In Desperation Read Online Free Page A

ringing in her office.
    Cora ran back to her desk. Please be Lyle. The number was blocked.
    â€œHello?”
    â€œMommy!”
    â€œTilly!”
    â€œMommy, please help me!”
    â€œI will! I love you! Are you okay? Where are you, sweetheart?”
    The phone was shuffled.
    â€œSo you got free?”
    â€œYes. Don’t you hurt her!”
    â€œWhere are you? Did you find him yet?”
    Cora recognized the voice of the man who had invaded her home.
    â€œI’m at the office going through his desk! I’m doing all I can! Let her go! Please!”
    â€œFind Lyle Galviera or we’ll release your daughter in pieces.”
    The line went dead.
    Cora stared at the phone, sank into her chair, dropped her head to her desk and sobbed. She hadn’t slept. She couldn’t think. She didn’t know what to do, or where to turn.
    What if they killed Lyle? What if he was dead somewhere?
    She fought to keep herself together.
    There had to be something she could do. Someone who could help her.
    She stared at her computer screen, vaguely remembering an item on drug wars in Mexico. It was a newswire story. She scrolled through the website. Here it was—from the World Press Alliance, a feature that profiled the people victimized by one day of violence in Ciudad Juarez.
    She studied the byline.
    Jack Gannon.
    She knew him, yet she didn’t .
    He was from Buffalo, just like her. For years, wherever she’d lived, she’d followed his byline. She’d visited the web editions of the Buffalo Sentinel before he left for the World Press Alliance, a big wire service.
    Now that he was with the WPA, Cora saw his stories everywhere. It was like he was always near . Just knowing how he was doing had been so important, she thought, biting back her tears. Her fingers traced his name on the screen. She considered the letter she’d written to him a million times but never sent.
    She never had the guts.
    Cora thought of Tilly and shut her eyes to deflect her agony.
    If ever there was a time that Cora needed to reach out to Jack Gannon, this was it.
    His email was at the bottom of the article.

4
    Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
    S tartled from sleep, Jack Gannon was trying to grasp why he’d awakened and where he was when the bedside phone rang again.
    Hotel. Mexico. Still in Juarez.
    He answered.
    â€œ Buenos días, Señor Gannon. As requested, this is your wake-up call. Your breakfast will be delivered shortly.”
    â€œThank you.”
    Groaning, he hung up and reached for his cell phone to check for messages. Was there anything from Isabel, the other WPA bureaus or headquarters in New York?
    Nope. Nada.
    He shaved, showered and had just finished dressing when his breakfast arrived at the same time as his cell phone rang. Gannon set the tray on the desk, gave the server a tip and took his call.
    â€œJack, this is Isabel Luna. I’ve learned from a good source that a power struggle is going to explode within one of the major cartels and that assassins may be used.”
    â€œDo you know where or when?”
    â€œNot for a few days at least. I’m trying to get more information. Can you meet me at El Heraldo at 9:00 a.m.?”
    Gannon glanced at the bedside clock. He had time to do some work.
    â€œI’ll be there.”
    This could be the key to getting access to a cartel assassin, but he decided against alerting his editor in New York.
    Better hold off until he had something nailed down.
    He switched on his laptop and took a hit of coffee. As he ate his toast, sliced bananas and oranges, he reviewed the WPA’s summary for the pickup of his last story. His profile of Juarez’s drug war victims and the morgue was used by some two thousand English-language newspapers and websites in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, parts of Africa, Europe, Central and South America and the Caribbean. The Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morning News, Vancouver Sun , Irish