Page 38 of Hunting the Crossbow Killer

He crossed his arms on top of the table. “So what if I did? Dragging it out would only hurt them even more. Bringing the case to a quick close was the least I could do.”

“And nothing a little bribery from a wealthy man couldn’t handle, is that it?”

His jaw tightened.

“Right. No comment. Let’s skip to the second part of my earlier question, the part about why you would confess to a crime you didn’t do. That one has had me stumped, but I’m working it out. For one thing, I tried to get a transcript from your parole hearing to find out what was said and who spoke at the hearing.”

His eyes widened and for the first time since coming into the conference room, he looked worried.

“In spite of repeated attempts by both me and an admin, we haven’t gotten the transcripts. They’ve been sealed. That’s pretty dang convenient for you if you’re trying to hide the truth that may have come out during the hearing.”

His brow smoothed out and he seemed to visibly relax after she’d said she couldn’t get the transcript. Time to go for the jugular.

“The admin did, however, manage to get the prison’s visitor log for the date of your appearance before the parole board.”

His eyes widened.

“It’s not a surprise that your wife’s parents were at the hearing, until you consider one thing. Typically, if the family of a convicted murderer is at the first parole hearing and argues against parole, the board goes along with their wishes. But they didn’t come to speak against you, did they? They spoke on your behalf—whether you wanted them to or not. That’s why you were paroled. Which tells me that Elly’s parents don’t believe youkilled their daughter any more than I do. Something changed their mind during the ten years that you were in prison. They found out the truth about what really happened, didn’t they?”

His face paled. “Grace. Don’t.”

She swore. “I knew it. Your reaction just confirmed it. What’s more, you lied to me about her parents when you said they hated you. They may have, at first, but definitely not toward the end of your incarceration. That’s based not only on you being paroled and my conclusions around that, but hard facts I dug up about them. I didn’t find one single thing that makes me believe they’re the type of people who’d try to frame you as the Crossbow Killer, or even hire someone else to do it. So where does that leave us?”

“Grace—”

“Fact. Elly’s parents used to think you were the killer. Fact. They now are certain you’re innocent. If that wasn’t true, they wouldn’t have testified for your early release before the parole board. Fact. Everything I’ve read about them confirms they loved and doted on their daughter, so there’s no question they’d want her killer to face justice. But they haven’t gone to the police to request that the investigation be reopened to find her real killer. Why not?”

He let out a shuddering breath but remained silent.

“The only logical conclusion in light of all those facts is that Elly’s parents know the identity of her killer and don’t want him punished.” She held up her hands. “Why in the world wouldn’t they want him brought to justice? Why wouldn’t you?”

He squeezed his eyes shut as if in pain.

She reached across the table and put her hand on his arm, no longer caring whether Collier noticed. When Aidan’s eyes flew open, the anguish in them was almost enough to make her stop. Almost. But she couldn’t, not when she was so close to finding out the truth.

“Aidan. Who are you and your dead wife’s parents covering for? And why?”

He stared at her hand on his arm, his throat working. Finally, he looked up, his eyes clouded with despair. “I’m begging you. Let it go. The truth won’t make anyone feel any better. It will only cause more pain. Please. Stop.”

Her throat tightened with the urge to weep. But she held fast. “The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But this isn’t just about you, or even justice for your wife at this point. Someone is trying to destroy you. And I’m betting it’s the same person you’re trying to protect. It’s the only thing that makes sense when you look at everything that’s happened.”

“You don’t know that,” he whispered, his voice ragged and raw. “There’s no proof.”

“Do you expect me to believe that you’ve been protecting a killer all these years, and now that you’re out of prison he’s not the same killer who’s trying to send you back? You see what he’s doing, right? He’s worried you’re going to try to clear your name by finally telling the police what you’ve known all along. He tried to frame you first by almost killing two men in a boat. Then he shot at me, twice. When he burned down your house last night, do you think he went inside first to make sure you weren’t there? Hell, no. He hoped you were there and would be trapped and killed. Why would you want to protect someone like that?”

She searched his gaze, then delivered her last volley. “He already killed your wife. Who does he have to kill for you to finally do something about him?”

He made a strangled sound in his throat and pulled his hand free. “You think you have it figured out, Grace. But you don’t. He didn’t… He was too… Elly’s death isn’t his fault.”

She stared at him in shock, his words bouncing around inside her brain like a Ping-Pong ball as things started to mesh together in her mind. She’d made one of the worst mistakes a lawenforcement officer could make. Tunnel vision. She’d come up with a theory and had used the evidence to support her theory. Instead, she should have examined the evidence and let it reveal a theory.

Aidan stared at her, his handsome face drawn in lines of worry, frustration and a soul-deep sadness as he waited for the inevitability of her fitting all of the pieces together. She laid the evidence out in her mind’s eye. In the end, it was so simple, so obvious, she was embarrassed that she hadn’t realized it on day one of looking into Aidan’s past. It was the fact that he’d confessed that had thrown her off. But even that should have been a glaring clue to the truth. So. Ridiculously. Obvious.

Aidan didn’t kill Elly.

There was no evidence of an intruder.

Elly was paralyzed and couldn’t have done anything.

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