Page 7 of Snow River

She turned the key, shifted into reverse, stomped on the accelerator, and was heading back to Firelight Ridge before he had a chance to even hop in his truck.

He chuckled as he started up his truck.It didn’t matter if he never saw her note.She wasn’t leaving.That was what counted.

Now if he could just get her to tell him why she’d tried to leave.And what had changed her mind.

As he shaded his eyes against the bright sunshine reflecting off the river, something caught his eye.Something dark hunched at the edge of one of the channels.

Black bear?

No, it wasn’t moving like a bear.It shifted slightly every time the current tugged at it.It wasn’t alive.Or at least it wasn’t conscious.

A root ball that had been torn up by a storm and tossed into the river?That seemed unlikely, since there had been no big storms recently and it wasn’t really shaped like roots.

Only one way to find out.

He parked his truck again and climbed over the guardrail.The steep embankment was made of crumbling reddish earth that quickly covered his jacket and jeans.A few times, he came close to slipping and barely managed to grab onto a protruding root or a rocky handhold.But he hadn’t spent five years as a police officer in the bush—the most miserable years of his life—for nothing.He’d once climbed up a sheer cliff to help a boy who had lost control of his four-wheeler.

When he finally reached level ground, he checked the mystery object again.

Correction.Not an object.It was definitely a person.He couldn’t tell much more than that, other than it wasn’t a small person.Not a child.

He checked his phone.No service.He’d have to call the Blackbear police after he’d climbed back up that embankment.

Steeling himself, he walked across the gravel that the river had deposited in dunes along its shore.The closer he got, the more his stomach sank.People had drowned in Snow River before.They might be fishing on the shore, slip on the rocks, get swept away.It had been known to happen.

But fishing season was over.There were no more salmon making their way upriver to their spawning grounds.And this person wasn’t wearing hip waders or high boots or oilskins.They hadn’t been fishing.

She.Shehadn’t been fishing.He was next to her now.Long wet ropes of hair wrapped around her neck and head like seaweed.She wore a short wool coat.Green and black plaid.She was heavy-set, plump, you could say.He didn’t recognize the coat or anything else about her, so he didn’t believe she was from Firelight Ridge.

He tugged her by the feet to get her fully out of the water.She wore sodden Converse sneakers and jeans.Water streamed off her, saturated the gravel.Had she been trail running?Not in that coat, he thought.Or jeans.

Just to confirm the obvious, he gingerly reached through the tangled strands of hair to find her neck.Her skin was cold, so cold.She couldn’t possibly still be alive.Still, he spent several long minutes searching for a pulse.Nothing.To his eye, she hadn’t been in the water more than a day or so.

He washed his hands in the river, dried them on his pants, and snapped some photos with his phone.He included the exact location where he’d first spotted her body.

Climbing back up that embankment was a lot harder than sliding down.Then he had to drive another mile to pick up a signal.

“Blackbear dispatch, what is the nature of your emergency?”He recognized that bored voice.In fact, he and Carol Hews had enjoyed a two-year fuck-buddy relationship before she’d decided last winter that she wanted a family.

“Carol, it’s Bear.From Firelight Ridge.”

“Bear, I’m sorry but it’s over.You can’t be calling nine-one-one because you want me back.”

“I don’t?—”

“I know.But you don’t have to rub it in.Can’t you just play along?”

No.He couldn’t.Normally, sure.They’d played all sorts of fun games, but now was not the time.“I found a dead body.”

“Shit.No kidding?In Firelight Ridge?”Carol shifted right into professional mode.“GPS says you’re in Kursk.”

“Snow River, right near that overlook on the way to Firelight Ridge.She drowned.Or at least, I found her in the water.”

“You saying you don’t think she drowned?”

“I don’t know how she died, but you’d better send someone out here.”

“Hang on.”He heard the tapping of keys.“It’s going to be about an hour.Can you wait there?With the body?Coyotes might get at it.Bears.Hell, even the eagles are hungry come fall.”

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