Something knocking, p.1
Something Knocking, page 1
S O M E T H I N G
K N O C K I N G
(A Lauren Lamb Mystery—Book 1)
K a t e B o l d
Kate Bold
Bestselling author Kate Bold is author of the ALEXA CHASE SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising six books (and counting); the ASHLEY HOPE SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising six books (and counting); the CAMILLE GRACE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising eight books (and counting); the HARLEY COLE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising seven books (and counting); the KAYLIE BROOKS PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising five books (and counting); the EVE HOPE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising six books (and counting); and the LAUREN LAMB FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising five books (and counting).
An avid reader and lifelong fan of the mystery and thriller genres, Kate loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.kateboldauthor.com to learn more and stay in touch.
Copyright © 2023 by Kate Bold. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright UMB-O, used under license from Shutterstock.com.
BOOKS BY KATE BOLD
LAUREN LAMB SUSPENSE THRILLER
SOMETHING KNOCKING (Book #1)
SOMETHING CALLING (Book #2)
SOMETHING WRONG (Book #3)
SOMETHING DARK (Book #4)
SOMETHING TO HIDE (Book #5)
ALEXA CHASE SUSPENSE THRILLER
THE KILLING GAME (Book #1)
THE KILLING TIDE (Book #2)
THE KILLING HOUR (Book #3)
THE KILLING POINT (Book #4)
THE KILLING FOG (Book #5)
THE KILLING PLACE (Book #6)
ASHLEY HOPE SUSPENSE THRILLER
LET ME GO (Book #1)
LET ME OUT (Book #2)
LET ME LIVE (Book #3)
LET ME BREATHE (Book #4)
LET ME FORGET (Book #5)
LET ME ESCAPE (Book #6)
CAMILLE GRACE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER
NOT ME (Book #1)
NOT NOW (Book #2)
NOT WELL (Book #3)
NOT HER (Book #4)
NOT NORMAL (Book #5)
NOT AGAIN (Book #6)
NOT SAFE (Book #7)
NOT TODAY (Book #8)
HARLEY COLE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER
NOWHERE SAFE (Book #1)
NOWHERE LEFT (Book #2)
NOWHERE TO RUN (Book #3)
NOWHERE LIKE THIS (Book #4)
NOWHERE GIRL (Book #5)
NOWHERE TO HIDE (Book #6)
NOWHERE CERTAIN (Book #7)
KAYLIE BROOKS PYSCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE THRILLER
LAST BREATH (Book #1)
LAST CHANCE (Book #2)
LAST WISH (Book #3)
LAST SHOT (Book #4)
LAST MISTAKE (Book #5)
EVE HOPE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER
IN HIS BLOOD (Book #1)
IN HIS SIGHTS (Book #2)
IN HIS REACH (Book #3)
IN HIS MIND (Book #4)
IN HIS WAY (Book #5)
IN HIS THOUGHTS (Book #5)
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
“Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum…”
Sister Victoria rolled the rosary bead back and forth in her fingers as she prayed. Today, she prayed for strength and protection from impure thoughts. Father Dominic had visited the convent yesterday to meet with the Mother Superior about an upcoming food drive for the poor of Pescara. He had spoken with Sister Victoria only briefly, but the image of his charming smile and bright blue eyes, so kind and yet so strong, lingered with her far longer and more powerfully than they should have.
So, she prayed, kneeling in a small room adjacent to the convent’s cloister and striving to think of the Mystery and thus redirect her focus toward the Lord’s will and away from Father Dominic’s smile, his luxurious, wavy black hair, and his broad shoulders.
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and asked Mary to intercede for her. She focused more deeply on the prayer, praying not for strength to overcome the impure thoughts but to have them instead removed from her. She took a breath and thought about Father Dominic’s expressive eyes. They were radiant, his eyes, and—
A loud shriek interrupted both her prayer and her thoughts. She jumped to her feet with a yelp, the rosary clattering to the floor underneath her. She heard footfalls outside in the cloister, and fear stiffened her like a board.
Stay here, her mind whispered. Stay here and whatever it is will go away.
She very nearly followed her own advice, but another shriek sounded and this time she recognized the voice.
“Sister Luisa?” she called, leaping to her feet. She still stood but another cry moved her, and she forced herself to step from the room into the cloister, in spite of the pounding in her heart. “Sister Luisa, are you all…”
Her voice trailed off when she saw Sister Luisa stumbling toward her. “Madre di Dio proteggici,” Victoria whispered. Luisa’s hands clutched her abdomen, and her eyes were wide and bloodshot. Blood trickled from the corners of her mouth and both nostrils, and she swayed drunkenly as she approached. She opened her mouth to scream again, and when she did, a gob of blood flew from her mouth and landed on Sister Victoria’s habit.
Her eyes met Sister Victoria’s and the latter stared in horror as they lost their focus and slowly rolled backwards in Sister Luisa’s head. The injured nun collapsed to her knees, and her eyes grew focused again but just long enough to look imploringly at her friend before again growing dull. Sister Luisa fell to the floor. This time it was Sister Victoria’s shriek that shattered the still of the night.
CHAPTER ONE
“Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.”
Special Agent Lauren Lamb stood ramrod straight and stared directly ahead as the music played and the pallbearers slowly lowered Kevin’s coffin onto the ground next to the grave. To her right, Kevin’s mother and sister wept bitterly and clung to his father, whose own tears fell steadily as he tried and failed to maintain a brave face for his family. To her left, her own sister dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief in between trembling gazes of empathy cast Lauren’s way that Lauren ignored.
Lauren’s own eyes were dry. There was no point in weeping any more than she already had. It wouldn’t assuage her grief and it certainly wouldn’t bring Kevin back. She’d heard of people growing numb in the midst of their grief. She’d heard of them losing the ability to feel and becoming more a detached observer than a victim of the emotion. She wondered if those at the funeral might imagine that was her. It wasn’t. Lauren wasn’t numb. The grief weighed on her with just as much weight as before and the anger grew as well.
The priest stepped to the podium and began to speak. “It is never easy to say goodbye to one we love. Though we as Catholics understand that death is not the end of life but merely the journey from this life to the next, the knowledge that a gulf now separates us from the one we shared so much with is the greatest burden anyone in this life will ever have to bear. I will not tell you, my friends, to ignore your grief or to replace it with joy and celebration. I will only remind you in the midst of your grief to remember that this truly is only the beginning. Our son, our brother…” he met Lauren’s eyes “…our husband, is now in the arms of his Savior and His Holy Mother. We will see him again one day.”
Lauren kept her gaze stoic and allowed both her own and Kevin’s relatives to place comforting arms around her. She knew the priest’s words would comfort them, but they held little comfort for her. She doubted seriously that Kevin was anywhere right now. If he was, then considering God’s track record, Lauren doubted seriously that he was anywhere better than he was before Fiero killed him. She’d long stopped giving credence to the things she’d been taught in that regard.
A stab of pain shot down her left leg, but she clenched her jaw and ignored it. Doctor Hope had warned her that she would experience fleeting jolts of pain for years to come, possibly for the rest of her life. The doctor stressed that it was nothing to worry about. Lauren was heal ed physically, but the memory of her injury could sometimes cause the nerves to react as though she was still injured.
Phantom pain. She’d heard about it before, pain amputees sometimes felt for limbs that no longer existed. Doctor Hope, and what a name that was, told her it could occur in people who sustained injuries regardless of amputation. Shooting, burning, stabbing sensations. Those were the most commonly reported pains. Just her luck, they typically occurred all at once for her.
According to Hope, the brain could continue to receive signals from nerves that were no longer connected to the missing or healed body part. It was those signals that triggered the sensation of pain, even though there was no actual injury or damage present. It would likely be a part of her life forever.
Well, Kevin got it worse, didn’t he? Fiero had only broken her back. He had killed Kevin.
The music began to play and the gravediggers slowly began to lower Kevin’s coffin into the ground. His mother and sister began to wail loudly and her sister squeezed her arm as she wept.
Lauren’s eyes remained dry.
As the coffin slowly descended, Lauren felt another stab of pain through her left leg, accompanied by a cold wet feeling in her lower back that made her skin crawl. The wound had healed, but a small, rope-like scar at the base of her spine reminded her of the impact of Fiero’s sledgehammer.
The worst part was how she had screamed. It was an animalistic sound, a visceral shriek that she didn’t even recognize as her own voice. Every wall she’d put up, every ounce of strength her training had given her evaporated instantly as the hammer shattered her vertebra and temporarily paralyzed her from the waist down.
It almost wasn’t temporary. She was lucky Wolf was there and able to get her to a hospital quickly. If one of the bone fragments had ended up a centimeter to the left, she would be attending her fiancé’s funeral in a wheelchair.
And if Lauren hadn’t been the agent to break open the Sledgehammer case, she wouldn’t be attending her fiancé’s funeral at all.
Fiero intended to kill her. Probably still did. He had his sledgehammer raised, prepared to bring it down on Lauren’s head, when Wolf shot him. The last thing Lauren remembered before the pain caused her to lose consciousness was the rage on Fiero’s face just before he fled the building.
Well, he’d slaked his rage. Lauren was protected by a bodyguard detail and a full squad of police officers in the hospital, but Kevin hadn’t merited protection. He was, after all, only her fiancé, not yet her husband and not yet entitled to the protection due close family members.
Lauren hadn’t seen Kevin’s body after the attack. She identified him by his left hand, which bore a small tan birthmark on his palm just above the wrist. She had seen the crime scene photos and that was as close as she wanted to come to the carnage Fiero had left.
“He went quickly,” the coroner reassured her, “probably didn’t even know what hit him.”
He hadn’t met her eyes when he said that. He was attempting to be kind and she imagined under other circumstances, circumstances not involving the man she loved being tortured to death, she might have appreciated it. Lauren had been an investigator long enough to know from the photos that Kevin had not gone quickly. The mortal blow was the last one Fiero had struck. At least Fiero had ensured Lauren wouldn’t have to see the expression on his face.
The coffin settled into the grave and fresh hysterics ensued when the gravediggers solemnly began to spade the dirt over the love of her life. She glanced at the stoic faces of the gravediggers and to her eyes, they seemed bored rather than somber. A scintillating beam of white-hot anger shot through her. They didn’t care. Why would they? This was only a job to them. They played a role, but underneath their grim faces, they were probably already wondering how many DeGrom would strike out while pitching tonight, or whether the hot bartender would finally give them a chance.
Anger. It was easier than grief. That had been part of her training; she was taught not to expect the next of kin to react in any particular way. Grief was common but so was silence and so was anger. The psychologist who taught the session said anger was, in fact, as common a visible response as tears or sadness. Sometimes people subconsciously substituted anger for grief because it felt more powerful and easier to express. Anger provided a sense of control over a situation while grief felt overwhelming and uncontrollable.
She wasn’t special. Anger made it easier to deal with her loss. The anger passed as quickly as it came. She couldn’t expect them to understand. Kevin wasn’t their lover.
She endured the half hour of condolences and tears and even managed to offer some of her own to Kevin’s family. She agreed to meet her sister for lunch the next day and promised to call if she needed anything, anything at all.
She wouldn’t call. Her sister couldn’t give her what she needed.
Finally, it was only Lauren and the priest. Father… she forgot his name.
Father whoever-he-was smiled kindly at her and said, “Know that the Holy Spirit looks down on you, Lauren. I know this is the wrong time to mention this—” but he would mention it anyway, of course “—but we would love to see you at Mass this Sunday. God never forsakes His children.”
She scoffed at that before she could stop herself. The Father—Clarence, that was his name—smiled sadly but didn’t press further. He quietly packed his effects and left, not before laying an entirely unwelcome, comforting hand on her shoulder.
She stared at the grave with its white marble tombstone, the only record of the most beautiful life she had ever known.
When she first heard of Kevin’s death, she wanted revenge. She sustained herself with images of Fiero’s head smashed in by the same hammer he used to kill Kevin, telling herself how sweet it would be when she could snuff Fiero’s candle out the way he had snuffed Kevin.
Now, though…
She turned finally and walked from the grave. A black town car waited at the cul-de-sac near the entrance to the cemetery. Typical. Carson had a flair for the dramatic. She wondered if he was wearing his wraparound mirror sunglasses as well.
He was. He got out of the car and opened the door for Lauren, saying nothing at first, only nodding professionally. She got in the car, but when Carson returned to the other side and reached for the start button, she said, “Don’t bother, I’m driving myself home.”
He lowered his hand and said, “Wolf has a lead on Fiero. They found a ticket stub at the apartment after…” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, it looks like he fled to San Francisco. I’ve already called the Field Office out there.”
“San Francisco’s a big city, Carson,” she responded.
“Yeah, well, so is Houston, and we found him here.”
“Yeah? How did that work out for us?”
“Hey, Lauren?” Carson shifted in his seat to stare at her. “We’re going to catch this prick. I promise you. We’re going to find this asshole, and if we’re lucky, we’ll have a few minutes alone with him when no one’s watching us. People won’t bat an eye if you claim self-defense and put a bullet in his eye.”
Lauren laughed softly, bitterly. “Kevin will still be dead if I do that. My father will still be dead.”
Carson lowered his gaze and pressed his lips together.
Fiero hadn’t killed her father. Nope. That was good old-fashioned lung cancer. Five years in remission, then they found a lump next to his heart. Two months later, he was gone.
She recalled the pain in his voice when he called her and asked to see her before he “passed on.” Worse, she recalled how he tried to hide the pain when she told him she couldn’t leave the hospital for another six weeks—too late for him, far too late. He reassured her that it was all right, that she shouldn’t feel guilty, but what was she supposed to feel?
“It wasn’t your fault, Lauren,” Carson said.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?” she snapped, so loudly that Carson flinched. “That’s great, Carson, it’s not my fault. Fucking wonderful. My father died alone, and my fiancé was literally beaten to death with a sledgehammer, but it’s not my fault, so what? I should just move on? I should just let it go?”
