Free Forgotten Witness by Rebecca Forster Page B

right?”- Archer
    “Yes.” – Josie
    “We’ll leave Max with Faye. I’ll have her cover your stuff at the office for the next few days. Just take it easy when you get back.” – Archer
    “No. I need to work. And I want to see, Max. I want to see you. Do you think that girl was Hannah?” – Josie
    “No, Jo. She wouldn’t have left you.” – Archer
    “She did once.” – Josie
    “She didn’t have a choice then. Get some sleep on the plane.”– Archer
    “It could have been Hannah.” – Josie
    “I don’t think so.” – Archer
    “But he said…” – Josie
    “Don’t cry, babe.” – Archer
    “I’m not. I’m not.” – Josie

CHAPTER 8
    Josie put her phone away, finished her drink, and sat staring at all the things she had collected that night. She didn’t know how long she sat like that or what prompted her to snap out of it. At some point she realized there was not going to be an epiphany sitting in a now closed bar at Dulles in a stupor. Josie did the only thing she could think to do: she dug in her purse for the tags she’d taken off the suitcase in Ian Francis’ room, shoved away from the table, hitched her bag, and took them to the first United Airlines counter she came to.
    “Excuse me. Could you tell me where this flight originated?” She passed the luggage tags across the counter. The woman in the uniform started typing. A minute later, she had the information Josie wanted.
    “Really,” Josie muttered. Then she said: “Can you book me through from LAX?”
    “When would you like that?” The woman asked.
    “What’s the first one going out tomorrow?”
    “It leaves at seven in the morning. You won’t have much time between flights.”
    “It doesn’t matter.” Josie handed the woman her credit card. When she was done, Josie dialed Archer again.
    “I need you to meet me at the airport with a few things,” Josie said.
    “Sure. What’s up?”
    “I’m going to Hawaii.”
     
    ***
     
    “Ambrose?”
    Lydia Patriota opened the door of the den smoothly, making her presence known with that one perfectly modulated word and a hint of extraordinary perfume. Although she called to her husband, the other men in the room immediately acknowledged her with admiring looks. She rewarded them with a quick and winning smile.
    Lydia Patriota was a lovely woman many years the senator’s junior but blessed with a grace and carriage that belied her youth. She was the second Ms. Patriota, the first having passed on some fifteen years earlier leaving behind Ambrose and two children who were now grown, successful, and above reproach. Of Lydia’s many charms, the fact that the second Mrs. Patriota did not want her own children despite being of childbearing age was high on Ambrose’s list of things he liked about her. He had no desire to be the butt of jokes about his virility, nor did he wish to leave a child orphaned should life not bless him with immortality, neither did he have time to spend with a little one. That he and Lydia loved one another as perfect, powerful, pretty people can was just icing on the cake. He had no doubt that, at his passing, she would be a most lovely widow and that she would truly mourn him. Luckily, she would not be wearing weeds anytime soon.
    “Is there anything else you gentlemen need for the evening?” Lydia asked.
    “Thank you, dear, we’re fine.” Ambrose answered for the four men in the living room.
    “I’ll be going upstairs then,” she said. “Don’t keep my husband up too late. And Woodrow, I don’t care who you are, honey, don’t smoke in the house. Standing next to an open window does not draw the smoke out on a night like this. You’ve only succeeded in making the room chilly and stinky.”
    With that, she left the men to their confab and went to her bedroom thinking how interesting it would be when the stairs she climbed were those in the White House. Behind her, the men chuckled their appreciation. There was something quite nice about