In Desperation Read Online Free Page B

Times, Sydney Morning Herald and South China Morning Post were among those who gave it front-page play.
    Not bad, he thought, checking his email box for the address tag at the end of his story. Most reporters hated this feature because, while much of the spam was filtered, what you mostly got were emails from religious nuts, political zealots, scam artists, idiots and nutcases. A story rarely yielded a solid lead to another story, but it did happen.
    You had to check.
    Typically for Gannon, an article would attract about a hundred emails. He was adept at getting through them. Like panning for gold . He’d sorted about half, flagged three to consider later. Before continuing he reached for his coffee and locked onto the subject line of one email:
    Your Sister Cora Needs Your Help Now.
    He froze.
    Cora? After so many years?
    He set his coffee down, swallowed, then opened the email.
    Â 
    Dear Jack:
    Reaching out to you like this is extremely hard, but above all I want you to know that in my heart for all these years I thought of you, Mom and Dad every day since I left Buffalo. Losing touch with you was one of the most painful mistakes I’ve made in my rocky life. You don’t know how many times I came close to calling you but I couldn’t find the strength.
    I told myself I was stupid and as time went by I wanted more than anything to call you, to try to make things right with my family, to be sure you knew everything about me before it was too late. I had planned to do that once I started to get my life together and in the last few years I was getting things together, I really was.
    Jack, I can never make up for hurting you or the lost years and I understand if you hate me and ignore my plea for help.
    But I pray to God you won’t.
    I’m in trouble, Jack. It’s an urgent matter of life and death and I believe you’re the only one who can help me. This is not a hoax. I am your sister, and I’ve been following your reporting career for all these years. I was the one who told you to follow your dream, took you to the library and got Mom and Dad to buy you that old Tandy computer so you could write. And now you’re with the World Press Alliance traveling the globe. I’m so proud of you but I need your help.
    Jack, I’m begging you to contact me as soon as possible.
    God bless you.
    Your big sister,
    Cora
    Â 
    Gannon felt the little hairs at the back of his neck stand up.
    Cora.
    It had been more than twenty years since she had walked out of their lives. Anger, love and unease swept through him as he looked at the contact information she’d left: email, cell phone, home phone, office phone and home address.
    She was living in suburban Phoenix.
    Well, to hell with her, he thought. It was too late. Mom and Dad were dead. They’d died brokenhearted. The wounds were too deep. Besides, she probably wanted money, or an organ, or something .
    Call her .
    Because there was a time he’d loved her with all his heart. It didn’t matter that she had left his life; the truth was she’d had an effect on it. The truth was, no matter what, she was his sister.
    I’m in trouble, Jack. It’s an urgent matter of life and death…
    Before he realized it, he was gripping his cell phone and calling. He stepped out onto his balcony and into the morning heat bathing the city as the line clicked through.
    â€œHello.”
    A woman had answered.
    â€œCora?” he asked.
    â€œYes,” she said, emotion rising in her voice. “Is this Jack?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œOh God, is that really you?”
    He went numb at the sound of her voice, somehow different with the passing of time, yet somehow the same as it pulled him back across two decades to Buffalo.
    He is twelve and trembling in his bedroom; his heart is aching. He flinches as doors slam and screaming rages in an Armageddon between Cora, Mom and Dad.
    â€œWe know you’re taking drugs,