Already Taken (Laura Frost FBI)

She walked inside, allowing Agent Moore to follow her or not as she pleased—if she needed a moment, Laura would let her have it. But the rookie raced behind her, practically on her heels, and Laura had the impression that she didn’t want to be left alone anywhere near the body.

“Alright,” Laura said, stepping inside the living room with a sympathetic tone. She lifted her eyebrows at the Sheriff. “Nurse…”

“Joy White,” he supplied.

“Ms. White, would you be able to answer a few questions for me? I know it’s been a terrible shock.”

“Yes,” the nurse murmured, dabbing at eyes that seemed to already be dry with a crushed tissue held in her fist. She was sitting by the Sheriff on the sofa, dressed in a simple and unflattering uniform of blocky dark blue scrubs. She had personalized the outfit with a rainbow-colored shirt underneath, the long sleeves sticking out. Her dark hair was tied back tightly across the top of her head into a bun; she was younger than Laura, maybe closer to Agent Moore’s age.

“Excellent,” Laura said, sitting down quickly in a comfortable-looking armchair angled toward the television. It didn’t disappoint. Agent Moore passed over to the other side of the room where a dresser held a collection of framed photographs, picking them up one by one to examine them. “Let’s start with your discovery this morning.”

“I came in early because Mr. Gregory was going out today,” she said, sniffing. “He said he wanted to get everything done early.”

“Where was he going?” Laura jumped in.

“He’d met some distant relatives,” the nurse said. “He was having a barbecue with them today for his birthday. Oh, god—it was his birthday! Imagine getting killed on your birthday!”

“He was killed last night, if that helps,” Agent Moore said, glancing over sympathetically.

Laura gritted her teeth. She would have preferred not to share information with the people connected to the case, just in case it would be important later. The suspect might incriminate themselves by knowing things like time of death if they were never told the details. It was too late now.

“These distant relatives,” Laura said, sensing a connection here with a growing sense of unease. “When did he first meet them?”

“About a month ago,” the nurse started. “There was this ancestors reunion thing, and—”

Laura was already unfolding the poster from her jacket pocket. “This one?”

“That’s the one.” The nurse nodded. “He was there. He’d been lonely the last few years.”

Laura felt a rush in her blood. She’d assumed from the start that there was going to be a connection between this third victim and their first two—the same connection they had already identified. But to have it proven…

They were on the right track.

They might actually be able to do this.

“What about all these people?” Agent Moore asked. She was holding up one of the photographs from the dresser. There were so many of them. It looked as though Hank had had a vibrant family and social life—once.

“All dead,” the nurse said, with a shrug of her shoulders that seemed to say what can you do? That’s life.

Laura gave her a closer look; she didn’t seem too upset, for all the Sheriff’s talk of shock. She wasn’t even sure the tissue in her hand had really been used. It seemed more like crocodile tears to her practiced eyes.

“This morning,” she prompted. “You came in early…?”

“I couldn’t find him anywhere, and then I noticed the back door from the kitchen was still open. I went out there and—and there he was. Oh, it’s awful. I’ve been working with him for a year now!”

Aha. There it was. The nurse was upset that her client was gone, because that was what he’d been to her. A client. A way to earn a living. That was what Laura had been picking up in her odd vibe. She wasn’t really sad about Hank at all.

Still, they needed to know about her alibi to rule her out. And there was valuable information coming through here, too: Hank had been lured outside. Whoever this was, they had struck three times in outdoor locations. They didn’t want to, or maybe couldn’t, break into the places they found their victims. That was good. Maybe if they sent out a county-wide warning to stay inside when on your own…

“Where were you yesterday?” Laura asked. “I’m interested in the whole day, through to when you came over this morning.”

The nurse gave her a look of distaste, as if it was bad form to even ask her. “I was helping out Hank yesterday morning, then I went around my other patients—I’ve got a full day, every day. I clocked off work at seven and went home to my apartment, where I stayed all night long, asleep next to my boyfriend.”

Laura nodded, jotting down a quick note to have someone check the alibi later. “And he was with you from the time you got home?”

“Yes, like normal.” She nodded. “This isn’t anything to do with me, you know. I’ve always looked after Hank. He liked me. I’m a good nurse.”

“I’m sure you are,” Laura said, not bothering to even try to make her voice sound truly reassuring. “Alright, thank you, Ms. White. If you think of anything, please let us know—and we’ll be in touch if we have more questions.”

The nurse nodded, but Laura was already ignoring her, trying to think about her next move.

The relationship between the three victims was very obviously genetic, and also tied to the reunion they had attended. But that was as far as they’d gotten.

Maybe it was time to jump down into the trenches and get dirty.

“What do we do now?” Agent Moore asked as they stepped outside.

“Now,” Laura said grimly, wishing she didn’t have to, “we interview our way through nearly two thousand people, one at a time, until we get some answers.”