Page 40 of Hunting the Crossbow Killer

Fletcher’s eye roll told Grace she didn’t buy that excuse. “Whatever. I don’t have all the answers yet, but something stinks to high heaven here. Stella and O’Brien have never mentioned to anyone in Mystic Lake that I’m aware of that they used to know each other, long before he moved here. So I put two and two together. Stella was a nurse, in Nashville, before she came to this town. Guess what type of nurse? The kind who works in people’s homes to help them care for homebound patients.”

Grace stared at Aidan. “Like Elly?”

He gave her a sharp look. “She was one of Elly’s nurses. What’s that got to do with anything?”

Fletcher snorted. “Your wife died because something happened to her life support machine, or whatever. Stella was one of her nurses. Then you just happen to move to Mystic Lake after you get out of prison, the same place where Stella moved. If I was a betting woman, I’d bet a year’s salary you two are covering up something.”

“And what would that be?” he demanded, his tone sarcastic. “I already went to prison for murder. There’s nothing worse than that.”

“Aidan?” Grace was barely able to force the next words out. “Is Stella the one who pulled the plug on the ventilator? Is that the complicated part you spoke about?”

His eyes darkened with anger. “No.”

Fletcher held up her hands. “Whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. I thought we were trying to figure out who has a grudge against O’Brien. What are you doing, Malone? Trying to exonerate him or something?”

Aidan stood, towering over Fletcher. She immediately took several steps back, her hand going to her holster.

He gave her a disgusted look. “We’re done here.” He brushed past her and yanked open the door.

Grace jumped to her feet. “Aidan, wait. Please.”

But he was already gone.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Aidan paced back and forth in his room at the B and B. He’d worked so hard to hide the truth, had spent ten long, horrific years in prison to do so. And now everything was unraveling. He wanted to hate Grace for pulling at the threads, for refusing to stop in spite of him practically begging her to do so. But he could never hate her. As impossible as it seemed, he was half in love with her. She was the only person besides Stella who’d believed in his innocence almost from the very start. Grace believed him to be a decent man. And that felt too good to ignore.

Even though she was destroying everything he’d worked so hard to build.

He’d already spoken to Stella, to warn her that Grace knew the truth, or at least part of it. Now the question was what to do next. How could he protect the people he cared about without endangering anyone else? Was the person here in Mystic Lake the one he’d been protecting all along? Or was it this Crossbow Killer Grace had come here to find? And, oh God please no, were the two of them one and the same?

He slumped down onto the bed, his head in his hands. All these years he’d thought his decision that first day was the best way to salvage a disastrous situation. But what if it wasn’t? Stella had certainly never agreed with the path he’d taken. She’d tried so hard to talk him out of it. Had she been right all along? Had his cover-up only made things worse? Would everything have turned out for the better if he’d faced the truth from the start? Embraced it and figured out another way to move forward? To atone for his own sins, as well?

Second-guessing the past wasn’t doing anyone any good. He had to focus on now, to figure out how to stop whoever was stalking Mystic Lake, and him, whether it was his son or someone else. Grace had already been hurt. And others could have been hurt, or killed, when his home was burned. It was only a matter of time before someone was going to get killed.

Unless he did something to end this.

The lies were unraveling. The truth was coming out. It was time to accept that he couldn’t cover it up anymore. Time to fix what he’d broken all those years ago. Somehow. Without making it even worse.

But to fix it, first, he needed to know if Grace was right. He had to know whether his perfect little boy, his son, had become the monster that Grace believed him to be.

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and speed-dialed his lawyer. “Hi, Nate. Yeah, it’s me. Have you had a chance to look into what we spoke about?” He listened as his lawyer put the last nail in the coffin.

Niall had left the Larsens’ Henderson, Kentucky, home a week ago.

His credit card purchases showed he’d driven to Tennessee and had spent several days in a Chattanooga hotel. He’d made purchases at a camping supply store, and bought a crossbow and several quivers of arrows. Another purchase was made at aparty store, where he’d bought a large bag of white feathers and red craft paint. The last damning fact the lawyer shared was that Niall checked out of the hotel the morning of the festival. There had been no other charges on his card since then.

He was in Mystic Lake. Had to be. He was the one with his sights set on Aidan, with innocent people’s lives at stake for just being in the same location.

“Nate.” Aidan cleared his tight throat. “Could he be…do you think he’s this Crossbow Killer they’ve been talking about on the news?”

His longtime lawyer, who’d also become a good friend over the years, told him what he’d feared and prayed wasn’t true.

“Could he be? Logistically, it’s possible, Aidan. It’s a five-hour drive from his grandparents’ home in Henderson to Knoxville where the murders have taken place. I looked into the dates of each of the six killings so far—”

“Six. My God.”

“We don’t know it’s your son, Aidan. Have some hope.”

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