Already Taken, page 2
She couldn’t let him give her the same speech again. Not now.
Not while Nate’s life hung in the balance—literally. She’d seen him falling from a great height, his mouth open in a scream, his arms and legs windmilling uselessly as he tried to save himself.
He wasn’t going to make it.
Not unless she could get there and stop him from falling in the first place.
“Sir,” Laura snapped, cutting Rondelle off. “This is serious. I have reason to believe there is a threat on Agent Lavoie’s life.”
Rondelle paused again. “Agent Frost, that is a serious statement. Are you sure about this?”
“SIR!” Laura yelled, unable to take the delay for a moment longer. “His life is at risk—please! Just tell me where he is!”
“Alright,” Rondelle replied, his voice taking on new urgency from the other side of the line. “I do know that Agent Lavoie received a strange call about meeting someone at a bridge. He called it in to let me know—thought it was kind of suspicious and wanted it on record. He said he thought it might be one of his informants wanting a chat.”
“Which bridge?” Laura demanded, tapping on the screen of her GPS urgently as she attempted to take a corner blind and one-handed. Her tires screeched as she braked hard to avoid a slower car in front, then powered forward around it.
“I’m not sure,” Rondelle replied. “He didn’t include that detail in the message he left.”
“River bridge or traffic bridge?” Laura asked desperately. She tapped the screen again, searching for some kind of landmark that might give her a clue. Something connected to Nate.
She only dimly heard Rondelle express that he still didn’t know, over the pounding of the headache, increasing sharply and making her swerve the wheel to the side—
Laura watched Nate backing up against a railing. He was shocked, his hands out in front of him in a gesture of defense, staring at someone behind Laura. Someone she couldn’t see. As was usually the case, the vision wouldn’t turn, wouldn’t show her the one thing she really wanted to see.
Nate’s back was against the rails. He shook his head, opening his mouth to say something. Laura couldn’t hear it. All she could hear was the screech of the brakes of a train pulling into a station, overpowering Nate’s voice completely.
He was desperate. Trying to reason with someone. To make them see sense.
But it didn’t work, because in the next moment he was somehow tumbling back over the railing, some great force hitting him in the chest and making him overbalance, his tall height used against him to move his center of gravity over the top tail. He was going over and there was nothing Laura could do to—
Laura groaned with the force of the headache attacking her as the vision cleared. She was used to the momentary interruption, to finding herself back at the wheel of a car. She’d learned how to deal with that a long time ago. But she wasn’t ready for the headache, the pain that almost crippled her, making her eyes want to squeeze tightly shut against the light of the sun.
She had to resist. She swerved only momentarily, keeping her car on the road. She checked the map on her GPS and then hit the accelerator, pushing harder.
“Laura? Are you alright?”
Shit. Laura had forgotten she was still on the line with Rondelle. “I’m fine,” she said, intending to end the call so she could concentrate on getting to Nate faster.
“I thought I heard a groan of pain,” Rondelle pressed.
Laura shook her head impatiently. She couldn’t waste time on reassuring him or figuring out a way to explain away everything with a neat ribbon on top. Nate was in danger.
“I know where he is,” she said, shortly. “I’m going there now.” She cut the call, not bothering to stop and explain how she knew.
The sound of the train had been her first clue. He was above a rail line—not just that, but a station. Then there had been the double rails he was leaning on, with a lower panel of frosted reinforced glass. She’d driven under that overpass enough times to know exactly where it was.
She was less than ten minutes away across the city.
She was going to make it in five.
Laura gunned the accelerator, shooting out around the car in front and then cutting past the car in front of them, earning honked horns and the angry squeal of brakes behind her. She didn’t have time to care. Even if she caused an accident, it meant nothing.
She had to save Nate.
“Come on, come on,” Laura muttered to herself, hitting the steering wheel in frustration as she pulled up behind slower-moving cars with no room to pass. She needed to get through. No single millisecond of delay was acceptable. She had to get through.
The cars moved, the road clearing as they turned to left and right, and Laura put her foot to the floor again, pushing forward as fast as she could. She would never forgive herself if she couldn’t get there in time. She would never forgive herself if Nate went over alone, no one to save him.
For months she’d been having this vision. Not a vision, really—a feeling. A black shadow of death hanging over Nate. She’d tried to keep him out of danger at every possible turn. She’d taken the riskier tasks, tried to make him stay in precincts and cars so he was safe. She’d shied away from his touch, the thing that would trigger that nauseating black aura and cloud her mind until she wanted to throw up. She’d risked their relationship.
In the end, she’d realized that thinking about telling him she was psychic would make the aura of death lessen, so she’d done it. She’d told him.
And it had all been a waste, because now he thought she was crazy, and he was going to die anyway.
Up ahead in the distance, Laura spotted the bridge. Consulting the map for a split second, she spotted the station just to her left. She was almost there. She was almost with him.
She swung the car hard to the left, almost colliding with a taxi that was emerging from the station entrance. Laura ignored the gestures and shouting trailing out of the driver’s side window as she left it in her wake, pulling up with a screeching carelessness, letting the car stop where it would stop. There was a staircase leading up to the overpass.
Laura jumped out of the car, leaving it running, the keys still in the ignition. She didn’t care. She was an FBI agent. If someone decided to steal her car, she could probably do something about tracking them down. And even if she couldn’t—a car was worth far less than her partner of four years, one of the best men she knew, and, by a very long distance, her closest friend.
Laura took the stairs two at a time, racing to the top, the heels she’d been wearing on her date earlier clattering against the metal. She looked to one side and saw him immediately. Nate was easy to spot—six two, well-built, Black, and—the best giveaway of them all—wearing his blue windbreaker with the FBI logo emblazoned on it in yellow.
He was too far away to hear her if she shouted. She could barely even make out his face.
The train appeared on the horizon, as far down the tracks as she could see before buildings got in the way. It was already coming.
Laura took off at full speed, kicking off her shoes as she went.
She yelled his name, but it was useless. He didn’t even turn. He was looking at something else—someone else—coming toward him from the other side of the overpass. He had his back to her now, and the other person—a man—was approaching him.
They stood opposite one another. Laura saw it happening as if it were in slow motion. Nate was shaking his head. She screamed his name again, and his gaze flicked in her direction for a moment but then back. She was running at full pelt, not even breathing anymore, not thinking or feeling, just running.
Nate put his hands up in front of him in a gesture of defense, his back hitting the railing as he moved away from the stranger.
No!
Laura forced herself forward faster than she ever had before as Nate shook his head, as his mouth formed an O of surprise, as the stranger standing opposite him stepped forward—
And Laura collided bodily with him, slamming him to the ground, twisting her head and looking up at Nate as she did so. He was teetering, losing his balance—
CHAPTER THREE
Laura reached out a hand toward Nate—
He grabbed hold of the rail and held it, pushing himself back to the right posture, staying on the right side of the railing.
He was safe.
Everything seemed to happen at once then, the world coming back to normal speed in a single rush. Laura realized she was lying on top of the man she had tackled sideways, and her hip and shoulder smarted where she’d bowled right into him. He was fighting to get free, probably to go after Nate again. He was shouting something she couldn’t understand. The train was screeching by below them, coming to a stop. Her breath came in ragged pants as she tried to recover from the extreme physical exertion it had taken to get here in time. Her head pounded mercilessly.
Nate jumped forward, grabbing the stranger by the wrists and forcing them behind his back as Laura scrambled away. She struggled to breathe, each inhale rasping through a throat that was raw from shouting, tucking her blonde hair back behind her ears as she tried to right herself. The world felt like it was tilting sideways. For a moment she thought she was going to fall off.
Nate clicked a pair of handcuffs on the stranger’s wrists. The man was still yelling incoherently, screaming up at the sky as he twisted over his shoulder, still trying to get to Nate. With all his easy strength, Nate held him pinned by those cuffed arms, stopping him from getting up.
“Laura?” Nate said.
She looked at him. It felt as though he was very far away.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
No, she wasn’t alright.
But she was. She was because she had done it. She had saved him.
It was over.
Nate pulled a phone out of his pocket, barking instructions into it, calling for backup to take the stranger away. The man had finally stopped yelling, lying still on the ground, his own breathing a furious gasp that came again and again as he rested, having seemingly used up all the fight he had.
“Why are you here?” Nate asked, moving to sit on the ground next to Laura. He kept one leg outstretched, resting it on the stranger’s back to keep him still.
“I saw it,” Laura said. Her voice scraped against the inside of her throat and rattled against the ringing sides of her skull. “It’s what I’ve been afraid of, all this time. I finally saw it. I came as fast as I could.”
Nate stared at her. It was like she could see the pieces moving into place in his mind. As clear as if she’d had a vision from behind his eyes.
“How did you know where to find me?” Nate asked.
“I called Rondelle,” Laura said. She put a hand against her own throat, as if that would ease the rawness there. She needed water. “He said you were called out. Didn’t know where. I was going to drive all over looking at every bridge in town. But then I saw it again. The railing. Heard the train. Knew where to come.”
Nate blinked at her. He looked at the man on the ground. As if knowing that he was in the spotlight again, he gave a desperate shaking, trying to get his arms free and Nate off him and get up. He swore a long string of curses and racial epithets and then gave up.
“Shut up,” Nate muttered. He looked at Laura, then at the railing, then back at the man on the ground. “He tried to push me over.”
“I saw you falling,” Laura said. Her voice cracked. Not just from the screaming. It had been one of the worst things she’d ever seen in her life. There was a top five of hits in her mind: the death of her father from cancer and the shadow of death he’d carried before he was even diagnosed; the death of Amy Fallow, beaten to a pulp by her father, which she had been able to prevent; the case that made her start drinking; the case that made her an alcoholic; and this.
The second time she’d managed to stop someone she cared about deeply from facing a horrible demise.
She’d done it.
It still wasn’t sinking in.
Nate was staring at her like she was an alien with three heads. “You… actually saw this in a vision?”
Laura stared at him numbly. If he didn’t believe her now, he was never going to. “I told you,” she said.
He looked away. The railing. The man on the ground. Back to Laura. It was a circuit, like a pattern his brain had to complete so he could carry on putting all of the pieces together.
“No one else knew where I was,” he said. “I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t put it into my GPS. I parked at the station and walked up here—you wouldn’t have been able to know where I was.”
“I saw it,” Laura repeated. She felt dull around the edges, like a knife that had been used too many times. Her breathing was back under control, her headache beginning to fade. She thought she had some painkillers in the car maybe.
“It’s the only way,” Nate was saying, kind of to himself. “Laura…” He reached out slowly. He touched her arm. The bare skin of her wrist. She wanted to flinch away, unwilling to see the shadow of death again.
But there was nothing.
Only peace.
“You saw this in a vision,” he said.
It wasn’t a question. From the tone of his voice, Laura knew that he at last understood. He at last believed her.
“All it took was saving your life again, huh?” Laura said, feeling like she was coming back into herself a little, seeing the humor in it.
“Yeah,” Nate said distantly, then looked back at her sharply. “Again?”
Laura gave a weary chuckle. Oh, if he only knew the number of times she’d done something stupid to try and stop him from being in danger.
Nate looked off into the distance, then back at her. The stranger on the ground had stopped trying to resist. He was lying looking up at the sky, like he knew he was looking at it for the last time.
“You know him?” Laura asked, nodding in his direction.
Nate nodded. “Arrested him about five years ago on a drugs charge. Before I was partnered with you. He just got out of prison, said he had some information for me.”
“Wanted you dead,” the man muttered, his voice finally low and slow enough that Laura could understand it. “You ruined my life.”
“No, buddy, that was all you,” Nate said, shaking his head. Below them, sirens were coming closer, racing toward where they were. Backup.
“He would have done it,” Laura said. It probably wasn’t necessary. Nate had felt the lightest part of that shove, the part that Laura hadn’t quite defused. He must know the rest.
There was a pause, a moment of silence between the three of them. The rest of the city was noisy enough. Another train was coming in. The sirens reached a crescendo below and then shut off as the cars stopped.
Laura looked at Nate. He was looking back at her but quickly glanced away. There was something in his face… something that stung.
“Nate?” she said.
“Uh, yeah,” he said. He scrambled to his feet, dusting himself off. He loomed over the man who had tried to kill him, reluctant to leave his side but also very obviously eager to get away from Laura. “I’d better make sure they take him in and get all the details right.”
“Nate,” she said again. He had to see that she was still the same person she’d always been. He hadn’t known, and then he hadn’t believed—but all the years they’d been working together, she’d been this way under the surface.
“I believe you,” he said. There was an urgency in his voice, like he needed her to listen. He needed it so he could end the conversation and get away. So that he didn’t have to be around her anymore. “I do. I just… wow, Laura. This is a lot.”
“I know,” Laura said. That numbness was falling over her again. Didn’t he think she knew? She’d had to live with this curse for her whole life.
“I have to go,” Nate said, starting a few steps in the direction of the cops now coming across the overpass toward them. Then he hesitated, looking back at the ground. He wanted to run so badly. Laura could see it. It was only duty holding him back.
“I’ll go,” Laura said instead, standing up. “They know where to reach me if they want a statement.” She turned to leave, walking in the opposite direction from where the cops were coming from even though it would mean a longer trip back to her car.
“Laura,” Nate called.
She turned and looked at him.
“Thanks,” he said. “For saving my life.”
Laura nodded, then continued walking.
Her partner of several years, her closest friend, and now the only one who knew her secret.
And he couldn’t even stand to be around her.
CHAPTER FOUR
Laura looked up from the steering wheel to see a familiar view in front of her, one she hadn’t even realized was going to be there. She’d driven on autopilot. She didn’t even remember getting back into the car, setting off, or driving here.
She must have known she needed support, and taken herself subconsciously to the one place she knew she was likely to get it.
It felt strange, coming here without Lacey, her daughter. Lacey and Amy had become such good friends ever since Amy was adopted by her uncle, Christopher Fallow. Their playdates had started as an excuse for Laura to check up on Chris, make sure that he was a good person. She’d saved Amy’s life twice—once from kidnappers who thought the governor was a good target for ransom, and once from the homicidally violent governor himself. But once Governor Fallow had gone to prison, Laura hadn’t been able to let the case go. She didn’t want to wake up one day and find that yet another person who was supposed to look after Amy’s life had finally ended it.
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