Under Devil's Snare (Under Series Book 2)

by S. Y. Thompson

  The sugar kick was just the thing she needed. Lee polished off the whole pastry before turning from Main Street onto Blue Mountain Road headed toward the house. She chased the sugar bomb with a healthy sip of the mocha and the chocolate added to her rush. For the first time all morning, she forgot about the cross words with Jamison and enjoyed the wind in her hair. The drive back to Mafdet would only take about ten minutes.

  Maybe she’d take Cleo over to St. Regis Mountain for the morning. The beagle loved to play in the small creek up there. Cleo still wasn’t comfortable with Lee’s alter ego and they were working on the situation. It made sense the dog wouldn’t be completely at ease around a jungle cat, but the beast was part of Lee now and it was important to her that Cleo make peace with that fact. The quiet of St. Regis would allow her to expose the beagle to her cat again.

  Lee noticed a sign indicating a sharp curve ahead and tapped the brakes. The Mercedes did not respond. Lee tried again and the brake pedal sank to the floor. The car picked up speed as she headed downhill and into the turn. Her heart hammered against her ribs. Lee gripped the steering wheel with both hands and pressed the pedal against the floorboard as hard as she could with her Panthera enhanced strength. It was a waste of time. She sailed into the turn at full speed. The car tipped onto the two outside tires and barely managed to retain traction. Lee couldn’t help notice the sharp drop-offs on each side of the elevated pavement.

  An alternating turn around the next bend caused the vehicle to bounce down hard onto all four tires as she negotiated the curve. She managed to stay square on the roadway though she drifted onto the oncoming lane. A lone vehicle was headed straight at her and she could hear the other driver’s horn blaring a quarter of a mile away. Lee wrestled with the wheel and navigated back into the proper lane with only inches to spare between herself and the other car. As she passed the frightened driver, Lee had the impression of a single female occupant whose mouth hung open in astonishment.

  The fun wasn’t over yet. Blue Mountain Road zigzagged at this stretch like a snake and there were several more curves before it straightened out again. Lee wanted to believe that the Mercedes could handle the turns even without brakes, but combined with her speed it simply wasn’t so. She noted the caution sign suggesting twenty-five miles per hour at the next bend and glanced instinctively at the speedometer. A fatalistic sense of dread swept over her when she saw the vehicle’s current velocity. Somehow, the Mercedes had crept up to sixty-two.

  Lee hit the curve, gritted her teeth and tried to ride out the storm. The Mercedes skittered a little as it slid off the shoulder and slammed into the guardrail. Metal shrieked, the car shuddered and she felt it begin to slow. She shot past the barrier and the vehicle left the roadway entirely. Here, the shoulder fell sharply away, becoming a drop of about fifteen feet. Strapped in by the seatbelt, Lee sailed over the ditch and watched as the front of the car dipped toward the ground. She heard the crash as the bumper impacted granite and turf, felt the bridge of her nose strike the steering wheel even as the airbag exploded and punched her in the face. The car flipped forward into the air, but she couldn’t see anything.

  Suddenly, the Mercedes slammed into an immovable object and Lee felt her knees hit the dash. Motion ceased and Lee rejoiced that she wasn’t crushed under the weight of the car. For only a second, she smelled spilled mocha. Then something hard struck the back of her head and everything went dark.

  Chapter Five

  “CAPTAIN KESSLER, YOU have a call on line one.”

  Jamison stifled her first response, which was to snap at her secretary for interfering with her brooding session. She wasn’t in the mood to be polite right now. All she’d thought of the last two hours was how she’d allowed Lee to leave the house with anger simmering between them. To make matters worse, Hex hadn’t contacted her for two days and Macke seemed to have fallen into a black hole. Every time Jamison called the sheriff’s office, the dispatcher told her Macke was in the field. All in all, it was shaping up to be a hell of a day.

  “Can’t you handle whatever it is, Jeanie?” Jamison asked through the tenuous connection of a speaker phone.

  “I don’t think so. She says her name is Lindsay Drake and it’s about Lee.”

  The hair stood up on the back of her neck and Jamison dropped her feet to the floor from where they rested on her desk. She reached for the handset. “Thanks, Jeanie, I’ve got it.” Jamison pressed the flashing button and connected the call. “Lindsay, this is Captain Kessler. What’s wrong?”

  Lindsay stammered a little. “M...maybe nothing, ma’am, but I had a bad dream about the Kadin. Only I don’t think it was a dream, you know?”

  Perplexed, Jamison worked through the ramifications. Lindsay shared a spiritual connection with Lee and they spent a lot of time together. On top of that, Lindsay had experienced visions on and off since she was very young. Jamison had to trust that she had reason to worry.

  “Exactly what did you see?”

  “I just remember that she was driving her gold car and she had an accident.”

  Jamison felt the air whoosh out of her lungs. She took a deep breath and asked, “How bad of an accident? Was it a tire blowout or did she break down somewhere?”

  “No, not like that.” Lindsay’s voice grew more confident as they spoke and Jamison could hear her concern. “She crashed.”

  “Lindsay, this is important.” Jamison swallowed against a suddenly dry throat. “Do you know when or if the accident has happened yet? Was it day or night in your dream?”

  “Geez, Captain Kessler, I’m not a crystal ball. But I can tell you it was daytime and it felt like it already happened. I tried to call her, but it keeps going to voicemail.”

  Jamison was already out of her chair and reaching for the Range Rover’s keys. Lee only shut off the phone when actually on a shoot. There was nothing like that planned for the day and Lee would have answered Lindsay’s call. She wasn’t the type to ignore someone to whom she had a responsibility.

  “Can you tell me anything that might pinpoint where she is?”

  “No, I just kept seeing one of those yellow road signs shaped like a triangle. It said twenty-five, like a speed limit for one of the curves around here.”

  Jamison’s eyes closed briefly. Harmon sat amidst the Adirondack Mountains and there were numerous winding roads with speed limit cautions. If it was anyone but her partner concerned, Jamison wouldn’t know where to start. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. She easily pictured the spot Lindsay spoke of because she knew Lee’s plans for the day included a run into the post office. The area Lindsay mentioned was on the return trip from Harmon to Mafdet, less than four miles from the house.

  “I’m on my way to check on her now, Lindsay. You did the right thing in calling me.”

  Jamison ended the call and zipped out of the office, aware of Jeanie’s curious expression but too worried to stop and explain. She drove recklessly, far beyond the speed limit and way past caring about such mundane things as breaking human laws. Her mate was threatened and that was all that mattered. Normally a fifteen minute drive from the park office, Jamison closed in on the area inside of eight. One look at the black and white patrol units blocking traffic from both sides told her it was more than just a fender bender. An ambulance had parked as far as possible onto the shoulder, but the driver’s side still occupied part of the highway. No one was in the vehicle that Jamison could see.

  “Oh Great Mother, please.”

  Grateful that the deputies had stopped the traffic, Jamison pulled into the empty oncoming lane and gunned the engine. She drove onto the miniscule shoulder beside a crumpled guardrail, shoved the vehicle into park and leapt out. Leaving the door open, Jamison plunged over the side of the roadway and down the slope toward Lee’s ruined Mercedes. The front of the vehicle had folded back in on itself and rested against the trunk of a massive tree. There was no part of the car that remained dent-free. It didn’t take a mechanic to see that the vehicle was totaled. />
  The convertible top was down and Sheriff Macke and two other uniformed officers surrounded the car and seemed to be trying to get someone out. EMS was on scene, a man and a woman, lending their efforts. Jamison spotted a large red trauma kit resting on the grass near the crash site.

  She sprinted up the other side of the ditch and over to where she assumed Lee was pinned inside the car. An officer looked up, saw Jamison and spoke a few words to Macke. Macke glanced over her shoulder, met her eye and took a step toward her.

  “Slow down, Kessler. Ms. Grayson is unconscious, but alive. A passing motorist saw the whole thing and called nine-one-one.”

  “We have to get her out.”

  “What do you think we’re trying to do? The seatbelt’s stuck.”

  Jamison ignored her aggravated tone and resisted the impulse to rip the offending restraint from her lover. Lee’s head rested against the door. Blood coated her face and soaked into her shirt. Her nose sat off center, clearly broken, and there was a laceration across the bridge of it. Her cheeks and the area under her eyes were already starting to blacken. Jamison’s fingers trembled when she reached out to stroke Lee’s face.

  “Oh honey, I’m so sorry,” she said quietly.

  “Here,” Sheriff Macke said. “Try this.”

  She handed a folding pocketknife over Jamison’s shoulder. Though the blade proved quite sharp, Jamison still had to saw through the thick strap. When it abruptly let go, Jamison passed the knife back to Macke and started to lean inside the vehicle to lift Lee over the door. One of the EMS technicians stopped her.

  “Ma’am, don’t. She might have internal injuries. We need to get a c-collar on her and try to prevent further damage. Please, step back and allow us to do our jobs.”

  Jamison struggled against the urge to lash out. Her beast insisted that she chase all of these strangers away from her mate and take Lee somewhere safe, even if it required slaughtering a half dozen people. Jamison felt a rumble start deep in her chest, too low a decibel for humans to hear.

  A strong hand clamped on her shoulder and sharply pulled Jamison around. Sheriff Macke grabbed her by the upper arms and shook her, hard. “Stop it.” Her voice was low and harsh, directly in Jamison’s ear as Sam pulled her close. “Get yourself under control before you do something you’ll regret.”

  The appeal to her higher reasoning worked, for the most part. Jamison clenched her teeth and beat back the desire to shift. Her teeth felt longer and her vision had sharpened considerably. She closed her eyes to hide the partial change and concentrated on drawing deep, even breaths. After a few beats, she stepped away from Macke and nodded once.

  “I’m good. Thanks.” Her voice sounded rough, but otherwise Jamison was in control. She could hear Lee’s strong heartbeat and steady breathing.

  By the time she turned back, the EMTs had snapped a cervical collar around Lee’s neck for support. They lifted her gently out of the vehicle, over the door and straight onto a backboard in case of spinal injury. After strapping her down, the female technician started an I.V. Her partner approached Jamison to ask for Lee’s age and any known medical issues and then returned to Lee’s side.

  Working quickly and efficiently, the two stabilized Lee for transport to Harmon Medical Center. Once they had Lee secured onto the board, Jamison announced that she would ride with Lee in the ambulance. This time it was the female technician, Amy according to her nametag, who contradicted her.

  “I’m sorry ma’am but there’s no room for a passenger. We could use some help getting our patient to the blacktop though.”

  “Lee, her name is Lee.”

  Amy raised an eyebrow in response and Jamison grunted in irritation. Did she intimidate no one? Pushing aside the exasperation, Jamison acknowledged that the ambulance attendant was right. Regardless of her personal protective feelings, Lee was the priority and she refused to become an impediment to the trauma team.

  The terrain prevented them from wheeling Lee upon a gurney to the pavement. “We’ll have to carry her on the backboard,” Jamison announced. “Everyone grab a side.”

  Jamison took a front corner handle while Amy took the other side. The other EMT took the rear along with one of Macke’s officers. The remaining deputy took the lead carrying the trauma kit. Sheriff Macke walked beside Jamison, ostensibly ready to jump in if necessary. After a bit of struggle and all hands working together, they lifted Lee across the ravine and up the incline. With Lee finally on the gurney, they loaded her into the ambulance. It dismayed Jamison that she had yet to regain consciousness and her chest hurt when the doors slammed between them.

  “You’re in no condition to drive,” Sheriff Macke said. “I’ll take you over to the hospital and have a uniform bring your car.”

  “I told you I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not. We need to talk anyway.” Macke turned to her crew of deputies, forestalling any reply Jamison would make. “Let that traffic through. Gomez, I need you to drive the Park Services vehicle over to the hospital and leave it in the parking lot. Give the key to the charge nurse.”

  “On it, Sheriff.” Gomez pegged another deputy to follow in a cruiser so he’d have a ride back to the office.

  Macke gave further instructions for someone to call a tow truck. Jamison chafed to get moving and started for the sheriff’s car, hoping that her impatience would communicate itself. As they drove away from the scene Jamison forgot about Macke’s announcement that they needed to talk. She was more concerned with Lee.

  “The Mercedes will be towed to Wally Hunter’s garage.”

  “Sheriff, the last thing I’m worried about is the insurance company. I don’t think filing a claim is all that important at the moment.”

  Sam’s irritation was clear in the glance she leveled at Jamison. “I’m also posting a couple of guards on it, just in case.”

  Jamison’s teeth clenched together to prevent her gasp of surprise. “You think this is related to our case?”

  “I think this is related to that little delivery your partner received last week.”

  “Hex had no right to tell you about that,” Jamison began.

  “You’re right. She didn’t,” Macke snapped. “You should have told me. We had an agreement that we would work together and share any pertinent information.”

  “How could I possibly know if that was related? And you’re leaping to conclusions, don’t you think?” Jamison didn’t really believe that. Now that Sheriff Macke had pointed it out, the car wreck did seem a little too concomitant. The floral delivery last week presented a clear threat, they just hadn’t known toward whom. On the heels of Lee’s accident that answer now seemed evident.

  “Maybe, but I don’t believe in coincidence.”

  Jamison thought quietly about everything that had been going on for the last month. There were many unexplained happenings, but she found it hard to fathom it was all interconnected. “You realize this might have nothing to do with the killings. We might actually have two separate crimes in progress.”

  “What, you think your girlfriend has a stalker?”

  “It’s possible. Think about it. Lee is a well-known nature photographer for magazines and documentaries. She even sells her prints at galleries. She’s been all over the world. Isn’t it within the realm of possibility that someone, completely separate from the murders, has fixated on her?”

  With that question to chew on, the two rode the rest of the way in silence. Jamison watched the back of the ambulance, feeling a small measure of her tension drain when the vehicle pulled into the hospital’s emergency entrance. Triage nurses and orderlies already waited for the technicians to unload their patient. The sheriff pulled into the lot and as soon as Macke slowed enough, Jamison opened the car door.

  “Hey, wait a minute!”

  Macke slammed on the brakes and Jamison struggled with the sudden shift in momentum before bailing out of the car. She had the courtesy to push the door closed behind her and then jogged across the parking lot tow
ard the ambulance. Jamison was there before the gurney wheels locked into place.

  “Is she awake yet?”

  “Ma’am, you need to step back and let us do our jobs.” The nurse stood a full head shorter than Jamison but stepped in front of her without hesitation.

  Each time Jamison tried to go around her, the woman blocked her path. “Let me through.”

  The nurse let her by only when the team of emergency personnel pushed Lee into the hospital entrance. Jamison pursued, her eyes pinned on Lee’s pale face. She had almost reached her side when the gurney passed through a doorway and another body moved into her path. Everyone seemed intent on keeping her from her mate’s side and this was the last straw.

  “Get out of the way!” Jamison grabbed hold of the white-coated figure, intending to push them aside, but had little luck against the other person’s strength.

  “Jamison Marie Kessler, stop it this instant.”

  She looked up into a familiar face. Jamison hadn’t considered that she would run into her mother here, but Darlene Kessler was Harmon Medical Center’s chief surgeon. “I need to see her.”

  “Not right now,” Darlene stated succinctly. “She’ll need full body x-rays and a CAT scan for starters and you cannot be in there for that. You’ll just be in the way. We also need to determine if she has any internal injuries. I’m sorry, honey, but you’ll have to wait until we know more.”

  “Mom, we...we had an argument this morning.” Jamison felt tears in her eyes. “It was stupid, over nothing and I never had the chance to say I’m sorry.”

  Darlene took her hand and squeezed gently. “You’ll tell her later. You just have to have patience and let us help her. Jamison, you know better than anyone how resilient our people are, but that’s going to do her little good if you prevent us from treating some major injury because we’re too busy trying to restrain you. Please, let us do what we do best.”

  Jamison felt miserable but nodded her understanding. She could only stand there helplessly as her mother entered the triage area and the double doors swung closed.