Booktree.ng_Forgotten-Witness

home to the bloody folks, crushed pineapple, pineapple slices,
whole pineapples. People who come to the islands can’t get
enough of it.”
He finished his litany, sucked up his drink through a straw
and when he came up for air he was back to Emily.
“And what does it matter what’s wrong with your mum? Do
you think you have all the time in the world? What you’re
talking about – therapy and such – would take time which I
doubt you have.”
“I would make it,” Josie answered.
“Truly, now? You’d give up your home? You’d give your
man an ultimatum – move with me to Molokai on the off
chance I can get my mother to remember who I am? And what
about the girl you came to find? What about her?”
Josie couldn’t argue with him there. In the last months
Hannah was all she thought about; in the last hours she had
been forgotten and Josie was ashamed.
“So, you’re finding blood a bit thicker than water, are you?”
Stephen nudged.
“What did you do in your last life, Stephen? Work for the
Spanish Inquisition?”
Josie’s snipe was friendly as she turned on the stool. Their
knees were touching. She leaned close to him. “You’re a little
Barnum & Bailey, a little Hugh Hefner, but you’re not just a
sideshow are you?”
“I am not, but I find it beneficial to be considered such at
times,” he answered. “I’d begun to think there was nothing for
me any longer but warm breezes, swaying palm trees, and a
passel of lovely women passing through my home. Not a hard
life, mind you, just one that goes too easily. I like a bit of
excitement, intellectual or otherwise.”
“Still not answering the question,” Josie insisted. “Were you
some Fortune Five Hundred CEO? A scientist. An inventor?”