The 5th Horseman
Chapter One
RAIN WAS DRUMMING HARD against the windows when the midnight-to-8:00
rounds began at San Francisco Municipal Hospital. Inside the ICU,
thirty-year-old Jessie Falk was asleep in her hospital bed, floating
on a Percocet lake of cool light.
Jessie was having the most beautiful dream she'd had in years.
She and the light of her life, three-year-old Claudia, were in
Grandma's backyard swimming pool. Claudie was in her birthday suit
and bright-pink water wings, slapping the water, sunlight glinting
off her blond curls.
"Simon says, kiss like a butterfly, Claudie."
"Like this, Mommy?"
Then the mother and daughter were shouting and laughing, twirling
and falling down, singing out "wheeeeeee," when without warning a
sharp pain pierced Jessie's chest.
She awoke with a scream-bolted upright-and clapped both of her hands
to her breast.
What was happening? What was that pain?
Then Jessie realized that she was in a hospital-and that she was
feeling sick again. She remembered coming here, the ambulance ride,
a doctor telling her that she was goi ... read full excerpt from: The 5th Horseman ebook
