Booktree.ng_Forgotten-Witness

When Josie found her voice she couldn’t stop talking. Not
while he cleaned up her hand, butterflied the deep but narrow
cuts in her palm, slathered antibiotic ointment on the scrapes
on the side of her hand and wrapped the whole thing in gauze.
She kept talking while he searched Reynolds’ office for a
bottle of booze. In lieu of a tranquilizer dart, he thought a
drink might slow her down a bit. If that didn’t work, he’d take
one to dull the pain her incessant chattering was wreaking in
his skull. But there was not a drop to be found. He did find a
bottle of aspirin. That wasn’t going to make a dent in the pain
Josie would eventually feel, but it couldn’t hurt so he gave her
four. When they were back on Maui he would give her
something stronger and pack her off to her hotel if he could
get her off this island by nightfall.
“How are you two doing?” Reynolds was back, giving
perfunctory lip service to his concern. Stephen answered:
“Her hand will be fine. No stitches needed. We apprecia–”
“I want to see her. I want to–”
Josie made her demand as she started to get up but Stephen
pushed her back down. Her head whipped toward him, but he
would have no more of her lip.
“You’ve waited this long, you can wait a bit longer I think.
Let’s hear what the man has to say.”
“I’m fine. I am. I don’t want any trouble.” As if to prove it,
Josie swung her head toward Reynolds as she made a show of
settling.
“Neither do I,” Bernard Reynolds agreed. “But you have
already made a great deal more than you know. I can’t imagine
what Mr. Kyle was thinking bringing you here like this. This is
a private facility. People visit by appointment. What you’ve
done is against all protocol and I will hold Mr. Kyle personally
responsible. We will certainly be rethinking our business
relationship with Keoloko Enterprises.”
“It isn’t his fault. I asked him not to call. I believed a young
girl I’ve been looking for was here. I thought if she knew I