on earth…?” she murmured.
Setting down the trowel, Kat stripped off her gloves and pulled the long, ivory-colored rock from the pot.
Wiping the dark, damp compost from it, she realized, no, not a rock. Porous, it didn’t weigh enough, and widened at each end like a segment of bamboo. She stared down at the thing in her hand, the ball of her stomach knowing what it was before her brain caught up.
A bone. There’d been a bone in her compost.
“Kat?” The voice was loud and close.
She jerked, adrenaline shooting through her, and lifted her head. Her newest employee, a lanky nineteen-year-old named Jason Hebert, had come all the way into the greenhouse without her noticing, probably calling her name all the way. He looked perplexed.
“Are you okay, Kat? Was I supposed to not interrupt you? I’m sorry. I’ll go away…” His gaze dropped to the object in her hand. “Is that a bone?”
“It was in the compost.” She turned it in her hand. “From some animal, I guess.”
He peered more closely. “You sure? It looks like a finger bone.” He held out his own hand and waggled his fingers in a 3-D demonstration. “You know, a phalange?”
No, she didn’t. Although maybe she should, given that she thought about human remains way more often than the average person.
“I’m taking Anatomy this semester. We saw a real skeleton. That’s what this looks like.”
If this was a finger bone, it was larger than hers, Kat couldn’t help thinking. Longer and thicker. A man’s, maybe.
“You know, it’s probably dumb,” she said, giving a half laugh as if no more than mildly startled by the find, “but I’d better call the police just in case.”
“Yeah. Maybe some guy got it sliced off.” Jason sounded ghoulishly pleased.
They did operate heavy machinery at the compost facility not two miles away. She didn’t remember hearing about anyone losing a finger—especially a finger they never found to reattach—but that did make sense.
Or it was a leg bone from something small, something dog- or cat-sized. It was silly to get alarmed because a community college student who’d once seen a real human skeleton had identified this bone. Still…the unease that made her queasy decided her. If it was a human bone…
Oh, God. Hugh.
With an effort she suppressed the sickening mix of dread and…not hope. She couldn’t be feeling hope. Since Jason was still hovering, Kat asked, “What was your question? Can it wait while I make a quick call about this?”
“Huh? Oh, sure. It was just Ms. Lindstrom, about the garden club meeting. But she said something about needing a flowering plum or maybe cherry and went out that way, so she’s probably forgotten.”
Annika Lindstrom was one of their best customers and the owner of a spectacular garden that was the centerpiece of many a garden tour. She and Kat weren’t quite friends, but close enough that she wouldn’t be insulted if Kat didn’t immediately appear.
“I’ll find her when I’m done.”
“Oh, and that guy from the Globe. He was here, but I think he got a phone call and left.”
Mike Hedin was the editor of the local weekly newspaper. She’d been half expecting him to want to talk to her about the award.
“Okay, thanks,” she said. Sending Jason back to work, she took the rear door out of the greenhouse, stepping from tropical warmth into the crisp air that still felt like winter.
The temperature in her small office at the back of the main nursery building was somewhere in between. Setting the bone in front of her, she sat at her desk and reached for the phone.
Halfway through dialing, it struck her. How many times had she called police jurisdictions throughout the state to ask about remains found buried in some backyard? What were the odds that she, of all people, had actually found a human bone? God. The local police would probably think she’d gone completely around the bend.
A giggle escaped her throat like a hiccup, and she covered her mouth, swiveling to make sure the door was still closed and nobody had heard her. Sternly, she told herself this wasn’t exactly funny, just…ironic.
“Fern Bluff Police Department.” She knew the bored sergeant who answered the phone.
“Martin, this is Kat Riley at the nursery. I’ve found a bone in the compost. It’s probably from an animal, but, well, one of my employees is taking an anatomy course at the college and he thinks it looks like a human finger bone.” A little ashamed of herself, she thought, That’s it, blame poor Jason. “So I thought I’d better report it.”
“Well, let me get the chief for you.”
“That’s not necess—”
The quality of the silence told her she was on hold. Kat muttered a word she wouldn’t have said in front of a customer. He hadn’t even waited for her protest!
But she guessed it made sense for him to call the chief. Fern Bluff had grown with stunning speed these past several years, since software giant Microsoft had opened a Snohomish County campus on the outskirts of town. The police force had quadrupled in size, as had crime, but even so she suspected Chief Grant Haller was the only member of the force with any real experience with homicide.
Besides…the sergeant knew about Hugh.
Martin came back on a moment later. “The chief says to tell you he’ll be out to take a look.”
“Fine,” she said. “Thank you.” She hung up the phone, hating how short of breath she suddenly was, how dismayed. She didn’t see Grant Haller often outside chamber of commerce meetings or the like. She’d armored herself against those occasions. But that moment at the banquet last week had shaken her. When her name had been announced, out of the several hundred people present, he was the only one she seemed able to focus on. He’d dipped his head in acknowledgment of her triumph, then given her an odd, wry smile, his eyes warm. Heart drumming, she’d realized he was still interested. She hadn’t dreamed, hadn’t thought…
But now she had, and now he was on his way here. And she wouldn’t be seeing him in the midst of a crowd at a city council meeting, but rather in the close quarters of this office, her sanctuary.
Breathless, she thought, I’m not ready. But she had no choice. This wasn’t the kind of thing she wanted to talk about in front of half a dozen customers lined up to pay for their flats of early spring bedding plants.
This. Oh, God. She’d almost forgotten. She looked down at the bone, lying on her desk blotter, bits of dark compost still clinging to it like soil from a grave. Unable to help herself, she laid her hand next to it, comparing the length and thickness to her own finger bones. It could be a man’s.
It could be Hugh’s.
Kat shuddered and withdrew her hand, curling it into a fist she pressed against her belly. No! How many times had the compost been turned and bagged or loaded into trucks and replaced over at Wallinger’s? At least
