Forgotten Witness by Rebecca Forster Read Free Book Online

his fingertips. Ian Francis dropped them away from his face. He turned one click. He stared at the street. This was so different than the place he shared with his girl.
    His chin lowered.
    His lips went slack.
    He was listing.
    He was forgetting.
    Then he did not tremble. He did not cry. He did not think.
    Ian Francis was gone, so Ian Francis’ body moved on.
     
    ***
     
    The paper was so old and rolled so tightly the sheets seemed laminated. When Josie finally managed to flatten it, the paper simply rolled back in on itself. With nothing to weight it, Josie reversed the roll on the edge of the table. Finally, she spread it in front of her and what was on it was splendid to look at.
    The pages were filled with exquisite, near-microscopic letters so uniformly formed that they appeared to be typeset. The space between each letter was the width of an eyelash, between words maybe two. The writing stretched from edge to edge, top to bottom. There was no hint that the author had penciled in guidelines to help his hand stay straight on the once-blank paper and yet every line was arrow straight. Josie knew only two sorts of people wrote this way: convicts because resources were precious and mental patients because they herded their words together so they wouldn’t fly away. Ian Francis, she assumed, learned his craft in the mad house.
    She squinted at the writing. It was English but that was about as close as she could come to making sense of it. The neatly printed words were a jumble leading nowhere and numbers adding up to nothing.
     
    Rememberrememberemembermk
    Poor thingpoorgirl isamarigold.
    Ultraartichokechatter!Marigold.
    194519531976SWGBS1986EB.
     
    Stars and flowers punctuated the missive at intervals, tiny little fairy drawings, delicately adorned the narrow edges at the top of each page.
    Josie turned the first page over only to find more of the same on the back. She would Xerox this, magnify the pages, and analyze them properly with Archer when she got home.
    She turned the second page front to back and then the third. There was no writing on the back of the third page, only a drawing of a woman in a chair obscured by a pattern that could have been bricks or bars. Josie squinted but couldn’t make out who the woman might be. She looked even closer and saw the intricately drawn picture was actually made up of pinhead printing even more amazing than the notes. The woman looked like a prisoner. Her arms were bound.
    Sitting up slightly, Josie dropped her forehead onto her upturned palm. The bottom of the paper curled up but didn’t completely obscure the picture. If the situation hadn’t been so weird, Josie would have laughed at herself. The bag was new and maybe even the small bag with the white powder in it, but this paper, the tape around the lock of hair, and the rubber bands were old and fragile as if they’d been stuck away in a drawer for years. The person in the drawing, the person whose curl of hair had been so neatly kept was probably real but none of it had to do with Hannah. More than likely, whoever this woman was, she was real only to Ian Francis.
    Suddenly, the paper rolled up and spun off the table. Josie lunged for it but succeeded only in knocking everything else to the floor. Heads turned and a guy in a well-worn khaki jacket and jeans got up to help.
    “Hang on. I got it.” He plucked the little roll of paper from under his table. Josie picked up the plastic bag.
    “Thanks,” she said as she put the paper in her bag.
    “No problem,” he answered.
    When he didn’t move she gave him what he wanted: her attention.
    “You okay?” His brow furrowed making him only slightly more handsome than any twenty-something kid should be.
    “I’m good,” she answered.
    “I mean, you really okay? ’Cause if you’re staying there you must have some heavy shit weighing on you. I’ve got a pad. You can come with me. My friend won’t mind. It would be better than going there.”
    “How do you know