| |
RILEY FINCH PITCHED the novel she’d been trying to read onto the foot of her bed. She’d reread the same paragraph for the last ten minutes and still hadn’t absorbed its meaning. Her thoughts kept returning to Detective Winston. Had he written back to her? What questions did he have? Could she see his writing appear as he wrote in the journal?
She pulled it from her bedside table. The corner of one of the pages was bent backwards. She made a mental note to repair it; there was nothing worse than a damaged book. She flipped the page. It wasn’t bent. Cut. Why? Had the page been whole earlier? Was Detective Winston testing to see whether she would notice?
She read his most recent entry. Yes, he was definitely trying to figure out how the journal worked.
Though the daily newspaper of his time had folded long ago, someone had scanned old copies and posted them to a free online archive. Riley smiled silent thanks to the intern or new archivist for the no doubt countless hours they’d invested to complete the task. She opened her laptop and typed the date Detective Winston had asked for in his message.
When the result popped up, she considered whether she should share it. How could she prove the truth of her words without altering history? She reread the headline. Perhaps it didn’t reveal too much. Riley steadied her hand as she wrote to Detective Winston.