Booktree.ng_Forgotten-Witness

when she was young, his gun wouldn’t protect her now. There
was no magic and she always thought there had been.
There was another envelope filled with her report cards, a
picture of her in her volleyball uniform just after she heard she
won a scholarship, and a picture of the two of them at her law
school graduation. Her father had been so handsome, so
disciplined, so smart and supportive. Now she added actor and
deceiver to his list of credits. The question was why?
She took an old-fashioned photo album out of the box, sat
on the hall floor with her back up against the wall, and
balanced it on her outstretched legs. There were pictures of her
father as a boy. Josie had barely known her grandparents on
either side so the pictures meant little to her.
Finally, Josie grabbed her father’s dress uniform jacket and
searched the pockets. She found his dog tags, a set of keys, a
coin and she found something she didn’t expect: a small blue
velvet box. In the dim light coming from the kitchen, in the
silent house, Josie felt incredibly alone the minute she touched
it. She wanted to put it back and forget she ever saw it.
Instead, Josie flipped the top, took one look at what was inside
and closed it again. Her head fell back against the wall. Her
hand dropped to her lap.
“Damn,” she whispered.
Here it was, the last nail in her father’s coffin. Inside the
box were her parents’ wedding rings. Not just her father’s but
her mother’s, too. Josie had spent so many years accusing her
mother, convicting her of desertion without evidence and in
absentia, and the guilty party was the one with who stayed
behind. All those years and he could have put an end to Josie’s
grief.
Too tired and too sad to move, Josie thought she would sit
that way until dawn but suddenly she was alert. She heard
something inside the house that wasn’t right. It could have
been the house settling, or Max moving with his dreams, but
the danger of Molokai was fresh in her mind and she was on
her guard. Slowly, she got to her feet.