Page 7 of Already Lost

“A gramophone?” Natefrowned. “That’s a new one on me. What is he doing, using it to crush them todeath?”

“No, looks like they’restabbed,” Laura said. “With lethal precision, actually. It says here they bledout within a matter of minutes – consciousness would be lost in more likeseconds. Nothing on the murder weapon here, so I’m guessing they don’t yet knowwhat it is – just a blade.”

“Swords and gramophones,”Nate grunted. “Yep, sounds like a weird one alright. Anything connecting thetwo victims?”

“Not at first glance,”Laura said, running her eyes over their stats. “But we’ll know more when we getthere.”

“That we will,” Nateagreed, turning onto the highway that would take them out of the city.

CHAPTER FOUR

Nate drummed his fingerson the steering wheel as they waited at a light, glancing up at the rearviewmirror to check who was behind before looking to the side slyly. Laura wasstaring out of the passenger side window, probably not even aware that he had lookedin her direction.

Nate held back a sigh andlooked forward again, keeping his eyes on the lights and waiting for them tochange.

“I think we’re close,” hesaid, something that wouldn’t normally be necessary. Usually, Laura wasswitched on enough to be watching the GPS, aware of how close they were.Usually, she would be chomping at the bit to get out and start investigating.

“Okay,” Laura said,without much enthusiasm, resuming her silent stare at the passing scenery.

Nate bit his tongue, tryinghard not to say anything. He was trying to respect her privacy, especiallysince she’d come clean and actually told him about her gift. He was trying totrust her.

It was just hard when heknew for a fact she was holding something back.

But whatever it was,whatever was bothering her and had her lost in thought for most of theirjourney, she didn’t want to say it. Not yet. Nate knew it was best for him towait, to see if she would say it herself, instead of pushing. He kept quiet,following the GPS and turning right into the motel parking lot.

“Here we are,” Nate said,trying to prompt Laura’s attention to actually look around. She finallystirred, glancing up at the complex – same as always: a few stories ofplain-looking rooms ranged along balconies, a parking lot, and a small shelternear the entrance where a bored attendant was waiting for people to check in.

“I’ll go get the keys,”she said. Nate paused the car near the entrance to the lot for her to get out,then drove on to park.

If she didn’t snap out ofthis by the morning, he was maybe going to have to say something – even if heknew that it could potentially set them at odds. Because if she wasn’t preparedto pay any attention to the investigation with how distracted she was, it wasgoing to be his duty to intervene. Friends or not, they were also colleagues –and they had one of the most important jobs in the world.

Saving lives.

***

Nate looked up andblinked in the early morning sun as Laura rushed to the passenger side door,throwing herself into the seat and nodding at him to go. He started the enginewhile carefully running over her appearance in his mind. She looked like normalLaura. Blonde hair up in a smooth ponytail, sharp black suit like they allwore, determination on her face. Not as distracted as she had been last night.

He hoped that was goingto be the end of it – but he had a feeling whatever it was that had beenplaying on her mind hadn’t been resolved that easily.

“Straight to the mostrecent scene?” Nate suggested.

Laura nodded smartly.“Might as well hit the ground running,” she said. She seemed sharper thismorning, at least. Nate pulled out of the parking lot and turned in thedirection of the rising sun. He’d already set the GPS up and called ahead. He’dbeen worried enough about Laura to actually beat her out of his room thismorning.

“It’s not far,” Natesaid. “Should only be five minutes.”

“Any updates overnight?”

Nate shook his head.“Nothing they’ve passed on to me. Guess we’ll have to see. We should be meetingthe captain in charge of the investigation there.”

Laura nodded, pulling thefile from the dashboard and going over the pages again. Nate got the feelingshe hadn’t taken in all the information she wanted to last night. At least shewas recognizing and rectifying that.

Nate followed the GPS forthe short route until they came up to a spot that was clearly the right one:several marked police cars were parked around a boarded-up store, still withthe old, faded signs visible above the door.Nate parked nearby as best as he could,which was a little bit of a challenge given the number of official vehicles –and the couple of local news vans which had joined them. A bored-lookingreporter jumped to her feet when she saw Nate and Laura get out of their car,but Nate led the way fast and ducked under crime tape, reaching the door, andflashing his badge at the detective there. They were inside before she had achance to get her cameraman in position, which was a relief.

Though he knew the news crews would stillbe out there when they left.

“Captain?” he called out experimentally,glancing around inside the space they had entered. It was a large enough store,which was perhaps why it had been difficult to find a new owner – it would havecost a fair amount to buy or lease, and the location seemed to be more on theoutskirts of town. Not a compelling prospect for most businesses.

It was also fairly dark inside, save forsome spotlights that had been set up at one end of the store – leaving the restof it even harder to see, given the contrast.

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