Page 42 of Hunting the Crossbow Killer

“They’re not with me,” she assured him. “I spoke to Dawson and Ortiz when I got here. They had just rendezvoused at the ruins of your cabin to confer about where to search next for our bow and arrow guy. They told me this section was where you were looking.”

He scanned the woods again. “I’m not worried about where the police are. I’m worried about where the shooter might be. Please tell me you’re wearing your Kevlar vest under your jacket.”

She glanced down and grimaced. “Actually, no. I was hot earlier and hung it on my chair at the station. Didn’t even think about it when I went looking for you.”

He swore beneath his breath. “Then put mine on.”

She stopped him from shrugging out of his coat to remove his vest by pressing her hand against his chest. “No. No way will Itake your vest. If something happened to you, I couldn’t live with that guilt.”

“Then you’re leaving. Now. Let’s go.” He grabbed her arm.

She pulled away from him and frowned. “I’ll leave you to your searching in a minute. But I need to tell you something first.”

What she didn’t realize was that he was doing everything he could to make himself a target to lure the shooter out into the open. He was still clinging to a tiny shred of doubt that Niall was the shooter. But if he was, then Aidan had to do everything he could to make sure he was brought in safe and sound. He couldn’t leave the capture of his son to the police who might be trigger-happy when confronted with a man with a deadly crossbow. The problem was, if Aiden standing on exposed cliffs and loudly stomping around the creeks and streams on his property in the areas where it made sense that someone might camp out or hide had attracted any attention, then his son was on his way right now to confront him.

And Grace could get caught in the cross fire.

“Talk to me while I escort you back to your vehicle,” Aidan said, reaching for her again.

She jerked her arm away and frowned at him. “All right, all right. But stop grabbing me like you’re about to throw me over your knee and spank me.”

He coughed to hide a smile. “You don’t like to be spanked. Good to know.”

She rolled her eyes.

He scanned the path and trees again, then motioned for her to walk beside him.

“I got the results back from the FBI lab,” she told him.

His stomach dropped. “Go on.” His throat was tight as he waited to find out whether his theory about the shooter’s identity was right.

“They confirm the man we’re after is the one from the festival, and everything happening up here at your place.”

“You knew that already.”

“I suspected it. Now there’s proof in the form of shoe-print analysis, fingerprint analysis and DNA.”

He stopped. “DNA?”

“A full profile. The lab entered it into CODIS—that’s the—”

“FBI DNA database. I know. When I confessed to Elly’s murder they took my DNA sample and added my profile to that same database.” He started forward again, his hand on the small of her back urging her to keep moving.

“The FBI has entered the Crossbow Killer’s DNA into CODIS, too, from the crime scenes already attributed to him. The hope is that a suspect will eventually be identified to match against that profile at some point. But when the lab submitted the Mystic Lake shooter’s profile it didn’t come back as a match to the Crossbow Killer.”

“Didnotcome back as a match?”

“Not even close. The anonymous call about the Crossbow Killer being in Mystic Lake was wrong. The suspect for these local events is someone else entirely. Which supports my theory that the Mystic Lake shooting suspect is probably the same person who submitted that anonymous tip in the first place, because he was trying to frame you and send you back to prison.”

He held up a low-hanging branch to let her through, then joined her again on the path. “You came all the way up here and hiked a quarter mile through the woods to tell me the suspect all of us are chasing isn’t the Crossbow Killer? That information could have waited.”

“True. Butthiscouldn’t. I wanted to make sure you knew before you heard it from someone else. The DNA profile—”

“Malone? You out here?” Fletcher’s voice rang through the woods somewhere ahead.

“Good grief. She’s determined I shouldn’t be around you,” Grace said. “I’m here,” she called out. “We’re coming toward you.”

“Okay,” Fletcher called back.

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