Fiona Marsh's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Fiona Marsh had three eyebrows and no memory of the accident that gave her the third one. She sat at the county records desk with her left sleeve pinned above the stump, waiting for a clerk to bring the file on the crash that took her arm. The third eyebrow itched above the other two, a thin dark line that had grown back six weeks after they cut her out of the wreck. She wanted to know why. She had wanted to know for eleven years. The clerk came back empty-handed. No police report. No ambulance log. No hospital intake. The date Fiona gave her did not exist in any drawer. "Try another date," the clerk said. "It's the right date." "Then someone pulled it." Fiona walked out into the parking lot and sat on the curb beside a pink peony bush that someone had planted in a cracked planter by the door. She pressed her palm against the stump and tried to remember anything before the hospital ceiling. Nothing came. Eleven years of nothing. A shadow stopped in front of her shoes. Dark slacks. Polished shoes. She looked up at a man in a gray suit and square glasses, dark hair combed flat. He was holding a small brown wooden box against his hip like it was heavy. "You're Fiona," he said. Not a question. "Do I know you?" "You did. Once." He set the box down on the curb between them. The wood was scuffed at the corners. "I saw what happened to you. I've kept this for a long time." Her mouth went dry. "Who are you?" "Justin Sterling." He said it like the name should mean something. It didn't. "I worked for the people who were there that night. I'm not with them anymore." She stared at the box. "What's in it." "Your file. The real one. Photographs. A tissue report." He pushed the box an inch toward her with the toe of his shoe. "Read the tissue report first." Fiona lifted the lid with her one hand. Inside, a manila folder sat on top of a stack of glossy prints. She pulled out the top sheet. Lab letterhead. Her name. A paragraph about the arm they had removed. She read it twice. The arm had not been damaged in any crash. The bone was clean. The tissue showed surgical cuts, not tearing. Someone had taken it off her on a table. She looked up. Justin Sterling was already three steps away, walking to a black car at the edge of the lot. "Wait," she said. He stopped without turning. "The eyebrow grew back because they wanted to see if it would. Don't come to my office. Don't call. I'll find you when it's safe." He got in the car and drove off. Fiona sat on the curb with the box in her lap and a new question louder than the old one. Not what happened. Who did it.