out a breath, shutting off the monitor. Harper felt a momentary twinge of loss that was totally bizarre. But truthfully, she wanted to study him. She wanted to be left alone in this room and watch him on that camera for a little while just to see what he would do. As if he's some kind of alien life and not a human being? What’s wrong with you, Harper?
“Says his name is Lucas. That’s it. No last name. Just Lucas.”
Harper furrowed her brow. “I don’t get it.”
Dwayne rubbed at his eye and Harper suddenly realized how tired he looked. “I don’t either yet.” He leaned on the edge of the table. “I suppose Keri mentioned there’s been another murder?”
Harper nodded. “Yeah. Can you tell me who?” Harper’s stomach clenched. She’d kept her mind from drifting to that question, because she knew that whomever it was, she’d probably either know them, or know them well. With a population of two thousand residents, Helena Springs was too small for that not to be the case.
Dwayne nodded. “A man by the name of Isaac Driscoll, who lived in a cabin about twenty miles south of town.”
South?
Harper blinked in surprise. There was nothing south except plains, mountains, rivers, and valleys, miles and miles of unforgiving wilderness. Snow and ice-covered unforgiving wilderness at the moment. Nothing particularly habitable . . . or so she’d thought.
Dwayne continued. “The victim was somehow able to reach his cell phone and dial 9-1-1. He didn’t speak, but a cell tower helped pinpoint his location and he died before Paul could get there. The old cell tower used to get us to within a thousand feet, but the new system gets us to within thirty. Nice piece of technology. Anyway, Paul thought it was probably the usual, a lost hiker or something of that nature.” The lines around his eyes tightened for a moment. He looked concerned that those words would hit her in a personal way, and he was right.
But she shook off the feeling and focused on the situation at hand. A hiker? Anyone hiking out in that direction this time of year would have to have a few screws loose. Or . . . be very lost. The memory rose again and with more effort, she mentally pushed it aside as Dwayne continued.
“When Paul got out to the remote area where the ping had come from, he spotted a cabin in the distance.”
She nodded, surprised there was road access out that far, or even flat land by which to travel.
Dwayne sighed. “Luckily, there was a small break in the weather so Paul could get out there, because the snow really started coming down before he had even left the crime scene.” Dwayne rifled through a folder on the table and pulled out what looked to be a photo printed from the Internet. He handed it to Harper. “This is the victim. Ever see him on one of your tours?”
Harper studied him. He was a nondescript older man. Sixties. Gray, balding hair, glasses. Short beard. A thick neck leading her to believe he was stocky. Harper handed it back to Dwayne. “Not that I can remember.”
Dwayne placed the picture back in the folder and Harper glanced at the blank screen. “What does he have to do with all of this?”
Dwayne sighed again. “Suppose you heard about the murder weapon used on the woman staying at the Larkspur.”
A statement, not a question, but Harper nodded. “I did.” She didn’t need to expound, didn’t need to mention that Keri had confided to her—and half the town—that the woman had been shot with a bow and arrow at the one establishment in town that was available for out-of-town guests.
Harper grimaced internally at the picture that still formed in her mind when she thought of the unknown woman she’d heard about a week earlier, an arrow shot so powerfully that it had come out of the other side of her body, and still had enough force to lodge in the wood of the wall.
“The weapon used in that crime is the same type of weapon used in Isaac Driscoll’s murder.”
“Oh,” she breathed.
“Yeah. Unusual to say the least. Not too many people use them in general, and especially not to commit murder. Much less two.” Dwayne glanced at the blank screen the same way Harper had. “Paul had just left the scene and almost ran that guy over on his way out. Acted like he’d never seen a truck before—which, come to find