Page 50 of Hunting the Crossbow Killer

So where was she?

He circled the car, looking for anything that might tell him what was going on. The small shoe prints outside the driver’s door looked to be about her size. She must have gotten out of the car. The prints went around the back of another car and then…other prints converged on hers. They were large, the size of a man probably as big as Aidan. And the prints trampled over the top of Grace’s. After that, the man’s prints deepened in the dirt and gravel. But there were no more prints from Grace.

To anyone else, what had happened here might not be obvious. But to Aidan, who’d been tracking game almost daily for well over a year now, they were a glaring neon sign telling him something had happened to Grace. Something bad.

The car where her prints ended didn’t appear to be the car that was parked here now. This car was a large SUV and was parked on some of those prints, which meant they were there before the SUV pulled in. So the man who’d scuffled with Grace had taken off in his own car. And Aidan didn’t doubt for a minute that he’d taken Grace with him, against her will.

A bead of sweat rolled down his back in spite of the chill in the air as he whipped out his phone and called Dawson again. He walked back to Grace’s car and slowly circled it, looking for other clues.

“Aidan,” Dawson said, “I can’t talk right now. I’m trying to dock a boat that—”

“It’s Grace. She’s been abducted.”

“What the… Are you sure? Tell me what happened.”

Aidan explained the situation, the clues as he continued to slowly inspect the ground around her car. When he reached the right front tire, he bellowed in fury. “He’s got her, Dawson. That animal has her.”

“Who? Calm down. Tell me what’s going on.”

Aidan bent down to inspect the arrow sticking out of Grace’s tire, an arrow with a large white feather hanging from the end.

“The Crossbow Killer. The real one. He’s here, in Mystic Lake. And he’s got Grace.”

Dawson swore viciously. “How much do you want to bet the fire at the marina was his doing, a diversion?” He yelled for Fletcher and Collier, shouting commands as he transferred responsibility for the marina scene to Ortiz to continue working with the firefighters.

Aidan followed the clues from the other car left in the gravel and noted the direction it had taken. Then he ran to his truck and jumped in.

“All right,” Dawson said. “We’re heading to our cars now. We’ll meet you at the B and B and—”

“Forget the B and B.” He raced his truck out of the parking lot, slowing to determine which way the other vehicle’s distinctive tire tracks had gone. Then he made the turn and gunned the engine.

“Wait, why?” Dawson demanded. “Talk to me.”

“He’s in a Jeep, older model, four-wheel drive. I don’t know the color. I’m judging by the tracks, the width of the wheel base. The tires are muddy. The tracks are fresh, so I’ve got something to follow. They’re running parallel with the lake so far, heading out of town.”

Dawson shouted orders over his radio to the others. “Older model Jeep heading northwest, parallel with the lake. Be on the lookout.”

“Trace her phone, Dawson. See if you can get a bead on it. I don’t want to call it in case the ringer is on and it alerts the guy, assuming she even has it at this point. He may have tossed it.”

“Will do.” He spoke into his radio to Fletcher, telling her to put a trace on Malone’s phone. “And contact the FBI. Even if they don’t give a damn about their own agent anymore, they should at least want to get their butts up here to help us find that killer they’re all hot and bothered about.”

Aidan suddenly slammed his brakes, fishtailing across the gravel road. He engaged the four-wheel drive on his truck and quickly backed up. Then he turned where the Jeep had turned and slowed to look for more signs of it passing this way.

“Give me an update, O’Brien. I’m four minutes out. Where am I going?”

“Old logging trail. He’s heading up the mountain.”

“By Jesper’s hunting cabin, the one that’s falling down?”

“That’s the one. Wait. Ah, hell.” He slammed his brakes again and slid to a halt, then leaped from his truck.

“What, O’Brien? Talk to me.”

“The Jeep. I found it. Empty. He ditched it, a quarter mile up the road.” Aidan ran back to his truck and flipped the seat forward. He pulled out his bow and an arrow and strapped the quiver of extra arrows over his neck and shoulder to let it hang out of the way. Squatting down, he searched the dirt until he picked up two sets of shoe prints leading deeper into the trees. “I’ve got their trail. Heading almost due west up the mountain through the woods. I’ll mark an X in the dirt to help you find it, about ten feet off the right side of the road. I’m hanging up now, but you can do something fancy to track my cell to keep up with me.”

“No, Aidan. Stay on the line. Wait for us. We’ll be there in less than three minutes, coming in hot.”

“To hell with that. Every minute she’s alone with him is one minute too long.”

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