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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The sun was beginning to set before Fletcher and Grace completed most of the interviews that Grace felt were necessary for her investigation. There were a few more they’d do tomorrow. She just hoped the work she’d done today was sufficient for her boss to allow her to continue. Investigations took time and at least she was making progress. And, bonus, there hadn’t been another attempt on her life. So far.

The campground had been a bust: no new leads. But it covered several acres and it took a long time to thoroughly search the surrounding woods for signs that someone may have been staying there, hiding out. They didn’t even find a cigarette butt or a beer can to indicate anyone had been there. Then again, since the owner, Colby, was in the process of getting it ready for his first reservations of the season, he’d been cleaning daily. So there was no real way to know if he’d thrown away what could have been evidence.

He didn’t remember seeing anyone suspicious but admitted there were always a few hikers or walkers in the area and he didn’t pay them much attention. He maintained a network of trails for his campers. The locals used them as well, which he appreciated because it kept the vegetation from taking over. But, no, he hadn’t seen any strangers, or at least, he didn’t remember any.

Although Grace and Fletcher had spoken to just about everyone Fletcher could think of who’d attended the festival, which was actually easy since so many of them were regulars at Stella’s restaurant, none of the people they’d spoken to remembered seeing any strangers.

As Fletcher’s Jeep bumped around the back roads on their return to the police station, she apologized that they hadn’t accomplished anything.

“Sure we did,” Grace said. “We spoke to almost everyone we needed to talk to. That’s progress.”

“I don’t see how. We didn’t learn anything.”

“We learned quite a bit. Think about it. Everyone we spoke to said the same thing, that they didn’t notice any strangers around. What does that tell you?”

Fletcher steered around a tree that was blocking half the gravel road they were heading down. “I’ll have to call that in, get someone up here to clear it. Um, let’s see. What does that tell me. I guess just that no one saw our guy. Maybe he’s a ghost, one of those poltergeists who can move things. It would fit in with other alleged spiritual sightings in the area.”

“Fletcher—”

“I know, I know. No one saw him even though we know he exists, poltergeists excluded. Like I said, we made no progress.”

“We know he’s around, has been for a few days at least. If no one saw a stranger , then our shooter is…”

“I don’t know, he’s…wait. A local. That’s what you’re saying?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“No way. Can’t be. There’s no one in this town that I can picture shooting at people with a bow and arrow. Not even the rottenest of the teenage menaces who like to have bonfires in the woods without caring that they could set the whole forest on fire would go around shooting arrows at people. It can’t be a local.”

“Let’s add those teenage menaces to the list for additional interviews. I’m not ready to discount that our suspect could be a local. But let’s say you’re right and he isn’t. What does that leave us with, remembering that no one has noticed anyone unfamiliar to them in town?”

Fletcher thought for a moment, then shrugged. “No idea. What’s your theory?”

“It’s more like a building block than a theory, something to start giving us a more clear idea, or profile, of the person we’re after. If he’s a stranger, not a local, then to not have been seen around town means he’s not going to the restaurants or shops. He’s not staying at the campground and not stealing a boat or canoe from the marina since they didn’t report any missing. He’s likely not broken into anyone’s homes or vacation cabins looking for food or shelter or you’d have had someone reporting that.”

“Oh, I get what you’re saying. He’s comfortable with the outdoors. He’s self-reliant, used to camping in the wilderness, on his own, away from everyone else. He’s avoiding the town and the people in it, except for when he wants to strike, like at the festival or at O’Brien’s place. Most likely he has a tent, a sleeping bag, provisions. When he came here he came prepared with all the supplies he’d need to survive until he accomplished whatever he came here to do.”

Grace grimaced. “To get revenge against O’Brien for something. Framing him didn’t work, so his next step may well be to try to kill him. But go back to what you just said. You mentioned when he came here. How did he get here? There’s only one road in and out. I suppose the river is an option.”

“No, it’s not. It feeds our lake, but if you trace it up the mountain you’ll see a giant waterfall, Mystic Falls. It’s one of our tourist attractions around here, especially in the spring when it swells from the winter thaw. It’s pretty incredible, but it’s in no way navigable. Even a boat or canoe would be busted up on the rocks if someone tried to navigate the river over the falls. The only way to get a boat here is on a trailer behind your vehicle. Most people just rent a boat already at the marina rather than go to that kind of trouble.”

Grace considered what she’d said and looked up at the steep, treacherous mountain Fletcher was carefully descending to get them back to town. “I suppose, in theory, someone determined enough could hike in over the mountains, couldn’t they?”

“Ha. Not likely. You’ve seen how unforgiving the land is around O’Brien’s place. We’ve got spots like that all around here. Makes it darn near impossible to approach our town that way. It’s one of the reasons our town stays small, even with the attractions for tourists. To move here, you have to either buy someone out or have the money to dynamite and excavate a part of the mountain to make it possible to build on in the first place. We’re truly landlocked. One way in, one way out.”

“The road through the mountains and forest to reach Mystic Lake is an hour by car,” Grace said. “How long would it take to walk that distance?”

“Me? About a week.” She laughed. “Okay, maybe not that long. But you drove here, you saw how the road winds around the mountains, constantly going up and down. It would be a challenge to anyone to do that without a vehicle. Even one of those iron man athletes would struggle. No, I think he drove here.”

“All right, then how hard would it be to hide a vehicle once you arrive so that no one reports seeing it?”

“I like where you’re going with that,” Fletcher said. “Collier, to his credit, is an explorer at heart. His idea of a vacation is to hike the mountains around our town. I think that’s crazy. I’d rather go to some nice warm beach and work on a tan. But my point is that he knows the land that surrounds our town better than most. We can put him on that, have him map out the area and figure out the places where someone might likely hide their vehicle so we can check them out. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and catch our suspect napping in his back seat or the bed of his pickup.”

“There’s something else we could do,” Grace added. “With only three officers, I know you can’t spare someone to keep an eye on the road out of town 24/7. But maybe a camera could be set up to record the license plates of anyone leaving the area. We can check those out in case our suspect leaves. That would be like a gift from heaven, having a plate to track. Unless of course his vehicle is stolen. But even that would give us another clue. Maybe he stole it in an area where he’s most comfortable. You never know what that might lead to.”

Fletcher stopped at the very road they were discussing, checked for cars, then turned in the direction of Mystic Lake. “I think a camera on this road is a perfect idea. We can borrow a trail camera from one of our local hunters, the kind that’s activated by motion so the battery doesn’t run out right away. One of us can change out the video card every day and bring the used one back to the station to check out on our computer.”

“About how many vehicles head out of town every day?”

“More than I’d like when it comes to figuring out which cars belong to people who live here and which ones don’t. Since the pandemic changed how people do business, a lot more of our town telecommutes, works from home. But there are still quite a few who have to drive to Chattanooga every day. Don’t worry, though. We’ll track everything down, see if there’s a lone, unexplained vehicle coming in or out of town.”

Grace was happy to have a plan, even if just one to try to get a license plate and vehicle description that may or may not help them find the killer. That was the thing about investigative leads. You could never predict which one would pan out, so you had to follow up on all of them.

“You haven’t heard any updates about today’s search, right?” she asked.

“Not a peep. But I’m sure everyone’s okay or we definitely would have been called. Most likely the deputies are either on their way back to Chattanooga or are there already. No one’s going to search up here at night, especially on O’Brien’s property. That’s some of the roughest terrain I’ve seen anyone living on around here. It’s downright dangerous.”

“Which means our suspect is even more comfortable and knowledgeable about the outdoors than your typical hunter or even camper would be. He was able to get away from your boss and O’Brien when he shot at me.” She grimaced. “ Both times he shot at me. A novice outdoorsman wouldn’t have been able to get away, not without getting hurt or cornered. He’s highly skilled.”

Fletcher snorted. “Except for that stupid feather thing on the end of his arrows. He’d have way better aim if he didn’t use that. He must not know much about using a bow and arrow or he’d ditch the feathers.”

Grace stared at her a moment. “You may be right. O’Brien theorized that the shooter doesn’t care who he hits. The victim is random. They just happen to be in the way of wherever the arrow lands. Honestly, that makes the most sense for our profile since our other evidence points to this guy being an experienced outdoorsman. He knows the feather throws off his aim and he doesn’t care. It’s because he’s bragging. He wants everyone to know that he’s the one hurting or killing people. The feather is his signature.”

“You’re talking about this Crossbow Killer again. I thought you were thinking our shooter probably wasn’t him, that he was someone specifically after O’Brien.”

“I can’t discount the possibility that the real serial killer could also be after O’Brien for some reason. It seems unlikely. Doesn’t fit in with typical serial killer behavior, if you can call any of their behavior typical. But we don’t have enough information to arrive at a conclusion about that. As for the picture of our shooter that we’re trying to draw, I think we can conclude that he’s in good physical condition or he wouldn’t be able to run through the woods in rough terrain to escape the police. That means he’s young, but old enough that he’s likely had years of experience in the wilderness. I’d say mid- to late twenties, maybe even early thirties.”

“Honestly, I’m leaning more toward those teenage locals again,” Fletcher said. “Kids around here start hunting and hiking and practically living outdoors from a really young age. They can be experts outdoors before they even graduate. I’ll draw up a list of our frequent offenders. And I can ask the school principal if there’s anyone else he thinks we should consider, maybe someone who’s a loner or even a bully, something like that.”

“I wouldn’t have thought Mystic Lake was large enough to have any schools. Or do the kids commute to Chattanooga?”

Fletcher laughed. “Believe it or not, we have enough residents to support a K-through-twelve school and a one-truck fire station in addition to our little police force. You don’t see everyone because the town’s population is spread out over a vast area, all up and down the mountains. There’s even a subdivision past the marina. We ran out of time today to go that far. But we really have a lot to offer for just about anyone, whether you want to live in the mountains or the burbs.” She rolled her eyes. “Listen to me. I should be on the town council heading up the tourism task force.”

“You do make Mystic Lake sound pretty nice.”

“Except for our resident serial killer or copycat?”

Grace laughed. “Except for that.”

They were close to where the woods ended and the town began. Grace tapped her hand impatiently on her thigh. “I hope the lab gets back to me soon. I really need to know what they’ve found, whether the evidence we sent matches the evidence from our previous crime scenes. It will help us cull all these theories and ideas of ours if we know whether we’re looking for the Crossbow Killer or someone else entirely.”

Fletcher turned onto Main Street, then slowed to a stop. “What the ever loving…the dang media’s here. Look at that news truck parked a few spots down from the station. They wouldn’t have driven all this way for a story about a random arrow shot during our festival, especially since no one was hurt. And, honestly, that’s not exactly unusual around here compared to other things that go on. I’m betting one of those Polk County deputies sprang a leak. He probably has a friend at the news desk and told them we were searching for a potential serial killer out here.”

She glanced at Grace. “Seeing an FBI agent, or even knowing you’re here if the deputies shared that information, too, is going to make the reporter rabid. It could spread like a disease and we’ll have even more of them here tomorrow. Let’s enter the station through the back door. There’s a service alley behind all the shops we can use.”

She parked on the far side of the main parking lot. As soon as the two of them sneaked into the station, Collier looked up with a relieved expression on his face. “I was just about to call you two and warn you that—”

“The news media’s outside,” Fletcher interrupted. “We saw the van.”

“A cameraman and reporter got here about fifteen minutes ago demanding to see the chief about the search being done for a serial killer. I did what I could to laugh that off and said we were actually after some kid playing pranks. They asked me if that was the case why was there an FBI agent in town. I told them we take the security of our citizens very seriously and when the kid almost hurt someone at the festival we called in the FBI to help us nip this thing as quickly as possible. But as you can see, they’re still here. I don’t think they believed anything I told them.”

Grace groaned. “My boss will love this. He wanted to keep everything quiet until I determined if our killer is really here or not. Does Dawson know the media is waiting to pounce on him?”

“I warned him right before you came in. He should be here soon. They called the search off half an hour ago and the deputies are on their way back home.”

“Good riddance,” Fletcher said as she hung her jacket on the back of her chair.

“Agreed. They did find signs of our suspect and that he was there recently. But he’s a slippery devil. No one actually saw him in spite of all those searchers. Justin’s scent dog pulled up lame, so he wasn’t any help today or they might have had better luck.”

“What kinds of signs did they find?” Grace asked. “Is there more evidence for our lab to process?”

The squeak of the back door followed by footsteps had all of them turning. Chief Dawson entered, followed by Ortiz and Aidan.

“Lock the front door,” Dawson told Collier. “Quickly, before that reporter notices I’m here. I’m not in the mood to be civil at the moment. The search was a bust.”

Collier hurried to lock the door while Ortiz set a large paper evidence bag on his desk.

“Not a total bust,” Ortiz said. “We have a plastic bag from a costume store in Chattanooga and half a dozen white feathers, painted with the same red stripe as the earlier ones, ready to be attached to more arrows.”

Grace hurried over and looked in the bag while Ortiz held it open. “This is great. I’ll arrange for another courier in the morning to get this to the lab. But I’d like to follow up with the store you mentioned. I don’t see a name on the bag.”

“I’ll give you the info,” Ortiz said. “That sparkly bag is unique. Even without a store name on it, I recognized it immediately.”

Grace glanced at Aidan. “O’Brien, did everything go well? Any close calls?”

Ortiz shot Aidan a look as if in warning and answered for him. “No close calls. Nothing happened except that we got lucky and found that evidence. Like the chief said, it was a waste of time. I don’t know how this guy keeps managing to give us the slip. At this point it’s embarrassing.”

“Dang right it is,” Dawson said. “Which is why I have no interest in speaking to the media. We can deal with them tomorrow. Everyone head home—the back way, of course. If you do get cornered by a reporter the answer is no comment. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” all three officers chimed in at the same time.

Dawson crossed the room toward his office.

“I’ll let dispatch know we’re transferring the phones to them now,” Collier said.

At Grace’s questioning look, he explained, “As long as one of us is at the station, we take any emergency calls. When no one is here we transfer emergency calls to a call center, basically the same 911 operators who support the sheriff’s office. If there is an emergency call at night, which is rare for us, the operators do what they can to talk the caller through whatever emergency is going on. And, of course, they contact whichever one of us is on point.”

Fletcher bumped his shoulder. “Lucky you. You’re on call tonight.”

He made a face at her.

Dawson came out of his office carrying a small satchel, perhaps paperwork he wanted to take home, and motioned to Grace. “Make sure you keep your jacket covering your vest. You, too, O’Brien, unless you want the reporter to hit you up with questions thinking you’re a cop. If everyone’s ready to go, we’ll head out the back together. As soon as we hit the lights, that reporter is going to realize they’ve been tricked and I’m not giving them an interview. They’ll figure out pretty quickly that there must be a back door. We’ll have to hustle if we’re going to get in our cars before they find us. O’Brien and Malone, I’ll give you a ride to the B and B to run interference, just in case. Hopefully you can get upstairs before being ambushed.”

No sooner did the chief drop off Grace and Aidan than the news van pulled up behind his Jeep. Luckily for them, the reporter ran up to the driver’s door to talk to Dawson. Grace and Aidan ducked down and hurried into the B and B and upstairs without having to deal with the media.

When they reached the landing at the top of the stairs, Aidan nodded goodbye and turned toward his room.

“Wait,” Grace said. “Please.”

He hesitated, then faced her with a questioning look.

The sound of voices in the lobby had her glancing toward the stairs. She lowered her voice so no one downstairs would hear. “I really need to talk to you.”

“That’s not a good idea—”

“It’s work-related. I want to brainstorm with you about the shooter.”

His jaw tightened. “You mean you want to interrogate me again.”

“You’re not a suspect. You’re the suspect’s target. So far, that’s the best lead I have to figure out who this guy may be. I’d like to ask you some questions and see if we can come up with any ideas, a new direction for me to take my investigation. Otherwise, I’m stuck waiting on lab results and a search for a vehicle that may or may not exist.”

“Vehicle?”

“I’ll explain, once we sit down to talk. We could go in one of our rooms and—”

“No.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Are you afraid of me, Aidan? Afraid I’m going to jump your bones or something? I’m not that desperate.”

He choked on a laugh, then cleared his throat. “My ego just got crushed knowing you’d have to be desperate to want me. But at least I’m safe knowing you won’t try to jump my bones.”

“As much as you complain, I think you’re the one who’s worried you can’t keep your hands off me if we’re in a bedroom together.”

Instead of the immediate denial she’d expected in response to her teasing, he simply stared at her. The amber brown of his eyes seemed to get even darker, more intense. There was no sign of amusement or an impending snappy comeback. Instead, he reminded her of a sleek panther, ready to pounce.

An answering hunger flared inside her. When he quickly turned back to his room and unlocked the door, she was there right behind him. He whirled around, his hands clasping her wrists with a solid yet remarkably gentle grip, stopping her.

“Grace, don’t. I’m trying to do right by you. But you’re not making it easy.”

The sound of voices again froze both of them in place.

“Can’t say I’ve ever met a TV reporter before.” The sound of Stella’s voice in the lobby seemed louder than usual. Her next words had Grace in a panic. “Two nights then. I don’t have any more vacancies after that. We’re all booked up for the fall season. It’s number three, top of the stairs then take a right and it’s at the end of the hall.”

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, quick and light, heading up.

“Ah, hell.” Aidan yanked Grace into his room and shut the door.