Page 214 of As You Wish

But he didn’t show up. It made me wonder if he’d finally hit his limit with things in this town. It wasn’t fair of me to want him here anyway. He was leaving.

When I tried to find anything else on land ownership, something stopped me. There was a sticky note on the spine of one of the books, and I frowned as I picked it up.

My jaw dropped. I knew that handwriting. It was the STM grant owner. I nearly dropped the note while looking around, trying to see if there was anyone out of the ordinary in the library. There wasn’t. In fact, everyone in town had left me alone to do my bidding.

With a shaky breath, I tried to remember all the people who had checked on me, but I’d been so focused that I hadn’t given them a second thought.

I should have.

I wanted to run downstairs and go through everyone who was in this library. I wanted to find that owner and understand why they were doing what they were doing.

Then what the sticky note said hit me.

“Historical trees. I need to see if the trees are registered!”

All thoughts of finding the owner vanished from my mind.

I ran to a computer, first to find out how to see if trees were historical, then to look up everything I could on that property.

Eventually, I found exactly what I was looking for.

There were historical trees. They’d been registered many years ago for witnessing multiple divorces.

“Hugh, you beautiful, petty man,” I said to myself. “You somehow doomed and saved us.”

GABRIEL

Strawberry Springs Neighborhood Watch

Hu Gh: Goggle, where am I?

Comments:

Kerry Winsor: Hugh, are you okay?

Hu Gh: TAKE M E HOM

Kerry Winsor: @SherriffMike Finch Can you check on him?

SherriffMike Finch: Dammit. I had just sat down.

Jackie Anne: Is Hugh okay???

Hu Gh: Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for the ride.

SherriffMike Finch: Fucker played drunk to get a free ride. I hate this town.

“What are you doing?” I nearly jumped ten feet in the air when a voice asked me that out of nowhere. My shoulders tensed when I recognized who it belonged to.

“Hi, Kerry. Long time no see.” This was the worst person who could have found me hiding behind a bookshelf. I’d been watching Jade for a while, hoping she would come to the conclusion that I needed her to. She had just run out of the library, a book in hand.

I was trying to be so careful, but inevitably, I had to take this risk and step in.

“Yeah, long time no see. You’ve been busy with Jade. Watching her too, it seems.”

“Please don’t tell her you saw me here.”