Book Three in the Sam Smith Mystery Series.

"Emergency!"

"Christ! Who shot her?"

"Don't know."

"What a mess."

"Better call Dr. Warburton."

Bright lights. A sharp, antiseptic smell. Pain. Nausea. Feel so weak. The cat, who'll feed the cat? "Marlowe."

"She's babbling."

"She's lost a lot of blood."

Blackness.

"Have we lost her?"

I don't want to die!

A jumble of images, my mother, my father, but his face is so vague. "Daddy!" Nothing.

A man scowling, with a needle. "I'm going to put you to sleep. You won't feel a thing. Just count backwards from ten...." "Ten, nine, eight...."

Nightmares, very vivid, all too real. So confused. So weak.

Distant voices. Laughter. A nurse, smiling, reassuring.

Alan, tears in his eyes. "Don't cry, Alan, don't cry...."

Aching all over. Can't move my shoulder or arm. Very tired. More nightmares, too black to dwell on; make them go away....

Sweating. Drowning. I catch my breath, like breathing for the first time. Eyes blink awake. Gasping. Try to rise, but head hurts too much. Fall back on to the pillow. I ache all over, but I'm alive!

I was alive. But with a snowstorm gripping the city and with an unknown assassin closing in, I faced the most dangerous moment of my life and the very real prospect of feeling the big chill.