For a few precious seconds, her feet felt glued in place; then she shook off the shock, whirled, and ran.
CHAPTER TWO
Sheriff Bree Taggert reached toward her nightstand and killed the ringer on her phone. Tilting the screen, she read the display. The call was from dispatch. She glanced at her eight-year-old niece, Kayla, pressed against her side, but the child hadn’t stirred. A large white-and-black pointer mix, Ladybug, lifted her head from its resting spot on Bree’s ankle. Vader, Bree’s black cat, occupied the second pillow, as far away from the dog as he could get. The sprawling child and animals left Bree with approximately eight inches of mattress. Trying not to wake Kayla, Bree half slid, half fell out of bed. Clutching her phone, she scrambled for the bathroom before it rang again.
She closed the door and answered the call in a low voice. “Sheriff Taggert.”
“We received a 911 call reporting multiple shots fired at Grey Lake Campground.” The dispatcher gave the address.
Adrenaline blasted the grogginess from Bree’s head. A few gunshots in the woods would not rate a dark o’clock phone call to the sheriff. “Casualties?”
“One victim reported, a female. The caller, also a female, was whispering and not speaking clearly.”
“Is she still on the line?” Bree knew from personal experience that 911 operators tried to stay on the phone with callers until law enforcement arrived. She suppressed that memory before it interfered with her concentration. Her compartmentalizing skills had been working overtime since her sister had been murdered back in January.
“Negative,” the dispatcher said. “She was worried the shooter would hear and hung up.”
The banished memory resurfaced and soured Bree’s empty stomach. “How many units are responding?”
“Three. ETA for the nearest car is twelve minutes.”
Too long. They must be on the other side of the county.
The graveyard shift was bare bones in the upstate New York sheriff’s department Bree had been appointed to lead just three weeks before. Day shift wasn’t staffed much better. Her deputies were spread across the huge expanse of mostly rural Randolph County.
“I’m on my way.” Bree ended the call, swigged mouthwash straight from the bottle, spit, and slipped out of the bathroom. She opened the closet. The dog watched as Bree changed from her flannel pajamas to dark-brown tactical cargo pants, a base layer tank top, and a tan uniform shirt. After tugging on wool socks, she opened the biometric gun safe she’d mounted on the top shelf. She strapped her baby Glock to her ankle, threaded her utility belt through the loops on her pants, and added her Glock 19 to its holster.
When she’d been a Philadelphia homicide detective, she’d worn only a gun and badge. As sheriff, she didn’t need the full twenty-five pounds of standard patrol gear when she wouldn’t even leave her office most days. But she carried a few small essentials in addition to her gun: handcuffs, pepper spray, an expandable baton, and a combat tourniquet.
Two months ago, she’d seen how quickly a person could bleed to death.
As Bree headed for the door, the dog jumped off the bed. The mattress shifted and dog tags jingled. Bree held her breath, but her niece continued to snore. Ladybug followed Bree downstairs. The sun was an hour from rising, but a light glowed in the kitchen. Bree smelled fresh coffee as she rushed into the room, trying not to trip over the dog, who was far too large to be underfoot.
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.