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evening, while the twins and I worked, through the pizza we shared from Stu’s Bar and Grill, until eight o’clock when we closed up, I could hear the growing concern in customers’ voices.
    I walked the two short blocks home, knowing it was only a matter of time before the residents of the town would come hunting for killers in my own backyard. I had to think of something to prove that Manny’s bees were innocent.
    Lights were off in my ex-husband’s jewelry shop next door, but they were on in Clay’s small living area behind the shop, meaning he was entertaining. Why else would he be home on a Friday night? I wondered if he was still with Faye, or if he’d already moved on to someone new.
    Faye Tilley, as the entire town knew thanks to their performance outside my store, was only Clay’s latest in a long line of females extending way back into our history as a couple. While I expected my ex to have the unmitigated gall and extreme bad taste to bring her to the divorce proceeding, I blamed Faye just as much for going along with something like that. To top it off, she’d come wearing dragonfly earrings and a wire butterfly barrette in her hair, original pieces I recognized as Clay’s handmade jewelry.
    For some twisted reason, it was comforting to know there were other women in the world with judgment as awful as mine. I felt slightly guilty for being happy that it wasn’t me lying in his bed, but it didn’t last more than a second or two. Let someone else think they could change him. The man was like a shell—beautiful on the outside, hollow on the inside.
    I turned away from Clay’s house and considered taking my kayak out. It was a routine of mine almost every night. Late in the evening, right before bed, was the best time to be on the Oconomowoc River. I’d added reflective tape to the sides of my kayak and a few strips of it on my life jacket and, on nights when the moon wasn’t shining to light my way, I wore a waterproof headlamp.
    But tonight the river didn’t beckon me. I would probably see death in every shadow. Besides, I was drop-dead tired from the day’s stress.
    Those nightmares I’d been worrying about after seeing Manny’s dead body caught up with me. I woke up in the middle of the night, startled, thinking I had heard loud voices followed by a scream. I flipped on the outside lights, but didn’t see anything unusual in the backyard. My bees had bunked down at the first fading light. Nothing moved.
    I went back to bed and waited for morning, convinced that the scream had come out of my own unconscious mind.

Five

    Clouds rolled in overnight. The early-morning air smelled of gathering rain when I sat down at my backyard patio table with a hot cup of coffee—and fresh pain over Manny.
    I’d been too tired and distraught last night to gloat over how the old family house was finally totally mine. Of course, I’d lived in it most of my life, first as a child, then with Clay, but the deed had never been in only my name.
    Now it was mine.
    My house.
    It belonged to me. I loved the sound of that.
    The lot was narrow, but what it didn’t have in width, it made up for in depth, going all the way back to the Oconomowoc River. I’d repainted the house from faded gray to sunshine yellow, given the wraparound front porch a splash of the same color, and added bright white trim. I added three colorful Adirondacks to the porch, the same kind as at the store. The beehives were in the backyard, closer to the river than to the house, placed strategically in a protected spot near my vegetable garden.
    On the other side of my garden, an old coop still stood where we had raised chickens when I was growing up. I’d been seriously considering getting back into raising a few chickens of my own for the benefit of fresh, organic eggs.
    The weeping willows, which hung over the riverbed, had inspired the town founders to name the short street in front of my home Willow Street. Nature enthusiasts could turn off