Six Seconds

7

Blue Rose Creek, California

It was nearly 1:30 a.m.

In the quiet, Maggie was losing hope of ever meeting Madame Fatima. As she got ready for bed, she consid ered all the messages she’d left. All unanswered.

She’d try again tomorrow.

Maggie drew back her bedsheet then froze. What was that?

She’d heard something. Down the hall. In the study area off the living room. She glanced around, listening for a moment.

Nothing.

She was exhausted, dismissed it and tried to sleep but a million fears assailed her.

Were Jake and Logan dead?

Why hadn’t she heard from them? She ached to hold Logan, to talk to Jake.

Just pick up the damn phone and call me, Jake. Let me know you’re all right.

Why are you doing this?

Why?

For much of her life, Maggie had been a loner. But tonight she wished she had a friend, someone to talk to. When Maggie was six years old, her mother commit ted suicide after a drunk driver killed Maggie’s older sister, April, as she was riding her bike. Maggie’s dad raised her alone until she married Jake. Then her father took up with a younger woman, a drug addict he’d met in rehab.

He moved to Arizona and Maggie hadn’t spoken to him in years.

She’d called him to see if he’d heard from Jake, but it had been a short conversation.

No.

Jake had no family either. His parents divorced after he’d left high school. His father died of cancer five years ago. His mother died three years back.

Maggie and Jake had always kept to themselves, happy to have each other. Able to handle any problem together.

Until this.

What really happened to Jake in Iraq?

Maggie knew he’d driven on secret missions and that his convoys often came under fire, but he refused to tell her anything as she worried about his brooding, his nightmares, the outburst.

One day, Jake went with her to the supermarket where they’d bumped into Craig Ullman, Logan’s soccer coach. As they talked, something icy flitted across Jake’s face. A few nights later in bed, he turned his back to her.

“I know you slept with Ullman when I was over there.”

She was stunned.

Not only was Jake wrong, he scared her because it seemed as if he was losing it. Then came the scene at one of Logan’s games. Jake had been out of town and arrived late. Logan waved from the field, Maggie waved from her place among the parents in lawn chairs on the sideline.

Jake ignored them, marching up to Craig Ullman.

“I know, asshole,” Jake said.

Ullman looked up from his clipboard, bewildered.

“Is something wrong, Jake?”

“You were banging my wife while I was away. I fucking know it! ”

“What?”

Jake drew back his fist and Maggie grabbed it.

“No, Jake! Stop it! We have to go home. Craig, I am so sorry. ”

Jake stared at her, at Logan who’d watched it all, along with everybody else. Jake just walked off, drove away, and spent the night in his rig, parked in the driveway of their home, exiled from the people who loved him.

She and Logan endured the humiliation and, in the days that followed, Jake refused to speak of the incident. He went on several long-haul jobs while Maggie called anonymous crisis lines to find a way to fix their lives.

She did all that she could for her family.

Maggie opened her eyes.

There it is again.

The noise.

A bit louder this time.

She got out of bed to check.

She went into the hallway and looked around. Un ease rippled through her as she headed for the living room and the study area. Nothing obvious. Yet some thing felt wrong. She went to the bathroom, checked behind the shower curtain.

Nothing.

She went to Logan’s room. Nothing. She went back to the living room and this time she went deeper into the study area where she kept her computer and her records on Jake and Logan.

The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

Her papers had been shuffled, some had spilled onto the floor.

Had someone been in her home?

Maggie looked at the patio door just off the study at the back of the house. It was open by about four inches. She closed it. Locked it.

Did she leave it open?

She’d been careless before when she was lost in her thoughts.

If she did, it would explain her scattered file. It was breezy tonight.

What’s that?

A faint trace of something. A lingering scent she couldn’t identify.

Maybe it was nothing.

Was she so stressed her mind was playing tricks on her?

This is stupid. She couldn’t handle this right now.

No. It was strange, but she could feel a presence.

Maggie jumped as her phone rang.

Who’d be calling at this hour?

Hope fluttered in her stomach then fear clawed at her. “Hello?”

Silence swallowed her answer. The incoming caller was BLOCKED, according to her caller ID. “Hello? Who’s there?”

Nothing. No breathing. No background noise. Only silence.

“Who are you calling, please?”

Through the window Maggie saw a car whisk down the street with only its parking lights on.

What’s happening?

She hung up and thrust her face in her trembling hands.

Was she losing her mind?