Jare started from her small doze, noticing her handheld computer flashing a message available. She had been daydreaming at work again, definitely not a good thing, but there was no one here at the moment. She hoped.
She checked the message quickly. It was from Jain. Her heart was almost instantly beating faster.
“Hi Jare, I know I don’t write often – I am always forgetting till they remind me a month has passed. I’m sorry about that. But I wanted to reply to your last message. There is no way to get around it, I’m sorry. I must have sat the book down and it got taken up in a batch of books to go to the shop. It wasn’t intentional. But I will also confess that I haven’t read it yet…”
A relief, but not much of one. Jare sighed and put the device aside. At least the results were no surprise. If Jain had read the book, *that* would have been the surprise.
She still had the book next to her, so she prepared to take it back home. As she moved it, a note fell out of the back cover. Curious, she opened it. It looked like a draft note from Jain, based on the wording and errors, although the handwriting didn’t look quite right.
“Jare, I don’t know if I will have time to read the book before I leave, but I wanted to let you know that it means a lot that you gave me a copy. I know you worked hard on it. I hope to make you proud!” The note ended there, without any further signature or notations.
Now that piqued Jare’s mystery sense with the handwriting. Why would someone fake a draft note from someone to apologize about a book, and then leave it in a bookshop? This was getting more and more strange…
Time to message Jain again.
“Jain, so I understand the book thing, but did you know anything about this note in here and who might have written it? Why were they pretending to be you?” She attached a picture, and hit send. The plot thickened…
— To Be Continued
