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five-by-eight and heat-stamped with the crude image of a tall building of no particular architecture. There were no words, numbers, or symbols on the outside but she could clearly see that there were things inside so she opened the bag. It yielded a very small clear plastic bag of white powder with a numeric code written on it, a lock of hair wrapped round with yellowing scotch tape, and a little torpedo of rolled paper.
    As much as Josie would have liked to think the lock of hair was at least proof of Hannah, she knew it was not. Hannah had shaved her head before she spirited Billy out of the hospital. This hair was smooth and chestnut colored, not black and curled and kinked like Hannah’s. This was something a mother kept of a child or a man kept of his lover. These things made no sense and yet the man’s voice rang clearly in her head. He was so sure; so specific.
    I know where she is.
    He had forced this package into her hands with purpose.
    I know where she is.
    For one brief moment there had been a spark of relief in his eyes. That was why she believed in him. She believed because he had worked so hard to get to her. She believed in Ian Francis because he was all she had.
    Josie picked up the cigarette roll of paper.
    There was a fringe of chads on one side as if it had been torn from the spirals of small notebook. A rubber band was wrapped around this, too, but it was delicate, fraying in places, and wound like a Cat’s Cradle. The minute she touched it the thing disintegrated. It was a little bit like her hopes that Hannah would be found.
     
    ***
     
    Ian Francis walked down the street, his arms ridged by his side, palms flat against his thighs, his steps minced, and his gaze fixed. His thoughts were surprisingly clear: he was angry with himself for being clumsy. He had frightened that woman. That was the last thing he wanted and the last thing he remembered.
    Ian stopped, his interest suddenly caught by the reflection of a man in a window. Two times he did this and the second time he touched the glass. When he understood that this was his own reflection, his chest grabbed and his heart hurt. How had he come to this? He was pathetic. He paused a third time at a boarded up store and this time he peered through wooden slats covering dirty glass to see if he was any better. He wasn’t. Ian clenched his jaw tight to keep from crying out in shame.
    He moved on again and then Ian stopped for a final time. In this window he looked past his reflection at the mannequins dressed in cheap and unattractive clothes. A tear came to his eye. He shuffled forward by an inch and another and put his nose against the cold glass. He forgot everything as he looked at the dark haired woman made of plaster. Her face was turned upward. He could see the joint where her head was attached to her neck. One arm dangled longer than the other. She had no shoes. Her feet had no toes.
    “My girl,” he whispered.
    Ian took one step back, put his hands up, and cupped them over his mouth and nose. He breathed out, warming the space he had made. He spoke words inside that space and they echoed back at him. Words would keep him in the light as he walked. He didn’t want to leave her in that window with no toes and her arm hanging loose but he must. And why was she looking for him in the heavens when he was right there on earth? Since he didn’t know the answer to that, he talked to himself about the things he knew.
    “There is a connection between the cerebral and the…the… Keep an imprint of recently acquired memories. It is known to…”
    The knowledge that had once belonged to him was broken into shards as his brain misfired.
    “There is a connection…”
    It was too hard.
    “The cerebral…”
    It was impossible.
    “My girl is broken…”
    He began to tremble. The train of his thoughts derailed in favor of memories of her: dark haired, dark haired, dark haired.
    What else?
    Please, what else?
    The trembling reached his hands and then