Brooke ‘Bookeeper’'s Arc

Chapter 8 of 32

By afternoon the cart rolled slow under its new weight. The road thinned to cracked dirt between dead fields. A bench sat alone at the shoulder, its paint long faded. Past it, a striped barrier blocked half the lane, one lamp dangling loose. A man stood beside it in a coat held together with wire. Brooke raised a hand. The escorts pulled up. The boy sat still on the books. She climbed down and sized him up — thin, sunburned, eyes too sharp for the rest of him. He said he knew where two of her titles were. Said it like a fact. Said he'd trade the locations for a ride to the next town. She almost waved him off. Then he pulled a folded square from his coat — a Daily column, creased soft from handling. Her name was on it. Beside two titles, he'd written addresses in small careful pencil. She read them twice. The handwriting matched a clinic she already had marked, and one she didn't. Brooke looked at the cart, at the boy, at the escorts. Then she jerked her thumb at the back. "Sit on the crate. Don't talk to the kid." The man climbed up. The barrier stayed where it was as they rolled past. One more title secured. One more stranger riding with her books.