She looked at Ferris, then quickly back to Joel. Then at Connor. And Zac. And Ryan. Theyalllooked tired. Had something happened? Ethan was the only one missing, but one glance at Maggie and she spotted him beside her.
“Good evening, everyone,” Ferris said.
She glanced back at their mayor. Evenhisvoice was different. More mellow. Like he was about to share bad news.
Shit. Her bad day was about to get worse, wasn’t it?
“I was planning to discuss a grant application for a local project tonight. And a fair that’s coming up in a few months. But something’s happened today. Something that everyone needs to be aware of.”
The back of Polly’s neck prickled.
“This is going to be a really short meeting,” Ferris continued. “Once I tell you what happened, Ryan from the SAR team will briefly talk, and he and his team will also hang back after the meeting for any questions.”
It was another missing woman. It had to be. Had she gone missing in the forest too? Or was it worse? Had they found her and?—
“Today, our search and rescue team found a body in the river near Traipse Trailhead.”
Polly’s stomach dropped. Not a missing person…a body. Someone had been killed.
Gasps cut through the crowd.
“Was it a woman?” Anika called out from the crowd.
Ferris dipped his head. “It was. She was found in the water. The guys pulled her out, but they couldn’t save her. She’d already been shot.”
Popcorn coiled in Polly’s belly, making her suddenly feel so nauseous she thought she might be sick.
Shot. Murdered.
She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, or if Joel really inched closer.
“Who?” Mark, Anika’s partner, asked.
Ferris swallowed. “Jenna Hampstead.”
The bucket of popcorn dropped from Polly’s suddenly cold fingers, and a buzzing started between her ears.
Ferris kept talking but she didn’t hear anything he said. Not a single word.
The body was Jenna’s.
Jenna, who came into Bloom every morning at exactly nine fifteen.
Jenna, who’d overheard her conversation with Maggie about the phone and turned pale.
Was it related? No. It couldn’t be. Could it?
Something touched her shoulder, but she barely felt it.
The buzzing was deafening, the cold in her fingers crawling into other parts of her body.
“Polly?”
She jumped and turned to see Joel staring at her, his expression one of concern. He was close, his hand on her shoulder.
His gaze shifted between her eyes. “Are you okay?”
“I…I don’t know.”
