Page 16 of Already Lost

There were a good few antiques dealerscoming up in the first few pages of results, but Nate knew he didn’t have timeto go through all of them one by one. He needed to narrow the field down.

If you were buying something as heavy anddelicate as a gramophone, you wouldn’t ship it from the other side of theworld, would you? Not unless you had some serious cash to throw around. And,while there was the odd exception, it had always seemed to Nate that the kindof men who became serial killers weren’t the rich and successful type.

He typed inantique gramophone Marylandand tried again.

This time, there were only a few resultsthat popped up that had actual map locations. He clicked on the first one andbrowsed around on their site, only to see that they didn’t actually sellgramophones specifically – it was probably just a search term they’d includedon their website to try and hook any and all collectors of antique goods. Thesecond one turned out to have closed down three years ago, which made them anunlikely candidate for the purchases.

But the third one gave him pause.

It was an antiques dealer who specializedin audio equipment – old sound machines like phonographs, early recorders,vintage records, and gramophones. That was incredibly promising. The sitepromised to buy any and all antique devices and also to offer a wide array ofthe same, fully restored with original parts, to collectors.

Huh.

Nate glanced around, looking for a printerin the bullpen, but in the end he gave up and grabbed his notebook to writedown the address. There was no point in trying to print something and thenspending the next half hour figuring out which printer it had gone to. Officeslike this were all the same – law enforcement or not, there was always somecomplex and outdated IT structure that would leave you scratching your head andhaving to snag some passing assistant for help, only to get your head snappedoff for interrupting their own workload.

Not that this had happened before, oranything.

Nate glanced up after finishing his notesto see Laura making her way across the bullpen from the other side of the room,her shoulders slumped in what looked like defeat. She reached the desk withouta word and slumped down into a chair beside him, clearly in no mood to messaround.

“No luck?” Nate asked, guessing now forsure that she’d been in search of a vision.

“Nothing,” Laura confirmed. “I just can’t…seeanything that will take us forward in the case.”

Nate nodded at her carefully codedlanguage, letting her know he understood. “Well, this might cheer you up. Ihave a local antiques dealer who specializes in things like gramophones. I wasthinking we ought to go down there and ask to see their records.”

“Where is it?” Laura asked, sitting up inthe chair.

“Well, that’s the best part,” Nate saidwith a grin. “You know, I don’t believe in coincidences. And this antiquesdealer happens to be based right here in town.”

He clearly didn’t need to tell Lauratwice. She jumped up from her chair and then looked back at him, cocking herhead. “Well? Aren’t you going to come and check it out?”

Nate grinned and got up to follow her,swiping his notebook and the address from the desk as he went.

CHAPTER TEN

Laura looked up at the store from the car,wondering what they were about to walk into.

“That’s kind of unusual,” she said,stating the obvious.

“Yeah,” was all Nate could manage inreturn.

The storefront was almost obnoxious indeclaring what it was. It was only a small store, from the outside at least,but the frames around the door and windows and a large wooden signage areaabove the door were painted an electric shade of blue. On top of this signagewas painted not only the wordsAntique Sound, but also several largemusical instruments from times gone by. And not just painted, either – the blueillustrations were three-dimensional, actual wooden models attached to thestorefront in an exaggerated size. Above it all was a huge black half-recordwith a bright pink center, as if to attract as much attention as possible fromanywhere you stood in the town.

“Let’s see if we can find the owner,”Laura suggested, unbuckling her seatbelt, and reaching for the door handle.

“If he’s painted the same colors, we’llspot him a mile off,” Nate muttered before following her.

Laura pushed the door of the store open tothe tinkling chime of a bell, and glanced around. It looked pretty much likehow she expected an antiques store to look. Everything was dusty andold-looking, shelves and floors stacked with example after example of oldmusical instruments, music players, sheet music, and stacks of records incolorful sleeves. There was a counter, too – but for the moment, it was empty.

Laura glanced around, wondering if therewas a bell or something she could press, as Nate entered behind her. The doorswung shut and made the bell tinkle again, announcing their presence for asecond time. Laura hoped that, at least, would be enough to make someoneappear.

A moment later, they did: a tall, thin manwho could almost have been the cousin of their coroner, Ian, althoughsignificantly older. And odder, too, at first glance. Laura took him in with alook as she strode towards him, reaching into her pocket to pull out her badge.He was dressed in a formal and stiff black suit with a starched white shirt,the only flash of color about him at all being a pocket handkerchief in thesame color as the storefront. He had dark hair slicked back with what lookedlike old-fashioned pomade, and his cheeks were gauntly hollow.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Yes,” Laura said, taking her first realbreath of the air within the closed environment of the store. It almost chokedher. It was musty and the air seemed laden with dust that stirred at theirevery move. It was an asthma sufferer’s nightmare. She put her badge down onthe counter in front of him, noticing the warped and marked wood of it as shedid so. “I’m Special Agent Laura Frost. We’re in town investigating a seriouscrime.”

“I would assume so,” he said, though therewas a note of interest in his voice. “I gather the FBI doesn’t come out toinvestigate small crimes.”

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