Lost and Found

1

“Hey, how are you? Coffee? Your usual?

“Yes, please.”

My day always starts with a double espresso at Cafe Decent. I don’t like guessing about something or someone before I know them, but when I came this town and looked at the name of this cafe, it viscerally attracted me and convinced me that the coffee at Cafe Decent was definitely decent as its name. Since I first stepped into the place, it has become my morning ritual to go and grab a decent espresso. Moreover, people at Cafe Decent are really decent. If my parents gave me more of a decent manly name, would my life be more exciting, like my ex-colleagues in other units?

My name is Jude, Jude Hunter. I was FBI, but I had never used my gun in the line of duty. I did the same extremely rigorous 20-week training and got pretty good grades. I waltzed off to D.C. and applied for field work, the work of the mostly well-known FBI special agents, but I was assigned to Intelligence Branch and worked as an intelligence analyst. I thought I would’ve lived a Clark Kent type life like a trope in Hollywood movies if I had become an FBI agent. But my life was tethered to a network system. I traced information highways, analyzed tons of data, and built out what-if roadmaps to timely protect the world and people from something that should not happen before it happens. It was not bad, quite interesting. Sometimes I felt like I had omnipotent power over the world, swayed everything, and rewrote a new history of the universe. But it wasn’t always like this. Sometimes a subtle change to defend a serious event caused a snowball effect and made the situation worse. I didn’t save people due to my wrong prediction. The board didn’t hold me accountable and looked past it, but I couldn’t sit at my desk and work as if nothing happened. I quit and said good-bye to my dream work forever. I was too confident because all my predictions were always right and had never failed. That was a fundamental problem. That made me put myself on a pedestal, and I didn’t realize it before I hit rock bottom. It was a really good lesson for me, but it was an extremely huge and bitterly painful lesson at the expense of a lot of people’s lives. I will never forget it, and it is my debt that I must carry to my grave.

Anyways, life keeps on going. After I suffered from my trauma and overcame it, I settled down in this small town and started my new life. I began to run my own business by using my skill, accessing networks, collecting data and analyzing it. Lost and Found. It is a new title of my work. I find anything, from things that my clients lost to people that they lost touch with. I usually receive the requests through the Internet. I scrutinize the cases and take one at a time. I don’t have a lot on my plate because I don’t want to make the same blunder again. I hardly meet my clients face to face, but sometimes I have to when they come to see me in this town.

“Here’s your espresso. I think someone at the corner is waiting for you. Maybe she lost something.”

“Thank you so much. You are always one step ahead of me. Have a nice day.”

“You, too.”

I glimpsed at the woman and left the cafe. I felt she followed me, but I ignored it and kept walking. Someone who lost something secret or precious doesn’t want to talk about it in public, and also they always tend to cover their faces under sunglasses, a hoodie, or a hat. So did she. When I stopped at the entrance of my office, I turned to her and said, “What can I do for you?” She was frozen.

I sat at my desk and did my work until she became relaxed, sipping a hot tea. Just waiting till my clients are ready to talk about their stories is a part of my work, so I don’t ask anything before they start to talk. The woman in black put her teacup on the table, took off her hat and sunglasses, and looked at me. That was a signal that she was ready to talk. I stopped my work and gave her a signal that I was ready to listen to her.

“I lost something… no, someone.”

“You lost someone?”

“Strange to say, I really don’t know what I lost.”

“That means… you don’t know what you want to find, right?”

“Yes, but I want to get it back. My mind tells me I have to get it back. That’s why I came here to see you.”

2

Jo, she knew how I caved in to her. She did nothing. She didn’t do anything to push me or persuade me to do what she wanted to do or what she intended to do. She was just like ‘Think about it and tell me later.’ And then I unconsciously found myself doing something. I’m not gullible nor a docile person, but there was something, a very strange and magical power in her words that made me never flat-out deny.

I took out her picture from my wallet and stared at her for a while.

“What do you think? Should I take this case?”

When I was in limbo and drew a blank, I used to ask her, and she always gave me good advice like a great philosopher of Greece, so I could find the right answers for myself. I do the same thing looking at her picture whenever I get lost. And her eyes always tell me where I will head to.

“Okay, I will take this.”

3

I sat at my desk gazing into space. Sometimes I numb my brain before I begin difficult work. M, Mary, Molly, Morgan, whatever she’s called, she gave me a way difficult assignment with evidence that is like a very little tiny piece of puzzle from the whole picture, so I think I need more time to tease out a connection between M and the evidence. I wasn’t interested in M at all. But this piece of paper drew my eyes immediately and swept me away as soon as I saw it. Especially, the handwriting on the paper was really familiar to me and suddenly reminded me of Jo’s word, ‘Think about it and tell me later.’ That was why I decided to take this case. No other explanations were needed.

There were two words, but the ink spread on the paper, so it was really hard to recognize what was written on it.

“i? or j? u or n?”

I have some extraordinary friends that are experts in some ways.

“I need Nick.”

He is an expert of restoration and also forging. That means he can make the original the original, make the fake the original, or the original the fake. Anyways, I think he can solve this riddle.

“Hi, how have you been, J?”

“Hi, Nick. Same old, same old. How are you?”

“I’m fine. I guess you definitely have something exciting, don’t you?”

“Yes, I have something for you. I sent you the copy. Did you see the file?”

“I got it. Hmm… Where did you get it?”

“Some days ago, a woman in black, called M, came to see me and requested the case.”

“M, a woman in black. Wow, it sounds thrilling. How was she? She must be beautiful as you met her.”

“I didn’t meet her intentionally. She came to the town. She knew Café Decent and followed me, so I could not help meeting her.”

“Hmm… She looked like a black crow, a mystery or a… I cannot say the word that starts with ‘D’.”

“Please, shut your mouth.”

“Sorry, I don’t mean it. Just kidding.”

“She gave it to me and said when she woke up in a hospital, it was in her hand. The doctor who treated her tried to take it from her, but she held it so tight that they failed. That was why the words were smudged on the paper. And I need your help.”

“Why was she in the hospital? Is she…”

“Nope. She looked totally sane. She didn’t have any memory about what happened to her and why she was in the hospital in D.C.. The only thing that she knew was that she had this mysterious paper in her hand when she came back from death.”

“Okay, it is getting more interesting. A woman in black and a mysterious piece of paper with some secret written on it. I like it. Well, I’ll look it through and get in touch with you as soon as possible.”

“Thank you. See you later.”

I stared at my monitors, her videos and pictures from security and surveillance cameras, and then looked at the paper.

“What is it? Who are you? How did you find me?”

I called Hank.

“You want to move out?”

“Yes, ASAP. I was uncovered.”

4

‘Sometimes you have to deviate from familiarity to solve a problem.’

I abruptly opened my eyes, sat up and looked around. It sounded so vivid. It was obviously Jo’s voice. It felt like she was whispering in my ear. I thought I had a natural born sense of adaptability, but it failed this time. I took a shower and went out to hunt for a new place with fresh, delicious coffee as decent as the coffee at Decent Café, or more than that, hopefully.

‘Is it too early?’

I couldn’t find any coffee shops open at 7 in the morning. I should’ve told Hank that I needed not only a new house but also fresh delicious morning coffee.

‘I have to order a coffee machine.’

I almost gave up, turned around the corner, and thank God, I found a 24/7 convenient store. I picked some food for my breakfast and an instant coffee for future mornings.

“What time do coffee shops usually open?”

“Seven in the morning.”

“Isn’t it seven in the morning?”

The clerk pointed out the clock on the wall. The clock told me that I had to wait for an hour to buy fresh brewed coffee.

“You must be new here.”

“I moved in yesterday.”

“This is a welcome gift.”

That’s why I like living in a small town.

“Have a nice day and thank you for the coffee.”

“You’re welcome. Have a good day and don’t forget to set your watch.”

As soon as I went back home, I boiled water and made coffee, the strong coffee made from my own recipe. I knew it was too early to put some whisky in it, but I needed kind of celebration to safely settle down my new place.

I turned on my computers and found an email from Nick. I opened it and started reading it meticulously. He always gives me extremely kind and detailed explanations, but most of them are an alien language to me. It doesn’t matter. I just want to know what is written on the paper.

“What the hell…”

5

“’Find Jude Hunter.’ Are you teasing me?”

“No, I’m not. I also didn’t believe my eyes. I thought I made some mistakes and tried to analyze it many times, but the result was always the same.”

“I can’t believe this.”

Everything that happened to me was mysterious and a lot of questions popped up in my head.

Where did she get this? Who gave my name to her? How did she find me? Why didn’t she remember what she lost? What happened to her?…

“So, what are you going to do? I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Don’t quote Hollywood movies.”

“Well, I just want to use this quote when I’m in the right situation.”

“Hmm… I don’t know where to start, but I think I need to see her and listen to her story from the beginning. She is the key to solve this riddle.”

I emailed M, and she replied.

‘My real name is Josephine May. Could you fly to New York to see me? If you can, meet me at The Smith. Please let me know the date and time you are available.’

“Josephine… Jo…”

6

‘Look carefully. Most of the keys are in your pocket, in your bag, or around you. It is not just a key to open the door.’

I opened my eyes and closed again. The captain’s announcement was coming from the speaker that we would soon arrive at J. F. K. Airport. New York, New York. The place where I saw Jo for the first time. Now I came back to see another Jo. I don’ know how I can explain about this weird situation, but can I find a key to solve this riddle in New York like what you said?

The Smith where I would meet Josephine, my client, reminded me of the song by the Smiths. I like the movie, 500 Days of Summer and the soundtrack, Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want. Jo liked the movie and the song as much as me. She was like Summer to me. I prayed with my whole heart like the song, ‘Please, please, please let me get what I want’, but God didn’t listen to me.

“Espresso, you ordered.”

“Where’s your black outfit?”

“Oh, I went to a funeral on that day. I didn’t have time to change my clothes.”

“I thought you were disguised as a woman in black like Men in Black.”

“So, you want to see me and listen to my story. What story do you want to listen to?”

“Everything you remember until before you went to see me.”

“Let’s see… where to start… I’m a photographer, a member of Magnum.”

“M is that M? The initial of your fake name?”

“No, M is from my given name, May. You have a lack of imagination. You really disappoint me. You cannot be Sherlock.”

“I’m sorry for disappointing you, but Sherlock Homes is not my style. I admire Hercule Poirot and his gray cells. Okay, continue…. you’re a photographer and?”

Her father was a famous war photographer. As she remembers, he was an attentive and benevolent gentleman. Most of all, he really loved his daughter, Josephine, more than anyone in the world. He lost his wife when Josephine was seven. He left photography behind until she became nineteen. When she left home to go to university, he dusted off his camera and returned to the battlefield as a war photographer. And some years later, she was informed of his father’s death in Afghanistan. After he died, she got to know why he left his job he really loved.

Her parents met at the Magnum exhibition in New York. Her dad was a photojournalist, and her mom was a commercial photographer. After seeing the exhibition, they went to the party, Magnum Night. They talked a lot about their work as photographers, from how much they loved photographing to what responsibility photography and photographers have to save the world. They completely lost track of time. They clicked at that night, became close friends, and then committed to live for the rest of their lives together. They went around the world, took pictures to raise awareness about what serious and unbelievable events were happening on the other side of the world. They were very busy, but also very happy to walk the same way together even though they didn’t have a child for ten years. One night, they went out for dinner to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary. Her mom gave a surprise news to her dad for the anniversary gift. “A beautiful angel came to us.”

Josephine, she was an angel but also an obstacle to her mom to keep doing her work. It was not easy to raise a child in a dangerous place. To her dad, both his work and family were important. To her mom, her family, especially, Josephine was more important than ever. At the night before the incident happened, they argued about leaving Afghanistan. Next day, her dad went out to work early in the morning. Some hours later, the bombs destroyed the town where they lived. When her dad found her mom’s body from the wrecked house, she had already died. He was frozen with shock. He felt numb with grief. He staggered and slumped onto the floor. Just then, he noticed a small hand moving. Josephine was under the body and still breathing. Her mom had covered her with her body to save her life.

“That’s why he quit his job, and that’s why he went back to Afghanistan.”

“That’s why I went to Afghanistan, too.”

“You went there?”

“If my dad had been still alive, he definitely wouldn’t have allowed me to go there, but I wanted to go to the place where my parents’ souls were. I wanted to follow in my parents’ footsteps and keep going on to continue what they didn’t finish.”

7

I woke up at the noise of someone banging on the door.

“Jude! Hey, Jude! Are you there?”

That sounded like Hank’s voice.

“Are you going to blow my place up?”

“I texted you that I would visit you today. Didn’t you get my message?”

I looked at my phone. It was still in an airplane mode.

“I have a gift for you. You will really really like it. Ta-da! Nespresso machine!”

“You must have not bought coffee capsules.”

“Capsules? Did I have to…?”

“Yes, you should’ve definitely bought both a machine and capsules if you want to drink coffee.”

“You mean, this? I ordered a coffee machine, and they sent me a box for a welcome gift.”

“Yes! That’s why I like you! Let’s make fresh delicious morning coffee!”

“It’s already afternoon…”

He opened the curtain. The sun was already highest in the sky.

“What do you think?”

“Think about what?”

“Her story.”

“Well, it looks like a very sophisticated well-made fiction, but it’s a true story, isn’t it?”

“I’m more confused after meeting and listening to her story in person.”

“What points make you confused?”

“Afghanistan and Washington D.C., losing her memory and waking up in the hospital… The spaces and the times don’t match each other. And also her name.”

“Her name… because her name is the same as…”

I took a deep breath and looked at the photo on my desk.

“It’s really a coincidence, isn’t it?”

“Yes… it is… it’s too much… to be a coincidence…”

Jo, Josephine… she was… I don’t want to use the past tense. She is still smiling on my desk, but she became my past memory. When people get shocking news like a terminal cancer diagnosis or the loss of their loved ones, they usually process through the five stages of grief and loss: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I’ve already experienced these five stages, but it’s still hard to accept losing her. Because she’s gone, but her body has not been found yet. She was not supposed to be there when the incident happened. Why was she there? Why was she in Afghanistan?

8

I was driving on an empty serene road during a pitch dark night. There were no cars and no people. It seemed like I was the only human being left on Earth. I didn’t remember where I was heading to. The only thing that I remembered after the accident was that I saw someone rushing into the road, and I swerved sharply to avoid hitting the person. That was all.

I didn’t know how much time had passed. When I woke up, I found I was still in my car holding the wheel. I heard the siren from an ambulance and saw a police officer coming to me. On the other side of the road, two people were talking to another police officer. The police officer asked me to get out of the car. He breathalyzed me and asked some questions. According to the two witnesses, they were walking on the street and heard tires screeching. When they ran toward the sound, my car was sharply turning and sliding in the middle of the road and suddenly stopped. Fortunately, there were no cars, and nobody was hurt. They ran to me and knocked on the window to wake me up, but I didn’t move. So they called 911. That was the whole story that I heard from the police officer. I showed him my FBI badge and ID card and said that I was so tired because of overwork and seemed to fall asleep at the wheel. He didn’t have any doubt about my statement. He checked my car and let me go.

It was already 4 a.m. in the morning. As soon as I got home, I went straight to the bathroom, took a shower, and threw my exhausted body on the bed. I buried my face into the pillow and tried to get some sleep. But I couldn’t fall asleep for the life of me. I didn’t tell the truth to the police officer. I told a lie. I was so sure that I saw a woman on the road, but nobody saw her. If I talked about the story that I saw, they wouldn’t believe it and would think that I saw a hallucination because of the chronic fatigue. I know I stretch me beyond myself, squeeze a lot of things into my schedule, and tend to be stretched too thin. By temperament, I tend to become a racehorse when I dive into my work. I just pay attention to what I have to do right now and push myself to run for the finish line.

‘It could be a hallucination. It must be a hallucination. I was too tired. I hardly slept over 72 hours. I just fell asleep at the wheel. Thank God. I was so lucky. There were no cars on the road when the accident happened. And now time to sleep. I should get some rest.’ I muttered to myself to get rid of her face from my memory and justify today’s accident. But I failed.

I got on my car and ran to the spot that the accident happened. I pulled over and got out of the car. It looked really peaceful as if nothing happened. I looked around the road with the hope that I could find some evidence that could prove what I saw to be true.

‘What is it?’

I saw something twinkling on the road. When I was about to come close to it, my phone started ringing. The call was from Jo, and I picked it up quickly.

“Hey, Jo.”

But the voice from the phone was not Jo. And then my memory that I lost started to come back like a recurring dream.

Last night I was running to the hospital after getting a phone call. They had a patient who was transferred from Afghanistan and got severely injured. They found the phone in her pocket and called me. I was so confused that I could not pay attention to driving. Why Jo? She was not supposed to be there. No matter what happened to her, it was not important. I said to myself that she was not gonna die and would be okay. I saw the red light turning green. When I pushed the accelerator, I saw someone rushing into the road. I hit the brakes, and my car started slipping and spinning with screeching sound. I saw the very familiar face between the window. I could not take my eyes off her. Those eyes… the woman with pale blue eyes was Jo.

“Hello. Hello?”

I came to myself and answered the phone.

“Yeah, I’m listening.”

“I’m sorry it’s too early, but we’re waiting for you to come here and check her ID.”

“Sorry, I had a minor car accident. Now I’m on my way. I’ll get there soon.”

I picked up the thing that I found on the road, put it in my pocket, and drove to the hospital right away. Fortunately, she was not Jo. I didn’t know why the strange woman had Jo’s phone. And then I had another call from my boss. I was frozen with terror. I was speechless. I could not put my feelings into any words. That was the day when everything that I built backfired, and everything that I had lost.

9

“First come, first served.”

“Alex! What are you doing here?”

He snatched my espresso and knocked it back.

“It tastes like life, bitter-sweet.” He frowned and screwed up his face.

“I don’t understand people who love espresso. The quantity is as small as drops of a bird’s tear, and the taste is as bitter as 99% dark chocolate. Do you really enjoy it? Or do you just want to look edgy?”

“You found something, didn’t you? How serious is it?”

“Very much.”

Alex is a specialist in information security analytics. He is my best friend and the only person who I have a complete reliance on. We were roommates for four years in university. He also was my housemate until I met Josephine. After graduating, I got into the FBI, and he joined Tech, the global IT company. He was a promising young man and had a bright future, but he quit his job one year after I quit the FBI. I was wandering around the world to heal my hurting soul and to find out the way of forgiveness. One day he found me who was in shreds and held my hand. We built the company and have been running it for 2 years. We are almost like the detectives and secret agents that we dreamed of when we were in school. We didn’t expect that our business would be successful so quickly. As soon as our business launched, a lot of people requested their cases. As we live our lives, we have lost a lot of things. But we usually gave up getting them back and end up forgetting them until someone or something triggers them.

Alex and I are business partners, but we work separately. While I go out and move from place to place to investigate, he usually works at his house. We frequently see each other on the Internet, hardly face-to-face. He shows up once a year to surprise me on my birthday. Honestly, it’s not really a surprise. Today is not my birthday, but he is right in front of me. That means we have to hurry to go to my secret chamber right now and start to solve the intricate riddle.

10

“No, I don’t want to recall the memory of that day, and you know the reason more than anyone else.”

Alex didn’t say anything. He just turned on his laptop and showed me the video. In that video, a woman in black and I was talking.

“She’s my recent client, and I’m looking for what she lost. There was a weird coincidence between us, but it doesn’t matter to you.”

“I matter.” His voice sounded really firm as if he was angry at me.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about this case, but you haven’t cared about the cases that I took so far. Are you angry at me that I didn’t…?”

“No, I’m not. Look at these two pictures. Can you recognize what it is?”

“Yes, I can…”

“I know you don’t want to see them and put the past behind you, but you have to tell me everything about her.”

“About whom?”

“Two women named Jo you met, but they might not be two.”

11

“What is it?”

“You mean, this scar? It’s my trophy that I survived. I had a severe accident and almost died when I was seven.”

“It looks like angels.”

“Yeah, I was an angel to my parents.”

“Was?”

“They all died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“I hardly remember my mom. Everything disappeared with the fire, so I have nothing to elicit memories of her, even pictures. My dad raised me, but one day he left me out of blue and didn’t come back.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know how to say…”

“Well, it’s a long time ago. Now it’s really vague for me to recall. So you don’t need to look at me with sad eyes and a I-am-sorry face.”

Jo had a scar, the same as another Jo. Now I started to remember the story that I wanted to bury deep in my mind, how we met and what happened to us.

“She was a journalist and visited me to interview about a new technology to find the right target, attack and eliminate it with pinpoint accuracy. She was really curious about it and attentively listened to my explanation, not only as her work but also as her personal interest. We met for work at first, but we met a couple of times after the interview, and the rest is history.”

“I only know the story that I heard from you.”

“What do you mean?”

“What happened on that day?”

“I’ve already told you. I don’t want to recall the nightmare of that day.”

“What happened on that day?”

“Why are you so cruel to me today? I’m not gonna say anything.”

“Tell me what really happened on that day!”

“I killed, I killed a million people, a million innocent people because of my great invention. It was not a perfect smart machine. It was such a rubbish, brutal killing machine that didn’t distinguish what was true or false. I was blind to recognize the flaw of the analysis because I was too confident, no, way more arrogant. My arrogance also killed Jo. I killed her. I’m a murderer.”

“You didn’t kill her. She didn’t die.”

“No, I killed her. I heard she was there, in Afghanistan, the place I bombed on that day.”

“She was not there. She was in D.C.. She was at the place you had a car accident. The woman that you saw on the road was Jo. It was not a hallucination. And you lost your memory after the accident.”

12

For the sake of peace, innocent victims and sacrifices are inevitable. People killed each other due to their selfish defense. People killed people to protect their people from other people. Who is right and who is wrong doesn’t matter. The important thing is whose side you are.

Jo’s parents are one of victims for the peace. Jo’s father tried to reveal the conspiracy behind peace, but he was killed. Jo went to Afghanistan to finish her father’s mission as a journalist. On that day, she returned to D.C. to tell me what she found and tried to stop the machine. The government knew her come back and got rid of her, but the attempt to kill her was screwed up due to the car accident. She checked my safety, straight ran to the hospital, found a patient from Afghanistan, and put her ID into the patient’s belongings. And then she vanished without trace.

I didn’t know the fact that I lost my memory of her. I have no idea what happened to me on that day. The look that I remembered about Jo was not Jo. The picture that I kept was not Jo’s picture. But nobody couldn’t take the memory of the angel on her neck, pale blue eyes of hers, and her voice whispering in my ear from me. What she wanted to bring back was not what she lost. That was what I lost. Now I found what I lost.

13

I woke up with my phone ringing. It was from Alex. The clock said it was 4 a.m. I was so tired that I ignored his call. I opened my eyes. It was seven. I discreetly got out of bed not to wake Jo, took a shower, and had a fresh espresso. I wore my jacket and looked around to find my car key.

“Where’s my key? Is it in the pocket?”

I put my hand into the pocket, and I felt something rounded in the pocket. It was a button carved ‘J’ on. It was Jo’s, from her favorite coat that I gave to her for her birthday gift.

‘Why is it in my pocket?’

Suddenly I remembered the accident. I saw something twinkling on the road, put it into the pocket, and I almost forgot about it. I went to the closet and looked through her coat. I couldn’t find missing a button.

I turned my body and looked at Jo. She was sleeping like a baby. I stood for a while, staring at her face and fiddling with the button. I put it in my pocket again, and then left the house.