Already Gone (A Laura Frost FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 1) by Blake Pierce (e book reader TXT) 📕

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

Maybe this would allow them to stop himbefore he killed again.

“I’ve got this,” Laura said. “Why don’tyou stay behind?” Surely it was safer for Nate here, inside the precinct, thanout there in the world.

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

So much for that. There wasn’t anythingelse she could say that wouldn’t come across as suspicious; she was alreadypushing it.

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

***

“This is it,” Laura said, leaningforward in her seat as she pulled the car into the parking lot. “Can you seeanyone?”

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

The store was not as dark as the parkinglot, 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’tindicate much. There were other businesses around the same lot, no doubtsharing it. It was late, and most people had gone home for the night. Lauraparked near the entrance and got out of the car, feeling the cool evening airflow 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,” hesaid. “Are you sure they’re open? Maybe if we—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, ma’am,” Nate said, with enoughsincerity and earnestness that Laura didn’t shoot him an elbow in the ribs forbeing 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 towardthe entrance of the store together without further incident. As they stepped inthrough a blast of air conditioning—still turned on despite the fact that theoutside temperature had cooled—Laura blinked to adjust her eyes to the harshlight. 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, moreitems around three and a half walls. On the remaining half, a counter area wascurrently manned by an employee in his early twenties.

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

“Yes,” Nate said, flipping open hisbadge to show the man. “I’m Agent Lavoie, and this is Agent Frost. You recentlysold a couple of items that we need to trace. If possible, we want the customer’sidentity.”

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

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

“We log all of our sales through anelectronic system,” Fred was explaining, something which Laura wasn’tparticularly interested in. It was a standard modern system, and she justwanted him to get to the point. “If you have the item code, I can bring it upeasily. Or I can search by name, too.”

Nate took his notebook out of hispocket. “Here,” he said, pointing to a scrawled note on one of the pages. “Thisis 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… Doyou 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 eyesscanning the list of results as his finger hovered over the entry in Nate’snotebook.

Laura glanced over at the son again. Hewas looking even more shifty, now that the topic of the phones had come up. He hadshoved 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