Page 48 of Hunting the Crossbow Killer

He stared at her in wonder. “You’re amazing, you know that?” Unable to resist the impulse, he feathered his hand down the side of her face, then pressed a soft kiss against her lips. “Thank you. But I need to do this myself.” He quickly turned and strode away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Grace remained in the hospital conference room long after everyone else had left. She was still reeling from listening to the recording that Stella had secretly made during one of Niall’s visits to the child psychiatrist. It was both shocking and sickening to listen to the sweet, innocent voice of an eight-year-old child speaking under the influence of hypnosis. Without any true understanding about what he revealed, he’d walked the doctor and Stella as his guardian during that visit through everything that happened the day that his mother died.

And everything he said corroborated what Aidan had said.

Elly O’Brien had taken her own life with her son’s help, using him to pull the plug while Aidan was out of the room.

Stella had explained that Elly likely heard the sound of the back door and knew that her husband had gone outside. Since he’d already checked on her and confirmed that her machine was functioning properly, there was no reason he shouldn’t have felt secure stepping out for a few minutes. Even if he hadn’t fallen asleep, at any other time on any other day the odds of anything bad happening to Elly while he was outside for onlytwenty minutes were very low. But the stars had aligned for Elly and she got her deepest, darkest wish—release from a life she considered to be unbearable.

At the expense of her five-year-old little boy and her husband.

It broke Grace’s heart that Elly had been so miserable as to do that. And it broke her heart that Aidan knew and had taken on the guilt, and punishment, for not helping her and making her believe she had no other choice. Their beautiful little family had been irrevocably destroyed the day of the fire in their home, though none of them had realized it at the time.

But that wasn’t the only thing on Grace’s mind, or the only reason she was still sitting in the empty conference room trying to gather her thoughts and emotions. She was also reeling over the final conclusion presented by Mr. Garcia, the probation board member. He was going to meet with the rest of the board and recommend that they provide the governor with Aidan’s name as someone who should be pardoned. Not just pardoned, but fully exonerated, his record expunged and all of his rights restored—including the cancellation of his parole.

It would take months, maybe longer, for all the red tape to be cut and the legal pieces set into place. But Aidan would have what he deserved: complete exoneration. The world would know he was innocent. It was what Grace had wanted all along. But now that it was being granted, she wasn’t sure the cost was worth it.

Aidan had spent ten long years in prison to protect his son, Elly and the Larsens. Now the truth would all come out and they’d have to face the consequences. Everything he’d worked so hard for all this time was being nullified. And she couldn’t help but worry what more that might cost him. She already knew what it had cost her.

Her career.

She looked down at the white envelope in her hands, given to her by her boss. It was official notice that she was being fired, effective immediately. It had been printed out before he’d even come to Chattanooga to meet with her. She was being let go because of unprofessional conduct and poor judgment in the execution of her duties. The team she’d worked with back in the Knoxville field office would go on to investigate and solve the Crossbow Killer case without her. That alone had her feeling empty inside. She’d so hoped that the anonymous tip that had sent her to Mystic Lake would have resulted in her leading the charge and solving the case. That would have been a major step up in her career. Instead, it had ended her career.

Opening the envelope, she pulled out the picture that her boss had included with the termination papers, a picture that had been snapped of her and Aidan kissing outside her room at the B and B after they’d returned from helplessly watching his cabin burn to the ground. The reporter they’d both thought was asleep in her room must have heard them and opened her door just enough to take that picture. And when she’d leaked the story about the Crossbow Killer supposedly in Mystic Lake, she’d included that picture of the FBI agent in town getting a little too friendly with the town’s only parolee—a man who’d confessed to the murder of his wife. There was no coming back from that, even though Aidan had now been proven innocent, unofficially at least. At the time the picture was taken, he was still a convicted murderer with no hope of that ever changing.

Sighing heavily, she slid the picture back into the envelope and stood. As she grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair, she automatically felt for her holster to make sure it was in place. But she didn’t have her holster or her gun anymore. She’d had to turn them over to her boss along with her FBI credentials and the Bureau’s credit card. She’d even had to turn over her car keysso he could commandeer her FBI vest inside it and her laptop and files before he had the rental company retrieve the SUV.

She winced when she remembered the hole in the back of it from the arrow. But that was her former employer’s problem now. As it was, they’d left her without any transportation. She’d have to arrange for another rental just to get back to her room at Mystic Lake to retrieve her personal belongings.

It had been nearly a decade since she’d first started her career as a beat cop before becoming a special agent. Without a gun, she felt naked, lost. She had absolutely no idea how to live life as a civilian.

Thankfully, she had a generous severance package that her boss had fought for due to her pristine service record prior to this fiasco at Mystic Lake. And she had her savings to fall back on. But neither of those would last forever. She needed to figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life.

Before she left the hospital, she stopped in the ICU to check on Niall and his family. She hadn’t expected Aidan to be there, and he wasn’t. He was in another conference room of the hospital being briefed by his lawyer about everything that had happened after he’d walked out of the meeting.

The Larsens had red-rimmed eyes from crying, no doubt because they now knew just how horribly their daughter had suffered and the disastrous chain of events she’d unwittingly put into motion. But they were strong, relying on their faith to get them through. After she spoke to them for several minutes, they shared a prayer for Niall and Aidan. And it puts tears in Grace’s eyes when they added her name in their prayer, as well.

She hugged them one last time and said her goodbyes. Then she headed downstairs to wait for her rental car to arrive.

Over an hour later, she emerged from the twisty, narrow road through the mountains into downtown Mystic Lake. She stopped at the Main Street parking lot, stunned to see thickblack smoke rising from the trees off to her right, in the direction of the marina, and the sound of sirens as the fire department and police responded. She almost headed in that direction to offer help, but then she remembered she wasn’t law enforcement anymore. She was a regular civilian and didn’t even have the authority to direct traffic.

Instead, she drove around the end of the lake to the B and B and parked out back. Hopefully, Aidan would return soon. She really needed to talk to him, to see how he was doing, and maybe even feel around about where he saw his future heading. Right now her own future was both bleak and wide-open with possibilities.

She sincerely hoped one of those possibilities was Aidan.

As she stepped out of her car, another car pulled into the empty slot beside hers. She smiled a greeting at the man driving, then rounded the back of his car to head to the B and B.

He got out as she was passing him and smiled. “Heard you were looking for me.”

She stopped in confusion. “I’m sorry, I don’t—”

He pointed toward his car.

She glanced through the rear window. There on the back seat was a large crossbow and a quiver of arrows, with large white feathers attached to each of them. She whirled around to run. An explosion of white-hot pain slammed against the side of her head. Everything went dark.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

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