Page 160 of One Last Chance

He swallowed, nodding.

“Jennifer was killed shortly thereafter, even though she was found first.”

“Both of them in the river,” said Axel.

“Yes. And that event seeded Dillon’s actions, five years later afterhiswife left him. Making him a copycat MSK killer.”

“How did you know Wilson would go after Axel?” Shep asked.

“Because Axel killed Dillon?—”

“I didn’t kill Dillon. He tried to killme.”

She turned to him. “I know. But Wilson couldn’t hear that. You saw him at the scene. ‘Not like this,’ he kept saying. Maybe he’d expected Dillon to be found . . . but not killed. I don’t know. I think the first MSK victims were killed out of panic. But the death at the ski resort wasn’t, and that’s what got me nervous.”

“You mean the bride who was shot?” London said. “That was Wilson?”

“Yes.” She let go of Axel’s hand, drew up one knee. “He confessed to the crime during questioning, but I’d already put the scenario together. The HOA keeps a record of everyone in the vacation development, and Dillon checked in that weekend. I think he went up to the resort to visit his dad and Laramie, who were there with the Pathfinders youth group. All the resort doors are accessed by a key card, and a card issued to Dillon was used to exit the building about thirty minutes before the bridesmaids left. It was accessed again three hours later. A key card belonging to the Pathfinders exited the building after Dillon returned. I think Wilson saw Dillon come back, and Dillon confessed to what he’d done. The victim had been strangled, but Wilson feared she wasn’t dead, so he went to find out—and saw her running toward the building. He shot her to protect Dillon.”

“But you didn’t know that before you got on a plane,” said London.

“No. But I knew that when you stir up a river monster, it’ll attack, and my gut said that Wilson wasn’t going to let Axel get away with killing his son.”

“I didn’t?—”

“I know,” she said quietly, looking at him. “You’d never do that. But Wilson didn’t know that. Or didn’t care.”

“But you did.”

“Know, or care?”

“Apparently both.”

She smiled. Nodded.

He leaned over and kissed her, and she held onto his shirt, savoring it.

“But how did Kennedy fit in?” asked London. “And who shot at you?”

“That was Dillon, both times. He hunted with Idaho, and maybe she saw them poaching. I think they both stopped by the cache cabin, and Kennedy saw Idaho’s tattoo—she even sketched it in her notes, suspecting he might be a poacher. I think Dillon caught her watching them and shot at her. She ran to the Outpost, not realizing it belonged to the Bowies . . . at least, not until Sully showed up with the family, including Dillon, a year later.”

“And that’s when she ran to the art colony,” Shep said.

“She gave her necklace to Dori, along with a letter to our family, but it never made it out,” said Flynn.

“This necklace,” Axel said, touching the one at his neck.

“Oh, that’s so romantic,” Boo said as she came over and sat down next to Oaken on the other sofa.

It sort of was, even if Axel thought it was sappy. It probably wouldn’t last for long, but Flynn liked that he wore it. She wove her fingers into his.

Oaken had been lost in a song he’d been humming but had stopped during Flynn’s story. Now he looked up at them. “Axel helped me with this one when I was staying here.”

Then he started singing.

“In a dusty old town, where the sun set low,

Lived a man named Coop with a heart of gold.

---