Page 25 of Already Lost

“Yeah.” Laura slumped in her seat, puttingher knees up against the dash. “It’s… I don’t know. Angrier than I thought.When you see the pictures or even the bodies after they’ve been cleaned up,it’s not the same. But I felt it today. The fury. The rage it would take toreally stab someone that deep, to pull the weapon out – whatever it is – andsee those great spurts of blood gush right out of the heart. I could understandthe first time, but the second and third time – you don’t go through with thatunless you have a really serious reason to want to.”

“It’s a serious injury,” Nate said, hiseyes flicking to his mirrors silently as he drove across the slowly wakingtown. “I know we haven’t found a weapon yet, but I expect it to be a big one.Something that’s probably heavy to wield. It’s not something you carry aroundby accident. He knows what he’s going to do when he gets started.”

“That’s part of what worries me,” Laurasaid. “We have three bodies now, but who knows how far this goes? How far he’swilling to go?”

Nate grunted. “I don’t think we want toknow the answer to that.”

“There’s a message on your phone,” Laurasaid. Nate’s cell was lying in the center console between them, and the screenhad lit up with an incoming alert.

“It’s probably Officer Munson,” Nate said.“I found him at the crime scene and asked him to pull me all the information hecould find on our victim before we head in to speak to her family. Read it tome?”

Laura pulled the phone out of the consoleand touched the screen. She turned it towards Nate’s face just enough that itwould capture his likeness and unlock, without blocking his view of the road,and then opened up the message to read it in full. “Tessa Patinson,twenty-three years old. She lived on her own but her family are local. Familywere informed an hour ago and they confirmed they heard from her last night,saying she was going out to a party.”

“Do we know if she got there?”

“Nothing that I can see here about it,”Laura said. “Anyway, she was a marketing graduate and had just joined a firm towork on their social media and marketing campaigns, and was reportedly settlingin well. I don’t think I see how there could be a link between her and theother victims, but we can ask.”

“Anything about a significant other?” Nateasked.

“Nothing,” Laura said. “I don’t know if Ifeel good about this. They’re going to be fresh to the grief, and we’re goingto heap more on them. And I don’t even know if I believe we’ll find out anythinguseful.”

“Try to stay positive,” Nate said. “Wehave to try. It only takes one clue to break the case.”

“I know,” Laura said. She sighed heavily,rubbing her forehead. She had a headache, but not from her visions like normal.No, it was just from sheer tiredness.

They were going to have to go through withthis. Nate was right. Any stone left unturned was a question mark. But still,Laura wanted to hide under a rock instead of facing this family.

She squared her shoulders as Nate slowedthe car to a stop outside a modest family home, feeling like she was about tostep into the ring for ten rounds of emotional pummeling.

“Here we go,” Nate said.

They got out of the car and moved to thefront door, Laura lingering back and allowing Nate to take the lead. He knockedsmartly and the door was immediately opened by a detective wearing a badgearound his neck. He nodded at them – clearly recognizing them from theprecinct, though Laura couldn’t recall seeing him herself – and gestured forthem to go inside.

“The sister is in the living room,” hesaid, pointing in the right direction.

Laura wondered about where the rest of thefamily was, following Nate as he entered the room. There was a woman just alittle older than Tessa had been sitting on a battered old sofa, and anotherdetective sitting nearby in an armchair. The room was small but furnished well,even if all of the pieces looked a little second-hand. But that wasn’t whatcaught Laura’s attention the most when she walked into the room.

What caught her attention the most was agiant portrait of an older man and woman set on the wall above the mantlepiece,printed on canvas. And directly below it, two large silver urns – set with asingle candle burning between them.

Ah.

That was why there had been no mention ofparents.

“Ms. Patinson?” Nate asked gently, causingthe sister to glance up.

“Mrs. Sunter, now,” she said, raising whatlooked like weary eyes. The call had come in during the early hours of themorning. She must have had an unexpected awakening. “Tallie.”

“Tallie.” Nate sat down next to her but ata respectable distance on the sofa, leaving Laura to find a spot on anotherarmchair set at a right angle to the sofa. “My name is Special Agent NathanielLavoie, and my partner over there is Special Agent Laura Frost. We need to askyou some questions so we can work on finding whoever did this to your sister.”

Tallie nodded. There were tear tracksvisible on her face, but otherwise she seemed to be holding up well. Her hairwas longer than her sister’s, and the piercings and smudged black eye makeupweren’t there, but the family resemblance was still strong.

“Do you know of anyone who had a reason todislike Tessa?” Nate asked. “Especially a strong dislike?”

Tallie shook her head. “Not specifically,”she said. Her voice was raw. “But Tessa got in a bit of trouble from time totime. It’s possible there was someone. We just didn’t talk much about it.”

Nate tilted his head. Laura was sure hewas picking up on the same vibe he was. The sister was down here, but not herhusband. Tessa had moved out, at a young age, despite not having highly paidwork. There were warning signs of a fracture here. “What was your relationshiplike with Tessa?”

Tallie sighed. “Honestly…” she shook herhead. “Lately, it was difficult. She’d moved out last year. After our parentsdied, I ended up basically having to raise her the rest of the way. Ourbrothers, too – they’re both away at college right now. When I got married, shewas the only one still living at home, and she didn’t like the way thingschanged. She told me she felt like my husband forced her out of her own home.We had a few arguments about that. Lately, we were getting back to how it usedto be, but we hadn’t started talking about the deeper stuff again yet.”

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