Buzz Off - By Hannah Reed Page 0,36

than me. And, more important, definitely not my type.

But Hunter and Ben weren’t by themselves. I saw the rest of the C.I.T. squad behind him, and Johnny Jay creeping around the other side of the house, on the driveway that separated my house from Clay’s.

This was it. The moment I’d feared. They were going to arrest me and throw me in jail, leaving my bees vulnerable to Lori’s deadly spray can. Not to mention that my own pathetic life was in ruins.

“You don’t need all this backup,” I said quietly to Hunter, not moving a muscle. “There won’t be a scene.”

“It’s standard procedure,” Hunter said with a serious expression. I looked at the dog, who seemed ready for action. Maybe too ready. The last thing I wanted was that dog unleashed on me.

I put my hands up in the air, hoping that would calm the animal, praying he understood the universal gesture of surrender.

“Where did the shot come from?” Hunter said. I slid a look at Stanley, who put his hands in the air, too.

“It went off accidentally,” Stanley said, prepared to own up and admit his illegal action.

“It didn’t come from inside the house?”

“Of course not,” Stanley said. He looked around at the rest of the law enforcement officials. “You didn’t have to bring the entire team just because of one little shot.”

Hunter shook his head, frowning, then ran his blue eyes along our raised arms, and said, “You need to wait inside your house, Story. You, too, Stanley.”

Then I noticed that every member of C.I.T. had his attention focused, not on Stanley and me, but on Clay’s house.

“What’s going on?” I finally asked, lowering my arm.

“We’re arresting your ex-husband,” Hunter said. “Now please go inside.”

Fourteen

Attitude is important. So is positive thinking. I was finding both mind-sets a little hard to master at the moment. My emotions were all over the place. First, I felt relieved that I wasn’t going to prison for life. Fear peeled from my shoulders like the final stages of a bad sunburn when the healing starts. I wouldn’t be hauled down to the station in handcuffs and accused of a crime I didn’t commit. But my stomach knotted thinking about my ex and murder and how I could have been the one who popped out of the cattails with sightless eyes.

My ex-husband had killed his girlfriend. My feelings about his inability to physically harm another human being had been wrong, wrong, wrong.

I knew I was sentencing him prematurely but I couldn’t help myself. In the United States of America the accused party is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but that wasn’t really how it worked in people’s minds. The reality was more like this: guilty until proven innocent, and good luck with that.

It took Johnny Jay and Hunter no time at all to haul Clay out of his house and send him off in a squad car. Then another team of professionals went inside, wearing gloves and carrying equipment boxes.

“They’re searching for clues,” Stanley said, watching from the window.

“Let’s get out of here.” I didn’t want to give Johnny Jay any reason to turn his attention my way, remembering what Clay had said about the police chief thinking we were in it together. The only positive thought I could drum up was that Clay’s arrest would be the hot topic of conversation today, not me or my bees. They were safe for now. No one was going to sneak into my backyard with all this action going on.

Deputies posted outside didn’t stop me and Stanley from leaving; according to them, the danger had passed. But when we saw the crowd forming on the corner of Willow and Main, we did a quick U-turn and snuck through the back of Moraine Gardens. I went to the market, and Stanley got in his car and drove away.

I stood on the sidewalk, staring up at The Wild Clover’s stained-glass windows, remembering the days when the building’s congregation met inside to sing praise to God. I could almost hear the steeple bells ringing again.

Ray Goodwin’s truck pulled in, and I quickly approached.

“There’s nobody to help unload,” I said, thinking my voice sounded a little shaky. “Except me. Do you need help?”

“No, that’s okay,” Ray said, swinging a crate of apples down from his delivery truck onto a dolly.

“If you would plan your deliveries for later in the day, after three, the twins are usually here.”

“I said it’s no problem. What’s going on down the street?”

“My ex-husband