He was not standing neatly in his row.
He was staring right at her, and as she watched, he stepped out of the line – and then took a step towards her, purposefully, angrily.
Laura’s heart exploded with fear at the sound of a loud ringing, an alarm which he must have sounded somehow, a signal to the others to seize her, to stop her –
Laura shot upright in the bed and grabbed her phone, shutting off the alarm with a practiced movement that relied on muscle memory rather than her still-sleeping eyes. But the sound didn’t stop. The alarm was still going off.
Looking down, Laura realized it was a phone call, not her alarm, even though the pale glow of dawn was just starting to edge through the thin motel curtains, replacing the yellow aura of the streetlights.
She answered the call, pushing her hair out of her eyes with a frustrated movement. What had that been? A nightmare? A vision? Her hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. “Special Agent Laura Frost?”
“Agent Frost,” a man said. She thought she could place him, but for a moment was unsure from where. “I thought you’d want to be notified right away. My officers have just been called to a crime scene downtown. There’s been another one.”
“Posed with a mannequin?” Laura asked, her brain sorting through the murk to identify the caller as Captain Ortega.
“Exactly the same as the others,” Ortega replied. “I’ll send a patrol car to guide you to the scene. He’ll be there in about ten minutes. Is that good for you?”
“We’ll be ready,” Laura promised, already getting out of bed ready to bang on the dividing wall between their rooms and wake Nate.