Already Gone (Laura Frost FBI)

Laura stood up from her chair, nodding silently to Nate as she did so. He returned the nod, with only the slightest twitch to his eyes to indicate that anything was amiss. He was probably itching to ask her where she was going. But he wasn’t going to show in front of Hunter that he wasn’t in control of the situation. He wasn’t going to show a shred of weakness. Always better for the suspect to think that the agents had a whole routine worked out between them, a routine he wasn’t privy to.

Laura left the room without saying another word. As she left, she heard Nate asking the question again—for Hunter to back up his story. Telling him to focus.

As soon as the door was closed behind her, Laura broke into a run down the corridor. She was done playing games. They were wasting their time with Hunter. The kid had no idea about anything. And Laura knew the killer was out there tonight. She knew. She’d seen it.

The only thing she could do now to save that woman was to see it again—and clearer this time.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Laura barged through the door into their investigation room and shut it firmly behind her, walking over to the computer with determination. Within a few clicks, she brought up the recording file and pressed play, turning the volume up. She pushed her hand flat against the speaker without sitting down, feeling the vibrations through her hand. She breathed deep. She was going to do this. She was going to trigger the vision, if she had to sit here all night and play this damn recording over and over again. Even if she had to contend with Nate trying to get her taken off the case and committed for obsessive behavior. She was going to have a vision, no matter what.

It was, paradoxically, sweet relief when the stabbing pain in her forehead began. It was as sharp as a red-hot blade, branding into her skin. Laura was sure that if she reached up and touched her head, she would feel blood running down. Or at least some kind of—

She was above them again. The woman, fighting for her life. Yes. Laura knew it was the same scene that she had visited before, but this time it was stronger. Clearer. So much more real, she could almost taste the air.

The woman was there, and Laura felt the vision moving in toward her face. She was choking, turning red, her eyes beginning to bulge out with the stress of the strangulation. Her hands were clawing at her neck so viciously that she scratched a line in the skin of her own face on the way down.

There was a piece of fabric around her neck. A familiar pattern. A dish towel, Laura thought. Yes—they were in a kitchen. The white, shiny surface next to them was a fridge. The murder would happen in the kitchen.

All right, she thought. Now show me more. Show me more!

But all she could do was stay frozen in place, right above the woman’s face. Everything around her was fuzzy, some of it dark, some of it completely blank. All Laura knew for certain was the woman’s face, and the towel around her neck. Her dark eyes were huge with fear, bulging with the strain to breathe. Laura watched as the woman kicked out with her legs, her upper body bucking in reaction, how she reached out and attempted to scratch at the person holding the towel. It made no difference.

Laura wanted to reach out, to stop this. She wanted to grapple with the killer for the woman’s sake, to save her life. She struggled desperately to do so, even though she had no arms to reach with here. No physical presence to fight with. She was only an observer, floating above it all, not even able to control where she looked.

She watched as the woman lost her battle. As she slipped lower and lower toward the floor, unable to lift herself up. As her eyes rolled back in her head. As she convulsed, the last desperate attempt of the body to gain air for use in the lungs. Then she stopped moving at all, and for a long moment the killer continued to hold her, long past the point that the body could still survive.

Laura opened her eyes, gasping for breath. She tore her hand away from the speaker as if it was burning hot, and closed out the recording before she heard one more moment of it. She sank down into the chair waiting behind her, no longer trusting her legs to keep her standing.

It wasn’t just the shock. The pain and terror of seeing that happen in front of her eyes. It was the pain in her head, washing over her now in terrible waves. The vision she had seen—it had been one of the most powerful she’d had in a long while, despite the edges being so fuzzy.

And it had been one of the most terrible for a long while, too. The visceral nature of it, the way it had been so detailed and close. She couldn’t stop seeing the woman’s eyes, straining and bulging for air, desperate and afraid. Laura closed her own eyes to hold the tears in, trying to keep control.

There had been something else, too. That same déjà vu washing over her. The feeling that she had been there before, and not just in the sense of having seen the same vision in a more fragmented way earlier. No, something about the setting, the woman. Even though most of the room was obscured from her, Laura felt as though it was somewhere she had been before.

But they were still in Albany. And Laura still hadn’t been to this city in her life until now. None of it made any sense.

And when it came down to it, what had she seen? Laura knew the woman by sight now, but that wasn’t useful at all. The power of the headache told her that what she had seen was happening imminently. It could be happening right at this moment. That meant there was no time to save the woman. It would have been difficult even if Laura knew who she was, where she lived. And she hadn’t seen the killer. Not even his hands, which were behind the woman’s neck as he pulled the dish towel tight. Her own dish towel, no doubt.

It gave her nothing to go on. She’d gone through all of that, forced herself to watch, triggered this horrible pain, and for nothing.

Her eyes flew open when the door did, jolting her out of her own thoughts as she attempted to plaster on a blank expression. It was pointless. Even the motion of lifting her head like that sent dizzy waves of pain through her.

“What was that?” Nate demanded, entering the room and walking right up to her. “You just walked out on me.”

“I’m sorry,” Laura said, nursing her head. “I… I just. I don’t know. I just had this migraine or something come on.”

“Are you all right?” Nate asked, squinting at her. A look of concern fell over his face, transforming him from the man who could easily come across as the Bad Cop to a worried friend. He squatted down beside her chair so he could look up into her face. “You’re very pale. And you’re sweating. Are you coming down with the flu or something?”

“I, um.” Laura shook her head. The pain that flowed through her immediately took away her reasoning for a moment. “I don’t know. I just got… ha. I don’t know. Maybe it’s an overnight thing.”

“You’ve been peaky the whole day,” Nate said, worry creasing a deep frown between his eyes. “At the kidnapping, too. I thought you were just exhausted from the chase, but—you haven’t been well for a while.”

“No, no, it’s just been tiredness, like you said,” Laura replied, waving her hand. She forced herself to smile and to hold her head upright, even though the throbbing was making her feel sick. “Honestly. I’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep.”

“We going to the motel?” Nate asked. “I know I’d do good on a couple hours’ more sleep, at least.”

“Yeah, good idea,” Laura said. But even as she agreed and stood up, reaching for her jacket, she had no faith that she would be getting her head down tonight.