Page 84 of Her Wicker Guardian

“No, but you’re blocking the road.”

The woman calls, “Is he really back there?”

I don’t answer.

Another vehicle comes around the curve and brakes hard. The driver blasts the horn, and the pickup driver finally moves closer to his truck.

Then blue lights appear around the bend. My stomach drops even though I knew this was coming sooner or later. The county deputy vehicle slows behind the cars and pulls onto the shoulder. The man who gets out is familiar enough that the whole scene becomes briefly more absurd.

Deputy Aaron Pike eats at the Blue Plate often enough that I know he takes his coffee black and shakes hot sauce on eggs like they’ve personally offended him. He’s broad through the shoulders, in his forties, and usually looks like a man who’s listening very carefully because somebody is about to lie to him.

He looks at the cars, then at me. “Rachel.”

“Hi, Aaron.”

He gestures toward the shoulder. “This yours?”

“No.”

“I assumed.”

The man beside the pickup calls, “Ask her about the tree guy.”

Aaron closes his eyes for one second. When he opens them, he looks back at me.

“Dispatch has been getting calls.”

“About traffic?”

“One about traffic. More than I can count about a man made of sticks carrying an axe.”

“He was splitting firewood.”

Aaron studies my face. Whatever he expected to find there, he doesn’t.

“All right.”

“That’s it?”

“No. That’s the part where I figure out which question to ask next.”

Footsteps sound behind me. I know who it is without turning. Aaron doesn’t.

Aaron looks past me, and the professional expression disappears from his face for one unguarded second. Locke stops several feet behind me. Nobody beside the road says anything.

Aaron’s hand doesn’t go to his weapon. I notice because I’m watching for it. He goes still, but both hands stay at his sides while he takes Locke in from head to foot.

“Okay,” he says quietly.

Locke looks at him. Aaron blinks once and finds his deputy voice again. “Are you Locke?”

“Yes.”

That surprises me. “You know his name?”

Aaron glances at me. “One of the calls included it.”

He looks back at Locke. “I’m Aaron Pike. I’m a deputy with the county sheriff’s office.”