Page 16 of Hunting the Crossbow Killer

“Wait. That’s an order!”

“I’m not one of your agents to boss around.” He took the stairs two at a time, then sprinted toward the woods where Dawson had gone.

Grace said a few unsavory words and took off after both of them. As she ran, she called the station and updated Fletcher about what was happening. Fletcher promised she’d rally the troops. Grace ended the call and slowed, realizing she’d already lost the trail. She searched the ground, trying her best to track where the suspect, Dawson, and Aidan had gone.

She loved mountain views and outdoors as much as most living in the beautiful state of Tennessee. But that didn’t mean she was Danielle Boone. She’d never gone hunting or camping, and her version of roughing it was a three-star motel. Trying to figure out which way someone had gone, by looking for shoe prints or bent grass or whatever, was proving to be beyond her skills.

She finally gave up and tried calling Dawson, but he didn’t answer his phone. Another call to Officer Fletcher got Aidan’s cell phone number from his police folder. Grace punched it in, but like the police chief, he didn’t pick up.

Worried they might be in trouble, she kept going, desperately hoping she was headed the right way. A few minutes later, the sound of male voices had her stopping again. There, up ahead through a break in the trees, she saw Dawson and Aidan. Side by side, shoulder to shoulder, they were jogging in her direction. They weren’t smiling or laughing. But they weren’t arguing or exchanging blows either. They almost seemed…friendly. She was so surprised that she forgot for a second why the three of them had gone into the woods to begin with.

She never saw the second arrow coming.

* * *

“I’m fine. Stop fussing over me,” Grace assured Aidan and the chief for the dozenth time as she sat beside them on one of Aidan’s couches. Kneeling in front of her was Officer Collier. Apparently, he served as one of the town’s part-time EMTs in addition to his police duties. “The arrow barely touched me, just a scratch. Doesn’t even need stitches.”

Collier shook his head. “Actually, I’m having trouble getting the bleeding to stop. I may have to stitch it closed.”

Her face flushed. “Seriously? Isn’t there a doctor around here who can do it?”

“Nope. But if you’re squeamish, I can put a pressure bandage on it for now and take you to the hospital.”

“The hospital? Where is that?”

“The other side of Chattanooga. About an hour and a half away.”

“Good grief. What do you people do around here for something really serious?”

“Helicopter,” Dawson told her. “The town purchased a used medevac chopper last year after a little girl nearly died because it took so long to get her to the hospital. An anonymous donation put us over the top on our fundraiser and we had enough money left over to stock it with medical supplies and train several key people in town as EMTs, including Collier.”

Remembering how worried Aidan had been this morning about children being in harm’s way, and knowing he had money to spare, she glanced at him beside her, wondering if he could be that anonymous donor. But he didn’t react, gave no indication either way.

Dawson leaned around Aidan to get a better look at Grace’s injured arm.

Aidan shoved him back. “Give your guy room to work. He needs to get that bleeding under control.”

Dawson narrowed his eyes, but didn’t retaliate over the shove. That was amazing since if Aidan had shoved him this morning he’d have likely been thrown in jail. They must have come to some kind of agreement in the woods earlier to set aside their mutual differences and suspicions. Maybe it was because they’d agreed to work together toward the common goal of finding whoever was terrorizing this town.

“Chief Dawson,” Grace asked, “in all the chaos that’s happened, I never got a chance to ask why you came up here in the first place.”

“Yet another anonymous tip. A man called to say that a woman was here visiting O’Brien and that she might be in trouble. And before you say it, yes, I know how thin that is. Considering that’s the first anonymous tip I’ve ever gotten—”

“Mine, too,” Grace said. “Although the tip was to the FBI, not me specifically. I listened to the recording, of course.”

“Was the FBI tipster male?”

“He was,” she said. “But his voice was tinny, like he was using a device to alter the sound of his real voice. We put a trace on the call, but it led to a burner phone, a throwaway. We’ve still got people on it, but so far no luck in identifying who made the call.”

“I’ll see what kind of trace we can do, too, after we’re done here.”

Aidan glanced back and forth between them. “Hold it. You’re saying an anonymous caller sent the FBI here looking for this Crossbow Killer, and another caller sent the police here to my place. Then, both times someone shot an arrow from over my shoulder, making it appear that I was the one who’d shot it. Does that smell like a setup to you?”

“Yes,” they both said.

“And it was a good one,” the chief added. “Because if one of the townspeople hadn’t taken a picture of their family at the festival and it captured you in the background, with that arrow zinging past you, I’d likely still have you locked up. Likewise, when I drove up here, if I hadn’t seen a shadow behind you shooting that first arrow at Malone, I’d have locked you up then, too. The game this guy’s playing isn’t turning out the way he hoped. Instead of convincing us of your guilt, he’s done the opposite. You’re the real victim here.” He glanced at Grace. “One of them, anyway.”

“It’s just a scratch,” she repeated.

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