Six Seconds

43

Blue Rose Creek, California

The paramedics took Maggie to Inland Center Hos pital, where the emergency staff worked on her.

Afterward they put her in a private room with a large window and through her tears she counted the clouds sailing by. Her stomach and throat hurt from the gastric lavage but her deepest pain was her ache for Logan. To say she was sorry. For in desperation, she had done what she had vowed never to do.

Abandoned her search.

She had not intended to kill herself, according to the psychiatrist who’d left her room a little while ago after assessing her. Maggie had reacted to a deluge of “stress ors”: the abduction of her son by her husband, pro phetic visions, a funeral, painful gossip.

“Accidental overdose,” the psychiatrist called it.

Maggie wiped her eyes and took stock of her hospital wristband, the IV tube in her arm.

Her life.

How had it come to this? She and Jake used to be so happy.

Crazy in love, he called it.

Dancing in the gym under the crystal ball. “Hey, Jude.”

Tears in Jake’s eyes on their wedding day. His chest swelling with pride when Logan was born. Crazy in love.

Iraq had damaged him.

What really happened over there? He came home a changed man. Did he find someone else? Was it true? Why was this happening?

She wanted her life back.

For better or for worse, because it was the only life she had.

She would fight for it.

She would go home and pick up the pieces. She’d demand more information from Dawn Sullivan’s hus band and somehow she would find Jake, find Logan.

Find the truth.

And somehow she would live with it.

Maggie lost count of the clouds and reached for her hospital cup.

It was empty.

“May I have some more water please? And more tissues?”

The young woman sitting with her set aside her textbook.

“How are you doing, Maggie? Still a wee bit sore, I bet?”

Her name tag said, Hayley, Student Social Worker.

“Yes. Thank you.” She accepted the cup and tissues. “Can I ask you a question?”

“You sure can.”

“How did I get here? I don’t have any friends or relatives.”

“You mean who found you?”

“Yes.”

“You’re very lucky. A police officer just happened to come to your house. When he found you on the floor, he called 911 and gave you CPR. Our emerg people said that if it wasn’t for him-well-he’s the one who saved you. See, God sent your guardian angel into the game.”

“What officer just ‘happened’ to come by my house?”

“The Mountie from Canada.”

“A Mountie?”

“I think his name is Graham.”

“Where is he now?”

“Uhm.” Hayley bit her bottom lip, looked to the door and flushed from the sudden fear that she may have revealed more than she should have.

“I want to talk to him. He’s here, isn’t he?”

“I’m not sure if the doctor wanted me to say.”

“Hayley, where is he?”

“He’s been here all this time. Waiting to make sure you’re all right.”

“Find him. Bring him in. I want to see him.”

“I’d better find the doctor first. I’m not sure if you’re supposed to have any visitors before they discharge you. I think-”

“Hayley. Find the Mountie and bring him in here. I need to talk to him now.”