Page 53 of Hunting the Crossbow Killer

“Aidan!” the woman called again from the mist.

“Grace!”

It was Aidan’s voice, somewhere up ahead.

“Aidan! Here! I’m here!” Grace ran forward, stumbled and fell, then leaped back up and ran again. “Aidan!”

“Grace! I’m coming!” His footsteps pounded on the earth up ahead.

Swearing sounded behind her along with the pounding of footsteps in pursuit. The killer was closing in. A bubble of hysteria rose in Grace’s throat.

“Aidan, he’s behind me! He’s got a crossbow!” A sob caught in her chest, both from the terror of the man closing in from behind and the terror that the one she was running to was in the path of his arrow.

“Look out, Aidan!” she cried out.

“Grace, drop! Now!”

She dived to the forest floor.

The zing of arrows slicing through the air whipped overhead. A loud, gurgling scream sounded through the forest, sending a cloud of birds to flight above the trees. She lay there, afraid to move. Afraid she’d be shot if she did. And even more terrified to find out who had made that horrible gurgling sound.

Suddenly, Aidan was on his knees in front of her, scooping her onto his lap, his brow lined with worry as he ran his hands overher, apparently searching for injuries. “Grace, my God. Are you okay? Your hand—”

“The shooter, he’s back there, in the mist.” She looked behind her. “Where? Where is he?”

Aidan gently turned her head to look at him. “You don’t need to see that. He won’t hurt you, or anyone else, ever again.”

“I don’t… How did you see him? The mist is so—”

“What mist?” He ran his fingers through her hair, over her scalp. “Did you hit your head?”

“Did I…no… I mean, yes, he knocked me out but then—”

“We need to get you to the hospital.” He stood with her cradled against his chest, his bow and arrows hanging from straps across his shoulders as he headed back in the direction he’d come from.

Grace clung to him and peered over his shoulder. “I don’t understand. It was such a thick mist, a fog. If it hadn’t rolled in I couldn’t have gotten away. Where did it go?”

“We’ll wrap that hand as soon as I get you to my truck. I’ve got a first-aid kit inside.”

“Aidan, we have to go back. That woman…we have to find her. She showed me the path to take. She saved my life.”

He stopped and looked down at her. “Grace, there’s no one else out here.”

“But there is!” she insisted. “She called your name. Didn’t you hear her?”

He shook his head, looking even more concerned. “I only heard you. Come on. Let’s get you to a doctor.” He took off again, insisting on carrying her in spite of her insistence that she could walk.

The sound of more voices, familiar ones, came from up ahead. The Mystic Lake police.

“Over here,” Aidan called out. “I’ve got her. She’s hurt.”

“I’m fine,” she assured him. “It’s just a scratch.”

“And a huge knot on your head. I swear I’m going to have to wrap you in bubble wrap after this.” He hurried toward the sounds of the others crashing through the woods toward them.

Grace gave up trying to explain to him that she really was okay. She looked over his shoulder. The mist was back again, in the distance. And as she watched, the outline of a woman formed, with a beautiful smiling face. A face that Grace recognized from the picture that Aidan had saved from the cabin fire.

Elly O’Brien.

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