See Her Die (Bree Taggert #2)(3)

Dana Romano, Bree’s former partner at the Philadelphia PD, now retired, sat at the table reading a cookbook and drinking coffee. An early riser, she was already dressed, and her short, gray-streaked blonde hair was fashionably tousled. She lowered her coffee cup. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s been a shooting.” Bree shoved her feet into a pair of boots sitting in the rubber tray by the back door. Ladybug pressed against Bree’s legs, nearly buckling her knees. “You could give me some space,” Bree said to the dog.

“She’s really attached to you.” Dana got to her feet.

“But why?” Two months after Bree had been masterfully manipulated into adopting the rescue, she was still disconcerted by the dog’s presence. But she was pleased that the panic had ebbed. Ladybug was nothing like Bree’s father’s dogs. The chubby rescue would never maul a child. The scars on Bree’s ankle and shoulder ached with the thirty-year-old memory. Thoughts of her father and his dogs automatically led to the night her father had shot her mother and then himself. Bree had hidden her two younger siblings under the porch. She forced the past from her mind. She was on her way to stop a shooter. She couldn’t afford to be distracted.

“Maybe she knows you need her.” Dana moved toward the fancy coffee machine she’d brought from her apartment in Philly. Bree’s best friend had dropped her whole life to move to Grey’s Hollow and help raise Bree’s orphaned niece and nephew.

“No time for coffee.” Bree slipped into her winter jacket.

As usual, Dana ignored her. She poured coffee into a travel mug.

“Kayla is in my bed. If she wakes alone . . .”

Dana screwed on the lid and fished a protein bar from a drawer. “I’ll go sit with her.”

“Thank you.”

Dana handed the mug and bar to Bree and grabbed the dog’s collar. “Be careful.”

“Will do.” Bree slipped out the back door. A horse neighed from the dark barn as Bree ran along the shoveled walkway to her county-issued SUV. In upstate New York, early March was still very much winter. She slipped into the driver’s seat, shoved her coffee and protein bar into the console cup holders, and started the engine. She drove onto the main road and entered the address into the GPS. Her ETA was seven minutes. The campground wasn’t far from her house. Five minutes had passed since she’d received the call. Lights flashing, she pressed the gas pedal and cut her drive from seven minutes to six.

Bree slowed her SUV as she approached the entrance to Grey Lake Campground. She turned off the cleared main road onto the snow-covered lane that led into the campground. The lights from her vehicle swirled in red, white, and blue on the snowy ground. Beyond, the woods were dark. She saw no sign of other sheriff vehicles.

Bree was first on scene.

She reached for her radio. “Sheriff Taggert, code eleven.”

Dispatch answered, “Copy. Be advised ETA for Unit Twelve is one minute. Two additional units following in four.”

“Copy,” Bree said and let out the breath trapped in her lungs. Backup was right behind her, not that she would have waited. A possible active shooter needed to be stopped ASAP.

Her headlights illuminated tire tracks in the narrow, snow-covered lane. Did they belong to the shooter’s vehicle?

The hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention, and a rush of adrenaline cranked up her pulse. Her SUV slid through a bend in the lane and fishtailed. She steered into the skid. As soon as the tires gained traction, she pressed the gas pedal again.

Wooden signs nailed to trees directed visitors to the numbered cabins. She followed the arrows for another few minutes, driving deeper into the woods, until she spotted a sign that read CABIN TWENTY. She stopped her SUV at the end of the lane and scanned the clearing for the shooter or the victim.

She saw no one. She reached behind her seat for her Kevlar vest marked SHERIFF. She wiggled out of her jacket and donned the vest over her uniform shirt. As she kept watch through the windshield, Bree slid her arms back into her jacket, leaving it open for easy access to her weapon.

A cabin occupied the center of a clearing roughly the size of a baseball diamond. Her gaze followed a set of tire tracks. Forty feet from the cabin, the rear bumper of a gray Toyota 4Runner poked out from behind a stand of trees. One set of footprints led from the 4Runner to the cabin’s front door. There were no footprints heading back to the vehicle. Someone had gone inside.

The victim? The caller?

The shooter?

She reached for her door handle. Emergency lights pulsed in her rearview mirror. She glanced behind her. The lights of a patrol car cut through the predawn gloom. A few seconds later, the vehicle parked next to her SUV, and Deputy Jim Rogers emerged.

Bree stepped out into the cold and joined him behind his vehicle. Their breath steamed in the pale gray morning. Despite the temperature, sweat gathered under Bree’s shirt and vest.

She drew her weapon.

Rogers did the same. “We’re going in?”

“We are.” Bree had a clear view of the north side of the cabin, but she couldn’t see the south side or rear. “Have you been inside these cabins?”

“Yes.” Rogers squinted at the cabin. “This looks like a one-bedroom.” He picked up a stick, drew a rectangle in the snow, and used the stick as a pointer. “Main room. Bedroom. Bath.”