CSI: New York: Four Walls

Detective Don Flack stared at the lone pill that rattled around the bottom of the prescription bottle.

A cup of coffee sat on the Formica table in front of him, steam rising toward the ceiling in the air-conditioned diner. It had certainly taken long enough for the coffee to show up. The waitress -- a woman named Doris, according to the nameplate affixed to her bright pink uniform; her face was caked in enough makeup to make her look embalmed, her breath smelled like an ashtray, and her nasal voice threatened to decalcify Flack's spinal column -- had ignored him for quite a while before deigning to take his coffee order.

In theory, he'd wash the pill down with the coffee.

Assuming, of course, he could bring himself to dump that last pill out into his hand.

It had been a year. A year since the explosion that nearly killed him. A year since that idiot with the headphones who didn't hear the fire alarm. Flack ran back for him.

Then the world exploded.

When he was recovering in the hospital, after it was all over, Flack sometimes wondered what would have happened if that jackass hadn't bee ... read full excerpt from CSI: New York: Four Walls ebook