Six Seconds Read Online Free Page A

came back from working overseas a changed man. It’s been five months now and no one’s been able to find them. I may never see them again.”
Stacy’s phone rang. She glanced at the number then shut it off without answering.
“I have to go.”
“What would you do if you were me?” Maggie said. “I’ve gone to police, a lawyer, a private detective. All in vain. I have nowhere else to go. No one else to turn to. I have no family, I have no friends. I’m all alone. You were my only hope. My last hope.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sure things will work out. I’m so sorry. I really have to go.” And with that Stacy disap peared through the doors of the Star-Journal.
Maggie stood alone in the street, the flutter and clang of the flagpole sounding a requiem to her defeat. She returned to her car and she met a stranger in her rearview mirror. She blinked at the lines stress had carved into her face. She’d let her hair go. She’d lost weight and couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled.
How did her life come to this? She and Jake had been in love. They’d had a happy life. A good life. She thrust her face into her hands and sobbed until she heard a tapping on the window and she turned to see Stacy Kurtz’s face.
Maggie lowered her window.
“Listen.” Stacy was searching her notebook. “I’m sorry things ended that way.”
Maggie regained a measure of composure as Stacy snapped through pages.
“I’m not sure that this will help, but you never know.”
Stacy copied something on a blank page then tore it out.
“Very few people know about this woman. She doesn’t ask for money. She doesn’t advertise and when I asked to profile her, she refused. She does not want publicity.”
Wiping at her tears, Maggie studied the name and telephone number written in blue ink.
“What’s this?”
“I have a detective friend who swears this woman helped the LAPD locate a murder suspect, and that she also helped the FBI find a teenager who’d vanished and, I guess, about ten years ago she helped find an abducted toddler in Europe.”
“I don’t understand. Is she a police officer?”
“No, she senses things, sees them in her mind and feels them.”
“Is she a psychic?”
“Something like that. It’s up to you whether you go to her or not. I apologize, today’s been a bad day at the paper. Please keep me posted. Bye.”
After Stacy left, Maggie stared at the name she’d written.
“Madame Fatima.”
She clenched the note in her fist as if it were a lifeline.

4
    Faust’s Fork, near Banff, Alberta, Canada
    Graham hung on to the girl.
How long had it been? Half an hour? An hour? He
didn’t know.
The river’s force was draining his strength but he
refused to let go.
Where’s the chopper? They’ve got to see us. Come
on!
Shouting was futile. The current pummeled him, the
pain was electrifying. His body went numb. He was
slipping from consciousness.
He thought of Nora, his wife. Her eyes. Her smile. It gave him strength.
The river was relentless but he refused to let go. His
hands were bleeding but he refused to let go, reaching
deep for everything drilled into him at the training
academy in Regina.
Never give up, never quit, never surrender. He held on until the air began hammering above
them.
A helicopter.
Everything blurred in the prop wash: A rescue tech
descended, tethered to a hoist and basket. Graham
helped position the girl into it, then watched her rise into
the chopper. Then the tech returned for Graham,
strapped him into a harness and raised him from the
water. Mountains spun as they ascended over the river
to a meadow where they put down. The techs pulled off
his wet clothes, wrapped him in blankets and they lifted
off.
As rescuers worked on the girl, the helicopter
charged above a rolling forest valley that cut through
the mountains. In minutes they came to a clearing near
a trailside hostel where several emergency vehicles
waited, including a second helicopter—the red STARS
air ambulance out of