Free A Bad Day for Romance by Sophie Littlefield Page B

did she tell you, anyway?”
    “She says she must of got hit on the head or something because she can’t remember a thing past when she climbed up that tree.”
    “Mighty convenient.”
    “Yeah. She said Bryant wanted to shoot her pretending to sleep up there, like they did in The Hunger Games . Anyway, one minute she said she was climbing up the tree and the next she woke up all lying on the ground cut up and bloody, with her leg twisted and her arm all fucked-up. She saw that Bryant had an arrow sticking out of him, and according to her, she figured it was a hunting accident, and she wanted to get help so she got her a branch to lean on and kind of dragged her leg along behind her until she run into the ranger.”
    “And you’re sure there really was a ranger?”
    “Yeah, he was driving around in the park truck the way they do, looking for folks to bust for exercising their constitutional rights to enjoy the outdoors.” Stella knew not to inquire further into that comment; she assumed it was a reference to the Lardners’ disdain for hunting regulations. “The ranger called the cops and an ambulance for Divinity. Once the paramedics got her toted off to the hospital the ranger took Lloyd and his partner over in the direction where she said she’d come from, and that’s where they found Bryant, shot dead.”
    “They must’ve found the bow about that time, too. Only if Divinity didn’t mention it to you, she must not know they have it. Wonder why they haven’t let her in on that fact?”
    “No idea, Stella, even I can’t get a fella to burst out with confidential information like that just from him breathing my pheromones.”
    Stella snorted. “You done it before,” she reminded Chrissy, and was about to give her a few examples when she noticed that blush creeping back across the girl’s face. “Okay, okay, you want to be all coy, that’s fine with me. Only, if we don’t figure out a way to spring Divinity, I don’t see how we’ll get her folks and Tilly to leave their jailhouse vigil, and I just don’t know what to tell Dotty. I mean, I got Pearline to come down on Sunday, but it would sure be nice if we could get this wrapped up before then.” Stella paused. “I mean, that Divinity’s always been a pain in the ass, but I just can’t believe she’s a killer . There’s got to be some other explanation for that bow.”
    Chrissy was silent for a long while, screwing up her face in an expression of fiercely conflicting emotions. “Oh, hell,” she finally said, as the resort entrance came into view at the crest of a hill decked out with trees in glorious fall colors. “Lloyd did mention he might come by the rehearsal dinner tonight. Wanted to ask folks a few questions.”
    “And Ian’s not coming until tomorrow!” Stella crowed. “Leaving you to your own devices. And with a full bar, no less.”
    “Don’t be thinking I’m going to get up to anything nasty with Lloyd,” Chrissy sputtered. “I might talk to him for a minute, is all.”
    “And maybe fetch him a drink,” Stella advised. “Or two. It is a joyous occasion, after all.”
    “You just got done saying you didn’t think there was going to be a wedding at all if Divinity stays locked up.”
    “Well, here it is not even lunchtime yet,” Stella said, using the entrance to the resort to execute a gravel-spitting U-turn. “Way too early to be making dire predictions, you ask me. In fact, I think we ought to go have us a picnic in the national forest—what do you say?”

CHAPTER SEVEN
    WHAT CHRISSY SAID WAS “PULL ON over” when she saw a hand-painted sign hanging from a tree half a mile from the turnoff to the park. The sign advertised “SAWYER COUNTY HAM CORN STRAWBERRY’S ANTIQUE’S KNIFE’S SHARPEND.”
    “That’s a mighty big claim,” Stella observed as she drove over the rutted dirt road that passed through a clump of poplars. They came up on one of those houses that started out as a couple of rooms constructed