See Her Die

by Leigh, Melinda

  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.”

  “Let’s check around back first.” Bree led the way to the front corner of the cabin. They stuck close to the building. Bree stopped beneath a window too high for either one of them to see inside. She motioned for Rogers to give her a boost. He cupped his hands. Bree stepped into them and peered over the windowsill, ready to duck if someone pointed a gun at her face.

  The shooter could be anywhere.

  She could see into the main room, a combination kitchen and living area. A wood-framed couch and chair had been pulled away from the fireplace to make room for a sleeping bag. In the fireplace, embers glowed pale orange under a heavy layer of gray-and-black ash. A backpack stood nearby, zipped and ready to go.

  Stepping down, she shook her head and whispered, “Empty, but someone is squatting here.”

  “Not the first time,” said Rogers.

  They continued around to the back of the cabin. Multiple sets of footprints led to and from the covered rear porch, across fifty feet of open ground, to the woods. Still, they saw no body, no blood, no shooter.

  Bree rounded the next corner. The shore of Grey Lake lay approximately a hundred feet to the south of the cabin, and she could see the flat, opaque surface of the frozen water through the winter-bare trees.

  They halted next to another window and repeated the leg-up procedure. The single bedroom also appeared empty.

  She stepped down. In a low voice, she said, “There are two closed doors.”

  Rogers nodded. “Closet and bathroom.”

  A bird screeched, but the woods were otherwise silent.

  Bree led the way back around toward the front of the cabin.

  She stopped next to the porch steps and scanned the surrounding woods. “Where are they?”

  Rogers lifted and dropped a tense shoulder. “The call could have been a prank.”

  “I don’t like the setup.” Goose bumps rippled up Bree’s arms. Her instincts screamed that something was wrong. In her early patrol years, she and her partner had responded to an odd call. They’d been ambushed by a gang and had been lucky to escape without any extra holes. Now, possible ambush scenarios played through her mind. “Could also be a trap.”

  With a cool eye, Rogers acknowledged her point with another jerky shrug. Regardless of the danger, they were going in. They stepped onto the porch and flanked the door. Bree tried the knob. It turned, and the door opened with a squeal of rusty hinges.

  Bree crossed the threshold first and swung to her left. Rogers angled to the right. Bree swept her weapon from corner to corner. Dust motes hung suspended in the pale light that poured in through the window. Her side of the room was empty. No large furniture or doors for anyone to hide behind.

  “Clear,” she said.

  Rogers echoed, “Clear.”

  She returned to Rogers’s side, and they approached the open bedroom door shoulder to shoulder. The room was empty. Bree crossed the rough plank floor to one of the two closed doors. She pulled a flashlight from her pocket. Standing to the side, she opened the door and shone her flashlight inside. There was no one in the small bathroom.

  “Clear,” she said.

  Rogers crouched to check under the bed. “Clear.”

  One closed door remained.

  Rogers was closest. He flung the door open and aimed his gun into the doorway. A scream split the air.

  Bree’s heart lurched. She pointed her flashlight into the closet. At the rear of the small space, a teenage girl stood clutching a short-handled ax in one hand and a cell phone in the other. She was pressed into the corner, and she looked as if she was trying to be as small as possible. In the eerie light, her face was as white as the snow outside, and tears streaked her face.

  “Drop the ax!” Rogers shouted.

  Sobbing, the girl opened her fingers and raised her hands in front of her face. She cringed. The ax and phone clattered to the floor.

  “Push the ax away from you!” he commanded.

  The girl obeyed, nudging the ax with her foot. Outside, sirens marked the arrival of additional deputies.

  Rogers backed up. “Come out slowly! Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  The girl emerged from the small space, her movements uneven and shaky. She was tall, probably eighteen or nineteen years old, dressed in worn jeans, boots, and a dirty parka. Long dark hair tumbled in a thick tangle from under a knit cap, and she looked like it had been a while since she’d showered. She moved toward them. “Y-you have to help her. He shot her. He shot Harper.”

  “Stop right there!” Rogers angled off, aiming his gun at her.

  She blinked at Rogers and then Bree. “Did you find Harper?”

  “Who’s Harper?” Bree asked.

  “My friend.” The girl wiped her eyes.

  “Keep those hands visible,” Rogers shouted again.

  The girl raised them over her head. “No. You don’t understand.” Her voice rose and broke. “A man shot Harper.”

  Rogers rushed forward. He holstered his weapon, then jerked her hands behind her back and cuffed her. He spun her around so fast she almost went down. “Where’s the shooter? Where’s the victim?”

  “I don’t know!” the girl cried. “But Harper was shot. Why aren’t you looking for her? Why are you arresting me?”

  “Because you were carrying the ax,” Rogers said.

  She shook her head. “It was all I had to protect myself.”

  “From whom?” Bree asked.

  “From the man who shot Harper.” The girl’s tone sharpened with frustration.

  “Your friend Harper was staying here with you?” Bree asked.

  “Yes,” the girl said. As the female officer on scene, and not liking Rogers’s rough handling of the girl, Bree moved in to search her pockets and person. She found a small folding multi-tool, but no weapons. For now, she’d bag the tool, the ax, and the girl’s phone as evidence.

  Opening the phone, Bree verified the girl was the 911 caller. “What’s your name?”

  “Alyssa Vincent,” she said. Her face twisted in confusion and fear.

  “And your friend’s name?” Bree asked.

  “Harper. Harper Scott.”

  Rogers yanked her toward the door. She resisted Rogers’s attempt to move her. He pulled harder. The toe of her boot caught on a raised floorboard, and she stumbled and pitched forward. With no hands to block her fall, she hit the floor face-first.

  Bree glanced at Rogers. He was breathing hard. His
face was flushed, and sweat gleamed on his forehead. Adrenaline overload? Could he not handle the stress? He was an avid hunter, but deer didn’t shoot back at you. The girl was unarmed, handcuffed, and clearly no longer a threat, but he didn’t seem to register that information. Was something wrong with him? He seemed off. Bree had worked with him for only a few weeks. She didn’t have enough personal experience with him to make a judgment on his behavior.

  Bree motioned Rogers to back off, then helped the girl to her feet. “Where did the shooting happen?”

  The girl led them back into the main room. Red-and-blue strobe lights pulsed through the window.

  “Out there.” Alyssa turned to the rear window and inclined her head toward the view. “On the ice. Behind the cabin next door. A scream woke me up. I couldn’t find Harper. I went outside to look for her. That’s when I saw him shoot her. She fell.” The girl’s words flowed over one another. “And she didn’t get up. He saw me, and I ran.”

  “How many times did he fire his weapon?” Bree asked.

  “Twice,” Alyssa said with no hesitation.

  “Describe him,” Bree said.

  Alyssa closed her eyes, as if trying to picture him in her mind. “Tall, dark pants, boots, dark coat. He was wearing a hat.”

  “Could you see the color of his hair or eyes?”

  The girl shook her head. “The hat covered his hair, and it was too dark to see his eyes.”

  Two deputies came through the front door; one of them was Bree’s second-in-command, Chief Deputy Todd Harvey.

  Bree handed the girl over to the second deputy. “Put her in your vehicle and watch her.”

  She signaled to Rogers. “Let’s check out the lake.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Rogers’s words were clipped.

  Bree scanned the snow. Somewhere in the forest, a victim was bleeding.

  And a shooter was on the loose.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Let’s go, Greta.” Matt Flynn waved a hand, directing the pure-black German shepherd toward the next obstacle on the homemade agility course. The approaching dawn brightened the horizon. Snow flew from under the dog’s feet.

  Greta pricked her ears and sprinted for the plastic tunnel. Her body was lean and sleek as she zoomed across the snow. She raced through, emerging out the other side at top speed and looking to Matt for his next command.

  He headed for the next obstacle, a crate pushed in front of a four-feet-tall section of wooden fence. Matt motioned for Greta to go over it. The dog leaped onto the crate and scaled the fence in one smooth motion. Matt called her back, and she repeated the jump from the other side. He dangled her tug toy, and she latched on to it.

  “Good girl!” Matt swung her around in a circle. She held on. The dog landed, tail wagging, loving every minute of their game. Extreme tug was her favorite at the moment.

  “I can’t believe her transformation,” a familiar voice called.

  Matt turned toward the voice.

  His sister, Cady, stood at the edge of the yard, her hands propped on her hips. The spotlight mounted on the back of Matt’s house shone on her strawberry-blonde ponytail. “I’m amazed with what you’ve done with her. She was rejected by two families.”

  Cady operated a dog rescue organization. As a former K-9 handler with the sheriff’s department, Matt was specially equipped to deal with her more challenging rescues, including Greta.

  “People buy puppies because they’re cute without any knowledge of the breed characteristics. Herding dogs are bred to work. They get bored easily.” Matt commanded the dog to release the toy. When she dropped it, he stuffed it into the leg pocket of his cargo pants. “She is super smart.”

  Probably smarter than the people who returned her.

  “Do you think she’ll calm down?” Cady asked.

  “Honestly, I don’t know. She’s a year old and still high maintenance.” Matt looked down at the dog. Greta stood at attention, her huge black ears still pricked forward, her focus entirely fixed on Matt. She was ready for the next game. “I wouldn’t call her excitable. Driven is a better word. I’m not sure it’s a trait she’ll outgrow.”

  A few seconds of unnatural silence passed. Matt’s instincts went on alert. His sister was never quiet.

  “I need to ask you a favor,” Cady said.

  “The last time you said that, you took over my kennel.” Matt and his K-9 partner, Brody, had been caught in the cross fire between the sheriff’s department and a drug dealer. Injuries had ended both of their careers. With his settlement from the county, Matt had bought the property and built a kennel to train K-9s. He’d intended to import dogs from Germany, but Cady had “temporarily” filled the kennel with overflows from her dog rescue. Three years later, the kennel was still full of homeless dogs, and Matt hadn’t made any progress getting his business started.

  Cady turned both palms up in a sorry-not-sorry gesture.

  Matt snapped the leash onto Greta’s collar. “What do you need?”

  She gestured toward the kennel. Matt recognized the older woman standing next to Cady’s minivan. In her seventies, with a head of fluffy white curls and a hearing aid, Mrs. Whitney fostered senior dogs for Cady’s rescue. Since most of the animals Mrs. Whitney took in were unadoptable due to age and illness, Cady referred to her house as a small-dog hospice. Usually, she was energetic for her age. Today, her posture was stiff, and she was clenching her hands together.

  “What’s wrong with Mrs. Whitney?” he asked.

  “She reported her grandson missing.”

  “Eli?” Matt had never met him, but Mrs. Whitney talked about him all the time, and there were about a thousand pictures of the university student in her house.

  “Yes.” Cady’s brow furrowed. “She’s really worried. Could you find out what’s happening with the case? She can’t hear well, and she gets confused.”

  “I don’t work for the sheriff’s department anymore.”

  Cady pursed her lips. “But you must still have friends in the department.”

  Friends?

  Matt suppressed a snort. “You do remember I was shot by friendly fire.”

  Officially, the incident had been labeled an accident, but Matt’s relationship with the sheriff’s department was strained.

  “But you’re close to the new sheriff,” Cady suggested.

  “I haven’t seen her since she became sheriff.”

  Matt and Bree were supposed to have dinner a few weeks ago, but she’d canceled. He hoped she was just busy.

  Cady’s eyes begged. “Please, just listen to Mrs. Whitney.”

  Matt sighed. “You know I will.”

  They walked over to Mrs. Whitney.

  The wind kicked up across the yard, and Mrs. Whitney shivered. “Thank you so much for helping.”

  Matt held up a hand. “Come inside. I haven’t had my coffee yet.”

  Greta needed exercise immediately upon being freed from her crate in the morning. Otherwise, she tormented Brody. Matt commanded her to heel in German, and they walked toward the house. Greta fell into step at his side, glancing up at Matt every few strides to look for a new direction.

  Matt led the way into the kitchen. Brody sighed from his dog bed in the corner. Greta made a beeline for the older dog, dropped her shoulders to the ground, and wagged her butt in the air. When Brody ignored her, she nipped at him.

  Matt commanded her to leave him alone.

  Greta stopped and glanced back at Matt as if to check whether he was serious. He maintained eye contact. Her tail drooped. She gave Brody one last killjoy look, then veered off toward the water bowl. When she was finished drinking, she plucked a black KONG toy from a wooden box in the corner and tossed it in the air.

  Matt brewed coffee.

  Cady pulled out a chair for Mrs. Whitney, then sat down. Brody got to his feet, stretched, and walked over to greet Cady. She rubbed behind his ears. “That’s my best boy. Does that youngster annoy you?”

  Brody wagged. A traditional black-a
nd-tan German shepherd, he had big brown eyes and excelled in looking pitiful. Today, he rested his head in Cady’s lap and gave her a woe is me look that could have won an Oscar.

  “Brody has traded early-morning training sessions for after-breakfast naps,” Matt said.

  Brody moved from Cady to greet Mrs. Whitney, sitting and lifting a paw with his best company manners. The older woman seemed to calm as she stroked the dog’s head.

  Matt brought three mugs to the table and sat across from Mrs. Whitney.

  “Thanks for seeing me,” she said. “I don’t know who else to ask. I’m so worried about Eli.”

  “When did he go missing?” Matt rested his forearms on his kitchen table and gave Mrs. Whitney his full attention.

  She pulled a tissue from her handbag and pressed it to her blotchy face. “Last night, he was supposed to come to my house for Sunday dinner. When he didn’t show up, I called his friends.”

  Matt cleared his throat. “I don’t want to be . . . um, indelicate, but maybe he’s with someone. Does he have a girlfriend?”

  Mrs. Whitney’s parchment-colored cheeks flushed. “No. He doesn’t have a girlfriend at the moment, and I’m well aware that a young man would rather spend a weekend with a young woman than visit his grandmother.” She blew out a loud breath through her nostrils. “But if Eli was going to cancel, he would call. He might give me a ridiculous excuse, but he’d call. He knows I worry. I called him. I texted, but he hasn’t responded. That’s not like him either.”

  Matt asked, “What about other family? Brothers, sisters—”

  “There’s no one.” Mrs. Whitney’s voice dropped to almost a whisper. “Eli is an only child. My son and his wife were killed in an auto accident when Eli was sixteen. For the last six years, it’s just been the two of us.”

  “I’m sorry.” Matt swallowed a lump of empathy the size of a basketball.

  She nodded. “His friends said he went to a party Saturday night. They asked around, and someone who was at the party saw Eli leave around one in the morning, but no one has seen him since. I called the police. An officer came and took a report, but he said what you did. Eli probably hooked up.” She said the last two words as if they were unfamiliar.