A Bad Day for Romance by Sophie Littlefield

scout.”
    “Barefoot?”
    “Stella, when I was growing up, Mac and Pete took their shoes off on the last day of school and didn’t put ’em on again until September, ’cept for church. Mama wouldn’t let us girls do it because she said it wasn’t ladylike so we’d wear our shoes until we got to the end of the block and then we’d stow ’em behind a tree until it was time to come in at night. We always had a contest to see who could build up the biggest calluses. Mac was the judge and he’d poke at the bottom of our heels with his Buck knife until we cried. The minute you made a noise, you were eliminated.”
    “You ever win?”
    “What do you think? Every year after I turned eight.”
    Stella smiled. “Okay, you’re tough. But it’s been a while since you and your brothers and sisters duked it out.” She pointed to Chrissy’s toes, which, far from being toughened and rimed, had benefited from a recent pedicure and an application of baby-blue glitter nail polish.
    “Watch me, sister,” Chrissy growled.
    And so it was that Stella found herself following behind Chrissy as the girl stalked soundlessly up over the hillock, along the ridge, between trees, and around rocks. Chrissy was swift and sure, snapping not so much as a single twig, while Stella labored to place her feet exactly where Chrissy had and still managed to sound to her own ears like a stampeding rhino. After they’d gone several hundred yards, Chrissy held up a hand and motioned for Stella to come up slow at the edge of the cliff, and they both squatted behind the cover of the feathery lower branches of a jack pine.
    They were staring down at a clearing a dozen yards below that was loosely edged with flapping yellow tarp tied to tree branches. In the center knelt three figures in burgundy and silver Windbreakers emblazoned with the letters FCS —the Fayette Crime Scene unit’s logo.
    “Holy shit,” Stella whispered, “that’s Daphne and her boys.”
    “Hush,” Chrissy whispered back. “You can bitch about her later.”
    It took a minute for Stella to get over the shock of seeing the woman who had nearly driven Goat to a sexual harassment claim due to her vigorous amorous pursuit of him during an investigation a year ago. Daphne Simmons, once the heir apparent of the current sheriff of Sawyer County, had been censured and disciplined and, Stella had assumed, demoted to a position where she could no longer attempt to rival her for Goat’s affections.
    Parked at the edge of the clearing was the unit’s van. Its open sliding door revealed racks of specialized equipment that, in other circumstances, would have piqued in Stella a hearty professional curiosity. Instead, she focused on the three investigators, who appeared to be peering at a square-foot patch of land. While she watched, Daphne held out a thumb and forefinger and delicately picked something off the ground.
    “What is that she’s got there?” Stella demanded.
    Daphne held up the object with a triumphant “Aha!” and the three stood, dusting off their department-issue navy polyester slacks.
    “Thanks,” the man Stella recognized as Harvey Hewson, one of the two technicians, said as he took the object from her and dusted it off on his sleeve.
    “His spectacles,” Chrissy said, and indeed, Harvey settled them up on his nose. “Guess he dropped ’em.”
    “Ha. Figures. Those three dumbasses couldn’t investigate their way out of a paper bag.” Stella knew this from having crossed paths with them when a personal interest brought her in contact with a case they had come down to Prosper to investigate. The truth was that Harvey and the other technician, Charlie Long, might have been competent if they didn’t take all of their direction from Daphne.
    As if to illustrate this point, Daphne shook out a pack of Newports and sparked one up.
    “Don’t mind if I do,” Charlie said, holding out his hand for a cigarette.
    “This is national forest!” Harvey said in mock