Page 18 of Hunting the Crossbow Killer

Dawson swore but didn’t waste more time arguing. “Let’s go, while we still have daylight left.” He strode onto the front porch where Fletcher, Ortiz, and the man with the scent dog were waiting.

Aidan grabbed the door to pull it closed behind him, then hesitated. “Collier, don’t let Special Agent Malone out of your sight. I expect she’ll want to head after us again after you patch her up. But if the shooter is still in the area, he might try to finish what he started. Under no circumstances allow her through this door.”

“Yes, sir,” Collier called out.

Aidan pulled the door shut.

Grace blinked in shock. “Did you just take orders from an ex-con?”

Collier snorted. “Emphasis on ex. He served his time. And I’m not convinced he was ever guilty to begin with.”

“He confessed.”

“With all due respect, Malone, I’m not one of those officers who thinks everyone in prison is guilty. Innocent people do get convicted sometimes, probably more than most people realize. They make false confessions. It’s a proven fact. New evidence, like DNA, has exonerated plenty of them.”

“You think his confession was false?”

“Let me put it this way. The chief has accused him of just about every petty crime that happens around here since the dayO’Brien came to Mystic Lake. He hasn’t exactly made it easy on the guy. Then we get proof he’s being framed. And even though O’Brien has every reason to want payback against Dawson, when the chief’s foot slips and he could have fallen to his death, O’Brien risked his own life to grab him and haul him back to safety.”

“Dawson told you that? I mean, I heard Aidan say something about it but I didn’t know any details.”

“When I got here, he told me what happened, yeah.”

“I get what you’re saying,” she said. “But what makes you so certain he wasn’t a different person years ago, that he didn’t kill his wife? Did he tell you he didn’t?”

“Ever heard of a Freudian slip? That’s what he did earlier, if you ask me. He basically admitted he didn’t kill his wife. You heard that too, right?”

“Yes. I did.”

“So did Dawson. We’ve all wondered about O’Brien, played devil’s advocate about how he could kill his wife. If you read his case file you’ll see interviews the prosecutor did with people who knew him. And pretty much every one of them said he and his wife were wild about each other and that if he did take her life it was out of mercy. You know about the fire, right? That she was paralyzed and in terrible pain.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t excuse killing her. That’s not how our society and our laws work.”

He gave her a hard look, then shrugged. “Whatever happened, he’s not the bad guy people think he is. Not even close. He may be gruff, rude sometimes. Okay, rude a lot of times. But that’s how he protects himself. If you don’t let people in, they can’t hurt you, you know? Anyway, my point is that he’s never, not once, done anything to hurt anyone around here. Just the opposite. He doesn’t advertise it or try to take credit, but he helps people all the time.”

She was stunned to hear a police officer speaking about Aidan this way, particularly an officer who’d helped another lock him to a conference room table this morning. “How does he help people?”

He swore when he pulled the latest gauze off her arm and it came away bloody. He grabbed a fresh one and pressed hard.

She forced herself to hold still and not give any indication about how much he was hurting her. He was a gold mine of information and she didn’t want him to stop talking.

“Collier, how does Aidan help people?”

“Oh, you know. Lots of ways. You’ve heard about the town’s, the lake’s, reputation, right? Unexplained things happen around here. Mysterious deaths, disappearances, strange accidents. I mean, we really do have a lot of wacky stuff that goes on. Did you know Mystic Lake has more drownings per year than any other lake in the country?”

“You’re kidding. Why? What makes it so dangerous?”

“If you ask the townsfolk, most will tell you it’s the spirits of the people who drowned in the lake when the superstorm came through decades ago and flooded this place.”

“For real, Collier. What makes the lake so dangerous?”

“Because of the flood.”

“Collier—”

“No, no, I’m not talking about ghosts. I’m serious. I’m talking about what’s underneath the water. An entire town is at the bottom of the lake. Houses, cars, church spires, trees, lots and lots of dead trees. We do cleanups every year. Hundreds of volunteers pull out debris so boats and swimmers won’t get hung up in all that stuff on the bottom. But some of it is too deep to reach. And the lake is huge. Not the part downtown, but the part outside of town by the marina. It’s impossible to clean it all. We post warning signs in areas where drownings or boating accidents have occurred, and focus on those areas during ourcleanups. Tourists are warned. Locals are reminded all the time about the dangers. But the lake is beautiful, and relatively safe if you stay within the markers. So people come here in droves in the summer to enjoy it. But things still happen.”

“Okay. But what does any of this have to do with Aidan?”

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