Buzz Off - By Hannah Reed Page 0,21

downstream ahead of us.

We came within reaching distance. I dropped the paddle into the bow of the canoe and stretched out both hands to get a firm grip on the kayak.

What I saw made me sit back down hard. I couldn’t form words. My mind couldn’t get past the image of the body sprawled faceup inside the kayak, hair knotted and plastered to her face, her red top drenched and splattered to her body like thick paint.

“Dammit!” I heard behind me.

Eight

Hunter scrambled toward the front of the canoe, almost tipping us out into the river. I clutched both sides, lifting up and shifting my weight in the direction I thought would steady us, but my brain wasn’t working like it should.

“Sit down,” Hunter shouted.

Too late. The canoe flipped faster than my numb mind could register the action. Splashes and sputters later, we came up clinging to the canoe’s underside.

Hunter had a few choice words for the situation, which I won’t bother repeating. Nor did I acknowledge the glare he shot my way before we managed to right the canoe and get back inside.

By then the kayak had banged up alongside the riverbank, and we had to paddle over.

“Who is it?” he asked, jumping out of the canoe and grabbing the kayak before it could move away. “Do you know?”

I nodded, not that he was looking my way. “Her name is Faye Tilley.”

I’d seen the dead woman on my ex-husband’s arm at our divorce trial, and most recently, making a spectacle in front of The Wild Clover. Faye was wearing the same jewelry she’d worn at the hearing—a butterfly barrette in her hair, and one of the dragonfly earrings was dangling from her right ear. The left one was missing.

I stumbled out of the canoe onto solid ground and considered passing out. But that wouldn’t accomplish anything productive. Instead I sat down hard and watched Hunter spring into action. I made a mental bullet-point list of what happened next:• Hunter secured both the canoe and kayak, then used his cell phone, which had been inside his waterproof jacket, to call for assistance.

• It took a lifetime for backup to arrive, some on land, some by water. The approximate location where we’d first seen the kayak was marked with a buoy.

• The far shore area was marked in grids, and the search began for evidence.

• Divers went down, hunting for weapons or other clues.

• Jackson Davis, the M.E., and Johnny Jay, the police chief, both arrived. Hunter and I gave our statements, and Johnny Jay was too busy to torture me with verbal abuse, which was a huge relief.

• Afterward, we couldn’t just leave Stu’s canoe in the middle of nowhere, so despite being soaking wet, we declined an offer of a ride back to town and went back in the canoe.

The music from the library’s bluegrass band event wasn’t playing when we paddled into Moraine near Stu’s. A few bar patrons standing along the river watched us come in. Hunter jumped out of the canoe and ran for his truck and took off back to join the other professionals in their search for answers. My thoughts were a jumble. I couldn’t get poor Faye’s face out of my head.

And Clay. He would have to be told. Did I have to be the one to tell him the horrible news?

After securing the canoe, I stood on the shore—barefoot, wet, and wind-whipped. Where had my flip-flops gone? Oh, yes, I remembered—into the river when the canoe tipped.

More people were beginning to gather at the river’s edge. Word was spreading. I had to get out of here before they heard that Clay’s ex-wife had found his girlfriend’s dead body in her kayak.

It was true that I’d wished Clay Lane dead a bunch of times, sometimes even verbally in front of witnesses, but I’d never extended that sentiment to any of his conquests. I figured they would be punished enough when they figured out that Clay wasn’t what he seemed.

A terrible idea flittered across my mind. What if Clay had killed her? Impossible. The man wasn’t capable of that kind of extreme emotion. Through our entire relationship, he’d never displayed passion for anything other than his own creature comforts. Good food and sex without borders, those were his most important needs.

Someone wrapped a towel around my shoulders. My mom and grandmother appeared out of nowhere and rescued me from the crowd of spectators, guiding me to Grams’s Cadillac Fleetwood, refusing to let anyone interfere with