eyes constantly tracking over Laura and Nate, from one to the other, from one to the other. What did he have to be nervous about? Laura wondered.

  “We log all of our sales through an electronic system,” Fred was explaining, something which Laura wasn’t particularly interested in. It was a standard modern system, and she just wanted him to get to the point. “If you have the item code, I can bring it up easily. Or I can search by name, too.”

  Nate took his notebook out of his pocket. “Here,” he said, pointing to a scrawled note on one of the pages. “This is the type of item we’re looking for. It’s a cell phone.”

  “Oh, yes, we don’t sell a lot of those,” Fred said, quickly typing in the identifier. “Should be easy to find them… Do you have the serial number for the particular phones?”

  “I do,” Nate said, flipping back a page. “Can you isolate the exact sale?”

  “Yes, we can,” Fred said, his eyes scanning the list of results as his finger hovered over the entry in Nate’s notebook.

  Laura glanced over at the son again. He was looking even more shifty, now that the topic of the phones had come up. He had shoved his hands into his pockets and was rocking back on his heels slightly, looking at the floor. Like a naughty kid.

  “Hmm,” Fred said. “That’s odd.”

  “What is it?” Nate asked, instantly on high alert. For her part, Laura looked at the kid, not at Fred or the screen. Yes. He was biting his lip now. He knew something about what Fred was about to say, no question about it.

  “Well, both of these are listed as shrink.” Fred checked the screen one more time, then shook his head. “They weren’t sold at all.”

  “What does shrink mean?” Nate asked.

  Laura had once worked a part-time job in a store while she was a student. “It means they aren’t accounted for in the stock take. Either they went missing somehow, or they were stolen. Right?” she said.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Fred replied. He gave an apologetic shrug. “This happens from time to time. We review the cameras on a regular basis for thefts, but unfortunately, we don’t always catch things. These ones aren’t listed alongside a crime identification number, which means we couldn’t find any evidence of the theft on the tapes.”

  “Do you at least know when they went missing?” Nate asked.

  “To the nearest week, yes,” Fred said. “We only do stock take on Sundays. They could have gone missing any time within the past week.”

  “So we can’t narrow it down to a day?” Nate sighed. “Then there’s not a lot of hope in going over the security camera footage again.”

  “Afraid not,” Fred said. “We’ve got seven cameras running twenty-four hours a day, so it would be hours of footage to look through for little reward. As I say, my son and I do check all of the footage as much as we can, and there’s nothing that was flagged within the timeframe of these phones going missing.”

  Laura was barely listening. She had a good idea of what was going on here. The son was tall and lanky, not as well-built as she would have expected. But he might have had hidden depths. It was altogether possible, she thought while looking at him, that he was capable of strangling someone to death.

  “Hey,” she said, getting his attention. “Could you pass me that pen over there? I want to make a note of something.” She gestured to a pen lying on the far end of the counter, next to where he was sta
nding.

  “Sure,” he said, his voice coming out high and cracked; he cleared his throat as he picked up the pen and walked the two steps closer to her.

  Their fingers brushed as she took it from his hand, and Laura felt a pulse of pain in the middle of her forehead, mild but distinct. She lowered her gaze to the pen, feeling the vision take hold of her—

  Laura was standing in the same store, behind the same counter. It was later at night, and the place was deserted. Except for Fred’s son, leaning on the counter with a bored expression.

  He stood up and ambled out from behind the counter, heading toward a nearby display rack. It held various electronic items, phone accessories like headphones and wireless ear buds. He rearranged a few of the cases, putting them back into the correct places. He glanced up at the security camera in the corner of the room, and as he straightened up, his hand brushed over one of the packets.

  He continued rearranging the shelves, moving down the whole of the rack to the center of the room. Laura watched, hearing only the gentle buzz overhead of the lights, as he casually slipped the box he had picked up into his pocket, below the range of the camera.

  He turned and drummed a brief pattern on top of one of the packets of cereal at the end of the rack, as if he had run out of things to do. He wandered around for a few more minutes, the time agonizingly long; Laura couldn’t help but wonder when the vision would end. It was beginning to feel excruciating.

  And then he turned and walked toward the back room, out of range of the cameras, and Laura saw him slip the box out of his pocket and into his backpack.

  Laura blinked, finding herself resurfaced back in the real world. It had been minutes in there, but for the others around her, only a second or two had passed. There was a moment of sharp, crushing pain in her head that subsided to a dull ache and lingered. She guessed from the intensity of the vision that this little setback would put him off for a while. The pain wasn’t strong enough, despite the repeated visions of the day, to suggest that it was going to happen any time soon. He would be too scared to take another phone, in case the FBI came back. But eventually, he would get bold again.