Page 33 of Already Lost

“Frost, it’s Chief Rondelle,” he said,which she knew, because of the caller ID. “How are you getting on with thecase?”

Laura closed her eyes momentarily. If hewas in as bad a mood now as he had been before they left, she was about to getit with both barrels. “We’re still chasing down leads, sir.”

Nate glanced at her sideways. He must havebeen able to just about hear Rondelle’s tinny voice from the speakers.

“Still? You don’t have any results yet?”Rondelle snapped. Laura groaned inwardly. Hewasin a bad mood.

“We’ve been able to rule out a fewsuspects so far,” Laura said. “We’re getting closer. We have a new lead whichwe’re following right now which feels very promising.”

It was a lie, but she hoped it would gethim off their case.

“What lead is that?” Rondelle asked.

“Um,” Laura said.

Rondelle didn’t wait for her to recover.“Look, I’ve got a report on my desk here that there’s been a third murder, andthe press are going wild,” he said. “You don’t get this solved quickly and it’sgoing to be a damn circus.”

“I know, sir,” Laura said. She cleared herthroat. “Oh, we’re just pulling up to interview our next suspect. I have to go.We’ll let you know as soon as we have some good progress!”

“See that you do,” Rondelle repliedgrumpily, just before she hung up the phone.

She sighed, slumping back into her seatand groaning.

“That’s going to backfire if we reallycan’t think of a new lead,” Nate said mildly.

Laura stared at him. “You don’t thinkwe’re going to be able to find a new lead? You just said -”

“I wholeheartedly believe in us and ourskills,” he said. “I was just saying, lying might not have been the smart thingto do.”

“It wasn’t your ear he was shouting into,”Laura muttered.

She rubbed her forehead again, trying tothink. She needed a vision. A vision of the case – not another of thefrustrating and terrifying visions of Chris and Zach. Something that would tellher which direction to go in. Anything would help. Anything would be betterthan their current directionless status.

“We’re nearly back,” Nate said. “What doyou want to look at next? We could go back over ourselves and do that interviewwith the family of the first victim we never got around to? Check out the firstcrime scene?”

Laura shook her head slowly. There didn’tseem to be any point. But they needed to dosomething.

Her phone buzzed again, and Laura feltlike she was going mad.

She flipped it over and her heart skippeda beat, her hand hesitating above the screen, unsure of what to do. It wasChris, this time. She checked the clock on the dashboard – he must have justleft work. Maybe that was why the calls were all happening at once – maybeRondelle was just about to leave his desk, though Laura would believe that whenshe saw it. And maybe Zach had some kind of false impression that FBI agentsclocked off at the same time as everyone else.

She wanted to talk to Chris. She didn’twant to talk to Chris with Nate sitting right next to her and listening in. Shewanted to make sure that Chris thought they were okay so it didn’t ruinwhatever budding relationship they had, even if she didn’t feel okay right now.She didn’t want to have to face up to the vision again.

Laura rejected the call.

“Another unknown number?” Nate asked, withan amused glance in her direction.

“Keep your eyes on the road,” Lauramuttered.

“Seriously,” Nate said. “What’s going on?Are you avoiding someone at home?”

“I’m just not in the right frame of mindto talk right now,” Laura said. “I’m likely to snap someone’s head off becauseof the case.”

“I agree with that,” Nate said, in a tonethat suggested she had already snapped off his. “But is that all it is? You’veseemed a little off since we started this case.”

Laura shook her head and looked out of thewindow so he wouldn’t be able to see her expression. “That’s all it is.”

She was well aware that she was doing itagain. Keeping secrets from him. It had almost cost them any kind ofrelationship once before. Now that he knew about her psychic powers, he heldher life and reputation in his hands – he could easily try to out her. Not thatanyone would believe him, but Laura didn’t want to have to defend herself andlie even more.

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