The Hidden

Gwen suddenly spun around, her expression shocked. “Oh, my God! Clark’s right—it is you, Ben! You were in here today, plastering or painting or something.”


“Painting. I was painting. Touched up some nicks and scrapes, which was probably only necessary because someone has been messing around with my house,” Ben protested.

Linda was still sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, looking incapable of getting up under her own steam. Diego offered her a hand, and she managed to stand with his help. She stood there for a moment and looked around.

“I have to clean up this mess,” she said.

“Not now,” Diego told her. “Not now. Just go ahead and join the others.”

Still looking distressed and disoriented, Linda left.

Adam glanced at Diego, then followed the group into the parlor. Once he was gone, Diego closed the door to the dining room and walked over to where Scarlet was standing.

His expression hardened when he saw the small silver arrows that had pierced the chair right after she had vacated it.

“You all right?” he asked, catching her by the shoulders and searching her eyes.

“Yes. Fine,” she assured him.

“The arrows don’t appear to have been aimed at anyone specifically,” Brett said.

“Despite the fact that Terry and Scarlet appeared to be targets, I agree with you. The perp couldn’t have known where people would be sitting—except maybe that Jane would probably be at the head of the table—or even that the weapon would be tripped tonight,” Diego said. “What do you think? Set to go off a while ago or only configured today?”

“No idea,” Brett said. “Maybe forensics can figure something out.”

Diego reached into his pocket for gloves before pulling one of the arrows from Scarlet’s chair and studying it. He shook his head.

“What?” Scarlet asked.

He turned to show her the arrow. The shaft was some kind of silver metal, but it was tipped with what looked like an old Native American stone arrowhead.

Brett walked over to study the arrow with them. “Our killer certainly seems to be fixated on history,” he said. “What do you think? How complicated was it, rigging that moose head?”

“Someone knew what they were doing with a trigger mechanism. I haven’t pulled it apart to check out the whole thing, but it looks like it was set with industrial-strength rubber bands. But that’s not rocket science. Anyone familiar with archery—especially crossbows—could have done it. When Linda knocked on the wall in the right place, she set off the firing mechanism, and the way the arrows were set, they followed one after another automatically.”

“But until now the killer seems to have chosen his victims carefully, and even this method was obviously no guarantee,” Scarlet said.

Diego didn’t look at her. “I don’t know. You were nearly hit, and Terry Ballantree actually was.”

“And let’s not forget that this is Ben’s house, so if anyone knew about the space behind the moose head where a weapon could be set up, it’s him,” Brett said.

Just then they heard the front door opening, followed by someone shouting, “Police!”

“Lieutenant Gray,” Brett said. “He said he’d be ready for our call, and he was.”

Diego nodded and headed to the dining room door, then stopped and looked back at Scarlet, a question in his eyes.

“Yes?” she said. She was loathe to leave the room.

Nathan Kendall had been there tonight. She had heard him, and she hadn’t been the only one. But it was her name he had spoken, and he’d said that she knew who had killed him. If only that were true, she thought.

“You can’t stay here alone. Come with us,” Diego said.

“Yes, of course,” she said with a sigh.

She knew she couldn’t allow herself to be vulnerable, but she didn’t want to leave the room. She wanted to see if Nathan would return now that things had calmed down.

Brett walked past her on his way to the door and threw an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, kid, the fun and parlor games are just beginning.”

She nodded. “Yes, of course, I’m coming.”