When the Wolf Prowls: A Cimarron/Melbourne Thriller - Book Three Read online

  When the Wolf Prowls

  by

  Vanessa Prelatte

  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  When the Wolf Prowls

  by

  Vanessa Prelatte

  ©2017 H&S Underveq, LLC.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  H & S Underveq, LLC

  1525 Park Manor Blvd., STE 295

  Pittsburgh, PA 15205

  Cover art by Victoria Cooper. All rights assigned to and reserved by H&S Underveq, LLC.

  Formatting by Polgarus Studio.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 1

  It was a pity they had to die. But rules were rules, and they had broken important ones. Those who broke the rules had to pay. He had warned them, but they had ignored him. So he had imposed the consequences.

  By her actions, the new girl had shown herself to be unworthy. She had deserved to die. And Hannah? She should not have interfered. A real man ruled over his household with an iron fist. So his father had taught him. A woman was meant to be subservient in the relationship, quiet, obedient, and unassuming. Time and again, Hannah had defied him, refused to stay in her proper place. So, despite their past history, she had to go.

  He glanced at the odometer. Almost there. It was a shame that it was so far away, but it was necessary. It was the perfect place and had served him well in the past. Besides that, he needed to distance himself from the deed. One did not foul one’s own nest.

  A flicker of alarm shot through him when he glanced at the rear-view mirror and saw the red lights. He tamped the feeling down ruthlessly. Briefly, he wondered why the police car was pulling him over, for he had been careful to obey the posted speed limit. But it really didn’t matter what the reason was. He couldn’t afford to take any chances. The situation needed to be dealt with.

  He turned on his blinker and pulled over to the side of the road while simultaneously reaching for the pistol on the seat next to him. When the police officer walked up to his door, he didn’t even wait to be asked for his license and registration. He just leveled the pistol, and the sound of gunfire was sweet in his ears.

  Chapter 2

  “I’m afraid there’s been a mistake, Detective Cimarron,” the woman seated at the table stated in a soft, almost whispery voice. “I didn’t poison anyone.”

  Dawn Cimarron didn’t answer at once. Instead, she took some time to study the woman’s appearance before responding. With her smooth, golden hair, porcelain skin, and cornflower-blue eyes, Amethyst Gascoyne looked more like a a Renaissance angel than a person of interest in a suspected poisoning case, Dawn decided. However, as the veteran of the Mountpelier Police Department had good reason to know, appearances could be, and often were, deceiving.

  Dawn had been called to Mountpelier General Hospital to question the woman before she had even had time to swallow her breakfast that morning. Her partner, Sergeant Rafe Melbourne, was on his way, but for now she was alone with Amethyst Gascoyne.

  They were seated at a table in one of the offices reserved for Hospital Security. Dawn took a breath and was just about to respond to Amethyst’s protestations when the door swung open and Rafe walked in.

  After Dawn had introduced her partner to Amethyst, Rafe, who was Dawn’s senior in the Homicide Division, began the interview by saying, “Ms. Gascoyne, the woman you brought into the Emergency Room is making some fairly serious accusations about you. In fact, she has stated that you slipped some poison into her coffee when the two of you had breakfast together at a restaurant this morning.”

  “I could hardly help being aware of it, Sergeant. I was right next to her when she began making her distressing accusations. And please call me Amethyst. ‘Ms. Gascoyne’ is way too formal for me.”

  “Okay, Amethyst. Now, I understand that you used to work with the victim, Jillian Kaelar. Why do you think she accused you of poisoning her?”

  “I have no idea. I didn’t touch her coffee. Jill took a few sips of it and started complaining about stomach cramps. She excused herself and went to the ladies room. When she didn’t return immediately, I went in there to check on her. She told me that she was experiencing stomach cramps, dizziness, blurred vision, and heart palpitations. I was alarmed, so I insisted on taking her to the Emergency Room. Then, once we walked in, she started to make those wild allegations against me. She kept demanding that I keep my promise and tell the doctors what poison I used so that they could administer the antidote. Next thing I knew, hospital security appeared and whisked me off here. And here we all are.”

  “Why didn’t you call 911?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “When you realized she was really sick, why didn’t you dial 911 instead of taking her to the hospital yourself?”

  “She wouldn’t hear of it. The only way she’d consent to go to the hospital was if I drove her there myself, immediately. And since it wasn’t very far away, I figured I could get her here faster than I could by dialing 911 and waiting for an ambulance.”

  “What did you make of her accusations that you’d poisoned her? Any idea why she’d make such a claim?”

  “Not a clue. All I can figure is that whatever was causing her other symptoms was also causing her to hallucinate. And by the way, how is she doing? I haven’t heard anything about her condition since Security brought me up here.”

  “They’re still running tests on her. There’s no official diagnosis yet.”

  “Well, I’m certain that they’re not going to find any signs of poisoning. Unless it was food poisoning, in which case it’s the restaurant owner and staff you should be talking to – not me.”

&
nbsp; Rafe leaned back in his chair and looked at Dawn, who said smoothly, “How are you doing, Amethyst? It must have been very upsetting, your friend getting so sick and then accusing you of poisoning her.”

  “Thank you for asking. Yes, it was upsetting, but she isn’t exactly my friend, you know. She’s my former boss. I used to work at Lancing-Aberford, and she was my supervisor.”

  “Used to work there? So, you found new employment recently?”

  “Not so lucky. I’m currently unemployed.”

  “If you hadn’t found a new job, I’m surprised that you quit your job at Lancing-Aberford,” Dawn commented.

  “Oh – I didn’t leave. I was fired.”

  Dawn blinked at that piece of information. “Uh – okay. Do you mind telling me the circumstances that led up to your firing?”

  “I kept getting bad performance reviews. Finally, Jill said that I wasn’t showing enough improvement, and they were going to have to let me go.”

  “So Jill is the one who fired you?”

  “No – technically it was the company who fired me. Jill just broke the news to me.”

  “You know, most people who get fired harbor some bitterness toward their former supervisors,” Dawn said. “So I’m a little confused about why you were meeting Jill for an apparently friendly breakfast. Care to explain that?”

  “Well, she was really apologetic when she had to tell me I’d been fired. She said she felt really bad for me and had tried to convince the higher-ups to keep me on a little longer; she was sure I would improve. I invited her out to breakfast as a way of trying to thank her for that. Look, is it okay if I leave now? I didn’t mind sticking around to answer some questions, but I don’t want to sit around here all day.”

  “I understand, but we’d like you to remain for a little while longer, if possible. Let us meet with Jill and interview her first.”

  “I’m not under arrest or anything, am I?”

  Since they had no solid evidence yet that a crime had even been committed, Rafe answered, “No, not at all. You’re free to leave if you want to. But we’re asking you to stay for a while.”

  Amethyst looked at her watch and shrugged. “I guess I can wait around for a little bit. But then I have to leave. I have a job interview this afternoon.”

  “Thank you for your cooperation,” Rafe responded. “We’ll try to get through this as quickly as possible.”

  Leaving Amethyst with the security people, Dawn and Rafe rode the elevator up to the fourth floor, where the victim was being treated. When the doors opened, they made their way to the nurses’ station.

  Rafe showed his identification to the nurse in charge and said, “Jillian Kaelar. Can we talk to her?”

  After glancing at Rafe’s credentials, the nurse responded, “Afraid not. They just took her up for more tests. She’s pretty incoherent right now.”

  “What are the chances that she actually was poisoned?”

  “I can’t tell you that. You’d have to speak to her doctor. But I’ll tell you one thing – it’s way too soon to say. They’ll have to wait for the tests to come back.”

  “Any idea how long that will take?”

  “Not a clue. Look, why don’t you stop back here in an hour or two? We might know more by then, and there’s a better chance that her doctor will be available.”

  “We’ll do that. Thanks for your help.”

  When they returned to Security, Dawn and Rafe found that the office Amethyst had been waiting in was empty. They exchanged glances with each other, but didn’t say anything. Walking out of the office again, they saw Anderson, their contact with hospital security, walking down the hall toward them. When Anderson reached them, Rafe inquired, “She left?”

  “Yes. Not long after you left, she walked out. We tried to stop her, but she said you’d told her that she wasn’t under arrest and that she was free to leave. So that’s just what she planned to do.”

  Rafe turned to Dawn. “Huh. So much for agreeing to stick around for a while.” He frowned as he considered what to do next. Presently, he said, “Not much more we can do here until the tox reports come back.”

  “Yeah,” Dawn responded. “Look, why don’t we just head back to headquarters? We can write this one up, get caught up on some of our other paperwork, and stop back here later.”

  “Sounds like a plan. I’m curious, though.”

  “About whether the vic was actually poisoned?”

  “Yeah. And about Amethyst Gascoyne. There was just something about her…”

  “Something about her?” Dawn prompted.

  “Her attitude, and her story. She was a little too smooth, too pat. Got a little tingle that there just might be something to this case after all. What about you? What did you make of little Amethyst?”

  “I’m not sure. The story about having a friendly breakfast with the woman who fired her seemed really fishy to me, but I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Everything depends upon the tox results.”

  Back at headquarters, Dawn and Rafe buckled down to work and managed to get through a good chunk of the paperwork. They were just preparing to head back to the hospital when their supervisor, Lieutenant Westbrooke, shot out of her office.

  “Cimarron. Melbourne,” she said urgently. “Put everything else on ‘hold’ and get out to Jackson Highway right now.”

  “What’s up, LT?” Rafe asked.

  “We just received a ten-thirteen. It’s Jordan. He’s been shot.”

  Chapter 3

  His nickname might be Snake, but right now Officer Jordan definitely felt more like a slug than a serpent. He was driving with his right hand while holding a handkerchief to the side of his head with his left hand. The bullet had creased his left temple, but he thought he had staunched the bleeding.

  He’d be dead right now if it hadn’t been for his years of training and experience.

  It should have been a routine traffic stop. He had pulled the car over only because he’d noticed that one of the tail lights was out. After calling in the plates to Dispatch, who informed him that the car was neither stolen nor had any outstanding warrants connected with the registered owner, he had exited his patrol car and followed standard procedure: move behind the stopped vehicle, place a hand on the trunk lid, verify it was latched, check the back seat, approach the driver’s side door.

  As he was approaching the door, however, his mind registered that something was wrong. The male driver was too still, for one thing. For another, instead of reaching into his pocket for his license and registration, he reached over to the seat beside him. Perceiving that he might be reaching for a weapon, Jordan had responded by going into a crouch and drawing his own weapon. As he did so, he observed a gun in the driver’s hand just before it fired.

  The bullet grazed Jordan’s temple as he dove for the ground. As he did so, the driver sped away. Jordan had fired his weapon at the departing vehicle. Then he had jumped back into his patrol car, reported the shooting, called for back-up, and given pursuit. Only after he had done all of that did he pull out his handkerchief and dab it to the stinging wound on his forehead.

  He was determined to catch up to the car and keep it in sight until his back-up arrived. As he rounded a bend in the road, he spotted the car. He was gratified to see that it was lumbering along and slowing down, due to a flat tire. One of his shots must have found its mark.

  When the car pulled over to the side of the road, Jordan passed it and swung the wheel sideways so that his patrol car blocked its escape route. Since he knew the driver of the other car was armed, Jordan ducked down and went out the door of his patrol car low, putting the car between himself and the shooter. As he did so, the driver shot out of the other car, snapping off a few rounds at the patrol car. Jordan returned fire, but none of his shots connected. A few got close, however, causing the suspect to retreat to the safety of the trees in the heavily wooded area to the side of the road.

  Jordan remained where he was, his gun trained on the shooter
’s last position. Pursuit was out of the question. Not against an armed suspect, not without back-up. And especially not when he was beginning to feel a little queasy and dizzy.

  Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have been alone, but it was just his luck that his partner, Neil Klutina, had called off sick that morning. Of all the days for Neil to catch the flu, he had to pick this one, Jordan thought.

  Jordan moved to the rear of his vehicle, in case the shooter was trying to flank him under the cover of the woods. Hearing the sound of sirens in the distance, he knew that his back-up was fast approaching. Sure enough, another patrol car appeared, pulling up behind him. Eddie Eddleston was at the wheel, and his partner, Garrone, was with him. Garrone shot out of the passenger side of the patrol car as soon as it stopped and joined Jordan behind Jordan’s car. He eyed the bloody handkerchief Jordan was holding to his head with concern.

  “You all right, Snake?”

  “Yeah. The S.O.B. got a shot off. It’s not a big deal. It just grazed me, that’s all.”

  Garrone nodded and turned to Eddleston, who had joined the other two. “What happened, Snake?” Eddie asked.

  Jordan quickly filled them in on the chain of events and on the perp’s last known position. Two other officers, Russell and Price, arrived on scene shortly afterward. They formed a reverse “L” shape with their cars for protection. The next step was to call in SWAT and a search team from the CBI. Tracking an armed suspect through the woods meant body armor and experienced trackers.

  Just then, they heard a thumping noise from the rear of the car. After a brief discussion, they decided not to wait for SWAT to check it out. Instead, they moved one of the cars so that it was angled to the far side of the suspect’s car, giving them some cover. Taking all the proper precautions, the officers popped the trunk. What they discovered inside caused their eyes to widen with horror.

  *****

  The ambulance was still on the scene when Dawn and Rafe arrived. On their way there, they’d received an update. Jordan’s back-up had arrived, the perp who had shot him had fled into the woods, and two women had been found in the trunk of the perp’s car. One was dead, but the other was still alive – barely.